But the problem is, that nobody thinks "I give my data to Facebook". The users think "I announce the birth to my friends and family".
That is why in the EU we have strong privacy laws, and that laws should be expanded. At some point Facebook becomes a carrier like the telephone company or postal office. But Facebook is not transferring telephone calls or letters, but digital mails and pictures.
Good luck try and explain that your baby pictures you post are going not to your friends and family but to Facebook, and that Facebook is just friendly enough to let your friends and family see that pictures.
What are the "true innovations"? All I use Windows is to start up my games, I wish there would be some minimal Windows that just shows the desktop where I can double click on the Game I want. For everything else I use Linux.
If I would compare Windows 7 with Fedora Linux with KDE the Windows would look pretty bad. It is missing almost everything I use in Linux. If my games would run on Linux I would happily nuke Windows 7 in favour to some GB of more space.
Ok I forget the title. Not everyone had red "The banality of evil". I thought it was just the Google slogan "Don't be evil".
The current trend in consumer electronics goes more to the "consume" part and not "create". Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc. all go to App-Shop and iTunes model. Plus the Cloud and Software as a Service, goes all to constrain the user and degrade him to consumer only.
My opinion is that the tech companies want to kill the general purpose computer because you can not only sell more media through the App-Shop and iTunes model, but you can also prevent competition.
The western Governments are on the same site. A democratic Government should celebrate the Internet, give the citizens more privacy and encourage civil debate. But all we get is more surveillance and less freedoms. Wikileaks should be celebrated, but instead it's under criminal investigations.
Because he is using the word "banal" he is paraphrasing "The banality of evil"? I understood that he is comparing the book authors and that their view is "banal", as such "“Progress” is driven by the inexorable spread of American consumer technology over the surface of the earth." which is in fact a "banal" view of "progress".
OT: Friendly reminder, please look up the words "where", "were" and "was". I'm no native English speaker but I think this is what you mean: >... where the migration and training _was_ so badly implemented that people _were_ reluctant to work on Linux,
Java is already "forked". The OpenJDK project is since Java 7 the reference implementation for Java and is licensed under the GPL. Nothing prevents you to write a custom installer without the Ask toolbar or whatever. Every Linux distribution ships OpenJDK in the main repositories.
For some reasons Dr. Who gets younger and younger, culminating in the 30 year old boy-ish Matt Smith. I was already thinking the next Dr. Who will be a 26 year old in love with some 20 years old girl. Personally I liked the previous Who character much better for the simple fact that Matt Smith looks like a boy.
How about the community in an Open Source project? Like, I don't know, OpenJDK? Which is now (since Java 7) the reference implementation of Java, and is published under the GPL.
So can we please set aside the hatred to Oracle? I am by no means an advocate for Oracle, but see it from Oracle's point of view: they think that Android is getting a free ride on the Java train and try to use lawyers to get a share. Rather then to blame one company, you should blame the insane copyright laws in your country (the USA).
PS: I'm a Java developer and a full time Linux user.
You should try KDE it's pretty much what you like: the old Windows desktop with start button, task bar, etc. I'm using Fedora currently with KDE. But you can try OpenSuse or Mandriva.
How about the hard work to setup a site and offer those works? It's hard enough as it is, as only iTunes and Amazon done it yet. It's hard work to create the music; it's hard work as well to distribute and promote the music. Otherwise artists wouldn't sign up with publishers. The MAFIAA and other associations for example are unable to create such sites.
It would be very easy for the MAFIAA to create a download site with music and movies and get the ads revenue and subscribing revenue and distribute that revenue to the artists.
How about the Music and Movie Mafia* create their own music sites, which Google can index, and users can buy and download music and albums? *http://mafiaa.org/
They want to know why mp3skull.com comes up first (after Youtube)? Because they offer a useful service. Without any trouble I can just download the song. Why can't the MAfia do a site like that?
You know, I would be somewhat compassion to the music artists and the Mafia, if they would not be such greedy asshats. The copyright protected were expanded and expanded; payments for blank media introduced; DRM strengthened; If the Mafia would actually try and not to be greedy asshats, like not sue private citizens. Or like the GEMA (the German Mafia). I saw some weeks ego a video on Youtube that was posted here in Slashdot. But instead I get a "Sorry you can't see that song because the GEMA have not licensed any rights to it". I used a proxy to see the video nevertheless and then there was 4 seconds of a song at the beginning and 4 seconds of the same music at the end of a 5 minutes video! So for 4 seconds of a song, which should be well in fair-use rights, I can not see the video because of the GEMA.
So now I have no compassion with the Mafia and associated artists. Put down copyright protection to about 20 years; remove the levy on blank media and pull down the DRM laws. Then we can talk again.
"creationism" is not a theory. You can call it a "hypothesis" in a sense that there is a flying teapot somewhere in the Universe. But at least the teapot "hypothesis" is a theory if you assume that we live in a limited universe.
The one difference between a scientific theory and nonsense is very simple: a scientific theory can be falsified. You cannot falsify "creationism", or "God".
How would you try to falsify "creationism"? You need a time machine to go back to whatever time the "creationism" claims that "God" created everything. You can't use evidence because you don't know what "God" is so you can't say: it is because the evidence shows that that was God. You need to define and prove "God" first. Since anything can be "God".
Let me put it this way. If I say: God blessed me with my good wife and my good children. Can you _disprove_ that is was not God? If it is not possible to _disprove_ something, it is not a theory, it's faith.
Let me ask now. If I say: my genes shows that we share at least 90% similarity with hominidae, and Hominidae share genes with Catarrhini, and they share genes with Primates, and they share genes with Placental Mammals and further with Mammals. Of course you can disprove that, it's easy: just analyse the genes and get evidence that I'm wrong. See Tree of life Project
You see now the difference between a "scientific theory" and faith?
Eh, evolution is proven beyond any doubt. If anything the theory of evolution is the best proven theory. I think, even the Theory of Relativity is not as good proven as the theory of evolution.
I think the biggest mistake of Email was that it is per default in clear text. Normally you would expect for such a system that transports private messages over the world to be encrypted, but in the beginning Internet was only between Universities, so the whole politic was different.
One Anonymous Coward is comparing an Email send to a mailbox or a postal office, like FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc. But there is one big difference: a physical letter is sealed and only the destination (and possible the origin) are visible. Whereas an Email is in clear text for anyone to read.
We need an Email standard that makes Emails per default encrypted. Just like a physical letter is sealed per default. But here comes the technical literacy in play. A letter can anyone open with no technical knowledge. But an encrypted Email you need (at least with GPG) to 1. create private/public key, 2) get the public keys and 3) import the keys, 4. enter a password. That is way too many steps and also nobody cares.
> “It’s likely that other theories, likely creationism, are being discussed in class"
I hope it is discussed in such a way that it makes clear that "creationism" is not a theory in a scientific way. Like if you ask the class to bring up counter-examples of scientific theories, and you get 5 points for "creationism", 5 points for the flying spaghetti monster, and so on.
> it doesn't collapse to its knees if I go without a reboot or closing my browser for a few days, let alone having a few dozen windows and tabs open.
I think that's a Windows issue. My laptop is now running for 12 days (with hibernate and suspend) and I never close Firefox. I have open 5 tabs minimum and sometimes more then 50.
"three times the resources immediately available to their game."
How is network transported data "immediately available"? Here is my ping to Google.de: --- google.de ping statistics --- 5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4003ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 58.939/73.092/86.936/11.524 ms
And that is if the other people in my apartment are not downloading anything. Even if you cut that in half, that is still 30ms ping, and that can be defined as "immediately available"? Compared to what, 0.000000001ms of ping to the CPU?
What are they drinking in the marketing department? Is it going like this: The press is bashing the hardware of the new Xbox. I know, we just add "the cloud" and make everyone shut up, the Playstation don't have "the cloud" so we are the greatest.
but any Open Source license allowing "companies to change and redistribute the code internally without having to share the new code publicly, he said." Even the GPL is allowing companies to change and redistribute the code internally.
But maybe his definition of "internally" and "publicly" is different then mine?
Ok, but Slashdot is not a blog platform. If I would like to have personal blogs I would go to Facebook or G+. Maybe it's a slow day for Slashdot or whatever.
No offence meant, but that article had no mention of the 2010's announcing of the DWP. All links are links to Wikipedia (only one is an actual link to a source, the last link to https://engage.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/major-projects-authority/ ). I'm sorry that is no journalism. At least you could use some time to write some background with some actual sources.
This should be suppose an article about "agile" and the Universal Credit. After reading the article there is no information what-so-ever, except that the Universal Credit project has been admitted to be failing.
So why is Universal Credit an "agile" project? Why it is failing? What is Universal Credit anyway?
Maybe that is why Twitter is so successful, the whole article is just a Twitter message: "Universal Credit, suppose to be biggest Agile Software Project, is failing".
Not really. I want to know first where a URL is pointing to before clicking. And there is no reason to make a URL not readable to both by the server and by a human.
If you are just going to troll, I can go somewhere else.
A "time machine" implemented 100% in software will not arrange the transistors in any new way. You can try and juggle the words around, but the simple fact is that a new software will not configure the transistors in any new way, thus not create a new machine.
Think of software like an image on the monitor. Will a monitor become a new machine just like because you load a different image? No it will not. A different image will just turn off and on different pixels. So why is a software, that will turn off and on different transistors, creates a new machine? It does not.
There can be, be definition, no new "inventions". The general purpose computer is already invented. So be definition, you can't patent that. Your software, which is executed by the computer, is an algorithm. So be definition, you can't patent that. That is why I say, "Xxx but with computer" should not be a patent.
For example, all MPEG LA patents should be invalid, because it is "I have an decoding algorithm and it runs on a computer"; there is nothing to patent.
> Does it suddenly become not a new invention if the time machine is mostly implemented in software?
Ah it is implemented _mostly_ in software. That is the difference. Let me ask you: does it makes a new invention if the time machine would be implemented only in software?
> A refrigerator doesn't do something completely different depending on what you put in it.
That is the crux of the issue than nobody besides computer scientists are not able to understand (well, at least they _should_ understand):
a computer will _not_ do something completely different depending on what you put in it.
A general purpose computer is designed to run software, it is what a computer do. Like a car is designed to drive, a computer is designed to run software. A computer do not care at all if your software is F-18 simulation, a video decoder, or video game or whatever. For a computer it's just bits of 0/1 to be executed according to the specification of the computer.
You, as the human user, make the distinction that that software is a F-18 simulation and that software is a video decoder. And at the end there is always a human user operating the computer. Because we still not get any self-aware AI like in Terminator.
If you get one machine that is designed to be a F-18 autopilot, then your can patent that machine as a whole. But you can not (or at least you should not) put a general purpose computer and load some F-18 autopilot software and patent that. Because there is already a patent on a general purpose computer, and your software is just the algorithm.
The F-18 autopilot machine as a whole is also all the instruments you need to auto-pilot the air plane. Just like you can patent a car whose purpose is to drive, even if that car have a general purpose computer inside.
To make it clear: you should not be able patent your software and call it "xxx but with computer", with the stupidest arguments of all that your software is magically transforming the computer in a new device.
Slashdot Mirror
But the problem is, that nobody thinks "I give my data to Facebook". The users think "I announce the birth to my friends and family".
That is why in the EU we have strong privacy laws, and that laws should be expanded. At some point Facebook becomes a carrier like the telephone company or postal office. But Facebook is not transferring telephone calls or letters, but digital mails and pictures.
Good luck try and explain that your baby pictures you post are going not to your friends and family but to Facebook, and that Facebook is just friendly enough to let your friends and family see that pictures.
What are the "true innovations"? All I use Windows is to start up my games, I wish there would be some minimal Windows that just shows the desktop where I can double click on the Game I want. For everything else I use Linux.
If I would compare Windows 7 with Fedora Linux with KDE the Windows would look pretty bad. It is missing almost everything I use in Linux. If my games would run on Linux I would happily nuke Windows 7 in favour to some GB of more space.
Ok I forget the title. Not everyone had red "The banality of evil". I thought it was just the Google slogan "Don't be evil".
The current trend in consumer electronics goes more to the "consume" part and not "create". Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc. all go to App-Shop and iTunes model. Plus the Cloud and Software as a Service, goes all to constrain the user and degrade him to consumer only.
My opinion is that the tech companies want to kill the general purpose computer because you can not only sell more media through the App-Shop and iTunes model, but you can also prevent competition.
The western Governments are on the same site. A democratic Government should celebrate the Internet, give the citizens more privacy and encourage civil debate. But all we get is more surveillance and less freedoms. Wikileaks should be celebrated, but instead it's under criminal investigations.
Because he is using the word "banal" he is paraphrasing "The banality of evil"?
I understood that he is comparing the book authors and that their view is "banal", as such "“Progress” is driven by the inexorable spread of American consumer technology over the surface of the earth." which is in fact a "banal" view of "progress".
OT: Friendly reminder, please look up the words "where", "were" and "was". ... where the migration and training _was_ so badly implemented that people _were_ reluctant to work on Linux,
I'm no native English speaker but I think this is what you mean:
>
Java is already "forked". The OpenJDK project is since Java 7 the reference implementation for Java and is licensed under the GPL.
Nothing prevents you to write a custom installer without the Ask toolbar or whatever. Every Linux distribution ships OpenJDK in the main repositories.
For some reasons Dr. Who gets younger and younger, culminating in the 30 year old boy-ish Matt Smith.
I was already thinking the next Dr. Who will be a 26 year old in love with some 20 years old girl. Personally I liked the previous Who character much better for the simple fact that Matt Smith looks like a boy.
How about the community in an Open Source project? Like, I don't know, OpenJDK? Which is now (since Java 7) the reference implementation of Java, and is published under the GPL.
So can we please set aside the hatred to Oracle? I am by no means an advocate for Oracle, but see it from Oracle's point of view: they think that Android is getting a free ride on the Java train and try to use lawyers to get a share. Rather then to blame one company, you should blame the insane copyright laws in your country (the USA).
PS: I'm a Java developer and a full time Linux user.
You should try KDE it's pretty much what you like: the old Windows desktop with start button, task bar, etc.
I'm using Fedora currently with KDE. But you can try OpenSuse or Mandriva.
How about the hard work to setup a site and offer those works?
It's hard enough as it is, as only iTunes and Amazon done it yet.
It's hard work to create the music; it's hard work as well to distribute and promote the music. Otherwise artists wouldn't sign up with publishers. The MAFIAA and other associations for example are unable to create such sites.
It would be very easy for the MAFIAA to create a download site with music and movies and get the ads revenue and subscribing revenue and distribute that revenue to the artists.
How about the Music and Movie Mafia* create their own music sites, which Google can index, and users can buy and download music and albums? *http://mafiaa.org/
They want to know why mp3skull.com comes up first (after Youtube)? Because they offer a useful service.
Without any trouble I can just download the song. Why can't the MAfia do a site like that?
You know, I would be somewhat compassion to the music artists and the Mafia, if they would not be such greedy asshats.
The copyright protected were expanded and expanded; payments for blank media introduced; DRM strengthened;
If the Mafia would actually try and not to be greedy asshats, like not sue private citizens.
Or like the GEMA (the German Mafia). I saw some weeks ego a video on Youtube that was posted here in Slashdot. But instead I get a "Sorry you can't see that song because the GEMA have not licensed any rights to it". I used a proxy to see the video nevertheless and then there was 4 seconds of a song at the beginning and 4 seconds of the same music at the end of a 5 minutes video! So for 4 seconds of a song, which should be well in fair-use rights, I can not see the video because of the GEMA.
So now I have no compassion with the Mafia and associated artists.
Put down copyright protection to about 20 years; remove the levy on blank media and pull down the DRM laws. Then we can talk again.
"creationism" is not a theory. You can call it a "hypothesis" in a sense that there is a flying teapot somewhere in the Universe. But at least the teapot "hypothesis" is a theory if you assume that we live in a limited universe.
The one difference between a scientific theory and nonsense is very simple: a scientific theory can be falsified.
You cannot falsify "creationism", or "God".
How would you try to falsify "creationism"? You need a time machine to go back to whatever time the "creationism" claims that "God" created everything. You can't use evidence because you don't know what "God" is so you can't say: it is because the evidence shows that that was God. You need to define and prove "God" first. Since anything can be "God".
Let me put it this way. If I say: God blessed me with my good wife and my good children. Can you _disprove_ that is was not God? If it is not possible to _disprove_ something, it is not a theory, it's faith.
Let me ask now. If I say: my genes shows that we share at least 90% similarity with hominidae, and Hominidae share genes with Catarrhini, and they share genes with Primates, and they share genes with Placental Mammals and further with Mammals. Of course you can disprove that, it's easy: just analyse the genes and get evidence that I'm wrong.
See Tree of life Project
You see now the difference between a "scientific theory" and faith?
Eh, evolution is proven beyond any doubt. If anything the theory of evolution is the best proven theory. I think, even the Theory of Relativity is not as good proven as the theory of evolution.
I think the biggest mistake of Email was that it is per default in clear text.
Normally you would expect for such a system that transports private messages over the world to be encrypted, but in the beginning Internet was only between Universities, so the whole politic was different.
One Anonymous Coward is comparing an Email send to a mailbox or a postal office, like FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc. But there is one big difference: a physical letter is sealed and only the destination (and possible the origin) are visible. Whereas an Email is in clear text for anyone to read.
We need an Email standard that makes Emails per default encrypted. Just like a physical letter is sealed per default.
But here comes the technical literacy in play. A letter can anyone open with no technical knowledge. But an encrypted Email you need (at least with GPG) to 1. create private/public key, 2) get the public keys and 3) import the keys, 4. enter a password. That is way too many steps and also nobody cares.
> “It’s likely that other theories, likely creationism, are being discussed in class"
I hope it is discussed in such a way that it makes clear that "creationism" is not a theory in a scientific way. Like if you ask the class to bring up counter-examples of scientific theories, and you get 5 points for "creationism", 5 points for the flying spaghetti monster, and so on.
You should look more in Groovy because that is basically the feature set of Groovy.
> it doesn't collapse to its knees if I go without a reboot or closing my browser for a few days, let alone having a few dozen windows and tabs open.
I think that's a Windows issue. My laptop is now running for 12 days (with hibernate and suspend) and I never close Firefox. I have open 5 tabs minimum and sometimes more then 50.
"three times the resources immediately available to their game."
How is network transported data "immediately available"? Here is my ping to Google.de:
--- google.de ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4003ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 58.939/73.092/86.936/11.524 ms
And that is if the other people in my apartment are not downloading anything. Even if you cut that in half, that is still 30ms ping, and that can be defined as "immediately available"? Compared to what, 0.000000001ms of ping to the CPU?
What are they drinking in the marketing department? Is it going like this: The press is bashing the hardware of the new Xbox. I know, we just add "the cloud" and make everyone shut up, the Playstation don't have "the cloud" so we are the greatest.
Nice work,
but any Open Source license allowing "companies to change and redistribute the code internally without having to share the new code publicly, he said." Even the GPL is allowing companies to change and redistribute the code internally.
But maybe his definition of "internally" and "publicly" is different then mine?
Ok, but Slashdot is not a blog platform. If I would like to have personal blogs I would go to Facebook or G+.
Maybe it's a slow day for Slashdot or whatever.
No offence meant, but that article had no mention of the 2010's announcing of the DWP. All links are links to Wikipedia (only one is an actual link to a source, the last link to https://engage.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/major-projects-authority/ ). I'm sorry that is no journalism.
At least you could use some time to write some background with some actual sources.
This should be suppose an article about "agile" and the Universal Credit. After reading the article there is no information what-so-ever, except that the Universal Credit project has been admitted to be failing.
So why is Universal Credit an "agile" project?
Why it is failing?
What is Universal Credit anyway?
Maybe that is why Twitter is so successful, the whole article is just a Twitter message: "Universal Credit, suppose to be biggest Agile Software Project, is failing".
Here is some more information:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/29/universal-credit-pilot-scheme
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/30/universal-credit-iain-duncan-smith
Is it called "agile" because it's a "step-by-step approach" ?
Not really. I want to know first where a URL is pointing to before clicking.
And there is no reason to make a URL not readable to both by the server and by a human.
If you are just going to troll, I can go somewhere else.
A "time machine" implemented 100% in software will not arrange the transistors in any new way. You can try and juggle the words around, but the simple fact is that a new software will not configure the transistors in any new way, thus not create a new machine.
Think of software like an image on the monitor. Will a monitor become a new machine just like because you load a different image? No it will not. A different image will just turn off and on different pixels. So why is a software, that will turn off and on different transistors, creates a new machine? It does not.
There can be, be definition, no new "inventions".
The general purpose computer is already invented. So be definition, you can't patent that.
Your software, which is executed by the computer, is an algorithm. So be definition, you can't patent that.
That is why I say, "Xxx but with computer" should not be a patent.
For example, all MPEG LA patents should be invalid, because it is "I have an decoding algorithm and it runs on a computer"; there is nothing to patent.
> Does it suddenly become not a new invention if the time machine is mostly implemented in software?
Ah it is implemented _mostly_ in software. That is the difference.
Let me ask you: does it makes a new invention if the time machine would be implemented only in software?
> A refrigerator doesn't do something completely different depending on what you put in it.
That is the crux of the issue than nobody besides computer scientists are not able to understand (well, at least they _should_ understand):
a computer will _not_ do something completely different depending on what you put in it.
A general purpose computer is designed to run software, it is what a computer do. Like a car is designed to drive, a computer is designed to run software. A computer do not care at all if your software is F-18 simulation, a video decoder, or video game or whatever.
For a computer it's just bits of 0/1 to be executed according to the specification of the computer.
You, as the human user, make the distinction that that software is a F-18 simulation and that software is a video decoder. And at the end there is always a human user operating the computer. Because we still not get any self-aware AI like in Terminator.
If you get one machine that is designed to be a F-18 autopilot, then your can patent that machine as a whole. But you can not (or at least you should not) put a general purpose computer and load some F-18 autopilot software and patent that. Because there is already a patent on a general purpose computer, and your software is just the algorithm.
The F-18 autopilot machine as a whole is also all the instruments you need to auto-pilot the air plane. Just like you can patent a car whose purpose is to drive, even if that car have a general purpose computer inside.
To make it clear: you should not be able patent your software and call it "xxx but with computer", with the stupidest arguments of all that your software is magically transforming the computer in a new device.
For better put arguments please see:
What Does "Software Is Mathematics" Mean? - Part 1 Software Is Manipulation of Symbols
What Does "Software Is Mathematics" Mean? Part 2: A Semiotics Approach to the Patent Eligibility of Software by PolR