Without stealing of ideas, we wouldn't have Open Office which implemented feature-for-feature what Microsoft Office has. Without stealing, we wouldn't have KDE and Gnome with implemented many features from Windows and OS X. How could open source survive without it?:)
Microsoft Word is the standard in word processing, it was reasonable to get a half functional free equivalent for users who couldn't run MSWord, but mozilla is huge and quite capabable of creating their own designs, while the firm they stole from is much smaller and not a standard in any way.
A television simply feeds you information, and you accept it.
So do books, but books don't make you fat.
As someone previously pointed out: books don't tend to trigger your have-a-snack-and-watch routine.
Books also require a lot of brain activity to take the writing, interpret that into words, then interpret words into pictures. Thats just to get to a level similar to TV, though you've designed most of the scene yourself, filling in omitted details from imagination. Further, the action in books tends to proceed at half the speed it would in a television show giving you plenty of time to debate the value of the content.
I often take notes or have debates with authors in the margins of my books, but I might be a bit special. Anyway, books feel very interactive to me.
Heck, I don't even really see the point of harnessing to it with straps--- you'd be better off with a seat, maybe with and instrument panel, and perhaps a windscreen, because if you can't carry the thing on your back, what does it matter?
Might as well add wheels to move it about while on ground - and maybe a way to retract them; and then add a bit more fuel capacity for all of the trouble. At its heart is a V-4 engine - might as well upgrade that.
While we're at it, we could even toss on wings and a tail.....
Ridiculously after adding all that, it would actually be cheaper!
Do you work in software development? Most of your tedious diatribe leads me to believe that the answer to that question is 'no'. Spend a few years working as a programmer and software designer and then come back to this subject when you know more; because right now, judging by what you have said, you don't know enough about programming or software design to even have an opinion.
I work in software development (C and C++) and I will support the grandparent. I don't know what you do, but I interpret designs into code.
I have even at some points written code to interpret designs into code because it was more efficient. I remember spending days designing GUIs in a legacy framework before I was moved to a project that used GTK, where I could throw together a GUI and a seperate test gui with secret features in half the time.
If you work in an area where you need to be at the assembly level and anything else might get screwed up in interpretation, then yes, it has to hard, but from what I've experienced, the more tools you can fire off to let the computer program itself the faster you can get to an end product. Also the more direct control you can pass up to the system engineers who might not code as well, the closer your product will be to their designs.
I was actually thinking: Wow! Hundreds of millions pumped into a really hard medical case, I bet doctors learned a whole lot! I bet they'll be better with patients in the future after this. The hospital probably has tons of equipment it couldn't previously afford.
Really, I think the more rich dying people are willing spend keeping themselves alive, the more we will later be able to keep people alive and happy with less money.
Some sicko tied up a cat's tail to his car and dragged it to death. I'm usually not a violent person but I still feel the urge to beat up that low-life badly, years after it happened.
Live in CA? Soon you'll have his name and address! So you can, er, uh, (what's the euphemism I'm looking for?) prevent future animal abuse! Yeah!
You might even find some nearby low-lives who need to be beaten badly while you peruse the new registry. Just be careful, people I know have been confused with criminals of the same name, so you might have to beat up quite few people before you find your mark.
Someone actually performed a study on this and discovered that a tin foil hat would only amplify electromagnetic waves!
Simple solution to your study: put your tin foil hat around your cell phone (which is the same type of radiation he is worried about). If your phone loses all signal, the hat stops the signal; if your phone gains signal, the hat increases signal.
I tried this on my cell phone and it lost all signal. It took several seconds to figure that out, but then it starts its lost service beeps. So I know for a fact my tin foil hat stops cell phone signals. If I cared I could do the same with my wifi router, but I'll leave that experiment to those who do.
BTW, I actually don't wear said hat, I was just demonstrating the principle to someone who saw a study like the one you mention above.
Well, when I was new to the internet, I often landed on those sights from SEO, domain squatting or typos and yes, perhaps a bit retardedly, I really thought that the links there would get me to where I intended to be. They often do, I just didn't understand I was billing my intended sites for getting google-jacked or easily mistyped.
You have to have a bit of web savy (which is common for/.ers, but not for the average population) before you realize money is flowing every time you click those links, and going to people who are intentionally fucking up your web experience.
There are plenty of Linux live distros. I believe Backtrack can even install to a thumbdrive so that changes are preserved.
That's probably helpful to most people, but they encrypted my hard drive with proprietary software and to copy anything significant outside the encryption would be a violation of security policies. So I have to boot windows (and all the mandatory software) to do anything work related.
I suspect its all coincidence, but I really couldn't do much to stop my company if they wanted to record my conversations while working from home or maybe they wanted make sure I was actually coughing often enough to deserve to telecommute that day.
CP charges would be the most embarrassing, but just a drop in the flood of potential charges.
I was thinking of myself in a parental position (though I don't have kids). I have proprietary papers and work on my LCD screens (viewable through cameras); giving my employer reason to get into the suit. Attempted identity theft, misc privacy violations and emotional distress of the parents could be added to the charges. This isn't just about the kids the administrators (intentionally?) bugged the whole household.
This is why you don't want "free" computers from the government
Well, something like 1/4 kids nationwide is on government food aide. Many of them can't afford school supplies; they can't be expected to provide their own computers.
And why aren't there criminal charges?
There better be some. The school district is the defendant right now though, which is crazy, and does seem to support your hypothesis that it was not just a few pedo administrators out of control who would be charged personally.
Naw, I think all the administrators behind this are going to be blackballed from any school position in the future and put on national, at least informal, pedo-lists and it will be years before someone tries this again in the US.
I mean giving administrators the right to remotely control students computers does not strike me as crazy, but I expect any administrator found to have abused this to be barred from any such position on suspicions of being a pedo and all around despicable person; then take on top of that whatever they are accused of from spying on the kids' parents.
Any school admin should know the consequences; To have several administrators think his behavior was so bad as to risk their careers and reputations over this photo, he must have done something more than toke up.
This is a timely article given a coworker just pointed out to me that my work laptop, which is always running a plethora of mandatory software I'm not allowed to touch, is equipped with a microphone.
I've already signed about a dozen contracts that allow them to monitor anything I do with the computer. I'm going to go back back and reread those _very_ carefully.
Is the younger generation of programmers really that arrogant to think that older programmers don't know and learn new languages and coding trends?
Well as one ambassador for the younger generation of programmers I will say: no.
It's the managers. They hire and layoff with age discrimination and a blind eye to cheating. Don't blame the guys who might get stuck with coworkers from these poor practices.
Further it is hideously important to our survival as young programmers to stamp out age discrimination before we get hit with it.
I would further add that the article clearly lays the blame on the ancient problem of poor metrics of coding productivity, which fail to show the problems of replacing expensive senior programmers over the pack of low paid entry level guys.
That's a problem coming up in many comments on this article; managers often are not people familiar with software coding and don't know that problem solving is high among the skill sets that will actually matter.
I worked the past 3 years in C++. I still code with references to the stl and language manuals open, but a non technical person won't understand that when they see "3years C++ experience." They won't understand, because they haven't been there, that I could just as easily pop open some other language's reference material and solve the same problems in that language.
While some people may assume that the recession has provided a handy cover for age discrimination, a closer look suggests that it's the nature of IT itself to push its elderly workers out... inexperienced or nontechnical hiring managers tend to look at resumes with an eye for youth, under the "more bang for the buck" theory. Cheaper young 'uns will work longer hours and produce more code.
I think I just read the definition of age discrimination.
A better way to summarize the article would have been: "While some people may assume that the recession has provided a handy cover for age discrimination, a closer look suggests that IT managers use age discrimination with no excuses from the recession.
Slashdot Mirror
If you can't add to the conversation, just STFU, OK? Don't be polluting the page with "I agree"s and "So tragic"s and shit like that.
Ok.
You! Over there, with the seven digit ID. Yes you! This means you too.
Thank you for acknowledging us AC, we bow down to the ancientness of your username.
As an athiest, I can not wear anything that may have a religious significance to anyone or anything.
Haha, awesome. I'd do this too, but I'm already circumcised as per my parents JudeoChristian beliefs.
Without stealing of ideas, we wouldn't have Open Office which implemented feature-for-feature what Microsoft Office has. Without stealing, we wouldn't have KDE and Gnome with implemented many features from Windows and OS X. How could open source survive without it? :)
Microsoft Word is the standard in word processing, it was reasonable to get a half functional free equivalent for users who couldn't run MSWord, but mozilla is huge and quite capabable of creating their own designs, while the firm they stole from is much smaller and not a standard in any way.
Fat kids can't crawl up onto a chair to surf the net, but they can use a remote.
A television simply feeds you information, and you accept it.
So do books, but books don't make you fat.
As someone previously pointed out: books don't tend to trigger your have-a-snack-and-watch routine.
Books also require a lot of brain activity to take the writing, interpret that into words, then interpret words into pictures. Thats just to get to a level similar to TV, though you've designed most of the scene yourself, filling in omitted details from imagination. Further, the action in books tends to proceed at half the speed it would in a television show giving you plenty of time to debate the value of the content.
I often take notes or have debates with authors in the margins of my books, but I might be a bit special. Anyway, books feel very interactive to me.
Heck, I don't even really see the point of harnessing to it with straps--- you'd be better off with a seat, maybe with and instrument panel, and perhaps a windscreen, because if you can't carry the thing on your back, what does it matter?
Might as well add wheels to move it about while on ground - and maybe a way to retract them; and then add a bit more fuel capacity for all of the trouble. At its heart is a V-4 engine - might as well upgrade that.
While we're at it, we could even toss on wings and a tail.....
Ridiculously after adding all that, it would actually be cheaper!
(For those who don't believe me Cesnas are rather popular already: http://www.controller.com/list/list.aspx?HDRSO=Price&ETID=1&catid=6&Mdltxt=170&setype=1&Manu=CESSNA&mdlx=exact&bcatid=13&Pref=0&HDROR=asc)
Do you work in software development? Most of your tedious diatribe leads me to believe that the answer to that question is 'no'. Spend a few years working as a programmer and software designer and then come back to this subject when you know more; because right now, judging by what you have said, you don't know enough about programming or software design to even have an opinion.
I work in software development (C and C++) and I will support the grandparent. I don't know what you do, but I interpret designs into code.
I have even at some points written code to interpret designs into code because it was more efficient. I remember spending days designing GUIs in a legacy framework before I was moved to a project that used GTK, where I could throw together a GUI and a seperate test gui with secret features in half the time.
If you work in an area where you need to be at the assembly level and anything else might get screwed up in interpretation, then yes, it has to hard, but from what I've experienced, the more tools you can fire off to let the computer program itself the faster you can get to an end product. Also the more direct control you can pass up to the system engineers who might not code as well, the closer your product will be to their designs.
I was actually thinking: Wow! Hundreds of millions pumped into a really hard medical case, I bet doctors learned a whole lot! I bet they'll be better with patients in the future after this. The hospital probably has tons of equipment it couldn't previously afford.
Really, I think the more rich dying people are willing spend keeping themselves alive, the more we will later be able to keep people alive and happy with less money.
Some sicko tied up a cat's tail to his car and dragged it to death. I'm usually not a violent person but I still feel the urge to beat up that low-life badly, years after it happened.
Live in CA? Soon you'll have his name and address! So you can, er, uh, (what's the euphemism I'm looking for?) prevent future animal abuse! Yeah!
You might even find some nearby low-lives who need to be beaten badly while you peruse the new registry. Just be careful, people I know have been confused with criminals of the same name, so you might have to beat up quite few people before you find your mark.
Or screw either of those things and go make $25mil scalping!
Someone actually performed a study on this and discovered that a tin foil hat would only amplify electromagnetic waves!
Simple solution to your study: put your tin foil hat around your cell phone (which is the same type of radiation he is worried about). If your phone loses all signal, the hat stops the signal; if your phone gains signal, the hat increases signal.
I tried this on my cell phone and it lost all signal. It took several seconds to figure that out, but then it starts its lost service beeps. So I know for a fact my tin foil hat stops cell phone signals. If I cared I could do the same with my wifi router, but I'll leave that experiment to those who do.
BTW, I actually don't wear said hat, I was just demonstrating the principle to someone who saw a study like the one you mention above.
And if I respawn as a cow do I still get to keep my XP?
Yes! You will still be a level 30 IT student, but it probably won't help as you pursue levels in "Cud Chewer."
There must be a lot of retards out there I guess.
Well, when I was new to the internet, I often landed on those sights from SEO, domain squatting or typos and yes, perhaps a bit retardedly, I really thought that the links there would get me to where I intended to be. They often do, I just didn't understand I was billing my intended sites for getting google-jacked or easily mistyped.
You have to have a bit of web savy (which is common for /.ers, but not for the average population) before you realize money is flowing every time you click those links, and going to people who are intentionally fucking up your web experience.
There are plenty of Linux live distros. I believe Backtrack can even install to a thumbdrive so that changes are preserved.
That's probably helpful to most people, but they encrypted my hard drive with proprietary software and to copy anything significant outside the encryption would be a violation of security policies. So I have to boot windows (and all the mandatory software) to do anything work related.
I suspect its all coincidence, but I really couldn't do much to stop my company if they wanted to record my conversations while working from home or maybe they wanted make sure I was actually coughing often enough to deserve to telecommute that day.
CP charges would be the most embarrassing, but just a drop in the flood of potential charges.
I was thinking of myself in a parental position (though I don't have kids). I have proprietary papers and work on my LCD screens (viewable through cameras); giving my employer reason to get into the suit. Attempted identity theft, misc privacy violations and emotional distress of the parents could be added to the charges. This isn't just about the kids the administrators (intentionally?) bugged the whole household.
This is why you don't want "free" computers from the government
Well, something like 1/4 kids nationwide is on government food aide. Many of them can't afford school supplies; they can't be expected to provide their own computers.
And why aren't there criminal charges?
There better be some. The school district is the defendant right now though, which is crazy, and does seem to support your hypothesis that it was not just a few pedo administrators out of control who would be charged personally.
Big brother on its way to a school near you.
Naw, I think all the administrators behind this are going to be blackballed from any school position in the future and put on national, at least informal, pedo-lists and it will be years before someone tries this again in the US.
These education people are pretty fucked up
To say the worlds educational system is run by fuckups is a leap from the article's evidence that a few school admins at one school are fucked up.
Given the parents I know, I would trust many kids more to the public/private schools than their parental tutelage.
I was thinking the same thing.
I mean giving administrators the right to remotely control students computers does not strike me as crazy, but I expect any administrator found to have abused this to be barred from any such position on suspicions of being a pedo and all around despicable person; then take on top of that whatever they are accused of from spying on the kids' parents.
Any school admin should know the consequences; To have several administrators think his behavior was so bad as to risk their careers and reputations over this photo, he must have done something more than toke up.
8^O
This is a timely article given a coworker just pointed out to me that my work laptop, which is always running a plethora of mandatory software I'm not allowed to touch, is equipped with a microphone.
I've already signed about a dozen contracts that allow them to monitor anything I do with the computer. I'm going to go back back and reread those _very_ carefully.
Is the younger generation of programmers really that arrogant to think that older programmers don't know and learn new languages and coding trends?
Well as one ambassador for the younger generation of programmers I will say: no.
It's the managers. They hire and layoff with age discrimination and a blind eye to cheating. Don't blame the guys who might get stuck with coworkers from these poor practices.
Further it is hideously important to our survival as young programmers to stamp out age discrimination before we get hit with it.
I would further add that the article clearly lays the blame on the ancient problem of poor metrics of coding productivity, which fail to show the problems of replacing expensive senior programmers over the pack of low paid entry level guys.
If I were a manager
That's a problem coming up in many comments on this article; managers often are not people familiar with software coding and don't know that problem solving is high among the skill sets that will actually matter.
I worked the past 3 years in C++. I still code with references to the stl and language manuals open, but a non technical person won't understand that when they see "3years C++ experience." They won't understand, because they haven't been there, that I could just as easily pop open some other language's reference material and solve the same problems in that language.
While some people may assume that the recession has provided a handy cover for age discrimination, a closer look suggests that it's the nature of IT itself to push its elderly workers out... inexperienced or nontechnical hiring managers tend to look at resumes with an eye for youth, under the "more bang for the buck" theory. Cheaper young 'uns will work longer hours and produce more code.
I think I just read the definition of age discrimination.
A better way to summarize the article would have been: "While some people may assume that the recession has provided a handy cover for age discrimination, a closer look suggests that IT managers use age discrimination with no excuses from the recession.
actually this case is slander and harassment laws, but whatever.
So large companies can...tell people the food inside is poisonous in order to drive you out of business
City governments can pass...onerous regulations.
The latter happens far more often than the former.
Could it be because we have libel laws?