Re:Why *Shouldn't* AOL get the money?
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Suing the Spammers
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· Score: 2
maybe they used the consumers monthly serivce fees.
If my ISP was going to use my monthly fees to shutdown spammers more power to them! Whenever I get spam at my school address I'm lucky if the school does a thing about it.
Washington state even has laws against spam and they do nothing. At $1000 a hit, this kind of cash could be the amount of a damages award rather than civil litigation.
Free speech is one thing. You can shout whatever you want from the street corner, but you can't call people up at home (not more than once at least if they say so). With virtually infinite e-mail addresses (or even billions of domain names) any "one warning" e-mail anti-spam or anti-harassment laws can be rendered ineffective.
Advertisement has it's place, banners, search engines, even unmoderated newsgroups would be better than my mailbox.
Re:How does this mock religion?
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Planet Gattaca
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· Score: 4
I wonder if Katz is just expressing frustrations with more conservative religions? He's expressing a very exclusivistic atheist perspective here.
Sure you can quip about how major religions have destroyed millions of people's lives... blah blah blah... or you can talk about the people it's helped (remember how Christianity came to power? by helping the impovereshed in Rome)... Katz's error is in recognizing only the negative and forgetting that most modern religions are rather moderate and might not have such a problem with this sort of thing.
From a modern monotheist phillisophical perspective there is no problem. None of the arguments for the existence of a "God" are invalidated by the advent of man's creation of species. Sure we might be able to finally step evolution from theory to fact (to the chagrin of conservatives), but we won't change what people think.
The world was still created in seven days (days relative to "God"), adam and eve were still tempted by the serpent (in the pre-material garden of eden), and JC still rose from the dead (or coma)... all the little exceptions that prostelytizing atheists try to "break" christianity/all religion with do not now and will never make a bit of difference to people with a genuine faith.
Why ruin their party? We live in modern "enlightened" times and noone's going to burn you at the stake for not believing in "God" (but you might not be able to hold office in 7-9 states).
(p.s. if you're wondering about me, i'm just a nutty idealistic relitavist, now go call the men in white jackets)
I suppose that you were diagnosed sometime in your adult life and the motivation to overmedicate never touched your doctors. Or have you had any experience with overmedication?
I think it's a balance to maintain... no, non-medicinal cures usually can't fix clinical disorders... yes, sometimes drugs make some mental health patients worse...
I thought it was perfectly inept of roblimo to use that headline after the disclaimer about social stigma that Dateline talked about.
Here Katz is pouring out his heart about the cruelties of the American social standard and Rob decides to preserve a little of that. Too bad moderators can't chew on stories, that one would get a few "Flamebait/Troll" ratings from people that understand.
I've got close friends who have all sorts of "mental disorder" and don't think them any worse for it. ADD, clinical depression, seasonal affective disorder... is that at all comparative to accute schizophrinea or some other debillitating disease?
And what about those people debillitated by accute mental disorder. Call em "nuts" and lock them up? Diagnose and medicate "en masse?" Sure if you want to run the US that way I suppose it will work, but I think I'll emmigrate faster than you can say "compulsory examinations."
Mental "disfunction" is only relative to what is normal. Some people are paranoid and refuse to use public toilets and wash their hands 50 times a day. Some people don't give a damn and would eat their lunch off the floor of the "Trainspotting" bathroom scene. Who's sicker here? Who needs medication? Maybe they both just need some careful, understanding person to talk to. (and one that won't just churn them out the revolving door with a "Loveline" sort of answer - oh you're related to an alcoholic and have obsessive behavior, go see a specialist)
or more accurately labelled, with a syndrome, you can't have a gun...
it sounds like you've got a good perspective on the social stigma society induces on those diagnosed with mental disorder... which is what the previous poster was preaching against, right?
The schools also get between $400 and $2500 per year extra for each student that's diagnosed with whatever today's fashion is
I wonder if that has anything to do with the overmedication of "ADHD" children? I know my brother has authentic ADD, and sometimes I procrastinate so much sometimes I make myself wonder (well, maybe i'm just too wired).
There are several kids I remember who I thought were allright, a little high-strung, but the medication they were put on really messed them up. Some of the drugs that "cure" "ADHD" cause manic depression.
nod, it's good to get the feel of the field before you distribute the points...
i usually spend my points as soon as I get them since it seems there is a limited space in which to distribute them... and I usually only read the few articles that interest me..
i've noticed things have changed... in fact it seems to encourage playing out 5 points in around 100-200 posts... in extremely large stories you'll notice that moderator points only go so far...
If everybody had access to space, you could just drop large rocks on your enemies. So, he places space travel in the hands of the Guild. However, if the guild is not held in check, they rule. So, the spice dependancy. Question: if spice is needed for space travel, how did we get to Arakis in the first place?
well, I really liked the books (say 1,2,5,6 -- 3 was a snooze and 4 was halfway to a romance novel)
but I believe the answer to your question is in the "Dune Encyclopedia" (wish I had one)... apparently there is some alternative to guild navigator travel, performed by computers/robots (i think) the only problem is the machine revolution and something about the computers/robots not doing exactly what they were supposed to (going too fast i think?)
of course it's been a long time since I read this... so you should go check it out yourself
I think that they should make more dune movies... someone should get Lynch on the phone (did I mention his nephew goes to WSU -- CE major and a good friend -- ahh bask bask bask)
condense 2 and 3, leave out 4 -- taking a few years break, and do and release 5 and 6 within a few months of each other... I'd go! damn, I'd buy the DVD...
WSU administration and harassment...
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Usenet Gag Order
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· Score: 2
WSU's Information Technology department has on many occasions stiffled the speech of students... untill they make a noise. My freshman year here there was a "Holocaust Revisionist" site that recieved complaints. From chatting with a few people about it I heard that they were "temporarily restrained", as is in the power of IT officials, from further "harassing" anyone. After they caused a stink they got their website back and produced an official statement from IT.
Following a flamewar on alt.religion.universal-life in which I posted a link to a domain name's administrative contact information (through nsi.com's whois) the targeted party recieved numerous calls that resulted not from that post, but an anonymous post under false pretenses to another newsgroup containing that phone number.
I was found guilty of harassment for providing information on how to access that publicly accessable document. So I assumed the "administrative position" (duck and grab ankles) and gave up my @wsu.edu email for the summer.
My account reactivation was delayed for two weeks because one of the officials (cough**cough**cBoIuGgGhOT!**cough) tought that it was inappropriate use of my unix account to host this student group's site. There was no complaint ever associated with the page. Yet the administration felt that they had the right to restrict my speech in order to "protect" me from "inducing a liability" on to myself (i.e. I would be liable for anything that appeared on that page, any complaints on that page would be complaints against me).
I ran headlong at this one, contacting the Ombudsman and attending a moderated meeting with upper administration. They rolled over and gave me a verbal appology (no official statement). Part of the run-arround was that upper administration acted on "policy" that IT officials had no jurisdiction to invent. IT in fact had no said policy and I have yet to meet with said IT official's boss to discuss the event.
Once again the stink caused the administration to draft some more "policy". Now students are supposed to link to a copyright and a disclaimer off of their home pages. Want to bet noone's done that yet? The new "policy" also is rendered practically useless. It says "WSU does not restrict the contents of electronic mail of staff, faculty, and students or the contents of faculty, staff, and student individual World Wide Web (Web) pages linked to the official WSU Web pages beyond the restrictions inherent in complying with the law."
Interestingly it is a state law that no student of WSU may harass another individual in any way. Harassment, anything that is "anoying, disturbing or perturbing," is definedly quite broad! Here is a good site covering the legal theory surrounding such issues. Basically it supports restricting one-to-one speech to prevent harassment, but determines that one-to-many speech should be protected as free speech.
An importaint distinction should be made that I'm not sure the author covers. Newsgroup postings are a one-to-many medium, but the comments may be directed to (or at) an individual. In this way should criticizing an individual be considered harassment? What about warning others that you think this individual is bad news? "Harassment" says the WSU administration, and a violation of "student conduct."
So... don't like the postings of a WSU student? Complain to abuse@wsu.edu and they're screwed!
Too bad WSU's policy isn't like WWU's or UW's; even CWU's policy is more lenient! Looks like EWU is in the same boat that WSU is in.
Why patent specific algorithms? It explicitly says that algorythms can't be pattented (utillity patent right? please quote a passage if I'm wrong)... so what are we pattenting here? A theoretical machine?
What about the phillosophy that software is art? There's 500 ways to do something. 50 of them might all be the most effective way to do it. Would all 50 be covered by a pattent? If not couldn't you just try one of the other 49 ways?
The thing is, I've got an idea... I think it's pretty spiffy... an experienced CS prof think it's pretty spiffy... and I want to use it, pattent it (it's nothing like what's been done before, it's not obvious etc - think extremely large ordered data sets, presumedly faster than an AVL BST and very concurrent-access friendly).
Hearing of all these *rediculous* patents I'm pretty scared that the US patent office is going to have a fit and thousands of pattents are going to one day be struck down all at once. You better believe I don't want to be one of them.
Yet I think this thing (when I'm done developing it -- anyone got any links on the architecture of a modern high performance database?) will absolutely kick ass... and probably contribute to the realm of computer science in general.
Right now I figure the best way to go about it is to actually impliment the theory (put my money where my mouth is) show a few important people a controlled demo ("gimme your fastest code, I can beat it" sort of thing) and try to sell it for them. BUT then I have no control over the patent. I would ideally hold the patent for say 8 to 12 years (enough to make a nice living/reputation) and then give it away (GPL! GPL!). The raw sale of IP doesn't offer that option.
Any advice? (or free help!?)
p.s. hotmail SUCKS (email andross@ghettobox.dhs.org changing profile but it might not show up)
I deffinately enjoy a lot of their stuff. Why not make your own music too? A great place to get a lot of samples (and windoze resources too) is Maz-sound.
Ok, where can you get 1.5Mbps DSL for $20 a month? (url please) Here 386kbps SDSL is >$70 a month (www.fsr.net/services/adsl.asp), or for T1 downstream >$300! Yes ~1/5 to ~3/4 the bandwidth for 1/9 to maybe 1/2 the price (if ISP charges are $50)... but hardly the scenario you're proposing.
Problem (10 Dumb Things): Using the wrong hardware Spin (Linux Myths): Linux does not provide support for the broad range of hardware in use today but there's more! It's important to understand that licensing cost is only a small part of the overall decision-making process for customers. Talk about TCO!
Problem: People make the mistake of letting Windows NT suggest the default Pagefile size for your system. Spin: Configuring Linux security requires an administrator to be an expert in the intricacies of the operating system and how components interact. Hmm, sounds like NT administrators have more to worry about than security.
Problem: The key to ensuring your two Windows NT computers can communicate is to make sure the guest account in user manager is enabled. This is the account that is used when one computer connects to another, with relatively little security--the reason it is disabled by default...The best way to avoid this dilemma is to immediately add your personal user account to the administrators local group of the system. This will make your main user account an administrator of the system, sparing you from heartaches and time later. Spin: Linux security is all-or-nothing. LOL!
Problem: Windows NT also has somewhat strict software requirements. Spin: Linux application support is very limited, meaning that customers end up having to build their own horizontal and vertical applications. Poh-tae-toh... Poh-tah-toh... sounds like the same article, but we don't need linux advocates to bash windows, the NT users can do it!
Problem: I don't recommend applying the latest service pack unless you are having some problems because in many cases a service pack can cause a bug that didn't previously exist Spin: Linux system administrators must spend huge amounts of time understanding the latest Linux bugs and determining what to do about them. At least we don't have to test our own OS to be sure a problem exists.
Problem: Many people make the mistake of using a cloning utility, such as Ghost, in order to make copies of Windows NT for their network computers. Spin: Today with Windows NT 4.0, customers can be confident in delivering applications that are scalable, secure, and reliable--yet cost effective to deploy and manage. So, while you can clone an install for most linux boxes... you can't even clone NT boxes! Ahhhhahaha, cost-effective distribution... right.
Your hotmail account and webpage are simply another abstraction of anonymity. Do you disagree? Now how does that give authenticity, accountability, reality?
;-> did you click on the link? yup... (nice 2.2.12 kernel) did you keep digging? no! you didn't get past the host's page and make it to my first personal page... it takes 8 clicks to read about my first girlfriend, after the third click if you can't figure out what my @wsu.edu email address is you really don't need to be emailing my unfiltered account... now let's keep going... stop at my first personal page and go 3 clicks in a more obscure direction and you can get my full name, from there one stop at www.wsu.edu -> "phone & e-mail directories" and you have my home phone number...
abstract that... there's a difference between putting your info on a billboard and leaving it in a nice 500 page phonebook...
It be hard to convince me that it wasn't written to incite a response (i.e. troll).
*ghasp* oooo nooooooooOOooo! making conversation! guilty as charged!! A troll on the other hand incites a decidedly _negative_ response. Trolling is infectious; see how nice and cheery I've become responding to your critiques?
and you seem to have taken a few things for granted, such as the scope of the article (mentioning various languages, that's what they're interested in right?)... I never said that a full university _would_ train every student in 5 languages but that it should have the facillities (remember, I'm taking courses not required by the cirriculum)
hmmm, I thought this post was amusing. I did have a heck of a time going through honors calc 3 my first semester with a bunch of sophomores, and my first advisor didn't give a damn about me.
That's what I call an informative AC post.
I don't know why anyone's so insane to take a pricy private college for their undergrad work.
hint: it has the highest frequency of mentions in the comments from this slashdot headline
*snort* CMU... based on the influx of CMU student's opinions I'm not too impressed, and I don't think that paying through the nose should be prerequisite to attending school. CMU cost of attendance estimates are 4x here, with tuition 10x WSU's. Sure, if I didn't mind borrowing 4x what I will be now, and could find a part-time on-campus job that paid $60/hr it would be comprable.;-> Maybe after I cash in on what I'm learning I'll try a private school for my MS.
WSU is _far_ from perfect. Upper administration here can kiss my ass, and may end up doing that after I graduate (they have a high alumni giving rate to maintain).
There is only one class in the CS department that teaches students how to code.
150 here, at a school where it isn't a waste of 2 credits to learn perl, or an API. That's about $180 after books plus 30 hours in class, 10 to 20 hours out (depending on how callenged you are). So an equivalent value of 70 hours (very conservative estimate). Could any undergraduate pick up their second language in less than 70 hours?
I just had to laugh at your MS interview.
I laugh at it all the time. Especially when people tell me how proud of getting one, but isn't it that nice to have one as a Frosh?
Your 360 isn't exactly what I would call a hard or challenging class.
It could be if you didn't know how to code. Remember what the prereq is? 250... that no one learns a quip about coding in. So a few weeks of review are used to quell the dropout rate and then we're into business.
I never said it was challenging... and we haven't gone by the Steven's book so far. Everything's been at the lowest level, for my mkfs I use open() read() write()... that's all. None of the nice library functions in that book to use.
Sure, if you can learn the low level workings of a UNIX filesystem and process management allongside basic x86 assembly in a trade school, then sign me up.
You learn ML because it is allows many things to be done so simply and elegantly.
Just about what I was saying, BUT how do you write a for loop in ML... something like this?
fun union A B = let
fun loop ([],_,rs) = rs | loop (x::xs, ys, rs) = loop (if isMember x ys then (xs,ys,rs) else (xs, ys, x::rs)) in loop (A,B,B) end
Strongly typed and good for such stuff yes... but a practical language? By no means, but good for theory.
AC postings often have the most intelligent, informative and insightful comments.
Not based on my experience. While you're free to ciriticize from the shadows, free of any accountability, Just another faceless trolling AC... I'm responding with no mask on.
I'm sure you're familliar with the theory that internet chat participants easily detach from their actions. The internet becomes a fantasy realm for their exploits. Feel empowered? Feel unaccountable? Sure, you're an AC and I'm not. It takes half a brain to get my private e-mail address and webpage. There's me, all of me. Authenticity, accountability, reality. Nothing less. I like to talk to people, not their egos.
the C class (150) is data structures, here we learned the basics: , then in 250 (C++) we learned all sorts of dynamic structures (lists, trees, trees) unfortunately theory focused classes become extremely *convoluted*. 250 is a revolving door for doctoral sudents who've forgotten to code. My final project was vaporware. It had great theory, lots of crap about the eventual failure of near-prime public key cryptogrophy and how it might be possible to circumvent this with the particular implimentation of R. Rivest's "Winnowing and Chafing" setup. I also skipped half the labs. I also bullsh***ed my way into a Microsoft interview. I bet MS employees have a great theory repetoire and the WinNT system must have a beautiful design, but it doesn't always work.
In fact we talked about this kind of stuff alot in 350 (afforementioned program design). So theory-based was 250 (the only prereq for 350) that everyone's final project for 350 fell on it's ass. 250 is theory based, and a JOKE. In 360 (adv unix proramming - filesystems) the prof quipped at how 250 students are clueless.
Good thing 250 is changing. A few key individuals make all the difference. Both are industry veterans who have come back for their MS. A code-based 250 (both in the lab and in the classroom) make all the difference. I audited the 250 lab to get back in the swing of things, and learned a hell of a lot more than I did when I actually took the class (got a B).
I'd rather work with a bunch of other students who can actually code, rather than put out a sublime design. In 360 there is no partial credit. There is no credit for nice looking code, or a fancy design. Sure I can add usage messages and fully adhere to data abstraction... and waste a few hours turning what is a global variable into every function's parameters and then get no credit because it just doesn't work.
Theory is for those who know how to code, but C++ isn't even suited for such things. Truly OO based languages (smalltalk/java) are better suited to such things. Ok, _what_ reason is there to learn ml? To use a strongly typed language and be able to code discrete math principles directly, not worrying about the nittpicky bugs. You've got to learn a whole new language to even _get_ to the theory. Then you've got to waste that time in class or in the 4 year plan to teach another language... and freshmen are clueless. 99% of 150 students have never coded. Sound like a good reason to save heavy theory out of the first two years of the cirriculum?
Also, you could contribute some original criticism rather than something that's been posted under this story about fifty times allready.
LOL! In my calculus lab Red Hat was recently installed (seems WSU is trying to save some cash by trashing their Unix lisences). I switch virtual terminals out of X (they boot at init 4), telnet to our mail server, open an xterm (not available in their fvwm95 startmenu) and the whole section knows me as "that hacker guy". Nevermind that being fluent in C syntax I don't struggle with mathematica. Then my group members ask what hacking is about, and they choke on the buzzwords. Chances are that MTV is targeting the 95% of the class that has no clue. This helps convince me that no matter how "jet set" popular culture percieves us as. Geek culture will never be a pop culture icon.
So far I've taken the standards C, C++, program design, advanced unix programming (filesystems so far). In addition I've taken Perl, Win32 API, and Unix Systems Administration. Next semester I'll probably take java, and in the next few years I'll probably be exposed to ml (ick!), smalltalk, 3d graphics, kernel hacking, and this is just undergraduate work. Of course I'm taking more than the standard cirriculum, and I'm not mentioning the hundreds of MIS classes (web page creation, asp, MSCE, and all sorts of internet commerce stuff).
I think these sort of requirements are (or should be!) standard for any _full_ university, but they're not. I suppose any college in the top 30 (WSU was 25 and UW was 10 when I applied) for Computer Science should get you most of this stuff.
FYI I did read the article, however you will also note that on simmilar threads I have posted questioning followers of linux blindness (remember his management quip about how ISDN support maintainers get off their ass and get the product out the door?)
Slashdot Mirror
maybe they used the consumers monthly serivce fees.
If my ISP was going to use my monthly fees to shutdown spammers more power to them! Whenever I get spam at my school address I'm lucky if the school does a thing about it.
Washington state even has laws against spam and they do nothing. At $1000 a hit, this kind of cash could be the amount of a damages award rather than civil litigation.
Free speech is one thing. You can shout whatever you want from the street corner, but you can't call people up at home (not more than once at least if they say so). With virtually infinite e-mail addresses (or even billions of domain names) any "one warning" e-mail anti-spam or anti-harassment laws can be rendered ineffective.
Advertisement has it's place, banners, search engines, even unmoderated newsgroups would be better than my mailbox.
I wonder if Katz is just expressing frustrations with more conservative religions? He's expressing a very exclusivistic atheist perspective here.
Sure you can quip about how major religions have destroyed millions of people's lives... blah blah blah... or you can talk about the people it's helped (remember how Christianity came to power? by helping the impovereshed in Rome)... Katz's error is in recognizing only the negative and forgetting that most modern religions are rather moderate and might not have such a problem with this sort of thing.
From a modern monotheist phillisophical perspective there is no problem. None of the arguments for the existence of a "God" are invalidated by the advent of man's creation of species. Sure we might be able to finally step evolution from theory to fact (to the chagrin of conservatives), but we won't change what people think.
The world was still created in seven days (days relative to "God"), adam and eve were still tempted by the serpent (in the pre-material garden of eden), and JC still rose from the dead (or coma)... all the little exceptions that prostelytizing atheists try to "break" christianity/all religion with do not now and will never make a bit of difference to people with a genuine faith.
Why ruin their party? We live in modern "enlightened" times and noone's going to burn you at the stake for not believing in "God" (but you might not be able to hold office in 7-9 states).
(p.s. if you're wondering about me, i'm just a nutty idealistic relitavist, now go call the men in white jackets)
I suppose that you were diagnosed sometime in your adult life and the motivation to overmedicate never touched your doctors. Or have you had any experience with overmedication?
I think it's a balance to maintain... no, non-medicinal cures usually can't fix clinical disorders... yes, sometimes drugs make some mental health patients worse...
so where do you draw the line?
Nod...
I thought it was perfectly inept of roblimo to use that headline after the disclaimer about social stigma that Dateline talked about.
Here Katz is pouring out his heart about the cruelties of the American social standard and Rob decides to preserve a little of that. Too bad moderators can't chew on stories, that one would get a few "Flamebait/Troll" ratings from people that understand.
I've got close friends who have all sorts of "mental disorder" and don't think them any worse for it. ADD, clinical depression, seasonal affective disorder... is that at all comparative to accute schizophrinea or some other debillitating disease?
And what about those people debillitated by accute mental disorder. Call em "nuts" and lock them up? Diagnose and medicate "en masse?" Sure if you want to run the US that way I suppose it will work, but I think I'll emmigrate faster than you can say "compulsory examinations."
Mental "disfunction" is only relative to what is normal. Some people are paranoid and refuse to use public toilets and wash their hands 50 times a day. Some people don't give a damn and would eat their lunch off the floor of the "Trainspotting" bathroom scene. Who's sicker here? Who needs medication? Maybe they both just need some careful, understanding person to talk to. (and one that won't just churn them out the revolving door with a "Loveline" sort of answer - oh you're related to an alcoholic and have obsessive behavior, go see a specialist)
or more accurately labelled, with a syndrome, you can't have a gun...
it sounds like you've got a good perspective on the social stigma society induces on those diagnosed with mental disorder... which is what the previous poster was preaching against, right?
The schools also get between $400 and $2500 per year extra for each student that's diagnosed with whatever today's fashion is
I wonder if that has anything to do with the overmedication of "ADHD" children? I know my brother has authentic ADD, and sometimes I procrastinate so much sometimes I make myself wonder (well, maybe i'm just too wired).
There are several kids I remember who I thought were allright, a little high-strung, but the medication they were put on really messed them up. Some of the drugs that "cure" "ADHD" cause manic depression.
use a gateway lately? been around when the hardware pukes?
and you can get a much better deal building it yourself.
Some people think that you can get around stuff like that...
with your own flavor of *nix, you can make snprintf your standard, or use your own custom library...
So is OpenBSD a 20 year improvement? or should we start writing Linux in Java?
nod, it's good to get the feel of the field before you distribute the points...
i usually spend my points as soon as I get them since it seems there is a limited space in which to distribute them... and I usually only read the few articles that interest me..
haven't been a moderator recently eh?
i've noticed things have changed... in fact it seems to encourage playing out 5 points in around 100-200 posts... in extremely large stories you'll notice that moderator points only go so far...
If everybody had access to space, you could just drop large rocks on your enemies. So, he places space travel in the hands of the Guild. However, if the guild is not held in check, they rule. So, the spice dependancy. Question: if spice is needed for space travel, how did we get to Arakis in the first place?
well, I really liked the books (say 1,2,5,6 -- 3 was a snooze and 4 was halfway to a romance novel)
but I believe the answer to your question is in the "Dune Encyclopedia" (wish I had one)... apparently there is some alternative to guild navigator travel, performed by computers/robots (i think) the only problem is the machine revolution and something about the computers/robots not doing exactly what they were supposed to (going too fast i think?)
of course it's been a long time since I read this... so you should go check it out yourself
I think that they should make more dune movies... someone should get Lynch on the phone (did I mention his nephew goes to WSU -- CE major and a good friend -- ahh bask bask bask)
condense 2 and 3, leave out 4 -- taking a few years break, and do and release 5 and 6 within a few months of each other... I'd go! damn, I'd buy the DVD...
WSU's Information Technology department has on many occasions stiffled the speech of students... untill they make a noise. My freshman year here there was a "Holocaust Revisionist" site that recieved complaints. From chatting with a few people about it I heard that they were "temporarily restrained", as is in the power of IT officials, from further "harassing" anyone. After they caused a stink they got their website back and produced an official statement from IT.
Following a flamewar on alt.religion.universal-life in which I posted a link to a domain name's administrative contact information (through nsi.com's whois) the targeted party recieved numerous calls that resulted not from that post, but an anonymous post under false pretenses to another newsgroup containing that phone number.
I was found guilty of harassment for providing information on how to access that publicly accessable document. So I assumed the "administrative position" (duck and grab ankles) and gave up my @wsu.edu email for the summer.
My account reactivation was delayed for two weeks because one of the officials (cough**cough**cBoIuGgGhOT!**cough) tought that it was inappropriate use of my unix account to host this student group's site. There was no complaint ever associated with the page. Yet the administration felt that they had the right to restrict my speech in order to "protect" me from "inducing a liability" on to myself (i.e. I would be liable for anything that appeared on that page, any complaints on that page would be complaints against me).
I ran headlong at this one, contacting the Ombudsman and attending a moderated meeting with upper administration. They rolled over and gave me a verbal appology (no official statement). Part of the run-arround was that upper administration acted on "policy" that IT officials had no jurisdiction to invent. IT in fact had no said policy and I have yet to meet with said IT official's boss to discuss the event.
Once again the stink caused the administration to draft some more "policy". Now students are supposed to link to a copyright and a disclaimer off of their home pages. Want to bet noone's done that yet? The new "policy" also is rendered practically useless. It says "WSU does not restrict the contents of electronic mail of staff, faculty, and students or the contents of faculty, staff, and student individual World Wide Web (Web) pages linked to the official WSU Web pages beyond the restrictions inherent in complying with the law."
Interestingly it is a state law that no student of WSU may harass another individual in any way. Harassment, anything that is "anoying, disturbing or perturbing," is definedly quite broad! Here is a good site covering the legal theory surrounding such issues. Basically it supports restricting one-to-one speech to prevent harassment, but determines that one-to-many speech should be protected as free speech.
An importaint distinction should be made that I'm not sure the author covers. Newsgroup postings are a one-to-many medium, but the comments may be directed to (or at) an individual. In this way should criticizing an individual be considered harassment? What about warning others that you think this individual is bad news? "Harassment" says the WSU administration, and a violation of "student conduct."
So... don't like the postings of a WSU student? Complain to abuse@wsu.edu and they're screwed!
Too bad WSU's policy isn't like WWU's or UW's; even CWU's policy is more lenient! Looks like EWU is in the same boat that WSU is in.
Oh yeah... this can only lead to better Mesa support for the RAGE series of cards.
I've never really seen a Rage128 in action untill yesterday.. It would be sweet if there was a Rage 128 PCMCIA card for powerbooks...
quake quake quake quake quake quake quake!
Why patent specific algorithms? It explicitly says that algorythms can't be pattented (utillity patent right? please quote a passage if I'm wrong)... so what are we pattenting here? A theoretical machine?
What about the phillosophy that software is art? There's 500 ways to do something. 50 of them might all be the most effective way to do it. Would all 50 be covered by a pattent? If not couldn't you just try one of the other 49 ways?
The thing is, I've got an idea... I think it's pretty spiffy... an experienced CS prof think it's pretty spiffy... and I want to use it, pattent it (it's nothing like what's been done before, it's not obvious etc - think extremely large ordered data sets, presumedly faster than an AVL BST and very concurrent-access friendly).
Hearing of all these *rediculous* patents I'm pretty scared that the US patent office is going to have a fit and thousands of pattents are going to one day be struck down all at once. You better believe I don't want to be one of them.
Yet I think this thing (when I'm done developing it -- anyone got any links on the architecture of a modern high performance database?) will absolutely kick ass... and probably contribute to the realm of computer science in general.
Right now I figure the best way to go about it is to actually impliment the theory (put my money where my mouth is) show a few important people a controlled demo ("gimme your fastest code, I can beat it" sort of thing) and try to sell it for them. BUT then I have no control over the patent. I would ideally hold the patent for say 8 to 12 years (enough to make a nice living/reputation) and then give it away (GPL! GPL!). The raw sale of IP doesn't offer that option.
Any advice? (or free help!?)
p.s. hotmail SUCKS (email andross@ghettobox.dhs.org changing profile but it might not show up)
hmm, I wonder... burn a copy and write a reg key on it... then trade it in for free software. Who wants legit NT 4?
;->
haha, bad place to ask for takers
the brains behind this probably cashed in their stock options before it split... LOL!
The problem is... I bet most people don't know if they're sold a pirated Microsoft product.
It would be much easier to buy a copy from everyone who's selling windows and check out the product.
I deffinately enjoy a lot of their stuff. Why not make your own music too? A great place to get a lot of samples (and windoze resources too) is Maz-sound.
Ok, where can you get 1.5Mbps DSL for $20 a month? (url please) Here 386kbps SDSL is >$70 a month (www.fsr.net/services/adsl.asp), or for T1 downstream >$300! Yes ~1/5 to ~3/4 the bandwidth for 1/9 to maybe 1/2 the price (if ISP charges are $50)... but hardly the scenario you're proposing.
Oh the irony!
Problem (10 Dumb Things):
Using the wrong hardware
Spin (Linux Myths):
Linux does not provide support for the broad range of hardware in use today
but there's more!
It's important to understand that licensing cost is only a small part of the overall decision-making process for customers.
Talk about TCO!
Problem:
People make the mistake of letting Windows NT suggest the default Pagefile size for your system.
Spin:
Configuring Linux security requires an administrator to be an expert in the intricacies of the operating system and how components interact.
Hmm, sounds like NT administrators have more to worry about than security.
Problem:
The key to ensuring your two Windows NT computers can communicate is to make sure the guest account in user manager is enabled. This is the account that is used when one computer connects to another, with relatively little security--the reason it is disabled by default...The best way to avoid this dilemma is to immediately add your personal user account to the administrators local group of the system. This will make your main user account an administrator of the system, sparing you from heartaches and time later.
Spin:
Linux security is all-or-nothing.
LOL!
Problem:
Windows NT also has somewhat strict software requirements.
Spin:
Linux application support is very limited, meaning that customers end up having to build their own horizontal and vertical applications.
Poh-tae-toh... Poh-tah-toh... sounds like the same article, but we don't need linux advocates to bash windows, the NT users can do it!
Problem:
I don't recommend applying the latest service pack unless you are having some problems because in many cases a service pack can cause a bug that didn't previously exist
Spin:
Linux system administrators must spend huge amounts of time understanding the latest Linux bugs and determining what to do about them.
At least we don't have to test our own OS to be sure a problem exists.
Problem:
Many people make the mistake of using a cloning utility, such as Ghost, in order to make copies of Windows NT for their network computers.
Spin:
Today with Windows NT 4.0, customers can be confident in delivering applications that are scalable, secure, and reliable--yet cost effective to deploy and manage.
So, while you can clone an install for most linux boxes... you can't even clone NT boxes! Ahhhhahaha, cost-effective distribution... right.
Your hotmail account and webpage are simply another abstraction of anonymity. Do you disagree? Now how does that give authenticity, accountability, reality?
;-> did you click on the link? yup... (nice 2.2.12 kernel) did you keep digging? no! you didn't get past the host's page and make it to my first personal page... it takes 8 clicks to read about my first girlfriend, after the third click if you can't figure out what my @wsu.edu email address is you really don't need to be emailing my unfiltered account... now let's keep going... stop at my first personal page and go 3 clicks in a more obscure direction and you can get my full name, from there one stop at www.wsu.edu -> "phone & e-mail directories" and you have my home phone number...
abstract that... there's a difference between putting your info on a billboard and leaving it in a nice 500 page phonebook...
It be hard to convince me that it wasn't written to incite a response (i.e. troll).
*ghasp* oooo nooooooooOOooo! making conversation! guilty as charged!! A troll on the other hand incites a decidedly _negative_ response. Trolling is infectious; see how nice and cheery I've become responding to your critiques?
and you seem to have taken a few things for granted, such as the scope of the article (mentioning various languages, that's what they're interested in right?)... I never said that a full university _would_ train every student in 5 languages but that it should have the facillities (remember, I'm taking courses not required by the cirriculum)
hmmm, I thought this post was amusing. I did have a heck of a time going through honors calc 3 my first semester with a bunch of sophomores, and my first advisor didn't give a damn about me.
That's what I call an informative AC post.
I don't know why anyone's so insane to take a pricy private college for their undergrad work.
*snort* CMU... based on the influx of CMU student's opinions I'm not too impressed, and I don't think that paying through the nose should be prerequisite to attending school. CMU cost of attendance estimates are 4x here, with tuition 10x WSU's. Sure, if I didn't mind borrowing 4x what I will be now, and could find a part-time on-campus job that paid $60/hr it would be comprable.
WSU is _far_ from perfect. Upper administration here can kiss my ass, and may end up doing that after I graduate (they have a high alumni giving rate to maintain).
There is only one class in the CS department that teaches students how to code.
150 here, at a school where it isn't a waste of 2 credits to learn perl, or an API. That's about $180 after books plus 30 hours in class, 10 to 20 hours out (depending on how callenged you are). So an equivalent value of 70 hours (very conservative estimate). Could any undergraduate pick up their second language in less than 70 hours?
I just had to laugh at your MS interview.
I laugh at it all the time. Especially when people tell me how proud of getting one, but isn't it that nice to have one as a Frosh?
Your 360 isn't exactly what I would call a hard or challenging class.
It could be if you didn't know how to code. Remember what the prereq is? 250... that no one learns a quip about coding in. So a few weeks of review are used to quell the dropout rate and then we're into business.
I never said it was challenging... and we haven't gone by the Steven's book so far. Everything's been at the lowest level, for my mkfs I use open() read() write()... that's all. None of the nice library functions in that book to use.
Sure, if you can learn the low level workings of a UNIX filesystem and process management allongside basic x86 assembly in a trade school, then sign me up.
You learn ML because it is allows many things to be done so simply and elegantly.
Just about what I was saying, BUT how do you write a for loop in ML... something like this?
Strongly typed and good for such stuff yes... but a practical language? By no means, but good for theory.
AC postings often have the most intelligent, informative and insightful comments.
Not based on my experience. While you're free to ciriticize from the shadows, free of any accountability, Just another faceless trolling AC... I'm responding with no mask on.
I'm sure you're familliar with the theory that internet chat participants easily detach from their actions. The internet becomes a fantasy realm for their exploits. Feel empowered? Feel unaccountable? Sure, you're an AC and I'm not. It takes half a brain to get my private e-mail address and webpage. There's me, all of me. Authenticity, accountability, reality. Nothing less. I like to talk to people, not their egos.
Hmm, maybe I just didn't mention the theory.
the C class (150) is data structures, here we learned the basics: , then in 250 (C++) we learned all sorts of dynamic structures (lists, trees, trees) unfortunately theory focused classes become extremely *convoluted*. 250 is a revolving door for doctoral sudents who've forgotten to code. My final project was vaporware. It had great theory, lots of crap about the eventual failure of near-prime public key cryptogrophy and how it might be possible to circumvent this with the particular implimentation of R. Rivest's "Winnowing and Chafing" setup. I also skipped half the labs. I also bullsh***ed my way into a Microsoft interview. I bet MS employees have a great theory repetoire and the WinNT system must have a beautiful design, but it doesn't always work.
In fact we talked about this kind of stuff alot in 350 (afforementioned program design). So theory-based was 250 (the only prereq for 350) that everyone's final project for 350 fell on it's ass. 250 is theory based, and a JOKE. In 360 (adv unix proramming - filesystems) the prof quipped at how 250 students are clueless.
Good thing 250 is changing. A few key individuals make all the difference. Both are industry veterans who have come back for their MS. A code-based 250 (both in the lab and in the classroom) make all the difference. I audited the 250 lab to get back in the swing of things, and learned a hell of a lot more than I did when I actually took the class (got a B).
I'd rather work with a bunch of other students who can actually code, rather than put out a sublime design. In 360 there is no partial credit. There is no credit for nice looking code, or a fancy design. Sure I can add usage messages and fully adhere to data abstraction... and waste a few hours turning what is a global variable into every function's parameters and then get no credit because it just doesn't work.
Theory is for those who know how to code, but C++ isn't even suited for such things. Truly OO based languages (smalltalk/java) are better suited to such things. Ok, _what_ reason is there to learn ml? To use a strongly typed language and be able to code discrete math principles directly, not worrying about the nittpicky bugs. You've got to learn a whole new language to even _get_ to the theory. Then you've got to waste that time in class or in the 4 year plan to teach another language... and freshmen are clueless. 99% of 150 students have never coded. Sound like a good reason to save heavy theory out of the first two years of the cirriculum?
Also, you could contribute some original criticism rather than something that's been posted under this story about fifty times allready.
BTW... *GET AN ACCOUNT*
LOL!
In my calculus lab Red Hat was recently installed (seems WSU is trying to save some cash by trashing their Unix lisences). I switch virtual terminals out of X (they boot at init 4), telnet to our mail server, open an xterm (not available in their fvwm95 startmenu) and the whole section knows me as "that hacker guy". Nevermind that being fluent in C syntax I don't struggle with mathematica.
Then my group members ask what hacking is about, and they choke on the buzzwords. Chances are that MTV is targeting the 95% of the class that has no clue. This helps convince me that no matter how "jet set" popular culture percieves us as. Geek culture will never be a pop culture icon.
So far I've taken the standards C, C++, program design, advanced unix programming (filesystems so far). In addition I've taken Perl, Win32 API, and Unix Systems Administration. Next semester I'll probably take java, and in the next few years I'll probably be exposed to ml (ick!), smalltalk, 3d graphics, kernel hacking, and this is just undergraduate work. Of course I'm taking more than the standard cirriculum, and I'm not mentioning the hundreds of MIS classes (web page creation, asp, MSCE, and all sorts of internet commerce stuff).
I think these sort of requirements are (or should be!) standard for any _full_ university, but they're not. I suppose any college in the top 30 (WSU was 25 and UW was 10 when I applied) for Computer Science should get you most of this stuff.
FYI I did read the article, however you will also note that on simmilar threads I have posted questioning followers of linux blindness (remember his management quip about how ISDN support maintainers get off their ass and get the product out the door?)