...technology was neither good nor evil, but inherently tragic. Why tragic? There can be no doubt that technology is neither good nor evil, but to describe it as 'tragic' is the ultimate glass-is-half-empty sort of outlook. For a start, what is technology? As far as I'm concerned, it's the use of any tool to help in a task. That tool can be a stick, a rock, a (shudder) NT box or an ICBM. All of these can be used for evil, but consider that we wouldn't have made it to the moon without technology that was first used to blow the shit out of people. A better question to ask, imho, would be 'why do so many (ie most) people, if pushed, view technology as tyrranical? Would these people change their minds if they were shown that everything (everything) they do is a result of technology or involves its use.
I also spent a few minutes wondering how Disneyland fit into this. Then it hit me... tax breaks. Jon's been reading Dave Barry
I, too, am heartily sick of all the pseudo-reportage and punditry that's abound over the last week. It all boils down to the same thing.
The judge is {right|wrong} This isn't over. Nobody knows what microsoft or the DoJ will do next.
Print this comment out, and the next time you're tempted to read some cogno-intellectual claptrap masquerading as insight, just glue it to the monitor.
s their going to be some change in the attitude toward open-source? A better question might be 'how will it affect red hat linux?' I see nothing fundamentally wrong with red hat continuing its dedication to open source through linux, and operating in a more conventional, proprietary environment for other software, at least in the short term. Obviously I'd like to see everything go open source, but I'm not going to jump on the anti-red-hat bandwagon if they don't do it immediately.
This one took me totally by surprise; I'd sort of assumed that the FoF was an interim step, and that all decisions for the next ten years were going to be appealed. This would have made the whole series of trials pointless; as MS pointed out, the computer sector moves fast, and by the time the supremes got their hands on the case, it would've been irrelevent. Now it looks like we may see a resolution; my bet this means MS will have to settle.
Lawyers, I suppose, justify their fees by the number of 'cease-and-desists' they issue. I can think of no other reason for this; there's no point whatsoever in trying to force stuff off the internet. Of course, if they spammed every internet user with their little threats, they might get as much as 10% of the existing copies off the net. But banned code is like the hydra; cut off one head and two more sitez appear. Now that it's underground, will we have to refer to it as CZZ?
Despite the number of offtopic or flamebait comments,/. does represent a significant base of people who are able to think, and who can express their ideas. Therefore it's entirely reasonable for news stories to quote slashdotters. Journos read/. for the same reason I do; to get the opinions (and points of view) of others. I've had to change my opinion on several topics based on information or POVs of others, and I hope I've convinced one or two people to consider my position on various topics. As for taking the piss out of ACs: if I were writing an article which featured/. comments, I wouldn't be able to resist doing it either.
Ok, how has he helped the Open source movement, other than by uniting them in a common cause against MS? Maybe it's a joke? But if it's not, I'd really love to see him win for precicely the reason you mentioned. "Ladies and Gentlemen, the this year the award goes to a villain so evil, so crapulent that he's brought us all together. His shitty software is a clarion call to aesthetic programmers everywhere, and we'd like to take this opportunity to embrace Bill and extend the hand of friendship to a man without whom we would all be a bunch of anarchists ranting about the CIA on streetcorners. "Ladies and Gentlemen... Bill Gates"
But would he accept the award in person or just send Ballmer along?
It's inevitable when lists like this are announced that people will take up bandwidth saying 'thank you' to people they've never met. Far be it from me to spit in the face of such tradition.
Free software has made my life as a sysadmin immeasurably easier, thanks to the lovely people who were nominated (or who won previously). If it were possible, I'd invite you all around to my place for a mug of coffee and to play with my Mindstorms. But it's not, so I'll just say that it's thanks to you all that I've got time most days to post to slashdot.
My favourite line: The Court recognized in paragraph 408 of its findings that consumers have benefited from Microsoft's actions This is, of course, true; making IE a freebie did -- in the shortest of terms -- help the consumer. But what about paragraphs 1 - 407? And 409 - x? There seems to be no quote from any of those.
On a differentish topic: did anyone see Bill delivering his speech on the news? He paused, stumbled... typical nerdly actions, but not the sort of behaviour he normally exhibits (on, say the Paxman interview). So was he rattled or (possibly more likely) playing to the audience?
It's not something I'd looked at yet, but I'd sort of assumed that there was some sort of VPN available for Linux. If there isn't, I would have expected this lack to form a major chunk of MS's Linux Myths. Did I miss it? Or is there a VPN available independent of ipchains? Just wondering.
What is so difficult about understanding that free software means you have freedoms attached to it? Nothing whatsoever; I understand completely the meaning as intended. My point was that a word is defined by its usage, regardless of the intentions of whomever coined it. For example: most people on this list know that Windows 95 isn't an operating system; it's a graphic overlay that's integrated (to a certain extent) with its OS. If it were a true OS, it wouldn't (for example) have occasional problems with himem.sys and memory > 640k. However, it's marketed as an OS, and it's so called by pretty much everyone who uses it. In the strict sense, it's an application. Just like in the strict sense, OS != free. I don't flame people who call windows an OS; nor do I bother correcting people who talk about free-as-in-beer software.
Thanks, it was even funnier the second time, no, really. I'm a blues singer. We sing every line twice. Yeah, we blues singers, we sing every line twice.
Wow, imagine a chip in your John Thomas (female hackers excepted) that you could use during sex. A slight electric shock at the right moment... And of course, if you used Windows, you'd never have any problems going down.
Wow, imagine a chip in your John Thomas (female hackers excepted) that you could use during sex. A slight electric shock at the moment... And of course, if you used Windows, you'd never have any problems going down.
Hackvan (cool name) does have a point about the meaning of free software; in a lot of respects it's similar to the 'hack vs crack' debate. Since I first got my ZX81, 'free software' meant I didn't have to pay for it. Even today, linux-usin' zealot that I am, I'll think of free as meaning 'free beer' unless I'm specifically talking to linux / OSS heads. As has been argued (extensively) elsewhere, a word's meaning is defined by how it's used; hence a hacker breaks into systems, and free software is stuff you don't pay for.
I should point out at this stage that I'm a big fan of OSS and/or free software, and of Stallman's sterling work. But 'free' is as open to misunderstanding and misinterpretation as 'open source'; in fact, even more so because 'free' already enjoys currency in the context of software, and has done for longer than the free software movement.
So I say Open Source. Stallman says tomayto. If he pushes his case for long enough, I may end up saying tomayto as well. But given the popularity of 'open source' among the mainstream press, I don't think I'll be saying it anytime soon.
Basically you have to resort to tricks like virtual desktops I don't consider virtual desktops to be a 'trick'. I did as a windows user, but with linux (perhaps simply because I've gotten used to them), I find them indispensible and ridiculously easy to use.
I want to be able to organize my windows in a hierarchy Hrm. I'm currently using four different desktops for four discrete tasks; there are multiple windows on some of these but most of them have only a single window. Any heiararchy I imposed on these would be entirely arbitrary, mostly unhelpful and probably a waste of time. Granted, your use may be different, but I don't see any advantage to 3d desktops. Of course, when one with a proper 3d interface (one that ignores all prevailing 2d paradigms) comes along, I may well change my mind.
Add to that a title with an "e-" in the name of it, and I'm VERY skeptical I know what you mean. The reason that so many internet IPOs are so ridiculously overvalued is that at the moment no-one has a clue what way ecommerce is going to go. Everyone knows that eyeballs have a lot to do with it, but after that everything's guesswork. The exemplar used to be Amazon, but it's no longer a book shop, and I rarely use it for anything other than for books I definitely want; browsing is definitely out of the question. The current model seems to be 'find a niche, then when you've got a pretty decent customer base start selling everything', but no-one actually knows whether this will prove effective. Books that tell you more than how to go about setting up the infrastructure and the logistics of internet advertising is guessing. And your guess is at least as good as theirs.
Why is this a good thing? I don't understand your argument. As far as I was concerned, this bill was a good thing. Arguments will follow if no-one else leaps in...
Its creators are not mad scientists but Ph.D.s. This reporter obviously doesn't know much about mad scientists.
The Navy loved robofly. It also loved robolobster, now being built at Northeastern University, and robopike, which swims in a tank at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They were also very impressed by Robocop, a 1990 film that may well be one of the best movies of all time.
And this bit I didn't understand at all. Can someone elucidate? But why a fly? Why not something with a little more pizzazz like, say, a dragonfly? Two reasons, said Ron Fearing, the top gun behind the micromechanical flying insect. First, dragonflies have four wings.
``That automatically doubles the complexity of the project,'' Fearing said.
As I read it, it isn't using credit cards; it's using its own 'register and get a pin' system that can use credit cards, but doesn't necessarily. But it begs the questions
What happens when an aussie tries to access my site (which contains the w*rd 'fuck') which isn't in Australia?
How many minutes would it take for 'cypherpunk/cypherpunk' type logins made it around the country? There's no provision (that I can see) for prosecuting fakers. And if they did include some sort of prohibition, it'd be unenforcable unless you were willing to throw the book at anyone whose PIN got out accidentally (say through keylogging on a public terminal).
It's unworkable, and will eventually be scrapped or replaced by another unworkable system.
Slashdot Mirror
...technology was neither good nor evil, but inherently tragic.
Why tragic? There can be no doubt that technology is neither good nor evil, but to describe it as 'tragic' is the ultimate glass-is-half-empty sort of outlook.
For a start, what is technology? As far as I'm concerned, it's the use of any tool to help in a task. That tool can be a stick, a rock, a (shudder) NT box or an ICBM. All of these can be used for evil, but consider that we wouldn't have made it to the moon without technology that was first used to blow the shit out of people.
A better question to ask, imho, would be 'why do so many (ie most) people, if pushed, view technology as tyrranical? Would these people change their minds if they were shown that everything (everything) they do is a result of technology or involves its use.
I also spent a few minutes wondering how Disneyland fit into this. Then it hit me... tax breaks. Jon's been reading Dave Barry
I, too, am heartily sick of all the pseudo-reportage and punditry that's abound over the last week.
It all boils down to the same thing.
The judge is {right|wrong}
This isn't over.
Nobody knows what microsoft or the DoJ will do next.
Print this comment out, and the next time you're tempted to read some cogno-intellectual claptrap masquerading as insight, just glue it to the monitor.
It's only a matter of time before we can get an Aibo that'll shit on your carpet then email you to tell you about it.
s their going to be some change in the attitude toward open-source?
A better question might be 'how will it affect red hat linux?' I see nothing fundamentally wrong with red hat continuing its dedication to open source through linux, and operating in a more conventional, proprietary environment for other software, at least in the short term. Obviously I'd like to see everything go open source, but I'm not going to jump on the anti-red-hat bandwagon if they don't do it immediately.
This one took me totally by surprise; I'd sort of assumed that the FoF was an interim step, and that all decisions for the next ten years were going to be appealed. This would have made the whole series of trials pointless; as MS pointed out, the computer sector moves fast, and by the time the supremes got their hands on the case, it would've been irrelevent.
Now it looks like we may see a resolution; my bet this means MS will have to settle.
Lawyers, I suppose, justify their fees by the number of 'cease-and-desists' they issue. I can think of no other reason for this; there's no point whatsoever in trying to force stuff off the internet.
Of course, if they spammed every internet user with their little threats, they might get as much as 10% of the existing copies off the net. But banned code is like the hydra; cut off one head and two more sitez appear.
Now that it's underground, will we have to refer to it as CZZ?
Despite the number of offtopic or flamebait comments, /. does represent a significant base of people who are able to think, and who can express their ideas. Therefore it's entirely reasonable for news stories to quote slashdotters. /. for the same reason I do; to get the opinions (and points of view) of others. I've had to change my opinion on several topics based on information or POVs of others, and I hope I've convinced one or two people to consider my position on various topics. /. comments, I wouldn't be able to resist doing it either.
Journos read
As for taking the piss out of ACs: if I were writing an article which featured
Ok, how has he helped the Open source movement, other than by uniting them in a common cause against MS?
Maybe it's a joke? But if it's not, I'd really love to see him win for precicely the reason you mentioned.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, the this year the award goes to a villain so evil, so crapulent that he's brought us all together. His shitty software is a clarion call to aesthetic programmers everywhere, and we'd like to take this opportunity to embrace Bill and extend the hand of friendship to a man without whom we would all be a bunch of anarchists ranting about the CIA on streetcorners.
"Ladies and Gentlemen... Bill Gates"
But would he accept the award in person or just send Ballmer along?
It's inevitable when lists like this are announced that people will take up bandwidth saying 'thank you' to people they've never met.
Far be it from me to spit in the face of such tradition.
Free software has made my life as a sysadmin immeasurably easier, thanks to the lovely people who were nominated (or who won previously). If it were possible, I'd invite you all around to my place for a mug of coffee and to play with my Mindstorms. But it's not, so I'll just say that it's thanks to you all that I've got time most days to post to slashdot.
My favourite line:
The Court recognized in paragraph 408 of its findings that consumers have benefited from Microsoft's actions
This is, of course, true; making IE a freebie did -- in the shortest of terms -- help the consumer. But what about paragraphs 1 - 407? And 409 - x? There seems to be no quote from any of those.
On a differentish topic: did anyone see Bill delivering his speech on the news? He paused, stumbled... typical nerdly actions, but not the sort of behaviour he normally exhibits (on, say the Paxman interview). So was he rattled or (possibly more likely) playing to the audience?
It's not something I'd looked at yet, but I'd sort of assumed that there was some sort of VPN available for Linux. If there isn't, I would have expected this lack to form a major chunk of MS's Linux Myths. Did I miss it? Or is there a VPN available independent of ipchains?
Just wondering.
What is so difficult about understanding that free software means you have freedoms attached to it?
Nothing whatsoever; I understand completely the meaning as intended. My point was that a word is defined by its usage, regardless of the intentions of whomever coined it.
For example: most people on this list know that Windows 95 isn't an operating system; it's a graphic overlay that's integrated (to a certain extent) with its OS. If it were a true OS, it wouldn't (for example) have occasional problems with himem.sys and memory > 640k. However, it's marketed as an OS, and it's so called by pretty much everyone who uses it.
In the strict sense, it's an application. Just like in the strict sense, OS != free.
I don't flame people who call windows an OS; nor do I bother correcting people who talk about free-as-in-beer software.
Thanks, it was even funnier the second time, no, really.
I'm a blues singer. We sing every line twice.
Yeah, we blues singers, we sing every line twice.
Wow, imagine a chip in your John Thomas (female hackers excepted) that you could use during sex. A slight electric shock at the right moment...
And of course, if you used Windows, you'd never have any problems going down.
Wow, imagine a chip in your John Thomas (female hackers excepted) that you could use during sex. A slight electric shock at the moment...
And of course, if you used Windows, you'd never have any problems going down.
Hackvan (cool name) does have a point about the meaning of free software; in a lot of respects it's similar to the 'hack vs crack' debate.
Since I first got my ZX81, 'free software' meant I didn't have to pay for it. Even today, linux-usin' zealot that I am, I'll think of free as meaning 'free beer' unless I'm specifically talking to linux / OSS heads.
As has been argued (extensively) elsewhere, a word's meaning is defined by how it's used; hence a hacker breaks into systems, and free software is stuff you don't pay for.
I should point out at this stage that I'm a big fan of OSS and/or free software, and of Stallman's sterling work. But 'free' is as open to misunderstanding and misinterpretation as 'open source'; in fact, even more so because 'free' already enjoys currency in the context of software, and has done for longer than the free software movement.
So I say Open Source. Stallman says tomayto. If he pushes his case for long enough, I may end up saying tomayto as well. But given the popularity of 'open source' among the mainstream press, I don't think I'll be saying it anytime soon.
Basically you have to resort to tricks like virtual desktops
I don't consider virtual desktops to be a 'trick'. I did as a windows user, but with linux (perhaps simply because I've gotten used to them), I find them indispensible and ridiculously easy to use.
I want to be able to organize my windows in a hierarchy
Hrm. I'm currently using four different desktops for four discrete tasks; there are multiple windows on some of these but most of them have only a single window. Any heiararchy I imposed on these would be entirely arbitrary, mostly unhelpful and probably a waste of time. Granted, your use may be different, but I don't see any advantage to 3d desktops. Of course, when one with a proper 3d interface (one that ignores all prevailing 2d paradigms) comes along, I may well change my mind.
Add to that a title with an "e-" in the name of it, and I'm VERY skeptical
I know what you mean. The reason that so many internet IPOs are so ridiculously overvalued is that at the moment no-one has a clue what way ecommerce is going to go. Everyone knows that eyeballs have a lot to do with it, but after that everything's guesswork.
The exemplar used to be Amazon, but it's no longer a book shop, and I rarely use it for anything other than for books I definitely want; browsing is definitely out of the question.
The current model seems to be 'find a niche, then when you've got a pretty decent customer base start selling everything', but no-one actually knows whether this will prove effective.
Books that tell you more than how to go about setting up the infrastructure and the logistics of internet advertising is guessing. And your guess is at least as good as theirs.
I've already got a 4-D window manager. I had great fun coding it; I spent most of next week on it.
Yet utterly cool.
Why is this a good thing? I don't understand your argument.
As far as I was concerned, this bill was a good thing. Arguments will follow if no-one else leaps in...
Its creators are not mad scientists but Ph.D.s.
This reporter obviously doesn't know much about mad scientists.
The Navy loved robofly. It also loved robolobster, now being built at Northeastern University, and robopike, which swims in a tank at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
They were also very impressed by Robocop, a 1990 film that may well be one of the best movies of all time.
And this bit I didn't understand at all. Can someone elucidate?
But why a fly? Why not something with a little more pizzazz like, say, a dragonfly?
Two reasons, said Ron Fearing, the top gun behind the micromechanical flying insect. First, dragonflies have four wings.
``That automatically doubles the complexity of the project,'' Fearing said.
So instead they built a fly with four wings.
What happens when an aussie tries to access my site (which contains the w*rd 'fuck') which isn't in Australia?
How many minutes would it take for 'cypherpunk/cypherpunk' type logins made it around the country? There's no provision (that I can see) for prosecuting fakers. And if they did include some sort of prohibition, it'd be unenforcable unless you were willing to throw the book at anyone whose PIN got out accidentally (say through keylogging on a public terminal).
It's unworkable, and will eventually be scrapped or replaced by another unworkable system.
The fourth law of robotics is actually the first amendment; it specifically lets robots squash slugs, lawyers, insects and some species of arachnids.
Saltman versus the slugbots #1 ; great comic. The slugbots never had a chance.
Seriously, though. A robot that draws its power from the decomposing bodies of its victims. How cool is that?