This could be the precursor to the BSA becoming an NGO, a multinational organization that is not restricted by the governance of any particular nation. Something like the WTO, but on a smaller scale. The NGO phenomena is really a fascinating aspect of International Relations in that they cause all kinds of problems because they are difficult to regulate. In a sense, future incarnations of the BSA (likely merged with similar European organizations) could become a semi-independent entity that has world-wide authority over software licensing and usage.
Reliable Truth on the Web?
on
Disinformation.com
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The great promise of the Net and Web has always been more truth
In the words of Mike Haggar, have my ears gone insane? All the Web has ever offered as it became popular are 10,000 different versions of the truth. As wrong as The Media can get things sometimes, it's simply fantasy to think that the Internet has it any better. In fact, it's probably worse because at least in the mainstream media their profile is high enough that when misinformation is caught, it is brought to light and reputations are tarnished. I know this has happened to some of the news shows on the tube. On the Web it's every man for himself and there is no penalty for misinformation. It always worries me when people say, "Guess what I read on the Internet..."
I would agree with you up to a point. The most persuasive argument I've heard on this subject of 'mere beasts' comes from Walker Percy (Lost in the Cosmos, Message in a Bottle). Reading his discussion of language, specifically semiotics, is so profound that you must admit, at the very least, human kind are radically different that animals simply because we have the capacity for language as distinguished from communication. You'd have to read him for that last statement to make any sesne.
this individuality and freedom -- much of it empowered by the same technology that has eroded work security -- will create a new kind of global citizen, one who is better informed, more communicative and civically-involved than before. He foresees a more inclusive kind of transnational society, with less nationalism and provincialism. The alternative facing the world is either collapse or political self-renewal, and he foresees the latter.
Where does this come from? How about the other option, the dot.com bust was just the beginning of a severe economic downturn, heightened by Enron (as the nation's 7th largest company) collapse. That, coupled with the increasingly nomadic and unstable work force, ends up eroding the major economic foundations, plunging us into a global depression. It seems to me that this is just as likely as the conclusion this book supposedly makes.
Is this really news? I mean, come one, Google Zeitgeist has been reporting on browser access statistics for over a year now and it's CLEARLY Internet Explorer with the HUGE majority of use. Anyone simply looking at the corporate world can see this. My guess would be that the most reliable statistic on Linux use on the desktop would be the number of unique visitors to/. excluding a small percentage of those who are forced to sneak in a few minutes of/. from their Windoze box at work. And Will Wheaton.
...they never could get my favorite commercial anyway. Remember 'Dog's Worst Day' from Super Bowl 2000 (Rams - Titans). Budweiser commercial with the dog on the set of the Western movie. I laughed for 15 solid minutes.
I did some contract work for zapmedia a while back (before they layed off 2/3 of their work force) and I was unimpressed by the zapstation. It was too expensive, buggy, and hard to navigate/use. Of course, I'm sure they've solved a lot of the problems they were dealing with. But the main problem is that there is a discrepancy between what you have the functionality to do and what you actually CAN do with the zapstation. Example, at least when I was there the concept was to have content providers serving up all the material. Well, what they were getting was basically crap. Like I said, maybe they've done a lot since then, but just consider that back then they were talking about releasing it at $300 a pop. I doubt they added $1200 worth of value to it.
This one is --deadly-- on the mail services. Unfortunately, only the virus defs. from TODAY (12/4, at least for Norton) can detect the bastard. On W2k you can kill the process, but on 9x you're screwed because it, of course, edits the registry and starts on bootup. It will actually keep the outlook.exe process running as well, pumping out the email, even if you exit the Outlook program.
Also deletes personal firewall software and anti-virus software. Full list here.
Katz once again has discovered his own nose. The issue of Globalization is AGE OLD, but Katz seems to want us to believe he invented the idea, or at least that he is on the cutting edge. Globalization is something that was noticed by Nietszche for crying out loud and has been talked about for literaly over a hundred years. Come on Katz, if you're going to pretend to be origninal don't insult our intelligence by being so OBVIOUSLY in the debt of other, much more astute writers.
It seems like they're just delaying the inevitable to me (seriously not trolling here). You simply don't file bankruptcy of any kind unless you are in dire straits. I'm rooting for them all the way, but no matter how you spin it chapter 11 = seriously troubled company.
I was rather mystified by the moderations myself. I tried to right the wrong with my own measily 5 points (which I'm giving up by posting this), but I'm sorry I couldn't make much of a difference there.
Funny, weren't we just reading the obituary of Linux on the desktop?
Do I really need to remind anyone of the huge difference between PDA functionality and that required on a desktop? IMHO, Linux is a fantastic OS for a PDA because it can be condensed to a very small image and is almost completely reliable. The reason that Linux struggles for desktop use is due to the sheer complexity of the thing. We geeks often times do not appreciate that the simplistic Windows is greek to many end users and for them Linux is beyond impossible. PDA use, on the other hand, is different. Speed and efficiency are all important and you never have to see a shell prompt. Linux is best for PDA's, embedded devices, and small servers. This is a good thing!
I must make the observation that I see Slashdot changing. When I began posting several years ago, to suggest that Windows even had it's benefits would result in Troll / Flamebait moding. Now, slashdotters seem to have grown up and are taking a more objective look at the issues. Kudos to you!
This may be slightly off topic, but this irked me.
Did you think Tauzin might represent a predominantly Cajun district in Louisiana, and would thus consider French as an appropriate language to use on his web site?
I think I'll implement dynamic payment. That 1,200 check is in the mail! uh...uhh...wait a minute...I changed my mind. Here's 1,000. Did I say 1,000? I meant $800. Hey, if they can do it, why can't I?
I am the IT Manager for an first-tier higher education institution and I must say I have mixed feelings about the contributions of multimedia to the classroom. Oddly enough, it seems the backlash against using multimedia has come not from the professor, but from the students. The most rudamentary form of multimedia, Power Point, is often viewed as giving professors an excuse to not actually teach the material. We also have $25,000 multimedia classrooms that, even when they work properly, usually take more time getting everything set up than actually assisting anyone teach. I remember not too many years ago that the solution to education deficiences was "give them computers!" instead of "train better teachers!" At least in the educational environment, multimedia has had mixed results.
Her answer was that programs were beautiful in and of themselves, that they could represent scientific research, that they could be poems, and that they could do things -- their functional nature
This really seems like a stretch. I can't help but think that there is a better way to go about arguing the case than from the Second Ammendment. At some level this should be a public policy issue, not necessarily simply a legal one. I guess in the context of the court room you would have to use this type of argument from legal prcedent, but shouldn't the real decision be made upon what is the best overall policy? IMHO the best argument against the DMCA is made on a pragmatic economic base. It is actually better for capitalist economies (i.e. drives competition) if you deregulate such things. I'm not sure I am convinced by this, finally, but it is at least better than some kind of fuzzy argument about the beauty of code.
I completely agree with this, and there are indeed quite a number of factors. How about the lack of prestige in support positions? That is, who in their right mind sees "help desk worker" as a desireable career? There really is no motivation to do a good job. If you get fired, who cares? You can make about as much, if not more, working at McDonalds or any retail store and without all the abuse. Katz, and I think he does this often, merely says 'hey, there's a mountain' when it's obvious to all with eyes.
I guess this brings up my real question. If you have to have 8,000 servers to run a web site with Linux, is the $ you save in OS related expenses worth the amount of money you have to spend on hardware? I wonder how many, say, Sun servers you would have to have to equal 8,000 Linux servers. Not as much? Dare I say Microsoft may even be less expensive?
I wonder what kind of information Google has about the deficiencies of the Linux TCP/IP stack? Certainly with 8,000 servers they could have some input as to how the lack of mult-threading has affects performance on a major site. I know that the most recent kernels and Apache versions were suposed to have dealt with this issue, but has anyone seen such a large scale experiment?
But why is the rest of the world pissed off? It's because the US is using it's success. There are a lot of people in the world that would like to see the US fail. But they continue to buy our products by the billions and support the UN that the US basically controls. The US still has an economy that is twice the size of any other single state. The only way the US will ever be challenged economically is if the EU manages to unify to such an extent that it can muster it's collective economic power. And that time is a long way off.
Remember, there is a point where you get so powerful, you don't need that many friends. Europe will still go along with just about anything the US says. They may complain, certainly, but they never refuse to cooperate.
Slashdot Mirror
This could be the precursor to the BSA becoming an NGO, a multinational organization that is not restricted by the governance of any particular nation. Something like the WTO, but on a smaller scale. The NGO phenomena is really a fascinating aspect of International Relations in that they cause all kinds of problems because they are difficult to regulate. In a sense, future incarnations of the BSA (likely merged with similar European organizations) could become a semi-independent entity that has world-wide authority over software licensing and usage.
In the words of Mike Haggar, have my ears gone insane? All the Web has ever offered as it became popular are 10,000 different versions of the truth. As wrong as The Media can get things sometimes, it's simply fantasy to think that the Internet has it any better. In fact, it's probably worse because at least in the mainstream media their profile is high enough that when misinformation is caught, it is brought to light and reputations are tarnished. I know this has happened to some of the news shows on the tube. On the Web it's every man for himself and there is no penalty for misinformation. It always worries me when people say, "Guess what I read on the Internet..."
I would agree with you up to a point. The most persuasive argument I've heard on this subject of 'mere beasts' comes from Walker Percy (Lost in the Cosmos, Message in a Bottle). Reading his discussion of language, specifically semiotics, is so profound that you must admit, at the very least, human kind are radically different that animals simply because we have the capacity for language as distinguished from communication. You'd have to read him for that last statement to make any sesne.
Where does this come from? How about the other option, the dot.com bust was just the beginning of a severe economic downturn, heightened by Enron (as the nation's 7th largest company) collapse. That, coupled with the increasingly nomadic and unstable work force, ends up eroding the major economic foundations, plunging us into a global depression. It seems to me that this is just as likely as the conclusion this book supposedly makes.
Is this really news? I mean, come one, Google Zeitgeist has been reporting on browser access statistics for over a year now and it's CLEARLY Internet Explorer with the HUGE majority of use. Anyone simply looking at the corporate world can see this. My guess would be that the most reliable statistic on Linux use on the desktop would be the number of unique visitors to /. excluding a small percentage of those who are forced to sneak in a few minutes of /. from their Windoze box at work. And Will Wheaton.
...they never could get my favorite commercial anyway. Remember 'Dog's Worst Day' from Super Bowl 2000 (Rams - Titans). Budweiser commercial with the dog on the set of the Western movie. I laughed for 15 solid minutes.
I did some contract work for zapmedia a while back (before they layed off 2/3 of their work force) and I was unimpressed by the zapstation. It was too expensive, buggy, and hard to navigate/use. Of course, I'm sure they've solved a lot of the problems they were dealing with. But the main problem is that there is a discrepancy between what you have the functionality to do and what you actually CAN do with the zapstation. Example, at least when I was there the concept was to have content providers serving up all the material. Well, what they were getting was basically crap. Like I said, maybe they've done a lot since then, but just consider that back then they were talking about releasing it at $300 a pop. I doubt they added $1200 worth of value to it.
This one is --deadly-- on the mail services. Unfortunately, only the virus defs. from TODAY (12/4, at least for Norton) can detect the bastard. On W2k you can kill the process, but on 9x you're screwed because it, of course, edits the registry and starts on bootup. It will actually keep the outlook.exe process running as well, pumping out the email, even if you exit the Outlook program.
Also deletes personal firewall software and anti-virus software. Full list here.
Katz once again has discovered his own nose. The issue of Globalization is AGE OLD, but Katz seems to want us to believe he invented the idea, or at least that he is on the cutting edge. Globalization is something that was noticed by Nietszche for crying out loud and has been talked about for literaly over a hundred years. Come on Katz, if you're going to pretend to be origninal don't insult our intelligence by being so OBVIOUSLY in the debt of other, much more astute writers.
Note to /. Include -1 No Sense of Humor option in next version of slash code.
It seems like they're just delaying the inevitable to me (seriously not trolling here). You simply don't file bankruptcy of any kind unless you are in dire straits. I'm rooting for them all the way, but no matter how you spin it chapter 11 = seriously troubled company.
Something a lot more funny that I can come up with to be sure.
---Romero, try not to be such a goddamn fruit!---
I was rather mystified by the moderations myself. I tried to right the wrong with my own measily 5 points (which I'm giving up by posting this), but I'm sorry I couldn't make much of a difference there.
Do I really need to remind anyone of the huge difference between PDA functionality and that required on a desktop? IMHO, Linux is a fantastic OS for a PDA because it can be condensed to a very small image and is almost completely reliable. The reason that Linux struggles for desktop use is due to the sheer complexity of the thing. We geeks often times do not appreciate that the simplistic Windows is greek to many end users and for them Linux is beyond impossible. PDA use, on the other hand, is different. Speed and efficiency are all important and you never have to see a shell prompt. Linux is best for PDA's, embedded devices, and small servers. This is a good thing!
I must make the observation that I see Slashdot changing. When I began posting several years ago, to suggest that Windows even had it's benefits would result in Troll / Flamebait moding. Now, slashdotters seem to have grown up and are taking a more objective look at the issues. Kudos to you!
Did you think Tauzin might represent a predominantly Cajun district in Louisiana, and would thus consider French as an appropriate language to use on his web site?
I think I'll implement dynamic payment. That 1,200 check is in the mail! uh...uhh...wait a minute...I changed my mind. Here's 1,000. Did I say 1,000? I meant $800. Hey, if they can do it, why can't I?
I am the IT Manager for an first-tier higher education institution and I must say I have mixed feelings about the contributions of multimedia to the classroom. Oddly enough, it seems the backlash against using multimedia has come not from the professor, but from the students. The most rudamentary form of multimedia, Power Point, is often viewed as giving professors an excuse to not actually teach the material. We also have $25,000 multimedia classrooms that, even when they work properly, usually take more time getting everything set up than actually assisting anyone teach. I remember not too many years ago that the solution to education deficiences was "give them computers!" instead of "train better teachers!" At least in the educational environment, multimedia has had mixed results.
I'm not saying that good code can't have a kind of beauty to it, I'm just saying it must sound corny as hell in the court room.
Doh, I mean't First Amendment. I know, I know, preview the damn thing.
This really seems like a stretch. I can't help but think that there is a better way to go about arguing the case than from the Second Ammendment. At some level this should be a public policy issue, not necessarily simply a legal one. I guess in the context of the court room you would have to use this type of argument from legal prcedent, but shouldn't the real decision be made upon what is the best overall policy? IMHO the best argument against the DMCA is made on a pragmatic economic base. It is actually better for capitalist economies (i.e. drives competition) if you deregulate such things. I'm not sure I am convinced by this, finally, but it is at least better than some kind of fuzzy argument about the beauty of code.
I completely agree with this, and there are indeed quite a number of factors. How about the lack of prestige in support positions? That is, who in their right mind sees "help desk worker" as a desireable career? There really is no motivation to do a good job. If you get fired, who cares? You can make about as much, if not more, working at McDonalds or any retail store and without all the abuse. Katz, and I think he does this often, merely says 'hey, there's a mountain' when it's obvious to all with eyes.
I guess this brings up my real question. If you have to have 8,000 servers to run a web site with Linux, is the $ you save in OS related expenses worth the amount of money you have to spend on hardware? I wonder how many, say, Sun servers you would have to have to equal 8,000 Linux servers. Not as much? Dare I say Microsoft may even be less expensive?
I wonder what kind of information Google has about the deficiencies of the Linux TCP/IP stack? Certainly with 8,000 servers they could have some input as to how the lack of mult-threading has affects performance on a major site. I know that the most recent kernels and Apache versions were suposed to have dealt with this issue, but has anyone seen such a large scale experiment?
Remember, there is a point where you get so powerful, you don't need that many friends. Europe will still go along with just about anything the US says. They may complain, certainly, but they never refuse to cooperate.