Maybe it would be more likely to say that open source is very rarely directly profitable, but it can produce projects of extraordinary value. The GNU project doesn't put any particular business in a position of advantage over its competitors (since everyone can use it for free), but a lot of companies depend heavily on it.
Oracle probably only cares about maximizing its own profit. One would think that everyone would have learned by now that Google's approach works. Come up with an immensely useful fundamental technology like MapReduce? Provide royalty-free implementations in several languages for the use of the community. The world doesn't get any better if a company hogs good ideas. Nobody's impressed with cold profiteering anymore.
Any sane browser is immune. Browsers shouldn't allow execution of Java code any time you simply click on a link. You should use NoScript or, better yet, just disable the Java plugin altogether except in the rare cases when you need it.
There are a lot more things I don't like about KDE4. It tries to be all integrated, with a common notification daemon for example, so that status messages can appear with a consistent look in the corner of the screen. The problem is that virtually nothing supports it except for KDE apps that start with "K". If you want that sleek, consistent QT4 look, you're limited to a small subset of free software - there are a lot more GTK applications than QT applications. And I'd prefer to be able to use, for example, a different file manager. Without dolphin, you're unable to take advantage of KIO and whatever search index thing that KDE uses. KDE as a whole seems really tightly coupled - I regularly use gnome apps on my XFCE system without having the gnome libs installed. That's unheard of for KDE.
A particular barrier for me to use KDE is a decent web browser. I've used Konqueror for a few months and it's OK, but KHTML became intolerable. Arora (webkit powered) is good but incomplete. I have similar complaints about the usual KDE chat programs, music players, and Konsole.
Well to be fair, I think that's already illegal. Gambling is tightly regulated, and without a license even petty betting such as "I bet you ten bucks x" and office Final Four pools are just as illegal as throwing dice on the street.
Slashdot is mostly centered around the United States. And in case you're unaware, the United States is a bunch of united states with their own separate laws. Not that much is legislated federally; news about Massachusetts law (a particularly influential state, in fact) is as notable as any other legal news.
That wouldn't be a new problem, nor is it a difficult one. State laws in the United States regulate gambling by stuff like the number of tables in play and the number of machines in play, as well as whether the company makes a business out of operating a gambling establishment. Even non-casinos are (and should be) subject to regulation like the rule saying that no purchase can be necessary to enter a contest or else it's legally a lottery.
Also, why would you say that a Warhammer tournament with entrance fees and a big prize should be less regulated than a poker tournament?
I don't know, Itanium seems pretty impressive. This presentation appeared on slashdot awhile ago and does a good job of giving a face to the name Itanium instead of just reading "Failed processor line that was really expensive."
The huge amount of instruction-level parallelism (dependent on a very good compiler) really seems like the best way to do things. It's too bad it doesn't work out in practice.
Re:If you can't handle calculus, science isnt for
on
Help Me Get My Math Back?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
why I switched majors from CompSci - being in a hurry to get a degree in a science and too much bullshit math I'd never use
Wow. Don't hate on it just because you thought "hey I'm 'good with computers' and this major says Computer in it" and got burned by math expectations. If you don't love math, you have no business being in CS. Computer Science is a of field mathematics, not an engineering program where you learn to fix and build computers!
For (potential) CS freshmen, I recommend going through the classic SICP video lectures. It's very appropriate how Sussman says over and over things to the effect of "we don't care how this would actually work, we're studying the theory." If that doesn't excite you, or you think functional programming is stupid and inconvenient, or if you can't follow a word he's saying, for your own good switch to a different major because it only gets harder and more theoretical. That course was given to freshmen. Clearly you weren't a good fit for CS, but that's because you couldn't handle the math, not because it was bullshit you'd never use.
It's really alarming to me how hostile a lot of posters are to academia. A bachelor's degree isn't a fast-track to get into a career, it's a period of academic study. You really have no business claiming that you completed four years of post-secondary study without some basic understanding of math- and calculus is really, really basic.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it would be more likely to say that open source is very rarely directly profitable, but it can produce projects of extraordinary value. The GNU project doesn't put any particular business in a position of advantage over its competitors (since everyone can use it for free), but a lot of companies depend heavily on it.
Oracle probably only cares about maximizing its own profit. One would think that everyone would have learned by now that Google's approach works. Come up with an immensely useful fundamental technology like MapReduce? Provide royalty-free implementations in several languages for the use of the community. The world doesn't get any better if a company hogs good ideas. Nobody's impressed with cold profiteering anymore.
Monopolies unfairly remove competition in the absence of government regulation.
17 hours a day for 60 days? Sorry, I call bullshit.
No, I'm saying that KIO is a mistake because it requires Dolphin instead of being transparent.
Any sane browser is immune. Browsers shouldn't allow execution of Java code any time you simply click on a link. You should use NoScript or, better yet, just disable the Java plugin altogether except in the rare cases when you need it.
In the meantime, your checks bounce and if you lose the dispute then you have a mountain of overdraft charges.
It looks like it's theoretically possible to build firefox with Qt widgets thanks to Nokia, but it's difficult and unstable.
And yes obviously you can just load both Qt and GTK libraries but it's ugly and memory-inefficient.
There are a lot more things I don't like about KDE4. It tries to be all integrated, with a common notification daemon for example, so that status messages can appear with a consistent look in the corner of the screen. The problem is that virtually nothing supports it except for KDE apps that start with "K". If you want that sleek, consistent QT4 look, you're limited to a small subset of free software - there are a lot more GTK applications than QT applications. And I'd prefer to be able to use, for example, a different file manager. Without dolphin, you're unable to take advantage of KIO and whatever search index thing that KDE uses. KDE as a whole seems really tightly coupled - I regularly use gnome apps on my XFCE system without having the gnome libs installed. That's unheard of for KDE.
A particular barrier for me to use KDE is a decent web browser. I've used Konqueror for a few months and it's OK, but KHTML became intolerable. Arora (webkit powered) is good but incomplete. I have similar complaints about the usual KDE chat programs, music players, and Konsole.
Oh please. Almost all of the laws you listed are at best just taken out of a particular application of a more general law.
Well to be fair, I think that's already illegal. Gambling is tightly regulated, and without a license even petty betting such as "I bet you ten bucks x" and office Final Four pools are just as illegal as throwing dice on the street.
Slashdot is mostly centered around the United States. And in case you're unaware, the United States is a bunch of united states with their own separate laws. Not that much is legislated federally; news about Massachusetts law (a particularly influential state, in fact) is as notable as any other legal news.
That wouldn't be a new problem, nor is it a difficult one. State laws in the United States regulate gambling by stuff like the number of tables in play and the number of machines in play, as well as whether the company makes a business out of operating a gambling establishment. Even non-casinos are (and should be) subject to regulation like the rule saying that no purchase can be necessary to enter a contest or else it's legally a lottery.
Also, why would you say that a Warhammer tournament with entrance fees and a big prize should be less regulated than a poker tournament?
I don't know, Itanium seems pretty impressive. This presentation appeared on slashdot awhile ago and does a good job of giving a face to the name Itanium instead of just reading "Failed processor line that was really expensive."
The huge amount of instruction-level parallelism (dependent on a very good compiler) really seems like the best way to do things. It's too bad it doesn't work out in practice.
Wow. Don't hate on it just because you thought "hey I'm 'good with computers' and this major says Computer in it" and got burned by math expectations. If you don't love math, you have no business being in CS. Computer Science is a of field mathematics, not an engineering program where you learn to fix and build computers!
For (potential) CS freshmen, I recommend going through the classic SICP video lectures. It's very appropriate how Sussman says over and over things to the effect of "we don't care how this would actually work, we're studying the theory." If that doesn't excite you, or you think functional programming is stupid and inconvenient, or if you can't follow a word he's saying, for your own good switch to a different major because it only gets harder and more theoretical. That course was given to freshmen. Clearly you weren't a good fit for CS, but that's because you couldn't handle the math, not because it was bullshit you'd never use.
It's really alarming to me how hostile a lot of posters are to academia. A bachelor's degree isn't a fast-track to get into a career, it's a period of academic study. You really have no business claiming that you completed four years of post-secondary study without some basic understanding of math- and calculus is really, really basic.