Tell me, how does it feel to be young, naive, and brainwashed?
Actually, I'm old (37), informed and independent. There is nobody more naive and ignorant than the "blame America firsters" who think all evil begins and ends with the USA. Talk about brainwashed! It's amazing to me that even a direct attack on the country is not enough for you people.
Maybe you want the entire world to look like the Taliban government (which is bin Laden's goal), but personally I like my freedom and liberty, and think it's worth fighting for, whatever the cost.
you have to make some prosperous peace afterwards or the thing will start again a generation later.
I agree, but...
OTOH germans are reliable allies for the last 60 years because of American economic aid.
American economic aid AND the fact that we installed a stable democracy. What's going to make the middle east complicated (and ironic) is that we will probably be able to install a stable government and lots of aid into Afghanistan, but a lot of the other countries are still relatively backward governments. Saudi Arabia, while our friend, is still a dictatorship with relatively little freedom.
I think this war is going to solve a lot of problems, but it won't eliminate them. The problems won't go away until all the countries become modern democracies with self-sustaining economies.
On the same scale, Iraq is an American disaster.
In terms of the Gulf War, it was a success. The mission was to kick Iraq out of Kuwait in order to preserve the free flow of oil. That was clearly successful. I think Bush felt that exceeding our UN mandate and launching a full-blown invasion of Iraq would've created a lot more problems than it solved, and he was probably right (we'll never know of course). He decided to gamble that Iraq was weak enough for Hussein to be overthrown. Unfortunately, the gamble didn't pay off.
Look, I respect the Ivory Tower as much as the next guy, but at some point you need to live in the real world.
The number of optional features in XML is to be kept to the absolute minimum, ideally zero.
Agreed. It's a cost/benefit analysis. It seems to me that my suggestion has a HUGE benefit at a very slight cost.
XML documents should be human-legible and reasonably clear.
Minimal legibility is sacrificed. The opening tag is the important one, not the trailing tag.
Terseness in XML markup is of minimal importance.
Apparently it is to you, but not to those of us who have suffered this problem. The average document would get have the size, but many documents would become 1/10th the size. Think about a database with lots of single character data, but with long column names.
You would still be able to do it that way, but I don't see the advantage of requiring the trailing tags. If you're creating files that are only ever going to be read by machines, it makes no sense to waste the space. Heck, if you're debugging something that always used the "shortcut", it would be trivial to make a little filter to fill in the trailing tags with the full names.
The biggest problem with XML is the incredibly wasteful and verbose nature.
I'm all in favor of Linux winning out here, but we are not living in some perfect, pure capitalist economist's vision, where the best product wins out every time.
You've hit on the biggest thing that Linux zealots need to learn: The best product has ALREADY won.
The rub is in the definition of "best". To the typical Linux zealot, "best" means "most flexible", "source code available", "free", "Unix-like", etc. To the rest of the world, "best" means "the operating system that let's me run the applications I want to run".
Windows is BY FAR the best operating system for the majority of people. That's because it runs all the software that they want to run, wrinkles and all.
When Linux zealots realize that they technical superiority is worthless if it doesn't have the applications you want, then we might see some progress. The problem is that the people who work on Linux have much different priorities than 98% of the rest of the world.
Market forces are working exactly the way the should have. The market picked exactly the product it should have picked: the one that gets work done, because work is done by applications, not operating systems.
The movie was deeper than you might think. Here's a great analysis site: http://www.mysteriesofai.com. Personally, I think that movie is unbelievably underappreciated.
Whenever robots like this come up, the actuators always seem to use motors and gears. I've often that using that method is rather limiting, since they are very bulky.
Are there any good methods for more of a muscle-type actuator? Something very narrow that contracts. It seems like if you had something simple and cheap enough, you could use lots of them to give much better mobility.
I'm guessing there isn't anything really good, otherwise people would do it that way. Still, could you have some telescoping rod kind of thing with a coil to contract it? You wouldn't even need to go both directions -- just do what a muscle does, and wait for the opposing actuator to move it back out. It seems like there has to be something simpler that works better than motors and gears.
Also if the proposal is lacking the client (requestor) won't hire them.
I didn't get the impression that they were looking to hire the developers of Jabber, they were looking for someone to answer the questions on their RFP so they can decide if they want to use the Open Source solution. In other words, they want to see if they can use the free solution, but don't want to invest any of their own resources in doing it.
I'm wondering if the submitter has ever filled out an RFP. Unless it is miraculously tight and succinct, filling out an RFP is one of the most boring, frustrating and inane activities imaginable. The usual RFP has gone through all the departments of a company, which each department adding in their own 2 cents. That usually entails adding poorly worded and contradictory questions that are impossible to answer. Of course, the real gems come from the marketing department, which lists "requirements" along the lines of, "program must be able to think for me, and anticipate what I will want the next day, week, and year."
Bottom line, if you want someone to fill out a typical RFP for free (e.g., open source developer), you are dreaming. If you really want it done, either do it yourself, or hire a consultant to do it.
On the other hand, if you want a shot at something being done by the developers or general users, make a mini-RFP of no more than 10 questions, and see if you can get those answered.
Under the new law, police wouldn't need to notify you when they were about to search your home. Instead, as long as they had a warrant and as long as they claimed that notifying you would obstruct their investigation, they could go in and search your place and tell you about it later.
OK, let's review the fourth amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Where exactly does it say you have the right to know that you're being searched? To be honest, I'm not even sure you ever had that right. Could a real lawyer comment on this? It seems like simple common sense that you don't tell a criminal that you're going to search his house because, duh, then he moves all the stuff that you're looking for. I mean, if the police show up at someone's house with a warrant, and that person isn't home, I don't they have to come back later.
Actually, I was going to hit that paragraph, but I was too bored with this whole thing. But since you bring it up...
Microsoft's security record is nothing to brag about. Windows is the most widely used yet one of the least secure operating systems around.
OK, least secure "operating system". Got it.
Microsoft programs have shown themselves vulnerable to worms, viruses, and break-ins, on Microsoft's own computers and on everybody else's.
Or wait... are we talking about applications now? Apparently the guy doesn't understand the difference.
The Melissa virus spread through Microsoft's word processing and e-mail programs, sending itself to the first 50 people in each of the infected machine's address lists.
Which, of course, was a behaviorally spread virus, not a security problem. In other words, the problem was the software was too feature filled. Not to let Microsoft off the hook, but what does this have to do with Passport?
A year later the ILOVEYOU virus infected the Web through a different part of Microsoft's e-mail package.
Ditto. Again, what does this have to do with Passport?
More recently Microsoft's own internal systems were hacked, and the intruders spent over a month accessing system source code, likened to Microsoft's "crown jewels," before their unlawful entry was discovered.
Which, of course, had nothing to do with Microsoft's technology, and everything to do with their internal security policies. Political, not technical.
Absolutely nothing above has anything to do with technical flaws in Passport.
Again, I have to ask... What is the guy advocating?
While it talks about the political effects passport could have, the article is also largely about privacy and security.
Name one thing in that article that is about the technical aspects of privacy and security. There are none.
It's just another biased anti-Microsoft rant. He doesn't even bother to make a point and advocate an alternative. What is he advocating? Passing a law that says Microsoft is not allowed to go into the business? Government control of authentication? Advocacy of Sun's solution?
Just because you are a good engineer doesn't mean you have a clue when it comes to politics (and this is a political piece). It's like a hollywood actress commenting on politics.
Given how insightful this piece is (*cough*), he should stick to programming.
FUD, noun, from "Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt", a word coined by Apple supporters to describe a strategy used by the company's critics to spread misinformation intended to scare potential customers away from the company.
First of all, these people don't seem to understand the difference between the.NET development platform, and the authentication service. Quite frankly, I think they DO know the distinction, and that they don't make it is indicative that this more misinformation from Sun.
But I love some of the other quotes...
Since all users of Microsoft's free Hotmail service have Passports, many unknowingly, there are already 160 million Passport users.
I love the use of "unknowingly" here, as if it makes a difference whether you are in one Microsoft database or another Microsoft database. Let's spread that fear!! First of all, that's not 160 million unique users. I would be shocked if 25% of those were active users. It's probably much lower. Second of all, you need hardly any personal information to get a Hotmail account, so most of that information is not that useful.
There are tons of other crap in that post, but I'm bored with Sun's crap already. It's just more of the same.
This is why I far prefer Microsoft holding power over the other monopoly wannabees Sun and Oracle. At least Microsoft doesn't play games. They tell you exactly what they want to do.
I remember in the late 50's and the 1960's, when computing technologies were dominated by the Universities and the public ethos was uppermost. Freedom of information reigned, and thousands of little computing groups competed to bring the new era.
What the hell are you talking about? Can you say "IBM"? That was the era of "you can have any color you want as long as its blue", unless you went with one of the seven dwarfs. Universities didn't contribute jack to anything. IBM invented just about everything during that time.
Unix, Multics, CP/M, Hard Drives, the Mouse, CRT displays, all these and more were made during this time.
...by corporations. Perhaps you've heard of AT&T (Unix, Multics)? Hard drives -- IBM. CRT -- who knows. Mouse -- this might have actually been invented at a university, I can't remember.
The socialist control of the means of production of hardware will allow for innovation in that realm, just as the socialist control of the means of production in software has i thanks to the GNU liscence.
Yeah, I know this proves it was a troll, but just in case anyone was going to believe any of that historical bullshit.
So does this mean the iPod will take over the bodies of the users and turn them into mindless drones?
OK, I have too many Apple punchlines going through my head to pick a best one. Please post your best punchline here. Moderators to vote which one is the best.:)
Well, I have to admit that I didn't use the later models (and face it -- not many people did).
In my experience with using systems like this, you are not so much training them as they are training you. The "learning" capability probably helps, but most people have to stick with it through a lot of trial and error before they can get it to work effectively, and it's primarily the user modifying behavior.
I'm sure there are people who managed to get it to work, and work well. These people, like you, of course will claim that it's "great". But that's a long way from handwriting recognition that works well for everyone, which I simply haven't seen exist.
If it was really was that good, which would be far better than anything seen before or since, Apple would be licensing it EVERYWHERE rather than simply killing it (although, another poster claims Apple licensed it to others). There is a reason that Graffiti was so much popular than handwriting systems: It worked well, it worked reliably, and it worked reliably for everyone, not just people whose handwriting happened to work well with the recognition engine.
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Tell me, how does it feel to be young, naive, and brainwashed?
Actually, I'm old (37), informed and independent. There is nobody more naive and ignorant than the "blame America firsters" who think all evil begins and ends with the USA. Talk about brainwashed! It's amazing to me that even a direct attack on the country is not enough for you people.
Maybe you want the entire world to look like the Taliban government (which is bin Laden's goal), but personally I like my freedom and liberty, and think it's worth fighting for, whatever the cost.
I haven't played with Wine, but I'm curious: Have they implemented the whole Windows printing subsystem? How is that handled?
you have to make some prosperous peace afterwards or the thing will start again a generation later.
I agree, but...
OTOH germans are reliable allies for the last 60 years because of American economic aid.
American economic aid AND the fact that we installed a stable democracy. What's going to make the middle east complicated (and ironic) is that we will probably be able to install a stable government and lots of aid into Afghanistan, but a lot of the other countries are still relatively backward governments. Saudi Arabia, while our friend, is still a dictatorship with relatively little freedom.
I think this war is going to solve a lot of problems, but it won't eliminate them. The problems won't go away until all the countries become modern democracies with self-sustaining economies.
On the same scale, Iraq is an American disaster.
In terms of the Gulf War, it was a success. The mission was to kick Iraq out of Kuwait in order to preserve the free flow of oil. That was clearly successful. I think Bush felt that exceeding our UN mandate and launching a full-blown invasion of Iraq would've created a lot more problems than it solved, and he was probably right (we'll never know of course). He decided to gamble that Iraq was weak enough for Hussein to be overthrown. Unfortunately, the gamble didn't pay off.
Look, I respect the Ivory Tower as much as the next guy, but at some point you need to live in the real world.
The number of optional features in XML is to be kept to the absolute minimum, ideally zero.
Agreed. It's a cost/benefit analysis. It seems to me that my suggestion has a HUGE benefit at a very slight cost.
XML documents should be human-legible and reasonably clear.
Minimal legibility is sacrificed. The opening tag is the important one, not the trailing tag.
Terseness in XML markup is of minimal importance.
Apparently it is to you, but not to those of us who have suffered this problem. The average document would get have the size, but many documents would become 1/10th the size. Think about a database with lots of single character data, but with long column names.
You would still be able to do it that way, but I don't see the advantage of requiring the trailing tags. If you're creating files that are only ever going to be read by machines, it makes no sense to waste the space. Heck, if you're debugging something that always used the "shortcut", it would be trivial to make a little filter to fill in the trailing tags with the full names.
The biggest problem with XML is the incredibly wasteful and verbose nature.
Can we please, please, please append the definition of XML to allow "</>" to close whatever the last tag was?
That simple change would probably cut the size of the average XML file in half.
(corrected post, please moderate my other one down. I have plenty of Karma to spare...)
*sigh* I meant to post this at the top level... RM/101 out of control.
Can we please, please, please append the definition of XML to allow "</>" to close whatever the last tag was?
That simple change would probably cut the size of the average XML file in half.
(corrected post, please moderate my other one down. I have plenty of Karma...)
Can we please, please, please append the definition of XML to allow "" to close whatever the last tag was?
That simple change would probably cut the size of the average XML file in half.
I'm all in favor of Linux winning out here, but we are not living in some perfect, pure capitalist economist's vision, where the best product wins out every time.
You've hit on the biggest thing that Linux zealots need to learn: The best product has ALREADY won.
The rub is in the definition of "best". To the typical Linux zealot, "best" means "most flexible", "source code available", "free", "Unix-like", etc. To the rest of the world, "best" means "the operating system that let's me run the applications I want to run".
Windows is BY FAR the best operating system for the majority of people. That's because it runs all the software that they want to run, wrinkles and all.
When Linux zealots realize that they technical superiority is worthless if it doesn't have the applications you want, then we might see some progress. The problem is that the people who work on Linux have much different priorities than 98% of the rest of the world.
Market forces are working exactly the way the should have. The market picked exactly the product it should have picked: the one that gets work done, because work is done by applications, not operating systems.
The movie was deeper than you might think. Here's a great analysis site: http://www.mysteriesofai.com. Personally, I think that movie is unbelievably underappreciated.
Whenever robots like this come up, the actuators always seem to use motors and gears. I've often that using that method is rather limiting, since they are very bulky.
Are there any good methods for more of a muscle-type actuator? Something very narrow that contracts. It seems like if you had something simple and cheap enough, you could use lots of them to give much better mobility.
I'm guessing there isn't anything really good, otherwise people would do it that way. Still, could you have some telescoping rod kind of thing with a coil to contract it? You wouldn't even need to go both directions -- just do what a muscle does, and wait for the opposing actuator to move it back out. It seems like there has to be something simpler that works better than motors and gears.
Also if the proposal is lacking the client (requestor) won't hire them.
I didn't get the impression that they were looking to hire the developers of Jabber, they were looking for someone to answer the questions on their RFP so they can decide if they want to use the Open Source solution. In other words, they want to see if they can use the free solution, but don't want to invest any of their own resources in doing it.
I'm wondering if the submitter has ever filled out an RFP. Unless it is miraculously tight and succinct, filling out an RFP is one of the most boring, frustrating and inane activities imaginable. The usual RFP has gone through all the departments of a company, which each department adding in their own 2 cents. That usually entails adding poorly worded and contradictory questions that are impossible to answer. Of course, the real gems come from the marketing department, which lists "requirements" along the lines of, "program must be able to think for me, and anticipate what I will want the next day, week, and year."
Bottom line, if you want someone to fill out a typical RFP for free (e.g., open source developer), you are dreaming. If you really want it done, either do it yourself, or hire a consultant to do it.
On the other hand, if you want a shot at something being done by the developers or general users, make a mini-RFP of no more than 10 questions, and see if you can get those answered.
Under the new law, police wouldn't need to notify you when they were about to search your home. Instead, as long as they had a warrant and as long as they claimed that notifying you would obstruct their investigation, they could go in and search your place and tell you about it later.
OK, let's review the fourth amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Where exactly does it say you have the right to know that you're being searched? To be honest, I'm not even sure you ever had that right. Could a real lawyer comment on this? It seems like simple common sense that you don't tell a criminal that you're going to search his house because, duh, then he moves all the stuff that you're looking for. I mean, if the police show up at someone's house with a warrant, and that person isn't home, I don't they have to come back later.
To all of you who think that this bill "trashes civil rights", as Michael "Slashbot" Simms believes.
Exactly how is your freedom and/or liberty curtailed by this bill? Exactly what are you unable to do now that you were able to do before?
Clearly, if civil rights have been "trashed", there must be endless examples. And by the way, "potential" abuses don't count. I want REAL examples.
Hmmm; interesting. I'd never seen it used before, except by Apple supporters. Well, Apple zealots certainly took ownership of it. :)
Actually, I was going to hit that paragraph, but I was too bored with this whole thing. But since you bring it up...
Microsoft's security record is nothing to brag about. Windows is the most widely used yet one of the least secure operating systems around.
OK, least secure "operating system". Got it.
Microsoft programs have shown themselves vulnerable to worms, viruses, and break-ins, on Microsoft's own computers and on everybody else's.
Or wait... are we talking about applications now? Apparently the guy doesn't understand the difference.
The Melissa virus spread through Microsoft's word processing and e-mail programs, sending itself to the first 50 people in each of the infected machine's address lists.
Which, of course, was a behaviorally spread virus, not a security problem. In other words, the problem was the software was too feature filled. Not to let Microsoft off the hook, but what does this have to do with Passport?
A year later the ILOVEYOU virus infected the Web through a different part of Microsoft's e-mail package.
Ditto. Again, what does this have to do with Passport?
More recently Microsoft's own internal systems were hacked, and the intruders spent over a month accessing system source code, likened to Microsoft's "crown jewels," before their unlawful entry was discovered.
Which, of course, had nothing to do with Microsoft's technology, and everything to do with their internal security policies. Political, not technical.
Absolutely nothing above has anything to do with technical flaws in Passport.
Again, I have to ask... What is the guy advocating?
While it talks about the political effects passport could have, the article is also largely about privacy and security.
Name one thing in that article that is about the technical aspects of privacy and security. There are none.
It's just another biased anti-Microsoft rant. He doesn't even bother to make a point and advocate an alternative. What is he advocating? Passing a law that says Microsoft is not allowed to go into the business? Government control of authentication? Advocacy of Sun's solution?
Just because you are a good engineer doesn't mean you have a clue when it comes to politics (and this is a political piece). It's like a hollywood actress commenting on politics.
Given how insightful this piece is (*cough*), he should stick to programming.
FUD, noun, from "Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt", a word coined by Apple supporters to describe a strategy used by the company's critics to spread misinformation intended to scare potential customers away from the company.
First of all, these people don't seem to understand the difference between the .NET development platform, and the authentication service. Quite frankly, I think they DO know the distinction, and that they don't make it is indicative that this more misinformation from Sun.
But I love some of the other quotes...
Since all users of Microsoft's free Hotmail service have Passports, many unknowingly, there are already 160 million Passport users.
I love the use of "unknowingly" here, as if it makes a difference whether you are in one Microsoft database or another Microsoft database. Let's spread that fear!! First of all, that's not 160 million unique users. I would be shocked if 25% of those were active users. It's probably much lower. Second of all, you need hardly any personal information to get a Hotmail account, so most of that information is not that useful.
There are tons of other crap in that post, but I'm bored with Sun's crap already. It's just more of the same.
This is why I far prefer Microsoft holding power over the other monopoly wannabees Sun and Oracle. At least Microsoft doesn't play games. They tell you exactly what they want to do.
Sheesh, if I was going to post an anti-technology troll, I wouldn't have made it so obvious by using words like "socialist".
I remember in the late 50's and the 1960's, when computing technologies were dominated by the Universities and the public ethos was uppermost. Freedom of information reigned, and thousands of little computing groups competed to bring the new era.
What the hell are you talking about? Can you say "IBM"? That was the era of "you can have any color you want as long as its blue", unless you went with one of the seven dwarfs. Universities didn't contribute jack to anything. IBM invented just about everything during that time.
Unix, Multics, CP/M, Hard Drives, the Mouse, CRT displays, all these and more were made during this time.
...by corporations. Perhaps you've heard of AT&T (Unix, Multics)? Hard drives -- IBM. CRT -- who knows. Mouse -- this might have actually been invented at a university, I can't remember.
The socialist control of the means of production of hardware will allow for innovation in that realm, just as the socialist control of the means of production in software has i thanks to the GNU liscence.
Yeah, I know this proves it was a troll, but just in case anyone was going to believe any of that historical bullshit.
So does this mean the iPod will take over the bodies of the users and turn them into mindless drones?
OK, I have too many Apple punchlines going through my head to pick a best one. Please post your best punchline here. Moderators to vote which one is the best. :)
Well, I have to admit that I didn't use the later models (and face it -- not many people did).
In my experience with using systems like this, you are not so much training them as they are training you. The "learning" capability probably helps, but most people have to stick with it through a lot of trial and error before they can get it to work effectively, and it's primarily the user modifying behavior.
I'm sure there are people who managed to get it to work, and work well. These people, like you, of course will claim that it's "great". But that's a long way from handwriting recognition that works well for everyone, which I simply haven't seen exist.
If it was really was that good, which would be far better than anything seen before or since, Apple would be licensing it EVERYWHERE rather than simply killing it (although, another poster claims Apple licensed it to others). There is a reason that Graffiti was so much popular than handwriting systems: It worked well, it worked reliably, and it worked reliably for everyone, not just people whose handwriting happened to work well with the recognition engine.