My father is the IRS SAC(Special Agent in Charge) for 2 states, and last year we were talking about this very thing. He said that eventhough he and all of the other high-ups in the IRS were fed up with dealing with the tax software companies and the fact that they were not providing good solutions the IRS could not make its own software for the public to use. The reason is that the federal government is not allowed by law to compete against private coorporations. If the IRS were to make a software program that the public could use, it would be provided free and that would destroy the private companies in the market. In order to do this, the IRS would have to get Congress to make some law that gave them special permission to do this, and of course every software company in the tax software market would fight it with money in Congress and in the courts and plenty of other "public interest groups" would probably fight it too.
The only other way that the IRS could do it would be to request bids from software companies and get one of them to create the program, however this would have the same effect on the market because that program would also have to been made freely available.
So there is the reasoning of why the IRS does not already have a program available from the horse's mouth as it were.
In the design there is only 1 cargo pod on the elevator cable at any point in time. That is why they say that every 3 days something can be shipped up it. This is due to the fact that the propulsion system is a lazer that beams energy to the under side of the pod and the pod uses the energy to drive a motor with wheels that contact both sides of the cable. (And no, the lazer is not capable of cutting the cable)
In a worse case scenario the cable would break before the pod reaches orbit (60 miles high if I remember correctly) and would become a falling projectile. However, in this case it would land in empty ocean. If it is above 60 miles then it would burn/break up and probably fall in the middle of the Pacific.
Right now I can not remember the link to the pdf file the report was in but if you wish to read it, email me and I will send you the link.
Actually in the paper he has other solutions to deal with the lighting problem. Including the fact that since the cable is very flexable the base can be moved about in the ocean.
In the report there is an analysis of all the different problems he and his team could come up with and multiple solutions for each of them.
Right now I can not remember the link to the pdf file the report was in but if you wish to read it, email me and I will send you the link.
I have read the same paper you talked about in your previous post. The writer does mention lightning strikes and discusses a few solutions.
One solution is that the place where he proposes building it has on average 3-4 lighting strikes per year which is the lowest in the world. It also has the lowest number of storms in the world per year. Also, ocean currents make a sort of tidal pool area and hurricanes do not go into this section of the Pacific.
Another nice thing about the design is that it will not be nearly as destructive as what everyone thinks of when they mention falling space elevators. One of the requirements for the glue for splicing the nanotubes is that it have a melting point that is below the heat experienced in re-entry. This means that all of the re-entering elevator except for the lower 60 to 100 miles of it will break up into little pieces each less than 10 cm in length and they will burn up on re-entry. The 60 to 100 miles that does not will fall into some of the emptiest ocean in the world.
Also, to deal with winds, the shape of the cable is a cresent shape designed to face into the wind so that it does not flutter.
As Mr. Clarke says "A space elevator will be built 20 years after everyone stops laughing." I'm not laughing, are you?
Assuming the states win this and gain access to the source code for Windows. It will most likely be made available to the States so they can look at it but it still would not be made available to the general public.
My question is what happens when someone leaks the source code? Then Microsoft will be able to claim monetary damages from the States for the distribution of its source code. The states would be responsible because they would have been employing the analysists. Microsoft could claim some serious damages from the states.
I have not sympathy for AOL. They are just as anti-competitive in the ISP market as Microsoft is in the OS market. They are just pretending to be an innocent who is being attacked by a big bully.
Besides, what have they done with Netscape since they bought it. NOTHING, all of the improvements that have been made to it came through Mozilla not from AOL. They have not even been trying to improve Netscapes standing in the browser market.
Both of these companies are bad when it comes to what is best for the consumer. It would be nice if they could both be split up into a couple companies each.
I just graduated from GaTech in December and I was a Teaching Assistant for the Into to Computing class for 2 and a half years at Tech. The students are told on the first day of class that cheating is not allowed and that if you are caught you will be punished. They are told about the program and whether they believe or not is their problem.
The students are told it is ok to discuss the homeworks and project with each other and that it is ok to discuss the concepts. However it is NOT ok to copy each other's code.
The program does not just compare the text of each student's homework which is what some people seem to think it does. The program gets rid of variable names, function names and things like that because a person cheating can simply change those. It compares the style of the code and it is not given common code to look at. The only code checked is the code from problems that generally generate unique solutions.
In the time I spent there I know of over a hundred cheating cases caught by the program. In some of those cases if you had of given me the 2 pieces of code I never would have said the people were cheating but when asked the students confessed. I have never heard of someone being falsely accused. Most of the time when the 2 cheaters are asked separately they admitt to it.
Once again, Tech does not have any problem with people helping each other understand concepts like the way pointers or a vector works or the differences between stacks and queues. What they have a problem with is when each studen does not do his own work on an individual homework.
Eventhough some of the problems may seem not worth it, like writing your own version of strcpy, it is still necessary so that students understand how the library functions work even if they will never be writing library functions in their life.
Just to set a perspective I live in Atlanta, Georgia. And it is the best city I have lived in so far.
I agree with what Mu* said in general but here in Atlanta I have not really noticed the tendency to "milk to cow". For instance I live downtown with a friend of mine a stones throw from the CNN building and we only pay $1150 a month including utilities for a 2bed/2bath apartment. I think this is mainly because Atlanta just grew at a good rate with the whole boom in the 90's instead of exploding like Silicon Valley.
One of my biggest greviances with Atlanta is the lack of a decent public transport system. And by that I mean we dont have a subway, and if you live in Atlanta dont even try to say those MARTA trains constitute a subway. It only runs north/south and east/west and has way too few stops. It would be nice to have something like what Washington, D.C. has where the subway goes all the way out to the suburbs and there are parking areas at the end points.
I think a very important part of any city that wants to attract Techies is that they need to be a diverse and tolerant city. One thing I have a hard time doing is putting up with bigots/racist/holyier-than-thou types. I was raised with a philosophy of "dont knock it till you've tried it" and I try to live up to it. I believe that everyone should be able to live the way they want to live. I will not live somewhere where I am told I need to change or the people's general attitude is that I am the spawn of satan for not agreeing with them (I went through highschool once already and I would rather not do it again).
As far as taxes go I feel that anything above 30% or so is excessive unless the government can really explain it. Here in Georgia I actually lose more money to state taxes than I do to federal taxes and social security which I dont think is right... Georgia doesn't have an army last time I checked.
Wow that kindof rambled a bit.
Basically I look for interesting Technology Companies, Tolerance, Diversity, public transport, and a good education system(I will have kids one day).
Of course, with education it is not so much the city but the individual schools that are good or bad.
Hey look at that, you got my point exactly and I dont think you even realized it. Google, despite the fact that they run Linux (aparently this means they are going to do the "Right Thing") is a company that has the primary purpose of making money. And a very easy way to make money is to sell data about your users. And if they go through with their IPO that was mentioned last week then there will be even more pressure to make money as opposed to doing the "Right Thing". I am not saying that they will sell all of that data but they are a business so it is not very smart to blindly trust them to do the right thing.
If I recall correctly a lot of people saw the RealPlayer as a way to stop Microsoft in the web video area and supported them. And now look at the stories that come out about once a quarter about the Real Player sending back usage and tracking information without notifying the user.
I find it amazing that you have no problem with all the data that Google has but if it was Microsoft, Intel, or DoubleClick you would be screaming about how our privacy is at stake, and we are going to be abused by these companies.
You should have a cautious attitude toward any company that collects massive amounts of data, not just the one's which you have a knee-jerk reaction to dislike because of their past actions.
Just as a disclaimer: I am sure this post is going to get labeled flamebait and I will get beaten into the ground for saying this but I feel it needs to be said.(I was taught to look at issues from both sides)
In the article Gates did not say anything really wrong, in fact it is true. He says,
it makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work.
If you say that this statement is false then you must have missed this article.
In fact from most of my reading of what the leaders of the Open Source movement believe I would tend to think that they would agree with the above statement.
Oh, and here is a quote from RMS and how to force more people to use release their code for free if they want to link to your libraries:
using the ordinary GPL for a library makes it available only for free programs.
and further down the page he says we only want to help free software developers
Using the ordinary GPL for a library gives free software developers an advantage over proprietary developers: a library that they can use, while proprietary developers cannot use it.
Basically I dont see why people are so up tight about Gates saying this. It is pretty much the same to me as what others in the open source community have been saying.
Now just to let you know I am not a Microsoft junky, I have written both proprietary and GPL'ed code. I feel they both have their place and they are both useful and it is silly to go ripping on a company that makes a lot of useful proprietary code simply because its there and you can.
In the words of the wise: "You can now flame me, I am full of love."
What I dont understand is why WW2online is even having the problems they are w/ their servers. Did they just totally miss the lesson the Blizzard gave all the other Massively Multiplayer game companies when they release D2.
If I was setting up a MMOG I would make sure I had enough bandwidth and server power to handle an amount of clients equal to the number of pre-orders + the initial number of games shipped to retailers.
One other thing I am clueless on is that I saw a preview of WW2online and the graphics looked really good w/ a decent frame rate and good looking models of machines. However all of the graphics I have seen since it was released have horribly blocky, w/ low framerates, and very boxy models of the machines. What did they do? Ship the wrong version of the game?
If attitudes like mine prevailed we would not have to worry about violence against women or theft of medical information.
I value privacy as one of the greatest privaleges I have as an American citizen even though the Constitution and the Bill of Rights does not specifically say we have the right to privacy(we do have freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures) which is where our privacy comes from.
If you want privacy on the Internet you use encryption. If you dont then you are expecting everyone else to just not look. Its kind of like taking a test in college and putting your test on the overhead projector and expecting everyone else to not look at, or its like using telnet instead of ssh.
The big difference between your analogy of calling your doctor is that when you signed the agreement w/ the phone company you bought a private connection from your house to whereever you dail to. When you sign the agreement w/ your ISP you bought a connect from your computer to their computer. They are responsible for keeping their end of the connection secure(or should be), they are not responsible for your privacy after you have left their computer/network and gone into the wild web.
that the Supreme Court ruling would not apply to the Carnivor. Their ruling said you could not use high tech equipment to see inside the home because it violates the expectation of privacy within the home that an American has.
However, I dont really think that it is reasonable to expect privacy when browsing on the Internet which to me is a public place. In fact most people give up their privacy on the Internet when they use cookies. Some ISP's even track where you go so that they can give you "better quality of service". Earthlink does this, they have an Opt out policy in their install program but you have to do the Expert install option to get to it(AFAIK).
To me expecting privacy when browsing on the Internet is kindof like expecting privacy in a public park. And besides that Carnivore is not peering into your home. I think you give up a certain amount of privacy expectations just by sending the packets outside of your home.
P.S.- My stepfather has worked with Carnivore(he is a high ranking federal law enforcement agent) and when we talked about the Carnivore system he said that it is much harder to get a warrent for it or for taking a computer than it is to get warrents for searching more traditional things.
As an introductor language to programming I do not think that using Java is a good idea. To me I feel that before you start learning languages you should learn first how to program. To do this I feel that the first thing a group of students should learn is pseudocode.
Now I am sure that some people are groaning over that last statement, but I truly believe that pseudocode is the most useful language a programmer can know. I am a just finishing up my CS degree at Georgia Tech and I have been working in the industry for 3 years and it has been very useful. At Tech I was a Teaching Assistant for the intro to programming class and we taught pseudocode there. The purpose of this was to get the students to learn how to think about how a program is going to flow and how the individual modules will be structured. They wrote their projects in pseudocode and turned them in and the TA's would then act as the compiler/computer to see if they worked. By doing it this way the students dont learn how to code in Java, and then learn how to code in C, and then in C++. Instead they learn how to code independent of a language.
Unfortunately the CS department has quit teaching pseudocode in the last year and is now teaching Scheme as the intro language(GAG!).
When it comes to teaching an introductory Object Oriented Language so that students can learn what OOD and OOP is I think a great language for that is Squeak(SmallTalk). At Tech we have a group of students who do a lot of work with Squeak and the OOD class is in Squeak. When I took that class all of the questions I had that the Java class did not answer about OOP were answered. It takes OO to a whole new level and is very easy to learn so that the syntax does not get in your way.
Now, when it comes to AP Computer Science and think C++ is a better decision that Java simply because I think it is important that students learn about the guts of what is going on instead of having all of that covered up by the language. However, your school will not have any say in this because if the school does not teach the language choosen by the AP board then they loose their AP credit for that class. Just be glad you are not learning Pascal and Carrot like I did.
Also I think pseudo code would be a good thing to teach to high school students at a sophmore or freshmen level instead of basic or pascal. That is what I am trying to work on with my old highschool, the AP coordinator is trying to get people w/ CS and other Engineering degrees that have experience in the real world to teach a class or 2 at the school for the Magnet program in a college format so the students can see how things are done.
This is by far a better way to get the CD prices to come down and to hurt the RIAA and the greedy music companies than just grabbing music off of Napster.
I had a friend who's mother owned a music store and she had said she hated having to charge so much for the cd's but that the price was required in order to keep getting the music. I did not understand at the time but now I do.
Mass produced cds of music should not cost $18 they should cost $4 or $5, cause after all when you buy and burn several million cds you are not going to be paying $.5 to $1 to buy each cd like at Best Buy.
This will probably be considered a flame but I think it needs to be said.
Finally someone has produced a product that uses the technology Napster and Gnutella are based on to do something good. Despite what many proponents of Napster and Gnutella say, the main use of those programs is to get around having to pay for music and other electronic info like videos.
Some of the posts already on this board say "What is the use of this program?" Now we just have to split the mp3s into lots of little files. The people saying this apparently totally miss the purpose of this program. It is NOT to get music without paying for it. It is to help people communicate in an anonymous and secure way. Which many of the/. readers say it key to the internet. No doubt eventually someone will make a wrapper so that mp3s and such can be put on Publius but that is not really a good thing.
I think it is great that a major corporation has helped to produce a product like this. Especially one that goes against what many government agencies want, that being anonymous, encrypted communications across the internet.
First I want to say that I when I read Katz's articles I try not to allow them to rile me up because of the off base statements of fact he makes but this article really got to me. So I am going to start from the top of it and go.
In the first 2 paragraphs Katz talks about how are Cyber-Society is hostile, impatient with people who dont understand technology, and we have a chip on our collective shoulder. Katz says, "this is a narcissistic civilization with a mean streak, fat and lazy and arrogant".
As a response to that I would say that we were taught by The Best and we learned quickly from the tough lessons. We, the tech-heads,(or as my Father calls my friends and I: you nerds) did get raised by a generation of people who showed no care about the future we would live in, the environment, or the state of the nation when it would get passed to us. Instead they were more concerned about who had the biggest nuke and who could accumulate the most wealth. Or an apparent all time favorite of this nation's, see who we could oppress. I had the unique pleasure of being raised in a very religious family where I got to see how people in the conservative right feel about people that dont agree with their views. Quite frankly I am glad that I did not turn out like them and all the other 30-40 year olds complaining about how this generation doesn't respect them. What's there to respect?
As far as our political views and aspirations, you are right that many of us dislike politics. I don't think we dislike politics just to hate it. I personally like politics just not American politics, the people involved in it are almost allways thiefs and liars and that is why we dont like it. One thing about are generation and culture is that we do like the truth. Previous generations grew up being lied to by the government and dont seem to have any problem with. The politicians blatantly lie to them on the campaign trail and yet you still vote for them instead of choosing others or supporting others to run against them. I personaly would like to serve in Washington D.C. but the way the system has been set up you have to be a millionaire to have a chance to break in against the controlling incumbants and even then just 1 of us on the Hill won't make a difference and you older people of the previous generations don't listen to us because we are young and so how could we possibly be intelligent, understand the issues, and have any good ideas?
In the final 3rd of your essay you talk about the vast majority of the users of technology not really understanding it or using it to its full effect. Well that happens with most new and radical inventions. As an example: A story my Grandfather told me that happened in the early 1900's prior to the use of home refrigeration everyone got their ice from a local plant that would make the ice and then deliver some to each home. Well my great-grandfather and his brother when they were in their early teens saw how the factory made the ice by useing fire to heat gas and then release the preassureized gas to make the ice. When they told their father he did not believe them because everyone KNEW that you CANNOT make ice from fire. He threatened to whip each of them for telling lies until they dragged him to the factory and showed him. He still didnot understand but he used the ice.
Hopefully from this response you can see why we the new generation dont really show any empathy for your generation Mr. Katz, we dont want to be like our parent generation because they represent almost everything we have come to hate: lies, discrimination, politicians, and mistrust.
I would expect the X-box to be put into the non-OS group because while it is a platform when you go to the store in a year and buy an X-box you are buying a piece of hardware not a piece of software. As an example... I expect Windows CE will go into the OS Group because it is an OS for handhelds and such, however if Microsoft made and sold the actual handhelds that ran Windows CE those handhelds would be put with the non-OS Group.
If the DOJ did put the X-box into the OS Group then instead of the OS Group eating the monetary loss they could just spin off the X-box group and the non-OS Group could buy it or let it sink or swim on its own.
/*** Below are my thoughts on the OpenGL part the question. I and not very knowledgable about it so these thoughts are just kindof meandering ideas. ***/
As far as the concern of OpenGL being killed by the X-box, I dont really understand those concerns. I think it would be nice if OpenGL could be used on the XBox because then it would make it easier to port from computer to the X-box but if companies did what I thought was best the world would be a lot better place. If the X-box does not use OpenGL then that just means that if a game is written for the computer w/ OpenGL then it is a game that won't be ported quickly to the X-box which would just hurt the X-box and Microsoft's income.
This engine design reminds me a lot of the fusion pulse engines used in the Space Sci-fi series by Kim Stanley Robinson called Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. I just wonder how long it will take to develop compact power generator, and those superconducting magnets.
Slashdot Mirror
That would be nice but you won't see it soon.
My father is the IRS SAC(Special Agent in Charge) for 2 states, and last year we were talking about this very thing. He said that eventhough he and all of the other high-ups in the IRS were fed up with dealing with the tax software companies and the fact that they were not providing good solutions the IRS could not make its own software for the public to use. The reason is that the federal government is not allowed by law to compete against private coorporations. If the IRS were to make a software program that the public could use, it would be provided free and that would destroy the private companies in the market. In order to do this, the IRS would have to get Congress to make some law that gave them special permission to do this, and of course every software company in the tax software market would fight it with money in Congress and in the courts and plenty of other "public interest groups" would probably fight it too.
The only other way that the IRS could do it would be to request bids from software companies and get one of them to create the program, however this would have the same effect on the market because that program would also have to been made freely available.
So there is the reasoning of why the IRS does not already have a program available from the horse's mouth as it were.
In the design there is only 1 cargo pod on the elevator cable at any point in time. That is why they say that every 3 days something can be shipped up it. This is due to the fact that the propulsion system is a lazer that beams energy to the under side of the pod and the pod uses the energy to drive a motor with wheels that contact both sides of the cable. (And no, the lazer is not capable of cutting the cable)
In a worse case scenario the cable would break before the pod reaches orbit (60 miles high if I remember correctly) and would become a falling projectile. However, in this case it would land in empty ocean. If it is above 60 miles then it would burn/break up and probably fall in the middle of the Pacific.
Right now I can not remember the link to the pdf file the report was in but if you wish to read it, email me and I will send you the link.
Actually in the paper he has other solutions to deal with the lighting problem. Including the fact that since the cable is very flexable the base can be moved about in the ocean.
In the report there is an analysis of all the different problems he and his team could come up with and multiple solutions for each of them.
Right now I can not remember the link to the pdf file the report was in but if you wish to read it, email me and I will send you the link.
Rich
I have read the same paper you talked about in your previous post. The writer does mention lightning strikes and discusses a few solutions.
One solution is that the place where he proposes building it has on average 3-4 lighting strikes per year which is the lowest in the world. It also has the lowest number of storms in the world per year. Also, ocean currents make a sort of tidal pool area and hurricanes do not go into this section of the Pacific.
Another nice thing about the design is that it will not be nearly as destructive as what everyone thinks of when they mention falling space elevators. One of the requirements for the glue for splicing the nanotubes is that it have a melting point that is below the heat experienced in re-entry. This means that all of the re-entering elevator except for the lower 60 to 100 miles of it will break up into little pieces each less than 10 cm in length and they will burn up on re-entry. The 60 to 100 miles that does not will fall into some of the emptiest ocean in the world.
Also, to deal with winds, the shape of the cable is a cresent shape designed to face into the wind so that it does not flutter.
As Mr. Clarke says "A space elevator will be built 20 years after everyone stops laughing."
I'm not laughing, are you?
Assuming the states win this and gain access to the source code for Windows. It will most likely be made available to the States so they can look at it but it still would not be made available to the general public.
My question is what happens when someone leaks the source code? Then Microsoft will be able to claim monetary damages from the States for the distribution of its source code. The states would be responsible because they would have been employing the analysists. Microsoft could claim some serious damages from the states.
I have not sympathy for AOL. They are just as anti-competitive in the ISP market as Microsoft is in the OS market. They are just pretending to be an innocent who is being attacked by a big bully.
Besides, what have they done with Netscape since they bought it. NOTHING, all of the improvements that have been made to it came through Mozilla not from AOL. They have not even been trying to improve Netscapes standing in the browser market.
Both of these companies are bad when it comes to what is best for the consumer. It would be nice if they could both be split up into a couple companies each.
I just graduated from GaTech in December and I was a Teaching Assistant for the Into to Computing class for 2 and a half years at Tech. The students are told on the first day of class that cheating is not allowed and that if you are caught you will be punished. They are told about the program and whether they believe or not is their problem.
The students are told it is ok to discuss the homeworks and project with each other and that it is ok to discuss the concepts. However it is NOT ok to copy each other's code.
The program does not just compare the text of each student's homework which is what some people seem to think it does. The program gets rid of variable names, function names and things like that because a person cheating can simply change those. It compares the style of the code and it is not given common code to look at. The only code checked is the code from problems that generally generate unique solutions.
In the time I spent there I know of over a hundred cheating cases caught by the program. In some of those cases if you had of given me the 2 pieces of code I never would have said the people were cheating but when asked the students confessed. I have never heard of someone being falsely accused. Most of the time when the 2 cheaters are asked separately they admitt to it.
Once again, Tech does not have any problem with people helping each other understand concepts like the way pointers or a vector works or the differences between stacks and queues. What they have a problem with is when each studen does not do his own work on an individual homework.
Eventhough some of the problems may seem not worth it, like writing your own version of strcpy, it is still necessary so that students understand how the library functions work even if they will never be writing library functions in their life.
Just to set a perspective I live in Atlanta, Georgia. And it is the best city I have lived in so far.
I agree with what Mu* said in general but here in Atlanta I have not really noticed the tendency to "milk to cow". For instance I live downtown with a friend of mine a stones throw from the CNN building and we only pay $1150 a month including utilities for a 2bed/2bath apartment. I think this is mainly because Atlanta just grew at a good rate with the whole boom in the 90's instead of exploding like Silicon Valley.
One of my biggest greviances with Atlanta is the lack of a decent public transport system. And by that I mean we dont have a subway, and if you live in Atlanta dont even try to say those MARTA trains constitute a subway. It only runs north/south and east/west and has way too few stops. It would be nice to have something like what Washington, D.C. has where the subway goes all the way out to the suburbs and there are parking areas at the end points.
I think a very important part of any city that wants to attract Techies is that they need to be a diverse and tolerant city. One thing I have a hard time doing is putting up with bigots/racist/holyier-than-thou types. I was raised with a philosophy of "dont knock it till you've tried it" and I try to live up to it. I believe that everyone should be able to live the way they want to live. I will not live somewhere where I am told I need to change or the people's general attitude is that I am the spawn of satan for not agreeing with them (I went through highschool once already and I would rather not do it again).
As far as taxes go I feel that anything above 30% or so is excessive unless the government can really explain it. Here in Georgia I actually lose more money to state taxes than I do to federal taxes and social security which I dont think is right... Georgia doesn't have an army last time I checked.
Wow that kindof rambled a bit.
Basically I look for interesting Technology Companies, Tolerance, Diversity, public transport, and a good education system(I will have kids one day).
Of course, with education it is not so much the city but the individual schools that are good or bad.
Rich
Hey look at that, you got my point exactly and I dont think you even realized it. Google, despite the fact that they run Linux (aparently this means they are going to do the "Right Thing") is a company that has the primary purpose of making money. And a very easy way to make money is to sell data about your users. And if they go through with their IPO that was mentioned last week then there will be even more pressure to make money as opposed to doing the "Right Thing". I am not saying that they will sell all of that data but they are a business so it is not very smart to blindly trust them to do the right thing.
If I recall correctly a lot of people saw the RealPlayer as a way to stop Microsoft in the web video area and supported them. And now look at the stories that come out about once a quarter about the Real Player sending back usage and tracking information without notifying the user.
Rich
I find it amazing that you have no problem with all the data that Google has but if it was Microsoft, Intel, or DoubleClick you would be screaming about how our privacy is at stake, and we are going to be abused by these companies.
You should have a cautious attitude toward any company that collects massive amounts of data, not just the one's which you have a knee-jerk reaction to dislike because of their past actions.
Rich
Just as a disclaimer: I am sure this post is going to get labeled flamebait and I will get beaten into the ground for saying this but I feel it needs to be said.(I was taught to look at issues from both sides)
In the article Gates did not say anything really wrong, in fact it is true. He says,
it makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work.
If you say that this statement is false then you must have missed this article.
In fact from most of my reading of what the leaders of the Open Source movement believe I would tend to think that they would agree with the above statement.
Oh, and here is a quote from RMS and how to force more people to use release their code for free if they want to link to your libraries:
using the ordinary GPL for a library makes it available only for free programs.
and further down the page he says we only want to help free software developers
Using the ordinary GPL for a library gives free software developers an advantage over proprietary developers: a library that they can use, while proprietary developers cannot use it.
Basically I dont see why people are so up tight about Gates saying this. It is pretty much the same to me as what others in the open source community have been saying.
Now just to let you know I am not a Microsoft junky, I have written both proprietary and GPL'ed code. I feel they both have their place and they are both useful and it is silly to go ripping on a company that makes a lot of useful proprietary code simply because its there and you can.
In the words of the wise: "You can now flame me, I am full of love."
Rich
What I dont understand is why WW2online is even having the problems they are w/ their servers. Did they just totally miss the lesson the Blizzard gave all the other Massively Multiplayer game companies when they release D2.
If I was setting up a MMOG I would make sure I had enough bandwidth and server power to handle an amount of clients equal to the number of pre-orders + the initial number of games shipped to retailers.
One other thing I am clueless on is that I saw a preview of WW2online and the graphics looked really good w/ a decent frame rate and good looking models of machines. However all of the graphics I have seen since it was released have horribly blocky, w/ low framerates, and very boxy models of the machines. What did they do? Ship the wrong version of the game?
Rich
if attitudes like yours prevailed
If attitudes like mine prevailed we would not have to worry about violence against women or theft of medical information.
I value privacy as one of the greatest privaleges I have as an American citizen even though the Constitution and the Bill of Rights does not specifically say we have the right to privacy(we do have freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures) which is where our privacy comes from.
If you want privacy on the Internet you use encryption. If you dont then you are expecting everyone else to just not look. Its kind of like taking a test in college and putting your test on the overhead projector and expecting everyone else to not look at, or its like using telnet instead of ssh.
The big difference between your analogy of calling your doctor is that when you signed the agreement w/ the phone company you bought a private connection from your house to whereever you dail to. When you sign the agreement w/ your ISP you bought a connect from your computer to their computer. They are responsible for keeping their end of the connection secure(or should be), they are not responsible for your privacy after you have left their computer/network and gone into the wild web.
Rich
that the Supreme Court ruling would not apply to the Carnivor. Their ruling said you could not use high tech equipment to see inside the home because it violates the expectation of privacy within the home that an American has.
However, I dont really think that it is reasonable to expect privacy when browsing on the Internet which to me is a public place. In fact most people give up their privacy on the Internet when they use cookies. Some ISP's even track where you go so that they can give you "better quality of service". Earthlink does this, they have an Opt out policy in their install program but you have to do the Expert install option to get to it(AFAIK).
To me expecting privacy when browsing on the Internet is kindof like expecting privacy in a public park. And besides that Carnivore is not peering into your home. I think you give up a certain amount of privacy expectations just by sending the packets outside of your home.
P.S.- My stepfather has worked with Carnivore(he is a high ranking federal law enforcement agent) and when we talked about the Carnivore system he said that it is much harder to get a warrent for it or for taking a computer than it is to get warrents for searching more traditional things.
Rich
As an introductor language to programming I do not think that using Java is a good idea. To me I feel that before you start learning languages you should learn first how to program. To do this I feel that the first thing a group of students should learn is pseudocode.
Now I am sure that some people are groaning over that last statement, but I truly believe that pseudocode is the most useful language a programmer can know. I am a just finishing up my CS degree at Georgia Tech and I have been working in the industry for 3 years and it has been very useful. At Tech I was a Teaching Assistant for the intro to programming class and we taught pseudocode there. The purpose of this was to get the students to learn how to think about how a program is going to flow and how the individual modules will be structured. They wrote their projects in pseudocode and turned them in and the TA's would then act as the compiler/computer to see if they worked. By doing it this way the students dont learn how to code in Java, and then learn how to code in C, and then in C++. Instead they learn how to code independent of a language.
Unfortunately the CS department has quit teaching pseudocode in the last year and is now teaching Scheme as the intro language(GAG!).
When it comes to teaching an introductory Object Oriented Language so that students can learn what OOD and OOP is I think a great language for that is Squeak(SmallTalk). At Tech we have a group of students who do a lot of work with Squeak and the OOD class is in Squeak. When I took that class all of the questions I had that the Java class did not answer about OOP were answered. It takes OO to a whole new level and is very easy to learn so that the syntax does not get in your way.
Now, when it comes to AP Computer Science and think C++ is a better decision that Java simply because I think it is important that students learn about the guts of what is going on instead of having all of that covered up by the language. However, your school will not have any say in this because if the school does not teach the language choosen by the AP board then they loose their AP credit for that class. Just be glad you are not learning Pascal and Carrot like I did.
Also I think pseudo code would be a good thing to teach to high school students at a sophmore or freshmen level instead of basic or pascal. That is what I am trying to work on with my old highschool, the AP coordinator is trying to get people w/ CS and other Engineering degrees that have experience in the real world to teach a class or 2 at the school for the Magnet program in a college format so the students can see how things are done.
Rich
This is by far a better way to get the CD prices to come down and to hurt the RIAA and the greedy music companies than just grabbing music off of Napster.
I had a friend who's mother owned a music store and she had said she hated having to charge so much for the cd's but that the price was required in order to keep getting the music. I did not understand at the time but now I do.
Mass produced cds of music should not cost $18 they should cost $4 or $5, cause after all when you buy and burn several million cds you are not going to be paying $.5 to $1 to buy each cd like at Best Buy.
Rich
This will probably be considered a flame but I think it needs to be said.
/. readers say it key to the internet. No doubt eventually someone will make a wrapper so that mp3s and such can be put on Publius but that is not really a good thing.
Finally someone has produced a product that uses the technology Napster and Gnutella are based on to do something good. Despite what many proponents of Napster and Gnutella say, the main use of those programs is to get around having to pay for music and other electronic info like videos.
Some of the posts already on this board say "What is the use of this program?" Now we just have to split the mp3s into lots of little files. The people saying this apparently totally miss the purpose of this program. It is NOT to get music without paying for it. It is to help people communicate in an anonymous and secure way. Which many of the
I think it is great that a major corporation has helped to produce a product like this. Especially one that goes against what many government agencies want, that being anonymous, encrypted communications across the internet.
Just my $.02
Rich
First I want to say that I when I read Katz's articles I try not to allow them to rile me up because of the off base statements of fact he makes but this article really got to me. So I am going to start from the top of it and go.
In the first 2 paragraphs Katz talks about how are Cyber-Society is hostile, impatient with people who dont understand technology, and we have a chip on our collective shoulder. Katz says, "this is a narcissistic civilization with a mean streak, fat and lazy and arrogant".
As a response to that I would say that we were taught by The Best and we learned quickly from the tough lessons. We, the tech-heads,(or as my Father calls my friends and I: you nerds) did get raised by a generation of people who showed no care about the future we would live in, the environment, or the state of the nation when it would get passed to us. Instead they were more concerned about who had the biggest nuke and who could accumulate the most wealth. Or an apparent all time favorite of this nation's, see who we could oppress. I had the unique pleasure of being raised in a very religious family where I got to see how people in the conservative right feel about people that dont agree with their views. Quite frankly I am glad that I did not turn out like them and all the other 30-40 year olds complaining about how this generation doesn't respect them. What's there to respect?
As far as our political views and aspirations, you are right that many of us dislike politics. I don't think we dislike politics just to hate it. I personally like politics just not American politics, the people involved in it are almost allways thiefs and liars and that is why we dont like it. One thing about are generation and culture is that we do like the truth. Previous generations grew up being lied to by the government and dont seem to have any problem with. The politicians blatantly lie to them on the campaign trail and yet you still vote for them instead of choosing others or supporting others to run against them. I personaly would like to serve in Washington D.C. but the way the system has been set up you have to be a millionaire to have a chance to break in against the controlling incumbants and even then just 1 of us on the Hill won't make a difference and you older people of the previous generations don't listen to us because we are young and so how could we possibly be intelligent, understand the issues, and have any good ideas?
In the final 3rd of your essay you talk about the vast majority of the users of technology not really understanding it or using it to its full effect. Well that happens with most new and radical inventions.
As an example: A story my Grandfather told me that happened in the early 1900's prior to the use of home refrigeration everyone got their ice from a local plant that would make the ice and then deliver some to each home. Well my great-grandfather and his brother when they were in their early teens saw how the factory made the ice by useing fire to heat gas and then release the preassureized gas to make the ice. When they told their father he did not believe them because everyone KNEW that you CANNOT make ice from fire. He threatened to whip each of them for telling lies until they dragged him to the factory and showed him. He still didnot understand but he used the ice.
Hopefully from this response you can see why we the new generation dont really show any empathy for your generation Mr. Katz, we dont want to be like our parent generation because they represent almost everything we have come to hate: lies, discrimination, politicians, and mistrust.
Rich
make a script to send every e-mail received from that e-mail address back to that address and load the spammer down with his own spam?
Rich
I would expect the X-box to be put into the non-OS group because while it is a platform when you go to the store in a year and buy an X-box you are buying a piece of hardware not a piece of software. As an example... I expect Windows CE will go into the OS Group because it is an OS for handhelds and such, however if Microsoft made and sold the actual handhelds that ran Windows CE those handhelds would be put with the non-OS Group.
If the DOJ did put the X-box into the OS Group then instead of the OS Group eating the monetary loss they could just spin off the X-box group and the non-OS Group could buy it or let it sink or swim on its own.
/***
Below are my thoughts on the OpenGL part the question. I and not very knowledgable about it so these thoughts are just kindof meandering ideas.
***/
As far as the concern of OpenGL being killed by the X-box, I dont really understand those concerns. I think it would be nice if OpenGL could be used on the XBox because then it would make it easier to port from computer to the X-box but if companies did what I thought was best the world would be a lot better place. If the X-box does not use OpenGL then that just means that if a game is written for the computer w/ OpenGL then it is a game that won't be ported quickly to the X-box which would just hurt the X-box and Microsoft's income.
Rich
This engine design reminds me a lot of the fusion pulse engines used in the Space Sci-fi series by Kim Stanley Robinson called Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. I just wonder how long it will take to develop compact power generator, and those superconducting magnets.