Although we may wish "bubba" on spammers, these people are more likely to be sent to some white collar minimum security prison which more closely resembles a resort than a prison.
Story was just released to subscribers and already it's loading slow so here's the article text for when the inevitable/. effect comes:
Peekabooty - Lessons Learned
By Paul Baranowski (paul@paulbaranowski.org)
July 1st 2003
Here is a review of the first two years of the Peekabooty Project. Over that time I have had to re-evaluate many of the things I learned in university and in the working world - many of the engineering lessons that I had been taught turned out not to work so well. The project management of an open source project is very different from old-school engineering project management, so I had to learn a lot about how open source project management works.
All of these problems have been seen before - by no means do I see these as unique. They are simply more data points on the "How To Do Open Source Development" graph.
What did I learn from the first version of Peekabooty?
Open-Source Project Management Lessons
Don't release before it does something useful. This lesson is recounted in Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution as well as other places. I had even read about this rule before we released, but I had to learn it for myself. If you release too soon, you spend a lot of your time answering emails instead of developing.
The press is a tool - more like a hammer than a Swiss army knife. The press is like a hammer - it can help you or hurt you, depending on how you use it. But like a hammer, it can't do everything, like cut a tree in half. It has limited capabilities and you cannot expect too much from it.
How the Press has Helped
The press has helped to bring awareness to key people that have the ability to help the project grow.
Press will get you more downloads. Whether this is good or bad depends on lesson #1.
Press will not get you more developers unless #1 is in place. The fastest way to get more developers is to network with other developers.
How the Press Has Hurt
The press loves infighting because it's a good story. However, the infighting story is bad for a project that is trying to get funding. This creates an air of instability. People only like to fund things they feel will have a high chance of success, and instability erodes that confidence.
95-5 Rule Usually it's the 80-20 rule, but in open source projects it's more like the 95-5 rule. Open source projects are usually run by one or two people doing most of the work. If you decide to lead an open source project, you must be willing and ready to accept this. If you want to lead an open-source project, it helps to be independently wealthy. This allows you to forget about things like a job and work on the project you want to work on. In hindsight, wouldn't it have been better to take a really long vacation instead? Doh!
Engineering Lessons
C/C++ is no longer a viable development language This may seem obvious to some people, and other people may recoil in shock. In college/grad school we were taught to believe that C/C++/Java, etc are the best languages in the world, so it was a very difficult transformation to accept that these languages are not viable development languages for application level work.
C++ is seen to be great for execution speed, static binding, object orientation, templates, and more. However, it is absolutely lousy for development time. Here's why:
It requires compilation - as your code grows larger, the wait time to see if your code works increases. This delay directly affects how fast your code is developed.
It's really, really, really hard for people to learn it, and this directly impacts the number of developers you will have on an open-source project.
It uses static binding (Isn't that supposed to be a good thing?)
There are no standard libraries for C++, so there's a lot of reinventing the wheel. (Yeah, there's the STL and ot
Animation is simple enough... While this isn't something to snub your nose at, I'll really be impressed when a company such as Pixar starts using linux exclusively.
AN ATI support/promotion guy said this in an interview regarding linux: Richard Huddy: ATI gives Linux drivers quite a high priority - but there's just way too much intellectual property exposed in the low level chip interfaces so we don't put that into the public domain. I'm amazed that people can really reverse engineer drivers from our binaries - but I guess that shows just how keen the Linux community is to get the best out of their machines. Sorry I can't offer more on this!
Why don't you read the site before saying anything: All consumers whose numbers are on the registry by August 31, 2003 will notice a downturn in telemarketing calls starting October 1, 2003. Consumers who register after September 1, 2003 will notice a drop in telemarketing calls within three months of the date they register.
Sure you can download ringtones easily and quickly over current cellular protocols like it says in the article but these mp3/PDA enabled cell phones that are coming out still require some kind of dock or hard connection to xfer information to them with any kind of decent speed. This is where WiFi will definitely come in handy for its speed.
Finally... I'm so sick of having to either change my phone number or pay higher rates every year when my contract runs up. Now when there's a better calling plan for me I can take my phone number with me so I don't have to give a new number out to 700 different people:D
Maybe now instead of holding our phone numbers hostage, the phone companies will actually have to offer better plans to keep our business. Mmmmm more minutes for less money = more money for beer... Mmmmm beer.
You're right to say that the blurb sounds like a bunch of buzzwords but this actually isn't vaporware...Planet-lab has actually got a lot of big sponsors (Intel, HP...) behind them and while I don't see this being used for the everyday internet user, Planetlab is the kind of thing corporations will find very useful for its distributed computing capabilities. It's still in its infant stages now but this definitely is a project with potential.
No, we're not talking about crypto algorythms here, we are talking about email and you obviously fail to see the difference between the two.
You are right to point out that my logic may not work for crypto but it does work for this case. Reading crypto source would tell me I need the correct key to decrypt. A key which is rather difficult to crack. To forge a legit email however is nowhere near as difficult and this source basically tells how to do it.
I'm going to try to say this as nicely as possible and without trolling: You have just rendered Greylisting pretty useless by making it open source. Spammers are much smarter than you think and what you have basically done is shown them what they need to do in order to get around Greylisting. That's just my take on the issue, maybe I'm wrong but I doubt it.
From the article: The Audi A8's sensor, though, is more than a security device. After fingerprint identification, the car's computer tunes the radio to your favourite stations, the mirrors swivel according to your established preferences, and the driver's seat sculpts itself to your bottom.
Hmmmm, sculpted to my ass... Do they make a computer chair and/or couch potatoe model?
Maybe it's just because IANAES (I am not an environmental scientist) but how is this any worse than the crap that comes out of our fossil fuel based economy as it is?
young vs old
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I think basically what it comes down to is quality. With the recent declines in the dot com sector, employers have chosen to sacrifice quality programmers for cheaper/faster ones. Attaching age to that is an unfortunate sterotype that comes along with being in IT or almost any other profession for that matter.
It's the way of business. Perhaps your luck will change when/if the economy bounces and employers have more to spend.
I think the best "new" guideline that they're considering is having a second space shuttle ready to go at a moments notice. Aside from the intended benefit of having a way to rescue any stranded astronauts it also provides for redundancy which I think most people here can agree is a good thing (except concerning/. posts:p )
Re:Same thing was said about Apple
on
Sun's Last Stand
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Sun's doing much better than a year ago
That's not saying much considering how much Sun lost a year ago.
From the article: As of early May, its stock, down 94 percent from a 2000 high
Slashdot Mirror
Soon, drivers will be able to command vehicle functions with the wave of a hand.
Does this work on storm troopers too?
Although we may wish "bubba" on spammers, these people are more likely to be sent to some white collar minimum security prison which more closely resembles a resort than a prison.
Story was just released to subscribers and already it's loading slow so here's the article text for when the inevitable /. effect comes:
Peekabooty - Lessons Learned
By Paul Baranowski (paul@paulbaranowski.org)
July 1st 2003
Here is a review of the first two years of the Peekabooty Project. Over that time I have had to re-evaluate many of the things I learned in university and in the working world - many of the engineering lessons that I had been taught turned out not to work so well. The project management of an open source project is very different from old-school engineering project management, so I had to learn a lot about how open source project management works.
All of these problems have been seen before - by no means do I see these as unique. They are simply more data points on the "How To Do Open Source Development" graph.
What did I learn from the first version of Peekabooty?
Open-Source Project Management Lessons
Don't release before it does something useful.
This lesson is recounted in Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution as well as other places. I had even read about this rule before we released, but I had to learn it for myself. If you release too soon, you spend a lot of your time answering emails instead of developing.
The press is a tool - more like a hammer than a Swiss army knife.
The press is like a hammer - it can help you or hurt you, depending on how you use it. But like a hammer, it can't do everything, like cut a tree in half. It has limited capabilities and you cannot expect too much from it.
How the Press has Helped
The press has helped to bring awareness to key people that have the ability to help the project grow.
Press will get you more downloads. Whether this is good or bad depends on lesson #1.
Press will not get you more developers unless #1 is in place. The fastest way to get more developers is to network with other developers.
How the Press Has Hurt
The press loves infighting because it's a good story. However, the infighting story is bad for a project that is trying to get funding. This creates an air of instability. People only like to fund things they feel will have a high chance of success, and instability erodes that confidence.
95-5 Rule
Usually it's the 80-20 rule, but in open source projects it's more like the 95-5 rule. Open source projects are usually run by one or two people doing most of the work. If you decide to lead an open source project, you must be willing and ready to accept this. If you want to lead an open-source project, it helps to be independently wealthy. This allows you to forget about things like a job and work on the project you want to work on. In hindsight, wouldn't it have been better to take a really long vacation instead? Doh!
Engineering Lessons
C/C++ is no longer a viable development language
This may seem obvious to some people, and other people may recoil in shock. In college/grad school we were taught to believe that C/C++/Java, etc are the best languages in the world, so it was a very difficult transformation to accept that these languages are not viable development languages for application level work.
C++ is seen to be great for execution speed, static binding, object orientation, templates, and more. However, it is absolutely lousy for development time. Here's why:
It requires compilation - as your code grows larger, the wait time to see if your code works increases. This delay directly affects how fast your code is developed.
It's really, really, really hard for people to learn it, and this directly impacts the number of developers you will have on an open-source project.
It uses static binding (Isn't that supposed to be a good thing?)
There are no standard libraries for C++, so there's a lot of reinventing the wheel. (Yeah, there's the STL and ot
I could've sworn I read something similar to this in The onion once but I'm unable to find the story. Guess it came true.
I'm just surprised Hormel didn't start suing people ages ago for the negative uses of the word spam.
Another story from The Guardian here ...And if your interested in another or Darpa's projects which might fall under the YRO category: here
we will provide you with his name, address, sales history and other details
Other details... hmmmm, wonder if this means: Seller is super great/fast AAAA+++++++++ recommend to all A+A+A+A+A+A+
Animation is simple enough...
While this isn't something to snub your nose at, I'll really be impressed when a company such as Pixar starts using linux exclusively.
AN ATI support/promotion guy said this in an interview regarding linux:
Richard Huddy: ATI gives Linux drivers quite a high priority - but there's just way too much intellectual property exposed in the low level chip interfaces so we don't put that into the public domain. I'm amazed that people can really reverse engineer drivers from our binaries - but I guess that shows just how keen the Linux community is to get the best out of their machines. Sorry I can't offer more on this!
Why don't you read the site before saying anything:
All consumers whose numbers are on the registry by August 31, 2003 will notice a downturn in telemarketing calls starting October 1, 2003. Consumers who register after September 1, 2003 will notice a drop in telemarketing calls within three months of the date they register.
Wow, slashdotted before the article was even posted to non-subscribers...
I think this is a new record: Slashdotted in negative 37 seconds
But seriously, I like screwing with telemarketers heads too much to put my number on this list anyway.
Sure you can download ringtones easily and quickly over current cellular protocols like it says in the article but these mp3/PDA enabled cell phones that are coming out still require some kind of dock or hard connection to xfer information to them with any kind of decent speed. This is where WiFi will definitely come in handy for its speed.
Finally... I'm so sick of having to either change my phone number or pay higher rates every year when my contract runs up. Now when there's a better calling plan for me I can take my phone number with me so I don't have to give a new number out to 700 different people :D
Maybe now instead of holding our phone numbers hostage, the phone companies will actually have to offer better plans to keep our business. Mmmmm more minutes for less money = more money for beer... Mmmmm beer.
You're right to say that the blurb sounds like a bunch of buzzwords but this actually isn't vaporware...Planet-lab has actually got a lot of big sponsors (Intel, HP...) behind them and while I don't see this being used for the everyday internet user, Planetlab is the kind of thing corporations will find very useful for its distributed computing capabilities. It's still in its infant stages now but this definitely is a project with potential.
they're not working out the way the sales guys told them they would
What?!, a dishonest sales person? Never!
No, we're not talking about crypto algorythms here, we are talking about email and you obviously fail to see the difference between the two.
You are right to point out that my logic may not work for crypto but it does work for this case. Reading crypto source would tell me I need the correct key to decrypt. A key which is rather difficult to crack.
To forge a legit email however is nowhere near as difficult and this source basically tells how to do it.
I'm going to try to say this as nicely as possible and without trolling:
You have just rendered Greylisting pretty useless by making it open source. Spammers are much smarter than you think and what you have basically done is shown them what they need to do in order to get around Greylisting. That's just my take on the issue, maybe I'm wrong but I doubt it.
That's assuming he ever gets laid :p
...the world will know the glory of the five assed monkey." -Mephisto
Hmmmm, let's see... They can sue for up to $500 per message sent and there's millions and millions of spams sent by these people every day...
So (500 * Millions and Millions) = Microsoft is suing for all the money in the world
From the article: The Audi A8's sensor, though, is more than a security device. After fingerprint identification, the car's computer tunes the radio to your favourite stations, the mirrors swivel according to your established preferences, and the driver's seat sculpts itself to your bottom.
Hmmmm, sculpted to my ass... Do they make a computer chair and/or couch potatoe model?
We're well on our way to becoming Dick Tracy :D
Maybe it's just because IANAES (I am not an environmental scientist) but how is this any worse than the crap that comes out of our fossil fuel based economy as it is?
I think basically what it comes down to is quality. With the recent declines in the dot com sector, employers have chosen to sacrifice quality programmers for cheaper/faster ones.
Attaching age to that is an unfortunate sterotype that comes along with being in IT or almost any other profession for that matter.
It's the way of business.
Perhaps your luck will change when/if the economy bounces and employers have more to spend.
I think the best "new" guideline that they're considering is having a second space shuttle ready to go at a moments notice. /. posts :p )
Aside from the intended benefit of having a way to rescue any stranded astronauts it also provides for redundancy which I think most people here can agree is a good thing (except concerning
Sun's doing much better than a year ago
That's not saying much considering how much Sun lost a year ago.
From the article: As of early May, its stock, down 94 percent from a 2000 high