I don't agree that such a law would be "just" or even practical. In the same way that you have a right to view whatever material you like on your computer, others have the right to block content *on their own computers/networks*. The law should not interfere with any of these rights. It sgould not tell you what you can and cannot be allowed to read, neither should it tell others what rules to impose or not impose on systems they own. That is the basis of freedom: freedom of speech and property rights. Both are required.
The real issue here is something different than censorship. Haselton found that Symatecs list of offensive sites stinks, and published his findings. Symantec is not pleased with the bad publicity and sues Haselton for the way he got that list in the first place. They may be within their rights (IANAL, thank god).
What you should (always) ask yourself is: do I want to do business with a company like Symantec that a) uses legal pressure tactics like this and b) produces such a shoddy product? Or, should I convince my ISP / university / library to no longer block offensive sites, or perhaps use better blocking software? THIS is what is called making an informed decision. That's why open source is such a great idea: you can verify the quality of the goods yourself, to the last detail. Your suggestion of having censorware compile a central list of sites that were actually blocked is a good one, and would make the quality of the software verifyable. But it should not be made into a law
IMHO a good law would be one that adds quality control to the list of valid reasons for reverse-engineering.
Bugs creep in despite your best efforts. The best you can do is respond to reports quickly.
Good software companies have coding standards and practices that help reduce the number of bugs, and procedures to quickly release fixes for bugs that do come up.
Plus, there is such a thing as designing for security. A lot of security features in the current (NT 4, Win98) MS offering seem to have been added on as an afterthought. Sadly, Windows is not the only OS where that is the case.
HA! It was bound to happen. Already some stations in the Netherlands use the car radio displays to not only display the station name, but also the weather and ads. These ads even have phone numbers in them! Imagine driving at 100Kph, steering with your knees, eyes fixed firmly on the car radio display and taking down a phone number. Talk about road safety...
Half a year ago I heard about a related application of RDS: the Dutch police are dicking around with automated speed cameras that can read your license plate. They wanted to combine this with RDS to warn speeders: "Hello RB-VH-97, you were just caught doing 140KPh in a 100Kph zone. The Hfl 450,- fine is in the mail. Have a nice day". Kinda cool isn't it?
One very large multinational started a telecommuting programme. They allowed most workers to work 2 days from home, they would supply the computer, ISDN etc. They even payed HFl 10000 (about $5000) for office stuff and home remodelling so the workers would have a decent home office. They even won some business prize for best telecommuting promotion.
Then, one worker complained: "Well I spent the 10000 already on my office, but I still need a height-adjustable desk, have my windows enlarged so I get more light, more wall outlets etc etc." He complained to ARBO (the Dutch OSHA) and they agreed the employer should pay for all this, since technically all his demands were valid for "regular" offices.
The result? The corporation cancelled the entire telecommuting programme. It was just too expensive. Now all those workers are back in the daily traffic jams.
IMHO it is alright to enforce rules for office requirements, but we need different rules for regular offices and home offices. Why? Because generally people do not work as long and often at home as at the office. The average # of days telecommuters spend at home is 2 days a week. The average number of hours worked is 5,5 hours a day,at 200% productivity. (Figures from the Dutch statistics agency, not mine!)
I'm no webmaster but, unless their setup is truly bizarre, deleting the check for browser and OS should take about 20 seconds
Maybe it's not their setup, but their procedures that are bizarre (or, in business terms, "normal").
You know: - appoint project manager - Draft work effort document - Have budget approved - Plan changes - Draft functional and technical specs - Have specs approved - Form project team - have team delete check for browser - Do code reviews - System and acceptance tests - Roll out changes
On a more serious (and scarier) note: I just noticed that when I access any page on our company intranet with Netscape, I automagically get redirected to a page "http://blablabla.bla.bla/noie.html". No IE?!? All our pages are created with MS Frontpage, and it seems this "feature" is part of Frontpage or Microsofts web server. Grrrrr.
I had played this game in college when I didn't have a car, so I didn't notice anything for a while. But as soon as I got home and got behind the wheel, I found myself looking for pedestrians! It was really more of an uncontious thing. I'd be driving and I'd see a group of people and I'd really have to activly tell that this is reality and its not right to drive my car into a crowd.
I have had the same experience with driving right after playing Carmageddon. Right after I got into the car, I had a strong urge to ram the other idiot drivers off the road. The feeling wore off in a few minutes though.
I thought about why I only had this experience with this particular game, and it ocurred to me that in this case, playing Carmageddon and driving a real car are actually very similar activities (especially if you play with a steering wheel control). The controls and visual feedback in Carmageddon correspond to those you get while driving a real car.
What happens when games become more and more realistic? Right now, firing a gun in Quake is very different from firing a real one, but in the future it migth be hard to tell the difference. Will people playing "Quake 11" get the same urge I felt after playing Carmageddon, whip out their gun in the street and start fragging? Personally I think it could happen to people already on the edge and in posession of a gun. But I honestly don't think any computer game, however realistic, will cause normal people to go out and buy a gun, load it, and shoot people with it.
Obviously, computer games aren't the only factor here, in fact probably not even the main one, but I think that most of us here are too quick to say, "I play them and nothing bad happens to me, so it must be alright.
Those in power (read: big business) don't want seperate countries out there each having their own identity and making their own rules, they want a one world government
Can you present some real evidence for this?
One thing the WTO is trying to achieve is an open world market, and I am in favor of that. Please forget the big bad business conspiracy theories for a while, and remember that the countries that stand to gain the most from a truly free market are the third world contries.
Think about it: (one example) European farm policy prevents a global free food market, and the damage it causes to to the third world exceeds the total aid given to those countries, year by year.
We need a free market, not more government control, and this is one of the goals of the WTO. Even if they have other points on a hidden agenda, they are not evil incarnate.
Re:It's all in the article...
on
Geeks vs. Nerds
·
· Score: 1
Geek, on the other hand, has its roots in a now-obsolete Dutch word, "geck," which meant "fool."
It's hardly obsolete, we Dutchies still use the word (spelled 'gek' nowadays) on a daily basis.
In Holland, you can expect at least fl. 3500 (before taxes) per month if you're fresh out of shool. That's about $1750. Getting a cellphone and notebook is usually no problem.
If you start working at a big company, you can expect fl 5000 (US$ 2500) per month plus a company car. But you'd have to conform to that company (might be hard for die-hard geeks - they tend to love Microsoft).
If you're thirty (-something) and have lots of experience, and don't mind working hard, fl 8500 or more is usually no problem. In Holland, that kind of salary will buy you anything you want. It's about 3 times average.
If you foreigners are tempted to get a job in the Netherlands, consider the following:
Don't forget the taxes! Income tax is 38% on pay up to about Hfl 60000 ($30000), after that it's 50%! (Even higher salaries are taxed at 60%). Your company car is considered income; you pay around Hfl 4500 in income taxes for your "free" company car. Companies generally pay your fuel though (even for personal use fo your car), and at Hfl 2,25 a litre ($4 a gallon) that is a sweet deal.
Foreigners may be disappointed by the housing in Holland: cramped & expensive. Rents start at about Hfl 1000 unfurnished; you can buy a 3-room apartment for Hfl 250000 and up (if you are lucky). Amsterdam is much, much more expensive.
That said, Holland is a good place to live, and the American and British ex-pats in our company are having a great time here.
Funny, during early tests of HDTV in Europe someone remarked on how the superior picture quality made peoples faces look bad. Every wrinkle, spot, zit and what have you stood out in glorious detail on the HDTV set, whereas on regular television such imperfections could easily be hidden by some makeup.
I've seen Visual Basic used for *ugh!* web-page script stuff, and by engineers who wanted to crank out some cheap & nasty code, quickly. I've not once seen it used for any real work, though.
Be afraid: VB is used for more and more increasingly large, mission-critical projects. VB is fine for certain tasks. However the comments (see other posts), about managers thinking it requires less qualified software engineers, are valid. I see this happening every day in my work, and while the systems we build become more complex, the quality of of programmers has steadily declined, and with it the quality of the software.
Incidently, the same thing happens in the area of system administration. Setting up a Windows NT server seems very easy, so managers think they can get away with hiring much less experienced (and cheaper) admins. The rude awakening comes later...!
That is why I choose a language like C or C++ for larger projects: it keeps non-qualified programmers away from the team. A nice GUI and pretty colors are simply no substitute for brains.
Actually a "regular" 30" lens will do exactly the same thing, but you'd probably not be able to lift such a thing. That's why the Fresnel lens was invented: you take a regular lens, cut it into concentric rings, then make all the rings equally thick and glue them back together (more or less).
You're right about strikes being the most publicized thing unions can do.
A year ago union representatives of a large steel mill around here met with management to discuss salaries and working conditions during the weekend. Management knew about the union's demands and were prepared to give in to the main issues if need be. It turned out however that the union had *already* organized a strike for the following monday and were fighting to keep from reaching an agreement with management. They wanted the publicity of a strike because of decreasing membership.
How's that for screwing both the company that provides your livelihood and your own members at the same time?
Managers at the company I work for sometimes makes misinformed or clueless decisions. But rather than join a union, pay my dues and sit back letting the union take care of someone's interest (not necessarily mine), I'd rather talk to management and get other people to do so as well, if I have a problem or two.
Good. Now let's hope other countries will follow suit. Maybe now somebody in the European Parliament will start pushing this thing in Europe.
Funny thing that the Germans again seem to value privacy more than the rest of us. Example: phone companies in most european contries are required to keep details billing records for at least 3 - 5 years. In Germany they are allowed to keep them for a *maximum* of 1 year.
For anyone that needs to have encryption software developed (dictator or otherwise) this may not be a big deal, but for people in the software development business it is! This would mean that developers of off-the-shelf stuff can include strong encryption in their products and legally sell them overseas. People and corporations here (in Europe) have been asking for strong encryption to be incorporated in the applications they use, but the law has always prevented it. This ruling, if upheld, may change that!
If you want to know what I mean, and what the implications of this silly restriction are to non US citizens, take a look at any product that already offers encryption, like Netscape (http://www.netscape.com/download/index.html?cp=dj udowone Look at the section on strong encryption).
You've read her books, but did you understand them?
Her philosophy is not about emotionlessnes, but about making rational decisions (meaning thinking about them and weighing alternatives) where emotion can definitively be a factor. Ayn Rand also does not teach us to be without honor.
I am not an objectivist, but I am a proponent of one of Ayn Rand's teachings: think about what you do, and make sure your opinions are well-informed ones. And I have to disagree strongly with your implication that objectivism, or like philosophies, have led to the current sordid state of affairs. Give us reason instead of opinions!
You are right though, that the world will not fix itself, nor will Ayn Rand. We ourselves have to take that upon us, each of us individually has to make the decision to take action.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but what you are saying is:"It can't be helped, or the cure is worse than the disease". In my opinion this is a bad approach to solve *any* problem, whether a solution exists or not. It is just as bad as the politicians' approach: they are acting without thinking, because the public expects them to act.
Besides that, I disagree with your conclusion. I am from the Netherlands. We enjoy the same freedoms that US citizens have (with the notable exception of the freedom to own firearms), but we do not nearly have as much high school violence as you have in the US.
I (and others) consider myself to be a nerd, but I really enjoyed my years in high school. Our school encouraged us to explore and excel in any field, be it sports, arts, languages or science. The nerds, geeks, jocks etc. did hang out with their own groups, but they mingled with others as well, and nobody was ashamed to call someone of the less popular groups a friend. (Sure I got picked on a few times, but that was more a senior / junior student kind of thing).
Don't get me wrong: I am not picking on the American Way of Life, and I am not saying that we are better than you. My point is that your schools can be better places than they are, and you won't have to trade in your freedom to achieve that. The first step could be the fact that the situation in your schools is coming out into the open, thanks to the students who sent those terrible letters to/.
Blast... Available on video???
on
MST3K Cancelled
·
· Score: 1
I have watched only a few episodes of this show. It was one hell of a pleasant suprise, when we first got the SciFi channel in Rotterdam. But a couple months later, they were kicked off the cable. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr. Might as well sell my TV now.
By the way: is this show available on video? I don't care if it's PAL, NTSC or even Russian SECAM. Whatever. Please.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't agree that such a law would be "just" or even practical. In the same way that you have a right to view whatever material you like on your computer, others have the right to block content *on their own computers/networks*. The law should not interfere with any of these rights. It sgould not tell you what you can and cannot be allowed to read, neither should it tell others what rules to impose or not impose on systems they own. That is the basis of freedom: freedom of speech and property rights. Both are required.
The real issue here is something different than censorship. Haselton found that Symatecs list of offensive sites stinks, and published his findings. Symantec is not pleased with the bad publicity and sues Haselton for the way he got that list in the first place. They may be within their rights (IANAL, thank god).
What you should (always) ask yourself is: do I want to do business with a company like Symantec that a) uses legal pressure tactics like this and b) produces such a shoddy product? Or, should I convince my ISP / university / library to no longer block offensive sites, or perhaps use better blocking software? THIS is what is called making an informed decision. That's why open source is such a great idea: you can verify the quality of the goods yourself, to the last detail. Your suggestion of having censorware compile a central list of sites that were actually blocked is a good one, and would make the quality of the software verifyable. But it should not be made into a law
IMHO a good law would be one that adds quality control to the list of valid reasons for reverse-engineering.
Bugs creep in despite your best efforts. The best you can do is respond to reports quickly.
Good software companies have coding standards and practices that help reduce the number of bugs, and procedures to quickly release fixes for bugs that do come up.
Plus, there is such a thing as designing for security. A lot of security features in the current (NT 4, Win98) MS offering seem to have been added on as an afterthought. Sadly, Windows is not the only OS where that is the case.
HA! It was bound to happen. Already some stations in the Netherlands use the car radio displays to not only display the station name, but also the weather and ads. These ads even have phone numbers in them! Imagine driving at 100Kph, steering with your knees, eyes fixed firmly on the car radio display and taking down a phone number. Talk about road safety...
Half a year ago I heard about a related application of RDS: the Dutch police are dicking around with automated speed cameras that can read your license plate. They wanted to combine this with RDS to warn speeders: "Hello RB-VH-97, you were just caught doing 140KPh in a 100Kph zone. The Hfl 450,- fine is in the mail. Have a nice day". Kinda cool isn't it?
Here in the Netherlands the following happened:
,at 200% productivity. (Figures from the Dutch statistics agency, not mine!)
One very large multinational started a telecommuting programme. They allowed most workers to work 2 days from home, they would supply the computer, ISDN etc. They even payed HFl 10000 (about $5000) for office stuff and home remodelling so the workers would have a decent home office. They even won some business prize for best telecommuting promotion.
Then, one worker complained: "Well I spent the 10000 already on my office, but I still need a height-adjustable desk, have my windows enlarged so I get more light, more wall outlets etc etc." He complained to ARBO (the Dutch OSHA) and they agreed the employer should pay for all this, since technically all his demands were valid for "regular" offices.
The result? The corporation cancelled the entire telecommuting programme. It was just too expensive. Now all those workers are back in the daily traffic jams.
IMHO it is alright to enforce rules for office requirements, but we need different rules for regular offices and home offices. Why? Because generally people do not work as long and often at home as at the office. The average # of days telecommuters spend at home is 2 days a week. The average number of hours worked is 5,5 hours a day
I'm no webmaster but, unless their setup is truly bizarre, deleting the check for browser and OS should take about 20 seconds
Maybe it's not their setup, but their procedures that are bizarre (or, in business terms, "normal").
You know:
- appoint project manager
- Draft work effort document
- Have budget approved
- Plan changes
- Draft functional and technical specs
- Have specs approved
- Form project team
- have team delete check for browser
- Do code reviews
- System and acceptance tests
- Roll out changes
On a more serious (and scarier) note: I just noticed that when I access any page on our company intranet with Netscape, I automagically get redirected to a page "http://blablabla.bla.bla/noie.html". No IE?!? All our pages are created with MS Frontpage, and it seems this "feature" is part of Frontpage or Microsofts web server. Grrrrr.
I had played this game in college when I didn't have a car, so I didn't notice anything for a while. But as soon as I got home and got behind the wheel, I found myself looking for pedestrians! It was really more of an uncontious thing. I'd be driving and I'd see a group of people and I'd really have to activly tell that this is reality and its not right to drive my car into a crowd.
I have had the same experience with driving right after playing Carmageddon. Right after I got into the car, I had a strong urge to ram the other idiot drivers off the road. The feeling wore off in a few minutes though.
I thought about why I only had this experience with this particular game, and it ocurred to me that in this case, playing Carmageddon and driving a real car are actually very similar activities (especially if you play with a steering wheel control). The controls and visual feedback in Carmageddon correspond to those you get while driving a real car.
What happens when games become more and more realistic? Right now, firing a gun in Quake is very different from firing a real one, but in the future it migth be hard to tell the difference. Will people playing "Quake 11" get the same urge I felt after playing Carmageddon, whip out their gun in the street and start fragging? Personally I think it could happen to people already on the edge and in posession of a gun. But I honestly don't think any computer game, however realistic, will cause normal people to go out and buy a gun, load it, and shoot people with it.
Obviously, computer games aren't the only factor here, in fact probably not even the main one, but I think that most of us here are too quick to say, "I play them and nothing bad happens to me, so it must be alright.
My thoughts exactly.
Those in power (read: big business) don't want seperate countries out there each having their own identity and making their own rules, they want a one world government
Can you present some real evidence for this?
One thing the WTO is trying to achieve is an open world market, and I am in favor of that. Please forget the big bad business conspiracy theories for a while, and remember that the countries that stand to gain the most from a truly free market are the third world contries.
Think about it: (one example) European farm policy prevents a global free food market, and the damage it causes to to the third world exceeds the total aid given to those countries, year by year.
We need a free market, not more government control, and this is one of the goals of the WTO. Even if they have other points on a hidden agenda, they are not evil incarnate.
Geek, on the other hand, has its roots in a now-obsolete Dutch word, "geck," which meant "fool."
It's hardly obsolete, we Dutchies still use the word (spelled 'gek' nowadays) on a daily basis.
We have a rather decent palmtop OS, and now we have to replace it with Linux? Why?
/. ? (can't think of the guys name): "Don't ask a nerd why, just nod your head and back away slowly".
Remember that sig used frequently here on
For me, that says it all. I for one can't wait to play around with this!
In Holland, you can expect at least fl. 3500 (before taxes) per month if you're fresh out of shool. That's about $1750. Getting a cellphone and
;-)
notebook is usually no problem.
If you start working at a big company, you can expect fl 5000 (US$ 2500) per month plus a company car. But you'd have to conform to that
company (might be hard for die-hard geeks - they tend to love Microsoft).
If you're thirty (-something) and have lots of experience, and don't mind working hard, fl 8500 or more is usually no problem. In Holland, that
kind of salary will buy you anything you want. It's about 3 times average.
If you foreigners are tempted to get a job in the Netherlands, consider the following:
Don't forget the taxes! Income tax is 38% on pay up to about Hfl 60000 ($30000), after that it's 50%! (Even higher salaries are taxed at 60%). Your company car is considered income; you pay around Hfl 4500 in income taxes for your "free" company car. Companies generally pay your fuel though (even for personal use fo your car), and at Hfl 2,25 a litre ($4 a gallon) that is a sweet deal.
Foreigners may be disappointed by the housing in Holland: cramped & expensive. Rents start at about Hfl 1000 unfurnished; you can buy a 3-room apartment for Hfl 250000 and up (if you are lucky). Amsterdam is much, much more expensive.
That said, Holland is a good place to live, and the American and British ex-pats in our company are having a great time here.
Besides, we have legalized soft drugs
Funny, during early tests of HDTV in Europe someone remarked on how the superior picture quality made peoples faces look bad. Every wrinkle, spot, zit and what have you stood out in glorious detail on the HDTV set, whereas on regular television such imperfections could easily be hidden by some makeup.
I've seen Visual Basic used for *ugh!* web-page script stuff, and by engineers who wanted to crank out some cheap & nasty code, quickly. I've not once seen it used for any real work, though.
Be afraid: VB is used for more and more increasingly large, mission-critical projects. VB is fine for certain tasks. However the comments (see other posts), about managers thinking it requires less qualified software engineers, are valid. I see this happening every day in my work, and while the systems we build become more complex, the quality of of programmers has steadily declined, and with it the quality of the software.
Incidently, the same thing happens in the area of system administration. Setting up a Windows NT server seems very easy, so managers think they can get away with hiring much less experienced (and cheaper) admins. The rude awakening comes later...!
That is why I choose a language like C or C++ for larger projects: it keeps non-qualified programmers away from the team. A nice GUI and pretty colors are simply no substitute for brains.
Actually a "regular" 30" lens will do exactly the same thing, but you'd probably not be able to lift such a thing. That's why the Fresnel lens was invented: you take a regular lens, cut it into concentric rings, then make all the rings equally thick and glue them back together (more or less).
You're right about strikes being the most publicized thing unions can do.
A year ago union representatives of a large steel mill around here met with management to discuss salaries and working conditions during the weekend. Management knew about the union's demands and were prepared to give in to the main issues if need be. It turned out however that the union had *already* organized a strike for the following monday and were fighting to keep from reaching an agreement with management. They wanted the publicity of a strike because of decreasing membership.
How's that for screwing both the company that provides your livelihood and your own members at the same time?
Managers at the company I work for sometimes makes misinformed or clueless decisions. But rather than join a union, pay my dues and sit back letting the union take care of someone's interest (not necessarily mine), I'd rather talk to management and get other people to do so as well, if I have a problem or two.
If this turns out to be true (or even just credible) we will probably see an endless barrage of litigation, once people start smelling money.
_
Once again, the only people that will really benefit are the lawyers.
_______________________________________________
"Feelings" are a wonderful excuse for stupidity
It seems you can psycho-analyse this guy and guess his education, just by reading his two sentences? Impressive
/. experience.
That was completely unwarranted. May I suggest the Threshold selector for a less sickening
Good. Now let's hope other countries will follow suit. Maybe now somebody in the European Parliament will start pushing this thing in Europe.
Funny thing that the Germans again seem to value privacy more than the rest of us. Example: phone companies in most european contries are required to keep details billing records for at least 3 - 5 years. In Germany they are allowed to keep them for a *maximum* of 1 year.
For anyone that needs to have encryption software developed (dictator or otherwise) this may not be a big deal, but for people in the software development business it is! This would mean that developers of off-the-shelf stuff can include strong encryption in their products and legally sell them overseas. People and corporations here (in Europe) have been asking for strong encryption to be incorporated in the applications they use, but the law has always prevented it. This ruling, if upheld, may change that!
j udowone Look at the section on strong encryption).
If you want to know what I mean, and what the implications of this silly restriction are to non US citizens, take a look at any product that already offers encryption, like Netscape (http://www.netscape.com/download/index.html?cp=d
This is anything but symbolic.
You've read her books, but did you understand them?
Her philosophy is not about emotionlessnes, but about making rational decisions (meaning thinking about them and weighing alternatives) where emotion can definitively be a factor. Ayn Rand also does not teach us to be without honor.
I am not an objectivist, but I am a proponent of one of Ayn Rand's teachings: think about what you do, and make sure your opinions are well-informed ones. And I have to disagree strongly with your implication that objectivism, or like philosophies, have led to the current sordid state of affairs. Give us reason instead of opinions!
You are right though, that the world will not fix itself, nor will Ayn Rand. We ourselves have to take that upon us, each of us individually has to make the decision to take action.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but what you are saying is:"It can't be helped, or the cure is worse than the disease". In my opinion this is a bad approach to solve *any* problem, whether a solution exists or not. It is just as bad as the politicians' approach: they are acting without thinking, because the public expects them to act.
/.
Besides that, I disagree with your conclusion. I am from the Netherlands. We enjoy the same freedoms that US citizens have (with the notable exception of the freedom to own firearms), but we do not nearly have as much high school violence as you have in the US.
I (and others) consider myself to be a nerd, but I really enjoyed my years in high school. Our school encouraged us to explore and excel in any field, be it sports, arts, languages or science.
The nerds, geeks, jocks etc. did hang out with their own groups, but they mingled with others as well, and nobody was ashamed to call someone of the less popular groups a friend. (Sure I got picked on a few times, but that was more a senior / junior student kind of thing).
Don't get me wrong: I am not picking on the American Way of Life, and I am not saying that we are better than you. My point is that your schools can be better places than they are, and you won't have to trade in your freedom to achieve that. The first step could be the fact that the situation in your schools is coming out into the open, thanks to the students who sent those terrible letters to
I have watched only a few episodes of this show. It was one hell of a pleasant suprise, when we first got the SciFi channel in Rotterdam. But a couple months later, they were kicked off the cable. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr. Might as well sell my TV now.
By the way: is this show available on video? I don't care if it's PAL, NTSC or even Russian SECAM. Whatever. Please.