Ever hear of the CBLDF, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund? It's a fund to help comic book writers targeted by ridiculous legal action, mainly independent titles.
We need one for Internet sites facing this kind of bizarre legal harassment. We need an organization of people banded together (and taking donations, lets face it, it takes money), to help people fight this blossoming ridiculous legal activity.
My guess is lawyers are now engaged in preventative-and-predatory maneuvers, first strikes against any possible percieved threat no matter how bizarre or untrue. I've seen legal departments go on automatic before, and it seems this is happening more and more often on the net.
There are really two approches we can take to dealing with cyberspace: 1) The most liberal/open view, police powers only for truly egregeious cases, recognizing that different countries have different definitions of abuse of cyberspace, and that we have to take the broadest view.
Or
2) Trying to crack down for every law and with every opinion, trying to extend national reach beyond boarders and into other countries. Technologically impossible, politically difficult, socially devestating.
Sometimes, I wonder if countries, in dealing with the internet, aren't worried about law. They want to conquer and control new territory.
I think that's a pretty good point - the lack of business skills period is the real threat to getting products out the door well. If the programmers don't have business skills, it won't help the managers, and if the managers don't have business skills, the programmers may not be able to make the necessary difference.
One thing I told my co-workers is that everyone who has a job has to be a businessperson. I think that holds especially in programming.
This is a good point, and one I had not considered in my original post. Definitely food for thought - I myself am lucky, with the company I'm at we have a strong percentage of programmers who help with or went into HR.
One problem I do see is that there is an assumption that the Suits have nothing to contribute, that they're a faceless mass of oppressors. In the department I work in, our manager, a "Suit", keeps connected to the market and has saved our backsides several times because he knows what's going on.
If there are two things needed it is: 1) That business and coding respect each others spheres of knowledge and decisions. 2) Suits learn more about programmer and programmers learn more about business.
With all due respect, the idea that "the Suits" are the cause of all software/IT problems is, at best, a half-truth. Yes, there are stupid deadlines, bad budgeting, and more - I've been there.
But as a programmer I've also seen coders and developers screw up projects as well. I've seen people assign underskilled programmers to vital projects so they can do "fun" things. I've worked with coders who have no sense of design or deadline or responsibility shaft customers and employers.
Open Source is definitely going to require a rethinking and rearrangement of current business structures, and I think it will be for the better. A service (ie results) approach is definitely needed in IT. Just don't expect an overnight cure, though it's my hope that the service approach will work its way to all levels of IT.
Though its a short article, I found it sad that the NetPD representative didn't seem to worry about repercussions of his actions or the company's actions - or repercussions they may face down the road in the form of lawsuits, etc.
Perhaps it was the limits of the article, but that is rather sad. I found his attitude, as portrayed, flippant as well ("expect to be hacked"). He apparently knows he's onto a good thing people will hire him for, but apparently not so concious of what the future may hold.
I suppose we've seen the birth of CyberDetectives bigtime. Perhaps thats one of the next waves/fads in E-business . . .
Me, I invest. I'm one of those people that goes to http://www.fool.com/, doesn't buy the hot thing, changes his investments yearly based on mathematical calculations, and doesn't trust hype. I'm also a webmaster/programmer, so I tend to see both sides.
A statement like this book is needed, sadly, because many people do not see all sides, nor have a sense of history. Not everyone is an economist, a technologist, or a historian, and their sources of information are limited.
From what I've seen, the technoboom started AFTER the economy began to pick up, making me wonder if the economy fueled the Internet growth more that people realize. Perhaps technological hype and truth help perpetuate it, but people need to consider multiple factors in any economic boom.
Is there benefit in the new economy? Sure. It's just competing with hype, misunderstanding, and wishful thinking. I've seen plenty of IT/Web projects pour huge amounts of money down technoholes when simpler and cheaper solutions would have produced better results. I've seen my fellow technologists take advantage of this hype, delivering terrible solutions for hideous fees.
Will it crash? My guess is its going to be more of a forced landing as the air in the hype baloon bleeds off - and books like this help start it so it happens slowly, not in a disastrous crunch. I figure that, in about a year, values will be more sane and people will be looking for real value.
Then again, this may be my OWN wishful thinking.
Re:mySQL vs what you need
on
Why Not MySQL?
·
· Score: 1
Exactly. It all depends on what you need.
I don't know if most people can get by on MySQL, that's a statement that'd take some thought to evaluate. But we certainly need to know what we require for a project before shelling out $$$$ and time.
Arguing over general superiority does nothing - but functional necessity is another thing entirely.
I'm pretty libertarian, but I have to admit the idea of.sex or.adult or something similar really does intrigue me.
Consider: 1) It's easier to filter without some of these hideous brain-crushing filters. 2) You have NO excuse to be surprised at what you find. 3) Filter companies will now have to give the benefit of a doubt to non.sex domains. 4) A whole ton of domains opens up (maybe there can be a grandfathering procedure) for current sites. 5) It'd help reinforce the idea that.net,.com,.org REALLY ARE TOO LIMITED.
I do see the possibility of a kind of "adult ghetto" forming online, and stupid regulations being easier to target. Is it worth the tradeoff?
I'm not 100% sure. But ideally (ie if we didn't have to worry about the dumb laws), this'd work.
This smells to me of a publicity "look how much we care stunt." Probably in light of the Napster controversy (notice how Napster and such are discussed on the main page) they're putting their best face foward. I mean, who can argue with folks that don't like pediophiles?
However, looking over the pages with the file names, few of them seem to be any different from the usual dross you find on the net or here about in spam or see in newsgroups. The names are rarely distinctive.
I wonder if this is a new trend - trying to find ways to look good so you don't get caught up in the recent controversies over the net and technology.
These are related questions about the technologies in general: 1) Even if Napster goes out of business, as you wish, there are substitutes like Gnutella. What do you propose to do about those, especially decentralized ones? 2) In attempting to encourage regulation of technology, especially as there are alternatives to Napster, do you fear you will start something that will ultimately result in damaging laws, bad laws, and politically-motivated laws as opposed to necessary ones.
I don't see Metallica suing makers of CD burners, tape recorders, etc. I see them going after Napster.
Now, I admit to seeing both sides of the issue here - it's made me think a lot about how I feel about copyrights and copyright law. However, I see Metallica targeting Napster - Napster isn't targeted for what you can do with their service, they're targeted because their service is effective.
I know people burning CDs illegally. Should Metallica go after them next, maybe give a few CD-RW manufacturing companies a lawsuit? Or is it just that its not as easy and as public as Napster so thus misses their attention?
Or is it that technology, copyrights, freedom, and responsibility have just collided in one damned ugly mess?
All the many arguments aside (and there are arguments on both sides), Metallica has missed a very, very vital point:
They're annoying their fans.
Most of the people trading on Napster are not sitting there going "oh boy, am I screwing Lars and company!" They're fans. Now they've been called criminals and spied on. This, PR-wise alone, is an incredibly stupid and non-productive move.
They're FANS. At worst misguided, at best people that really like Metallica.
Metallica could have worked with them - they could have done album rereleases, promotional MP3s, and more. They could have a download site for most wanted tracks and sell ad space (imagine the hits!). They could have asked their fans (nicely) to stop trading MP3s and provided them themselves, or provided rerelase albums of desired tracks.
This feels to me like "shut up and do it our way or else, cash-cows."
There's a few points I wanted to make out of analyzing the article: 1) Of course companies using Open Source have profit motives - as do many of us. Making profit is not the opposite of Open Source, the two co-exist happily. 2) Mozilla is, frankly, about the last example of popularly known Open Source I'd use to show how Open Source works. 3) Open Source has shown goods and is in use - the mail server in my office is running Linux and Sendmail. 4) PHP, an open source CGI language, is sweeping servers. I admit I'm not up to using it myself, but I figure in a year with some company support, it'll be a viable alternatitve to ASP and CFM.
Finally, the article itself is too sarcastic (the joke about Red Hat needing another color was pointless), which I think portrays bias, be it against Open Source, or a bias towards sounding sensational/confrontational.
Sad, really.
What is necessary, what you choose to do.
on
Faster
·
· Score: 1
Part of the problem of the faster age, I think, is people using technology in unnecessary ways. Join a listserv only to delete 99% of the messages, manage a web page that does nothing, design a Shockwave presentation most people will be annoyed by, present that vision statement for something that's already changed.
We end up using technology for things that really don't matter and end up wasting time. We keep up with things that really don't do anything just to keep up.
Technology gives us the ability to do important things quicker and better. But we fill the time with new things to do that may not necessarily be worth it.
I don't think anyone is surprised at the ruling, even those who may not agree. Even if Microsoft was lilly-white, their behavior during the trial was amazingly arrogant and suspicious.
However, with the media attention and innovations elsewhere, the dirty little secret is that Microsoft has become increasingly irrelevant. They're up against new and newly-appreciated OSes, the web dominates, Open Source poses new challenges, ASP comes in several flavors (and faces competition with PHP), etc. Microsoft does a lot of stuff, but anyone else can do it another way, and in many cases, better. Right now they make an OS that more or less works and some products - that's it.
The ultimate irony, to me, is that I feel Microsoft undermined themselves with their delayed rush to the web and the internet. It made people aware of their flaws, it brought out their worst nature, and it gave people access to options they never would have had. They could have learned FROM the internet and the web and Open Source, but by merely rushing to get product out the door, they highlighted their own flaws and gave people the tools to get around them.
It sounds like the W.A.V.E. project is trying to get money from the state/school system. However, the political legitimization of a pure for-profit enterprise with social repercussions is disturbing. All things aside, this is essentially a company with a profit motive exploring a new avenue - in a questionable way.
All things aside, I think people would be disturbed that highly sensitive, personal, and controversial issues are being handled by a profit-motive company with political backing. There's a chance for huge conflicts of interest here.
Of course, I do expect this to blow up, I just don't know how much damage this will cause. When people begin flooding lines by turning in each other, when sports rivals turn each other in, when revenge-confessions are used, when someone is falsely accused and sues the heck out of everyone in sight . . .
To be fair, the comparison to the Hitler Youth was made, not the holocaust.
In this case, I think it's a legitimate comparison (hey, at some point, there WILL be things to compare to the Nazis just by the odds that are not illegitimate comparisons). However you phrase it, it's rewards for turning in people based on questionable grounding.
In this case, I'm gonna give Katz credit on this one.
Of course, I notice the unique capitalist twist on having this be a for-profit endeavor. Will we see competing companies viying for who can turn in more kids?
I think its to the point where right now people are busy seeing what they want/expect/need to see instead of actually trying to figure out what's going on.
Reading the article is very informative:
The population sampled was pretty specific. I myself, a programmer/analyst who does webwork wouldn't have fallen into their definitions.
The "hot market" trend IS a factor in potential shortage - having done interviews, I know not everyone can hack programming/IT.
The concern about the age crunch is something I haven't seen - people will hire who they can hire.
Neccessary skills *are* rare, because people need combinations combined with pesonality traits.
Overall, we have more people that CAN do IT, but many aren't or are too limited or in the wrong spot.
Me, I get plenty of calls a month. I'm 32 (supposedly over-the-hill), and going fine. My guess is there's not a gap statistically - but there's a gap in will and standards.
Amazing. The company gets paid for essentially not doing its job and has almost no standards.
Now how can *I* set up a company like this and make $$$$?
Evolution versus Information?
on
The Regulon
·
· Score: 2
The entire fallacy here, I see it, is that information transmitted in evolution is different than information transmitted in technology.
Either are about the transmission AND interaction of information.
In evolution (and I'd like to note Darwin's theories are not the only ones), information interacts as well. Information in evolution is also not just from DNA - it's input from the environment in the form of learning, predation, etc. Living creatures alter their environment as well, producing more feedback.
Evolution produced us, a species almost free of its DNA, able to learn and adapt in amazing ways in very short times. The information age is a manifestation of human communications and adaption potential.
So there's no "outside" in evolution, no Regulon hanging over us externally - there is the interaction of information. The information age is merely an accelerated version.
It sounds to me like scientific materialists are trying to find a new God in the Regulon. Someone to thank for success, and someone that "we all need in our lives" for goodness and order.
Slashdot Mirror
Ever hear of the CBLDF, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund? It's a fund to help comic book writers targeted by ridiculous legal action, mainly independent titles.
We need one for Internet sites facing this kind of bizarre legal harassment. We need an organization of people banded together (and taking donations, lets face it, it takes money), to help people fight this blossoming ridiculous legal activity.
My guess is lawyers are now engaged in preventative-and-predatory maneuvers, first strikes against any possible percieved threat no matter how bizarre or untrue. I've seen legal departments go on automatic before, and it seems this is happening more and more often on the net.
So, it's time to band together and fight.
There are really two approches we can take to dealing with cyberspace:
1) The most liberal/open view, police powers only for truly egregeious cases, recognizing that different countries have different definitions of abuse of cyberspace, and that we have to take the broadest view.
Or
2) Trying to crack down for every law and with every opinion, trying to extend national reach beyond boarders and into other countries. Technologically impossible, politically difficult, socially devestating.
Sometimes, I wonder if countries, in dealing with the internet, aren't worried about law. They want to conquer and control new territory.
I think that's a pretty good point - the lack of business skills period is the real threat to getting products out the door well. If the programmers don't have business skills, it won't help the managers, and if the managers don't have business skills, the programmers may not be able to make the necessary difference.
One thing I told my co-workers is that everyone who has a job has to be a businessperson. I think that holds especially in programming.
This is a good point, and one I had not considered in my original post. Definitely food for thought - I myself am lucky, with the company I'm at we have a strong percentage of programmers who help with or went into HR.
One problem I do see is that there is an assumption that the Suits have nothing to contribute, that they're a faceless mass of oppressors. In the department I work in, our manager, a "Suit", keeps connected to the market and has saved our backsides several times because he knows what's going on.
If there are two things needed it is:
1) That business and coding respect each others spheres of knowledge and decisions.
2) Suits learn more about programmer and programmers learn more about business.
With all due respect, the idea that "the Suits" are the cause of all software/IT problems is, at best, a half-truth. Yes, there are stupid deadlines, bad budgeting, and more - I've been there.
But as a programmer I've also seen coders and developers screw up projects as well. I've seen people assign underskilled programmers to vital projects so they can do "fun" things. I've worked with coders who have no sense of design or deadline or responsibility shaft customers and employers.
Open Source is definitely going to require a rethinking and rearrangement of current business structures, and I think it will be for the better. A service (ie results) approach is definitely needed in IT. Just don't expect an overnight cure, though it's my hope that the service approach will work its way to all levels of IT.
Though its a short article, I found it sad that the NetPD representative didn't seem to worry about repercussions of his actions or the company's actions - or repercussions they may face down the road in the form of lawsuits, etc.
Perhaps it was the limits of the article, but that is rather sad. I found his attitude, as portrayed, flippant as well ("expect to be hacked"). He apparently knows he's onto a good thing people will hire him for, but apparently not so concious of what the future may hold.
I suppose we've seen the birth of CyberDetectives bigtime. Perhaps thats one of the next waves/fads in E-business . . .
. . . which I can't get too enthused about.
Me, I invest. I'm one of those people that goes to http://www.fool.com/, doesn't buy the hot thing, changes his investments yearly based on mathematical calculations, and doesn't trust hype. I'm also a webmaster/programmer, so I tend to see both sides.
A statement like this book is needed, sadly, because many people do not see all sides, nor have a sense of history. Not everyone is an economist, a technologist, or a historian, and their sources of information are limited.
From what I've seen, the technoboom started AFTER the economy began to pick up, making me wonder if the economy fueled the Internet growth more that people realize. Perhaps technological hype and truth help perpetuate it, but people need to consider multiple factors in any economic boom.
Is there benefit in the new economy? Sure. It's just competing with hype, misunderstanding, and wishful thinking. I've seen plenty of IT/Web projects pour huge amounts of money down technoholes when simpler and cheaper solutions would have produced better results. I've seen my fellow technologists take advantage of this hype, delivering terrible solutions for hideous fees.
Will it crash? My guess is its going to be more of a forced landing as the air in the hype baloon bleeds off - and books like this help start it so it happens slowly, not in a disastrous crunch. I figure that, in about a year, values will be more sane and people will be looking for real value.
Then again, this may be my OWN wishful thinking.
Exactly. It all depends on what you need.
I don't know if most people can get by on MySQL, that's a statement that'd take some thought to evaluate. But we certainly need to know what we require for a project before shelling out $$$$ and time.
Arguing over general superiority does nothing - but functional necessity is another thing entirely.
The lesson of all of this is:
1) Know your requirements.
2) Know what the database solutions available can handle.
3) See if they match up.
There's really not much more to say.
I'd like to think that a response to this would be more intelligent than your parody.
The band members did seem thoughtful in their interview. I don't think they 100% get what's going on, but they aren't stupid.
The ultimate measure of how much they get it will be if these questions change their minds, or at least cause them to think over what's going on.
I'm pretty libertarian, but I have to admit the idea of .sex or .adult or something similar really does intrigue me.
.sex domains. .net, .com, .org REALLY ARE TOO LIMITED.
Consider:
1) It's easier to filter without some of these hideous brain-crushing filters.
2) You have NO excuse to be surprised at what you find.
3) Filter companies will now have to give the benefit of a doubt to non
4) A whole ton of domains opens up (maybe there can be a grandfathering procedure) for current sites.
5) It'd help reinforce the idea that
I do see the possibility of a kind of "adult ghetto" forming online, and stupid regulations being easier to target. Is it worth the tradeoff?
I'm not 100% sure. But ideally (ie if we didn't have to worry about the dumb laws), this'd work.
This smells to me of a publicity "look how much we care stunt." Probably in light of the Napster controversy (notice how Napster and such are discussed on the main page) they're putting their best face foward. I mean, who can argue with folks that don't like pediophiles?
However, looking over the pages with the file names, few of them seem to be any different from the usual dross you find on the net or here about in spam or see in newsgroups. The names are rarely distinctive.
I wonder if this is a new trend - trying to find ways to look good so you don't get caught up in the recent controversies over the net and technology.
These are related questions about the technologies in general:
1) Even if Napster goes out of business, as you wish, there are substitutes like Gnutella. What do you propose to do about those, especially decentralized ones?
2) In attempting to encourage regulation of technology, especially as there are alternatives to Napster, do you fear you will start something that will ultimately result in damaging laws, bad laws, and politically-motivated laws as opposed to necessary ones.
I don't see Metallica suing makers of CD burners, tape recorders, etc. I see them going after Napster.
Now, I admit to seeing both sides of the issue here - it's made me think a lot about how I feel about copyrights and copyright law. However, I see Metallica targeting Napster - Napster isn't targeted for what you can do with their service, they're targeted because their service is effective.
I know people burning CDs illegally. Should Metallica go after them next, maybe give a few CD-RW manufacturing companies a lawsuit? Or is it just that its not as easy and as public as Napster so thus misses their attention?
Or is it that technology, copyrights, freedom, and responsibility have just collided in one damned ugly mess?
All the many arguments aside (and there are arguments on both sides), Metallica has missed a very, very vital point:
They're annoying their fans.
Most of the people trading on Napster are not sitting there going "oh boy, am I screwing Lars and company!" They're fans. Now they've been called criminals and spied on. This, PR-wise alone, is an incredibly stupid and non-productive move.
They're FANS. At worst misguided, at best people that really like Metallica.
Metallica could have worked with them - they could have done album rereleases, promotional MP3s, and more. They could have a download site for most wanted tracks and sell ad space (imagine the hits!). They could have asked their fans (nicely) to stop trading MP3s and provided them themselves, or provided rerelase albums of desired tracks.
This feels to me like "shut up and do it our way or else, cash-cows."
Off to never, never land . . .
There's a few points I wanted to make out of analyzing the article:
1) Of course companies using Open Source have profit motives - as do many of us. Making profit is not the opposite of Open Source, the two co-exist happily.
2) Mozilla is, frankly, about the last example of popularly known Open Source I'd use to show how Open Source works.
3) Open Source has shown goods and is in use - the mail server in my office is running Linux and Sendmail.
4) PHP, an open source CGI language, is sweeping servers. I admit I'm not up to using it myself, but I figure in a year with some company support, it'll be a viable alternatitve to ASP and CFM.
Finally, the article itself is too sarcastic (the joke about Red Hat needing another color was pointless), which I think portrays bias, be it against Open Source, or a bias towards sounding sensational/confrontational.
Sad, really.
Part of the problem of the faster age, I think, is people using technology in unnecessary ways. Join a listserv only to delete 99% of the messages, manage a web page that does nothing, design a Shockwave presentation most people will be annoyed by, present that vision statement for something that's already changed.
We end up using technology for things that really don't matter and end up wasting time. We keep up with things that really don't do anything just to keep up.
Technology gives us the ability to do important things quicker and better. But we fill the time with new things to do that may not necessarily be worth it.
Actually it's news because its netculture. You can think its ridiculous, pathetic, etc., but it is part of what's going on on the net.
Four years of voyeurism. Damn.
I don't think anyone is surprised at the ruling, even those who may not agree. Even if Microsoft was lilly-white, their behavior during the trial was amazingly arrogant and suspicious.
However, with the media attention and innovations elsewhere, the dirty little secret is that Microsoft has become increasingly irrelevant. They're up against new and newly-appreciated OSes, the web dominates, Open Source poses new challenges, ASP comes in several flavors (and faces competition with PHP), etc. Microsoft does a lot of stuff, but anyone else can do it another way, and in many cases, better. Right now they make an OS that more or less works and some products - that's it.
The ultimate irony, to me, is that I feel Microsoft undermined themselves with their delayed rush to the web and the internet. It made people aware of their flaws, it brought out their worst nature, and it gave people access to options they never would have had. They could have learned FROM the internet and the web and Open Source, but by merely rushing to get product out the door, they highlighted their own flaws and gave people the tools to get around them.
It sounds like the W.A.V.E. project is trying to get money from the state/school system. However, the political legitimization of a pure for-profit enterprise with social repercussions is disturbing. All things aside, this is essentially a company with a profit motive exploring a new avenue - in a questionable way.
All things aside, I think people would be disturbed that highly sensitive, personal, and controversial issues are being handled by a profit-motive company with political backing. There's a chance for huge conflicts of interest here.
Of course, I do expect this to blow up, I just don't know how much damage this will cause. When people begin flooding lines by turning in each other, when sports rivals turn each other in, when revenge-confessions are used, when someone is falsely accused and sues the heck out of everyone in sight . . .
I'll be watching.
To be fair, the comparison to the Hitler Youth was made, not the holocaust.
In this case, I think it's a legitimate comparison (hey, at some point, there WILL be things to compare to the Nazis just by the odds that are not illegitimate comparisons). However you phrase it, it's rewards for turning in people based on questionable grounding.
In this case, I'm gonna give Katz credit on this one.
Of course, I notice the unique capitalist twist on having this be a for-profit endeavor. Will we see competing companies viying for who can turn in more kids?
Reading the article is very informative:
Overall, we have more people that CAN do IT, but many aren't or are too limited or in the wrong spot.
Me, I get plenty of calls a month. I'm 32 (supposedly over-the-hill), and going fine. My guess is there's not a gap statistically - but there's a gap in will and standards.
Amazing. The company gets paid for essentially not doing its job and has almost no standards.
Now how can *I* set up a company like this and make $$$$?
The entire fallacy here, I see it, is that information transmitted in evolution is different than information transmitted in technology.
Either are about the transmission AND interaction of information.
In evolution (and I'd like to note Darwin's theories are not the only ones), information interacts as well. Information in evolution is also not just from DNA - it's input from the environment in the form of learning, predation, etc. Living creatures alter their environment as well, producing more feedback.
Evolution produced us, a species almost free of its DNA, able to learn and adapt in amazing ways in very short times. The information age is a manifestation of human communications and adaption potential.
So there's no "outside" in evolution, no Regulon hanging over us externally - there is the interaction of information. The information age is merely an accelerated version.
It sounds to me like scientific materialists are trying to find a new God in the Regulon. Someone to thank for success, and someone that "we all need in our lives" for goodness and order.