We have a small (tiny) startup with a local community membership, and I'm the sole developer. Members are able to edit their own content. After a couple of rounds of broken IE (even 9) and the hassle of even keeping a Windows test platform usable we dropped IE support for members in favor of Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Safari. So far, no members have complained and we've been able to turn back on features that just didn't work in IE and will soon have removed every special case in the CSS and javascript. Frankly if we are loosing some hypothetical customers who insist on IE, we're better off without them.
Visitors to the site can still use IE, but we'll be working to discourage even that in our small part of the world.
We also support some of our members who are less computer savvy and for the last couple of years when we get a request for help with their local machines, we suggest switching to Linux. So far we've had close to 100% success, with users being really impressed with the live Ubuntu CD demo and having very few questions or issues after switching over. Months later we still hear about how much better their experience has been. I've heard several variations on "I thought I was stupid and didn't understand computers, but this is just easy."
And then Unity came along.... I'll save the rant for another post, but I'm really worried that this is not just annoying for experienced users, but after trying to show people how to use it, it's a real step backward for new users too.
Long Answer: Reword you request and the risk becomes a little clearer. "I'm starting a new job soon, and I will be issued equipment which I have agreed not to use for personal use. I am compelled to use it for personal use anyway. How can I do that." You have to first weight the cost and the benefit. Is surfing the web worth losing your new job?
On the other hand, screw Greyface, here's how you do it. Don't try any of the approaches you've mentioned. If they have tracking software installed they may have software keyloggers and remote desktops as well. They MAY have hardware keyloggers. They probably don't, but that's the risk you're taking.
Get an live Linux distro you can boot off of USB, one that allows you to store stuff back to the USB stick. Damn Small Linux is a good one. Do your personal stuff EXCLUSIVELY when booted to the stick. That's about the best you can do. Best of luck. May the Source be with you.
They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Einstein.
They also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
Galileo had that great pratfall routine with the feather and the hammer going for him though, and Einstein had that Carrot Top hair. Bozo was mostly just funny because his mind control experiments didn't have a control group.
It's probably paranoid, but I keep thinking that in 50 years it will be leaked out that the "great downturn of 2007-201x" was actually the result of a global financial war fought by Anglo-American banking interests on one side and a Sino-Arab consortium on the other side.
The US government & Federal Reserve backed the banks not because they were too big to fail but because of the national security implications of losing control over world financial markets.
The housing and stock bubbles were failed attempts by the banking cartels to create wealth to keep up with the growth of the Chinese economy and the spiraling income of oil producers in the face of stagnant wage growth and industry within the US and the UK.
The war in Iraq wasn't about terrorism but about creating chaos in the center of Arabian Asia to disrupt OPEC.
I'm making all this up, but it seems to have a strange believability to it.
Add a determined young forensic economist, a jaded, but likable ex-agent for some government agency with guns and two cute and vulnerable, but otherwise inexplicable, child characters and you've got a blockbuster there. Oh and you'll need an ethnically ambiguous super-powered commodity trader who both sides are afraid is about to bring the whole thing down on their heads.
You lose all control over the material and some ugly things can happen.
Either give some example and reference for the above quote, or I call FUD.
Just to be clear, I'm not arguing against the value of the Public Domain and I would be perfectly happy with a 15 year copyright after which things naturally fall into the Public Domain. I was only referring to the OPs question about just declaring the thesis Public Domain and calling it good. CC is a way of "dedicating works to the public domain"
I was mostly referring to the same confusion over rights that the OP was trying to avoid and that was described in the Wikipedia link posted above. There's no clear legal definition of "Public Domain," and there are places where it's actually not possible to legally release all rights (Germany is cited in the Wiki article, but Portugal is also an example, I believe). Those are some of the problems CC was created to solve. On the other hand, CC licenses are very explicit about what they allow and make it easy for someone to reuse the work. Without those assurances someone might reuse a work only to find that they original rights owner (or more likely an heir or assignee) is suing them and there's no recourse because the release into the Public Domain wasn't legally valid. You might still win, but it's murky enough in some cases to cost money defending the case.
There are other things that could happen without much legal recourse if you do manage to give up all rights, for instance someone could change the author's name only and republish it, which, depending on the work and the effort involved my be disappointing. Remember that the OP wanted to make sure that his work was properly cited. Worse, someone might leave the name on it, change the content to meet some agenda of their own and republish it, so that it appears the original author said things they didn't. If I wanted to release something directly into the public domain, I would be inclined to do it anonymously to avoid that problem.
Another advantage to using a real license of any sort is that somewhere an attorney was involved. From your comments, you are not an attorney. Neither am I. For good or ill the law doesn't work the way an engineer would design it. Public Domain doesn't work just because you or I may say it should. It works when and if a court will find that works in most cases. For most of my own stuff, CC works great because I don't want to have to reinvent all of this every time I publish something.
You seem to have a strong opinion about this. Do you have a problem with CC licenses that releasing material directly into the Public Domain seems to fix?
You lose all control over the material and some ugly things can happen.
The Creative Commons licenses give you excellent control and they have a helpful tool on the website to pick the license you want. And attribution is required in the license which will handle your citation requirement.
There are others including the GNU free documentation license is a bit more specialized, but CC should be plenty for your needs and most importantly has a community of users and attorneys backing it up. You can probably get quite a bit of help if you ever need to defend it.
Just wanted to add my thanks to all the others. I've been reading/. daily since the beginning (who am I kidding, I hit refresh all through the day). You built something fine and unique and should be proud.
From some of your wording It seems like your trying to make a point about Google being wrong and also implying that I think they are in the right. I never said they were right or wrong, I just posted a link with information on how to ask Google for proof.
However I can't help but notice that the article you linked
says: "The GSA appears to be leaning toward agreeing with Google on this score, and told eWEEK it is working with Google to update the original FISMA documentation for Google Apps to incorporate Google Apps for Government." Which doesn't seem to support your argument very well.
I haven't mentioned an opinion on the matter, but since it's come up, I assume both companies (Google and Microsoft) are splitting hairs to try to weaken each other's position in the bidding and both lawsuits will likely be settled quietly and go away after the hubbub dies down.
Isn't it amazing how you can read the personalities involved just by looking at their signatures? Or is it that you can tell who types all day and who signs things all day?
If this is true, then the problem described in the article is a design flaw. Changing your credentials should block access by any box which does not have the new credentials.
I like Gosling, he's a good guy and he asks great questions.
I'm hoping this means more focus on AppEngine. It supports a Python or Java API. (I prefer Python) It's a very cool place to build things. I just built a small multi-vendor site for our local makers and crafters and had a blast doing it.
disclaimer: I used to work for Sun in the Java Center.
I actually have a friend that has paid all of her bills from her Second Life business for many years now, and more than a few who pay their RL rent that way. I'm not saying that will work forever, but it can work.
The same problem was there with people using old or inaccurate maps in the past, but there is a definite tendency for people to believe that GPS systems are somehow more accurate and up to date. It's irrational, but it's a real phenomenon.
Actual people will do irrational things. Pretending that people are fundamentally rational beings is irrational in itself. We have to design devices to assume irrational behavior and to take advantage of natural tendencies.
I suggest a GPS that "sounds" stupid. Something that gives verbal queues that it should not be trusted too much. We can use some well known politicians as voice talent. On the other hand, I suppose their success invalidates my theory.
Although I can sum up his advice in this case. If you can, leave. If you can't (you have a vested interest in this thing or need the money badly and can't let go) stay until you can leave. Then leave.
Slashdot Mirror
We have a small (tiny) startup with a local community membership, and I'm the sole developer. Members are able to edit their own content. After a couple of rounds of broken IE (even 9) and the hassle of even keeping a Windows test platform usable we dropped IE support for members in favor of Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Safari. So far, no members have complained and we've been able to turn back on features that just didn't work in IE and will soon have removed every special case in the CSS and javascript. Frankly if we are loosing some hypothetical customers who insist on IE, we're better off without them.
Visitors to the site can still use IE, but we'll be working to discourage even that in our small part of the world.
We also support some of our members who are less computer savvy and for the last couple of years when we get a request for help with their local machines, we suggest switching to Linux. So far we've had close to 100% success, with users being really impressed with the live Ubuntu CD demo and having very few questions or issues after switching over. Months later we still hear about how much better their experience has been. I've heard several variations on "I thought I was stupid and didn't understand computers, but this is just easy."
And then Unity came along.... I'll save the rant for another post, but I'm really worried that this is not just annoying for experienced users, but after trying to show people how to use it, it's a real step backward for new users too.
is advertising. Perfect persuasion trumps everything else.
Step 2 == "Infiltrate Washington Post"
Long Answer: Reword you request and the risk becomes a little clearer. "I'm starting a new job soon, and I will be issued equipment which I have agreed not to use for personal use. I am compelled to use it for personal use anyway. How can I do that." You have to first weight the cost and the benefit. Is surfing the web worth losing your new job?
On the other hand, screw Greyface, here's how you do it. Don't try any of the approaches you've mentioned. If they have tracking software installed they may have software keyloggers and remote desktops as well. They MAY have hardware keyloggers. They probably don't, but that's the risk you're taking.
Get an live Linux distro you can boot off of USB, one that allows you to store stuff back to the USB stick. Damn Small Linux is a good one. Do your personal stuff EXCLUSIVELY when booted to the stick. That's about the best you can do. Best of luck. May the Source be with you.
What a hell of a support ticket.
"Users are noticing high latency during certain times of the day..."
I wish I had mod points. That was awesome.
They laughed at Galileo.
They laughed at Einstein.
They also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
Galileo had that great pratfall routine with the feather and the hammer going for him though, and Einstein had that Carrot Top hair.
Bozo was mostly just funny because his mind control experiments didn't have a control group.
It's probably paranoid, but I keep thinking that in 50 years it will be leaked out that the "great downturn of 2007-201x" was actually the result of a global financial war fought by Anglo-American banking interests on one side and a Sino-Arab consortium on the other side.
The US government & Federal Reserve backed the banks not because they were too big to fail but because of the national security implications of losing control over world financial markets.
The housing and stock bubbles were failed attempts by the banking cartels to create wealth to keep up with the growth of the Chinese economy and the spiraling income of oil producers in the face of stagnant wage growth and industry within the US and the UK.
The war in Iraq wasn't about terrorism but about creating chaos in the center of Arabian Asia to disrupt OPEC.
I'm making all this up, but it seems to have a strange believability to it.
Add a determined young forensic economist, a jaded, but likable ex-agent for some government agency with guns and two cute and vulnerable, but otherwise inexplicable, child characters and you've got a blockbuster there. Oh and you'll need an ethnically ambiguous super-powered commodity trader who both sides are afraid is about to bring the whole thing down on their heads.
Working Title: Follow The Money
You lose all control over the material and some ugly things can happen.
Either give some example and reference for the above quote, or I call FUD.
Just to be clear, I'm not arguing against the value of the Public Domain and I would be perfectly happy with a 15 year copyright after which things naturally fall into the Public Domain. I was only referring to the OPs question about just declaring the thesis Public Domain and calling it good. CC is a way of "dedicating works to the public domain"
I was mostly referring to the same confusion over rights that the OP was trying to avoid and that was described in the Wikipedia link posted above. There's no clear legal definition of "Public Domain," and there are places where it's actually not possible to legally release all rights (Germany is cited in the Wiki article, but Portugal is also an example, I believe). Those are some of the problems CC was created to solve. On the other hand, CC licenses are very explicit about what they allow and make it easy for someone to reuse the work. Without those assurances someone might reuse a work only to find that they original rights owner (or more likely an heir or assignee) is suing them and there's no recourse because the release into the Public Domain wasn't legally valid. You might still win, but it's murky enough in some cases to cost money defending the case.
There are other things that could happen without much legal recourse if you do manage to give up all rights, for instance someone could change the author's name only and republish it, which, depending on the work and the effort involved my be disappointing. Remember that the OP wanted to make sure that his work was properly cited. Worse, someone might leave the name on it, change the content to meet some agenda of their own and republish it, so that it appears the original author said things they didn't. If I wanted to release something directly into the public domain, I would be inclined to do it anonymously to avoid that problem.
Another advantage to using a real license of any sort is that somewhere an attorney was involved. From your comments, you are not an attorney. Neither am I. For good or ill the law doesn't work the way an engineer would design it. Public Domain doesn't work just because you or I may say it should. It works when and if a court will find that works in most cases. For most of my own stuff, CC works great because I don't want to have to reinvent all of this every time I publish something.
You seem to have a strong opinion about this. Do you have a problem with CC licenses that releasing material directly into the Public Domain seems to fix?
You lose all control over the material and some ugly things can happen.
The Creative Commons licenses give you excellent control and they have a helpful tool on the website to pick the license you want. And attribution is required in the license which will handle your citation requirement.
There are others including the GNU free documentation license is a bit more specialized, but CC should be plenty for your needs and most importantly has a community of users and attorneys backing it up. You can probably get quite a bit of help if you ever need to defend it.
If it's not on Netflix I probably won't bother.
Just wanted to add my thanks to all the others. I've been reading /. daily since the beginning (who am I kidding, I hit refresh all through the day). You built something fine and unique and should be proud.
please route around it.
...
whats the reason for this suppression/debasement intelligent/different individuals in american culture ? can anyone give me a good explanation ?
I can't really answer that question comprehensively, but I can point to someone who made a fantastic attempt. Richard (no relation to Douglas) Hofstadter wrote a book about it. http://www.amazon.com/Anti-Intellectualism-American-Life-Richard-Hofstadter/dp/0394703170
From some of your wording It seems like your trying to make a point about Google being wrong and also implying that I think they are in the right.
I never said they were right or wrong, I just posted a link with information on how to ask Google for proof.
However I can't help but notice that the article you linked
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Government-IT/Google-Apps-for-Government-Not-Yet-FISMA-Certified-GSA-495399/
says:
"The GSA appears to be leaning toward agreeing with Google on this score, and told eWEEK it is working with Google to update the original FISMA documentation for Google Apps to incorporate Google Apps for Government."
Which doesn't seem to support your argument very well.
I haven't mentioned an opinion on the matter, but since it's come up, I assume both companies (Google and Microsoft) are splitting hairs to try to weaken each other's position in the bidding and both lawsuits will likely be settled quietly and go away after the hubbub dies down.
I'm not sure what you meant, but I was posting a link I didn't find when I read the article.
Did you read any of the subsequent articles?
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110413220154117
As usual, Vinge saw it coming. We can hope it's more like Rainbow's End, but I wouldn't count on it.
Sam Landstrom had an interesting alternative in Metagame.
Here's the link to Google's claim and a link to request the documentation if anyone wants to follow up:
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/government/trust.html
I'm betting they can back it up.
Isn't it amazing how you can read the personalities involved just by looking at their signatures? Or is it that you can tell who types all day and who signs things all day?
If this is true, then the problem described in the article is a design flaw. Changing your credentials should block access by any box which does not have the new credentials.
Here'st he discusson in the Dropbox Support Forum http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=36146
I was just looking for something like this.
I like Gosling, he's a good guy and he asks great questions.
I'm hoping this means more focus on AppEngine. It supports a Python or Java API. (I prefer Python) It's a very cool place to build things. I just built a small multi-vendor site for our local makers and crafters and had a blast doing it.
disclaimer: I used to work for Sun in the Java Center.
I actually have a friend that has paid all of her bills from her Second Life business for many years now, and more than a few who pay their RL rent that way. I'm not saying that will work forever, but it can work.
The same problem was there with people using old or inaccurate maps in the past, but there is a definite tendency for people to believe that GPS systems are somehow more accurate and up to date. It's irrational, but it's a real phenomenon.
Actual people will do irrational things. Pretending that people are fundamentally rational beings is irrational in itself. We have to design devices to assume irrational behavior and to take advantage of natural tendencies.
I suggest a GPS that "sounds" stupid. Something that gives verbal queues that it should not be trusted too much. We can use some well known politicians as voice talent. On the other hand, I suppose their success invalidates my theory.
Researchers at the 32nd Street Regional University and Pub have announced a genetically engineered ficus that can detect disloyalty.
Here it is
Although I can sum up his advice in this case. If you can, leave. If you can't (you have a vested interest in this thing or need the money badly and can't let go) stay until you can leave. Then leave.