As with everything else online, telling what is real and what isn't is next to impossible for someone without expert knowledge in the field. Just look at some of the hoaxes that have fooled thousands of the more gullible users, and they are relatively unsophisticated. People tend to believe what they read, especially when it's dressed up in a respectable looking webpage.
When it comes to health, a site that is pushing incorrect information, either through malice or incompetance, is endangering people's lives, and in much the same way as shouting fire in a theatre is illegal, it should be punished to the full extent of the law.
Having a WHO-approved TLD would mean that people could be confident that the advice they are getting is at the very least accurate and safe. It's one thing moaning about porn sites taking misspellings of people's names, but having people's lives put in danger is a whole order of magnitude different.
I think this is a great idea. I can't think of any reason to oppose it.
For a start they're not patenting the gene itself, they're patenting an application of the gene i.e. a treatment based upon the gene, an isolated version of the gene (not the same as the ones in your body) or a modified version of the gene. This immeadiately cuts down on half of the scare stories that seem to be circulating here.
Yes, I think that a company shouldn't be able to patent a gene for which they have nothing but the raw chemical itself, they should have a good idea of what it does first.
But, the basic idea of patenting genes is no different from patenting any other invention. Biotech research is a very risky, expensive business, and for every Viagra out there, there are a thousand chemicals that didn't work or weren't safe to use. And because it's an industry where espionage is rife, seeking patent protection is about the only way these companies can ensure they see any profit on what they spend millions researching.
Now, I'm no medical doctor by any means, but isn't there a risk of serious injury with something like this? I mean, people are getting RSI now just from sitting away at their keyboards typing. How on Earth are they going to cope when playing games involved whipping their heads around at breakneck speeds?
If this takes off I can almost guarantee that hospitals will see a huge influx of whiplash cases from teenagers having injured themselves attempting to "frag" other people in Quake 3 Arena. This will be swiftly followed by a tidal wave of lawsuits from angry parents, and Cybernet Systems will quickly fold and go under.
One thing I'd like to see is the Internet represented as a multi-dimensional map where each axis represents a relevance to a particular subject i.e. technology, media, porn or whatever. Of course the rating and choice of axis would be somewhat arbitrary, but it would make for an interesting reference and perhaps allow for novel forms of searching based on a set of criteria e.g technology > 0.8 AND media > 0.1
Of course, who'd do all of this rating is another question...
You can never underestimate the importance of having the people who work under you happy with their jobs - at the end of the day, money isn't everything and people will leave for an equivalent job that offers what you are, but with a nicer environment if they don't feel comfortable where they are. I'm sure many people here have left for no other reason than the fact that they didn't enjoy working somewhere.
Flexitime makes people happy, and thus increases productivity. In a modern office environment it costs you little to let people come in at non-standard hours. But there is one thing to beware of - you can lose the interaction between team members which is necessary in a large project.
My policy was to allow flexitime but with "core time" in which people have to be in the office. This is especially important if your time has to interact with clients, to ensure someone is always available. But you also need it to arrange meetings, briefings and progress reports. Typically we'd have a core time of 11-2 three days a week, with half the team on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the other half on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, letting us have team meetings on Fridays.
So I think flexitime is a good idea, but you can't let it get out of hand or else your team will fragment and productivity will drop rapidly.
This would practically revolutionise both reporting and intelligence operations - there would no longer be any need for external equipment, and you'd really be able to get a view "as if you were there". For espionage, all you'd need to do would be flick through a set of papers and their contents could be taken from the camera's memory later on.
And let's not forget crime. If everyone had these in their eyes, then witness testimony would suddenly become a hell of a lot more reliable. I'm sure we've all seen studies about how completely unreliable eyewitness accounts of incidents are - people forget, change what they saw to fit their opinions and just plain make mistakes (IIRC, Carl Sagan's This Demon Haunted World has a section about this. Hell, even if it doesn't, read the book anyway).
With this technology you could obtain 100% accurate footage of what witnesses saw in digital format, allowing police to see what really happened. Identifying criminals may become as easy as running a computer search again a central photo database. Of course, this is perhaps a bit Big Brother for some, but it all depends on the tricky legal details in its implentation, and YMMV.
As for two-way implants where information can be added to what you see (an internal HUD), well the applications are enormous. Read Peter F Hamliton's Night's Dawn trilogy for some good ideas of what would be possible...
Ugh, if there has ever been an example of how not to run an organisation, ICANN has to take the prize. Despite their promises of openness and accountability, they have been a rediculous parade of corporate pimping and self-serving behaviour.
And this decision to update their bylaws to exclude the at-large members from the TLD decision is yet another example of how they've cunningly organised this whole thing as nothing more than an exercise in public relations, an attempt to shut people up about how crap they are.
The at-large members, although they may be the greatest people in the world, just aren't going to make a bit of difference in what ICANN is or does. The positions were created to act as a sop to disgruntled netizens, and even then the contest was rigged to ensure more corporate frontmen would join the board. And the suprising thing is, it seemed to work! People lapped it all up without realising the utter futility of the entire process.
Unfortunately ICANN represents the worst excesses of the American corporate replublic, in that it puts business ahead of consumers. Quite frankly, ICANN sucks.
The point is to provide people with alternatives. I would think that you, as a linux user, would be painfully aware of how valuable that is.
I wasn't arguing that more alternatives are a bad thing, obviously for applications they definitely are. My point was more that even on Linux, Mozilla would seem to be the preferable choice - same code base but more up to date and having fixed the problems that Netscape 6 has been so heavily criticised for. The AOL on Linux angle is something I'd forgotten about and makes this a little bit more logical.
Of course it seems as though YMMV. And you really hit the spot with the Netscape-loving moderators, that's for sure:)
What a crock. You are assuming you have this wonderful idea of what is best for everyone.
Hmm... sounds like the similar dillusions of one Mr. Gates.
Wow, go for the jugular why don't you? I'm just expressing an opinion, not dictating the choice of browser you use. The level of vitriol in your post is hardly warranted now is it?
Fact is, I'm on a WinNT box, and I use Netscape (v4.61) almost exclusively.
Good for you.
I have tried 3 different versions of IE and all of them do the same thing to varying degrees; they misdraw most frames, outlines around buttons, and outlines around text boxes. These lines appear in random places all over the desktop and won't go away (even after closing IE) until I F5 or "wipe" my screen with a different program. Not everyone has this problem, but I'm not the only one either.
Strange, I've never had any problems like that in any of the versions of IE I've used on any of the Windows platforms. Of course anecdotal evidence doesn't really constitute a valid argument either way.
Even if this little bug that makes my screen practically unreadable at times didn't exist, I would probably still use Netscape. It never crashes on me, I prefer the interface, I prefer the 'bookmarks' method rather than the 'favorites' method, and it's not so intertwined with the functioning of the OS.
As I said earlier, good for you. If you prefer the user interface then that's great, I'm not trying to convert you to IE. But why does the integration of IE with the operating system count as a negative point if you're already using Windows? You've already got the requisite components that IE uses loaded into memory anyway, as other parts of the system use them.
I realize my experiences are not the same as everyone. That's my point; just because you think IE is better doesn't mean everyone thinks IE is better. Even if most people think IE is better, that still doesn't make you right.
*sigh* I didn't say I was right did I? All I was talking about was market share and public perception. People are free to use whichever browser they wish, and the majority of them are using Internet Explorer. That was the point I was making.
If you really think you know what's best for everyone else, there's a little company in Redmond you might to apply to work at, because they have a similar philosophy.
Right. I don't even have Windows on my machine at home any more. Obviously a big Microsoft fan aren't I? You need to calm down and realise that your choice of browser isn't tied to how good a person you are, and that if someone says that more people are using IE than Netscape, it's not a personal attack on you.
We've all heard and read (and experianced in many cases) the recent batch of problems and critiques of this latest version of Netscape, and I really can't see there being any future in it at all. You've got IE on Windows platforms, and Mozilla on a whole raft of platforms, and the latest versions of these programs are much better than Netscape in almost every way. Why would you want Netscape?
And surely Netscape realised this a long time ago when they reorganised to become a portal rather than a browser seller? Their business plan flopped with the free release of Explorer, and they were snapped up by AOL. Why the attempt now to push Netscape on? Sure, I realise it's now based on Mozilla, but the fact that it misses out on a lot of the latest stuff from the Mozilla project means that it offers nothing at all over Mozilla.
If you're running on Windows, you're probably using IE. If you're running on Linux then you're probably running Mozilla or one of the other open source browsers (Galleon, Konquerer etc.). Who are they aiming this browser at? The branding is hardly going to convince people - they deserted Netscape in droves a long time ago on Windows, and the more canny people on Linux are all too aware of Netscape's flaws.
Is there any point to this release? I can't see one...
As big a fan as I am of my country of birth, it has to be said that the American system of "democracy" which we are so proud of is no democracy at all. And if there is one thing that this farce of an election has shown, it's that something needs to change. Any nation that elects a leader who got less votes than the opposition cannot be said to have any kind of representative government.
In fact when you consider that the Electoral College a) doesn't even have to be voted in democratically and b) can vote whichever way they damn well please, you've got a situation in which democracy is nothing more than the current paradigm, but is not part of the law of the land! I honestly find this scary, as it opens the door for a strong government (if we ever get one) to introduce all manner of ills - socialism, liberalism or hell, even communism! We've seen how little the Constitution matters when it becomes inconvenient for those in power.
It's scary that the foundations of modern America are so flimsy, and it's scary how little people care. Hopefully this election will result in some changes being made, but at the same time a deadlocked government will probably be unable to do anything at all for the next four years. In fact, whoever wins this time will probably lose next time, because they will be seen as ineffective due to the even split in the Senate, HoR and Congress.
Unfortunately copyright law is essential to human endeavour thanks to the fallen nature of human kind. And whilst we might all like to pretend that we're enlightened people who could exist in a state where everything is available to everyone, let's face it the fall of the USSR showed us that this state of affairs just isn't in human nature - all it takes is one person to spoil it for everyone.
Anyway, in a capitalist society it is a given that it is far cheaper, and therefore better, to steal someone else's work rather than invest the time and resources in producing your own. Theft has a far lower cost, so it's far more appealing on purely economic grounds. Without such protective measures as copyright, there's no incentive to invest in producing your own goods, especially when we're talking about something as ephermal as the things copyright covers - written works, music and art. This is why I think Libertarianism is flawed - it encourages anything that increases wealth without regard to ethics in its purest form.
Sure some people produce it for the love of it, but if they can't aren't able to be rewarded for their efforts then they won't have the time to fully concentrate on what they do - they'd have to get jobs and spend most of their time and energy trying to survive. Copyright ensures that people can profit enough from what they produce so that they can continue doing such work.
Copyright is therefore a necessary part of any capitalist socioeconomic system in which you want to encourage creativity and development. Without it, we'd have stagnation and a slip back into barbarism and the Dark Ages.
Well duh, obviously these organisations are afraid of the internet, they are totally reliant upon traditional distribution and marketing channels to enforce their control over their market. It's hardly a suprise that given the means to implement totally different models they're not going to embrace them with the same fervour we see here.
The way I see it is that there are two issues here which contribute to the RIAA's crusade against online and digital music in all of its many forms. The first, and most obvious, is that they're not geared to operate in this way, and that it would take a lot of the profit out of their hands if they did. These organisations have built up multi-billion dollar business structures, and they've set them up to profit at every step. But online, many of these steps are irrelevent, and indeed all of the steps for which they are currently required (marketing and distribution being the main ones at the moment) may not be required. They're terrified that artists and customers may directly hook up.
Secondly, there's the fact that current efforts to implement online music have been headed by such blatent thievery such as Napster and Gnutella, systems in which the only winners would have been Shawn Fanning and co. Rather than allowing the RIAA to adopt online music gracefully, Napster has forced it to act before it loses all control over everything it has ever produced. At the moment, very few people in the music business seem to want this.
Unfortunately, between the ossification of the RIAA and the damage to online music that is Napster, it's likely that the advancement of digital music will slow to a crawl, and that only independent artists, with little to lose, will take full advantage of the internet.
I've managed teams of programmers before, and lived to regret it as well. I'd rather face an angry customer complaining about how their Linux box got hacked again than try and get a team of unwashed, unmotivated programmers to put out a working product built to spec within the amount of time allocated.
I'm sure that programmers here will claim that their huge intelligences are responsible for their constant need to change the task they're doing and their complete lack of focus, but it means that out of every hour they're present, only half (if you're lucky!) of it will be spent working. The rest will be spent browsing the net, checking emails, getting drinks, going to the toilet, scratching their armpits and any other activities that can help them avoid doing what they're begin paid for for another minute.
And when they get in in the morning then you can write off the first couple of hours totally, as they're still shambling zombies from an all- night pizza, BO and coding session that only ended three hours ago. In fact there have been two occasions I had to send someone home just to shower, because we had clients coming in. Not that clients get to see the programmers if possible, you need to give the right impression after all.
No, after a frustrating year of dealing with programmers I have the greatest of respect for product managers and the like, because they are the ones that have to try and get work from people not used or willing to getting a job done. It's like squeezing blood from a stone.
The idea that schools should engage in this kind of marraige with a corporation is both frightening and typical of modern USia. Rather than encouraging education, the single most important thing a government can do for its citizens, the USian government has left its schools adrift, forcing them to rely on dubious commercial ventures like this just to get basic equipment!
Education is an area where commercialism could poison an entire generation, and it's already happening as cash-starved schools turn to greedy corporations all too willing to get their hooks into children from an early age. And whilst libertarians would love for our children to become happy corporate drones, if you're worried about the future of our nation, this story is an indication of the problem.
Anyone who thinks that corporations have any place within schools is an idiot, and is obviously more concerned with saving a few dollars a month than providing for the future of a nation's children.
Due to the fact that a lot of the details of American law is based on the English model, which is also prevalent around Europe, there aren't that many differences in the fundamental concepts behind intellectual property laws in much of the world.
Of course, the actual figures will be different owing to America's vast corporate feudal lords have more influence upon the state than in other countries, and passing laws to get all kinds of IP extended in their favour. And when Bush wins the election, you can be sure that the situation will get even worse as his corporate masters carry on pimping him...
As someone in the IT consultancy business I can tell you now that this is going to send a lot of shockwaves through the ranks of middle-managers and CTOs who consider themselves tech-savvy because they know what IIS and how to add a new printer to their machine.
Microsoft has always made a big point of claiming that they run their own products to ensure rock-solid reliability, which is why they recently moved Hotmail over from BSD to Windows. But now, people are going to worry, and it's going to affect the whole industry, not just Microsoft. Confidence will be eroded, and the only winners will be people like me who advise on setting up mission-critical platforms in exchange for large amounts of $$$.
But what of the missing source code? This gives Microsoft a huge weapon with which to engage in legislative and legal warfare with evil hackers who were involved in this backdoor penetration. There's already a fear of cybercrime in the air thanks to people like Eric Corley who consider it to be 1337 to give away people's secrets and break the law, and this is going to fuel that fire.
Microsoft can sue anyone who looks like they have a copy of their code (Wine), and what are they going to do? Nothing, open source can't compete on this level unless it incorporates itself under law, and the pseudo-communistic rantings of gurus like Stallmann will prevent this from ever happening.
I find it sad that the current administration at NASA are such small thinkers, who have no sense of the vast grandeur that is out there for the taking. What has happened to the days of projects which could excite the layman and scientist alike?
Sure, they've had their budget cut, but that's no excuse for their playing it safe attitude which has led to public apathy and even more budget cuts. And without someone taking an interest in space, how will we ever see all that the Lord has created?
Personally I think that NASA need to get back into the race for the stars before either the Europeans or the Chinese succeed where we have failed for a lack of drive and a sense of wonder. Surely we don't want the first men on Mars to plant the red flag of communism on such a brave new world?
History also tells us that many religions existed before Christianity, ancient civilizations had religion, native North Americans, Australian First-Peoples all had religion. What makes you so positive your Bible provides the roadmap to the one true religion? Or another religion is 'the one true religion'. Have you ever played a game of 'telephone' in grade school? Notice how the true meaning of something is vastly altered. Consider that what was surely begun as an oral-history (religions in general) has morphed into 'a bible, a jesus, a virgin mary, a lake of fire' ect. Are you honestly trying to say that your 'bible' is a document of fact?
Yes. For those of you lucky enough to feel the Truth, then there can be no doubt about the validity of Christianity. It's only those that have no guiding morals that seem to feel that there is a lack of proof - just look out the window for all the proof you could ever need!
Christian religion is not a scientific 'theory' because 'theories' require objective and nonpartisan analysis. Not piety. Theories require proof. Not belief. Theories require repeatable, quantifiable Evidence. Not promises of truth from a questionable source of history (itself). In that light Christianity is not 'simple'. Thus Occam's Razor actually will disprove (most of*) Christianity quite handily.
Hmm, and all other "scientific" (in your views) theories such as selection of fundamental constants through wormholes (see Smolin), chaotic inflation (see Linde), and, oh, superstrings as well. And these explainations are a lot more complex than God - have you ever seen the equations for a relativistic superstring in the light cone gauge, and that's one of the simplest ones!
So, no, Occam's razor comes down in favour of a Creator.
I agree - but mostly Religion is used as a hammer to justify irrational and unproven pretense. "Abortion violates the word of the Lord!" - "Premarital Sex is wrong!" - "Adultery is wrong!" - "Prostitution is wrong!" - "Dancing/Wine/InsertSinHere is wrong!". You see that these opinions/beliefs are just that, but religion confuses the reality that they are more - somehow unquestionable truths of 'god' and that any diverging opinion is unthinkable. Im saying religion does not grant truth. It is your opinion (and you know what i think about that).
It is my opinion, but it is an opinion backed up with Divine Truth, and like it or not (not I'm guessing), some things are just fundamentally wrong. Why is this so hard to understand? People without a firm set of moral guidelines are in danger of sliding into moral relativism, a state in which murder, rape and abuse are justified because everyone's morale code, or lack of it, is equally justified.
Wow - that is one blinding display of ignorance and addle-minded drivel. This is not a flame, but commentary on how/why religion and government MUST remain separate. Moderators, please read on.
Well if you think that wasn't a flame then please think again, as your first sentance was nothing more than yet another ad hominem attack of the kind that is so popular on/.
For some reason, in this age of scientific enlightenment and reason it is truly sad to see someone hold such deep piety. I have little doubt you are likely an intelligent person - with some emotional problems. You are obviously 'not very well adjusted'.
That's a bit of a blanket statement isn't it? Do you also believe that everyone of the hundreds of million Christians out there are also "not very well adjusted"? Or maybe you believe that in accepting the Truth of our Creator we do not necessarily divulge ourselves of all intelligence or scientific understanding.
As for not very well adjusted, well I'm sure my wife and kids would be amused by that statement.
Have you ever considered that maybe your wrong? Not being able to fully understand the universe and our existence does not require a "God" in order to rationalize and provide comfort.
Current scientific thinking on the causes of the Big Bang are hazy and rely on a lot of metaphysical baggage which the Creation hypothesis avoids. Why invoke the existance of an eternal chain of universes evolving through a cosmic analogue of natural selection or the background space of "chaotic inflation" when by Occam's razor the existance of a Creator is a far more elegent theory?
If there is NO God what does that mean for Jon E. Erikson? I guess allot of responsibility. For your actions, desires, thoughts, future and opinions. If you didnt have God deciding what is right and wrong you might (gasp) have to THINK FOR YOURSELF. Let go of the fantasy, wake up to reality... you can do it.
Sorry, but the Lord gave us free will to make our own decisions, good or bad! This is why there is evil in the world, and why I see it as my choice to spread the word of the Lord and try to be a good person. Note the word choice in that last sentance!
It seems to me as though you also have some issues with the entire concept of religion rather than it's particular forms. Surely as a "rational human being" (to the extent that such exist) you can see that people have the right to hold their beliefs, no matter how much you may disagree with them?
Anyway, my views aren't changed by your attempts to make me "wake the fuck up" as you so eloquently put it. At the end of the day, when I'm in Heaven, you're the one who will be burning in the lake of fire.
How dare the evil government level income taxes to pay for national defense, the interstate highway system, polution control, and crime prevention? How do any of those things benefit you? Why can't we have an all-volunteer, UNPAID Army, Navy, and Air Force? That way you could have a free ride and wouldn't have to pay those odious income taxes!!
Until this century (1913 IIRC) the government collected no income taxes, instead relying on stamp duty and import taxes. We seem to have managed quite well before some bright spark in the government decided that they could do with a bit more money to spend on offices and such.
People who seem to believe that taxation is the natural state of things need to learn a bit more about our history. The fact is, that taxation is nothing more than armed robbery, and the government nothing more than a brutal and grasping thug.
Who here really cares about who wins this election anymore. It's come down to the point where people are voting for one just to keep the other candidate out! Sure as hell says a lot about our wonderful "democracy" when our candidates are Dumb and Dumber, in any particular order. Oh yeah, and a few other candidates who'll get a couple of dozen sympathy votes each.
Face it folks, our once proud nation has lost its way. Rather than serving the people, our government has tried it's damdest to become our ruler instead, starting with the imposition of the 16th Amendment, making it "legal" for them to steal from us with impunity. This century has seen the Government steal more and more power from the people, all in the name of liberalist "protecting the children" legislation that violates our God given Constitutional rights.
As a citizen of America who was once proud of his nation before he saw what it was really like, I urge all right-thinking Americans to boycott the election and prepare to fight to regain control of the Government. If we don't fight back now, an already bad situation will end in tyranny and oppression the like of which we haven't seen since we overthrew the English.
Linux powered robots! God forbid, when will the blasphemy end? Here we have a perfect example of why the End Times are upon us and the horseman are saddling up in the stables of Hell, ready to unleash their doom upon the unsuspecting hordes of atheists, scientists and sodomites who mock the word of the Lord.
Firstly, these robots are attempts my men to imitate the Lord as creator of life. But, as all decent Christians know, only the Lord can give life to the inanimate, and so these "robots" are doomed to remain shambling creatures devoid of the Lord's divine grace.
Secondly, these creatures are being controlled by Linux, an operating system developed under a Communistic regime that is offensive to true Christian beliefs. The communists were all atheists who were led astray by the Devil from the path of righteousness into the cold, mechanical abyss of the factory and the moral dangers of "mass production". Anyone can see Linux is following the Communists down this slippery slope to hell.
I implore all decent Christians to wake up and realise that this isn't "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters", it is instead one of the Signs revealing to us that Armageddon is here. I shall await the Lord's coming, and I urge all Christians to do the same.
Slashdot Mirror
As with everything else online, telling what is real and what isn't is next to impossible for someone without expert knowledge in the field. Just look at some of the hoaxes that have fooled thousands of the more gullible users, and they are relatively unsophisticated. People tend to believe what they read, especially when it's dressed up in a respectable looking webpage.
When it comes to health, a site that is pushing incorrect information, either through malice or incompetance, is endangering people's lives, and in much the same way as shouting fire in a theatre is illegal, it should be punished to the full extent of the law.
Having a WHO-approved TLD would mean that people could be confident that the advice they are getting is at the very least accurate and safe. It's one thing moaning about porn sites taking misspellings of people's names, but having people's lives put in danger is a whole order of magnitude different.
I think this is a great idea. I can't think of any reason to oppose it.
For a start they're not patenting the gene itself, they're patenting an application of the gene i.e. a treatment based upon the gene, an isolated version of the gene (not the same as the ones in your body) or a modified version of the gene. This immeadiately cuts down on half of the scare stories that seem to be circulating here.
Yes, I think that a company shouldn't be able to patent a gene for which they have nothing but the raw chemical itself, they should have a good idea of what it does first.
But, the basic idea of patenting genes is no different from patenting any other invention. Biotech research is a very risky, expensive business, and for every Viagra out there, there are a thousand chemicals that didn't work or weren't safe to use. And because it's an industry where espionage is rife, seeking patent protection is about the only way these companies can ensure they see any profit on what they spend millions researching.
Now, I'm no medical doctor by any means, but isn't there a risk of serious injury with something like this? I mean, people are getting RSI now just from sitting away at their keyboards typing. How on Earth are they going to cope when playing games involved whipping their heads around at breakneck speeds?
If this takes off I can almost guarantee that hospitals will see a huge influx of whiplash cases from teenagers having injured themselves attempting to "frag" other people in Quake 3 Arena. This will be swiftly followed by a tidal wave of lawsuits from angry parents, and Cybernet Systems will quickly fold and go under.
Has there ever been a more inadvisable product?
One thing I'd like to see is the Internet represented as a multi-dimensional map where each axis represents a relevance to a particular subject i.e. technology, media, porn or whatever. Of course the rating and choice of axis would be somewhat arbitrary, but it would make for an interesting reference and perhaps allow for novel forms of searching based on a set of criteria e.g technology > 0.8 AND media > 0.1
Of course, who'd do all of this rating is another question...
You can never underestimate the importance of having the people who work under you happy with their jobs - at the end of the day, money isn't everything and people will leave for an equivalent job that offers what you are, but with a nicer environment if they don't feel comfortable where they are. I'm sure many people here have left for no other reason than the fact that they didn't enjoy working somewhere.
Flexitime makes people happy, and thus increases productivity. In a modern office environment it costs you little to let people come in at non-standard hours. But there is one thing to beware of - you can lose the interaction between team members which is necessary in a large project.
My policy was to allow flexitime but with "core time" in which people have to be in the office. This is especially important if your time has to interact with clients, to ensure someone is always available. But you also need it to arrange meetings, briefings and progress reports. Typically we'd have a core time of 11-2 three days a week, with half the team on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the other half on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, letting us have team meetings on Fridays.
So I think flexitime is a good idea, but you can't let it get out of hand or else your team will fragment and productivity will drop rapidly.
This would practically revolutionise both reporting and intelligence operations - there would no longer be any need for external equipment, and you'd really be able to get a view "as if you were there". For espionage, all you'd need to do would be flick through a set of papers and their contents could be taken from the camera's memory later on.
And let's not forget crime. If everyone had these in their eyes, then witness testimony would suddenly become a hell of a lot more reliable. I'm sure we've all seen studies about how completely unreliable eyewitness accounts of incidents are - people forget, change what they saw to fit their opinions and just plain make mistakes (IIRC, Carl Sagan's This Demon Haunted World has a section about this. Hell, even if it doesn't, read the book anyway).
With this technology you could obtain 100% accurate footage of what witnesses saw in digital format, allowing police to see what really happened. Identifying criminals may become as easy as running a computer search again a central photo database. Of course, this is perhaps a bit Big Brother for some, but it all depends on the tricky legal details in its implentation, and YMMV.
As for two-way implants where information can be added to what you see (an internal HUD), well the applications are enormous. Read Peter F Hamliton's Night's Dawn trilogy for some good ideas of what would be possible...
Ugh, if there has ever been an example of how not to run an organisation, ICANN has to take the prize. Despite their promises of openness and accountability, they have been a rediculous parade of corporate pimping and self-serving behaviour.
And this decision to update their bylaws to exclude the at-large members from the TLD decision is yet another example of how they've cunningly organised this whole thing as nothing more than an exercise in public relations, an attempt to shut people up about how crap they are.
The at-large members, although they may be the greatest people in the world, just aren't going to make a bit of difference in what ICANN is or does. The positions were created to act as a sop to disgruntled netizens, and even then the contest was rigged to ensure more corporate frontmen would join the board. And the suprising thing is, it seemed to work! People lapped it all up without realising the utter futility of the entire process.
Unfortunately ICANN represents the worst excesses of the American corporate replublic, in that it puts business ahead of consumers. Quite frankly, ICANN sucks.
The point is to provide people with alternatives. I would think that you, as a linux user, would be painfully aware of how valuable that is.
I wasn't arguing that more alternatives are a bad thing, obviously for applications they definitely are. My point was more that even on Linux, Mozilla would seem to be the preferable choice - same code base but more up to date and having fixed the problems that Netscape 6 has been so heavily criticised for. The AOL on Linux angle is something I'd forgotten about and makes this a little bit more logical.
Of course it seems as though YMMV. And you really hit the spot with the Netscape-loving moderators, that's for sure :)
What a crock. You are assuming you have this wonderful idea of what is best for everyone. Hmm... sounds like the similar dillusions of one Mr. Gates.
Wow, go for the jugular why don't you? I'm just expressing an opinion, not dictating the choice of browser you use. The level of vitriol in your post is hardly warranted now is it?
Fact is, I'm on a WinNT box, and I use Netscape (v4.61) almost exclusively.
Good for you.
I have tried 3 different versions of IE and all of them do the same thing to varying degrees; they misdraw most frames, outlines around buttons, and outlines around text boxes. These lines appear in random places all over the desktop and won't go away (even after closing IE) until I F5 or "wipe" my screen with a different program. Not everyone has this problem, but I'm not the only one either.
Strange, I've never had any problems like that in any of the versions of IE I've used on any of the Windows platforms. Of course anecdotal evidence doesn't really constitute a valid argument either way.
Even if this little bug that makes my screen practically unreadable at times didn't exist, I would probably still use Netscape. It never crashes on me, I prefer the interface, I prefer the 'bookmarks' method rather than the 'favorites' method, and it's not so intertwined with the functioning of the OS.
As I said earlier, good for you. If you prefer the user interface then that's great, I'm not trying to convert you to IE. But why does the integration of IE with the operating system count as a negative point if you're already using Windows? You've already got the requisite components that IE uses loaded into memory anyway, as other parts of the system use them.
I realize my experiences are not the same as everyone. That's my point; just because you think IE is better doesn't mean everyone thinks IE is better. Even if most people think IE is better, that still doesn't make you right.
*sigh* I didn't say I was right did I? All I was talking about was market share and public perception. People are free to use whichever browser they wish, and the majority of them are using Internet Explorer. That was the point I was making.
If you really think you know what's best for everyone else, there's a little company in Redmond you might to apply to work at, because they have a similar philosophy.
Right. I don't even have Windows on my machine at home any more. Obviously a big Microsoft fan aren't I? You need to calm down and realise that your choice of browser isn't tied to how good a person you are, and that if someone says that more people are using IE than Netscape, it's not a personal attack on you.
... but that's more a matter of Mozilla still being in development rather than stopping and doing all the tidying up that has gone on with Netscape.
If Mozilla released a comparable package, would you still be using Netscape though? That's my point...
We've all heard and read (and experianced in many cases) the recent batch of problems and critiques of this latest version of Netscape, and I really can't see there being any future in it at all. You've got IE on Windows platforms, and Mozilla on a whole raft of platforms, and the latest versions of these programs are much better than Netscape in almost every way. Why would you want Netscape?
And surely Netscape realised this a long time ago when they reorganised to become a portal rather than a browser seller? Their business plan flopped with the free release of Explorer, and they were snapped up by AOL. Why the attempt now to push Netscape on? Sure, I realise it's now based on Mozilla, but the fact that it misses out on a lot of the latest stuff from the Mozilla project means that it offers nothing at all over Mozilla.
If you're running on Windows, you're probably using IE. If you're running on Linux then you're probably running Mozilla or one of the other open source browsers (Galleon, Konquerer etc.). Who are they aiming this browser at? The branding is hardly going to convince people - they deserted Netscape in droves a long time ago on Windows, and the more canny people on Linux are all too aware of Netscape's flaws.
Is there any point to this release? I can't see one...
As big a fan as I am of my country of birth, it has to be said that the American system of "democracy" which we are so proud of is no democracy at all. And if there is one thing that this farce of an election has shown, it's that something needs to change. Any nation that elects a leader who got less votes than the opposition cannot be said to have any kind of representative government.
In fact when you consider that the Electoral College a) doesn't even have to be voted in democratically and b) can vote whichever way they damn well please, you've got a situation in which democracy is nothing more than the current paradigm, but is not part of the law of the land! I honestly find this scary, as it opens the door for a strong government (if we ever get one) to introduce all manner of ills - socialism, liberalism or hell, even communism! We've seen how little the Constitution matters when it becomes inconvenient for those in power.
It's scary that the foundations of modern America are so flimsy, and it's scary how little people care. Hopefully this election will result in some changes being made, but at the same time a deadlocked government will probably be unable to do anything at all for the next four years. In fact, whoever wins this time will probably lose next time, because they will be seen as ineffective due to the even split in the Senate, HoR and Congress.
Unfortunately copyright law is essential to human endeavour thanks to the fallen nature of human kind. And whilst we might all like to pretend that we're enlightened people who could exist in a state where everything is available to everyone, let's face it the fall of the USSR showed us that this state of affairs just isn't in human nature - all it takes is one person to spoil it for everyone.
Anyway, in a capitalist society it is a given that it is far cheaper, and therefore better, to steal someone else's work rather than invest the time and resources in producing your own. Theft has a far lower cost, so it's far more appealing on purely economic grounds. Without such protective measures as copyright, there's no incentive to invest in producing your own goods, especially when we're talking about something as ephermal as the things copyright covers - written works, music and art. This is why I think Libertarianism is flawed - it encourages anything that increases wealth without regard to ethics in its purest form.
Sure some people produce it for the love of it, but if they can't aren't able to be rewarded for their efforts then they won't have the time to fully concentrate on what they do - they'd have to get jobs and spend most of their time and energy trying to survive. Copyright ensures that people can profit enough from what they produce so that they can continue doing such work.
Copyright is therefore a necessary part of any capitalist socioeconomic system in which you want to encourage creativity and development. Without it, we'd have stagnation and a slip back into barbarism and the Dark Ages.
Well duh, obviously these organisations are afraid of the internet, they are totally reliant upon traditional distribution and marketing channels to enforce their control over their market. It's hardly a suprise that given the means to implement totally different models they're not going to embrace them with the same fervour we see here.
The way I see it is that there are two issues here which contribute to the RIAA's crusade against online and digital music in all of its many forms. The first, and most obvious, is that they're not geared to operate in this way, and that it would take a lot of the profit out of their hands if they did. These organisations have built up multi-billion dollar business structures, and they've set them up to profit at every step. But online, many of these steps are irrelevent, and indeed all of the steps for which they are currently required (marketing and distribution being the main ones at the moment) may not be required. They're terrified that artists and customers may directly hook up.
Secondly, there's the fact that current efforts to implement online music have been headed by such blatent thievery such as Napster and Gnutella, systems in which the only winners would have been Shawn Fanning and co. Rather than allowing the RIAA to adopt online music gracefully, Napster has forced it to act before it loses all control over everything it has ever produced. At the moment, very few people in the music business seem to want this.
Unfortunately, between the ossification of the RIAA and the damage to online music that is Napster, it's likely that the advancement of digital music will slow to a crawl, and that only independent artists, with little to lose, will take full advantage of the internet.
I've managed teams of programmers before, and lived to regret it as well. I'd rather face an angry customer complaining about how their Linux box got hacked again than try and get a team of unwashed, unmotivated programmers to put out a working product built to spec within the amount of time allocated.
I'm sure that programmers here will claim that their huge intelligences are responsible for their constant need to change the task they're doing and their complete lack of focus, but it means that out of every hour they're present, only half (if you're lucky!) of it will be spent working. The rest will be spent browsing the net, checking emails, getting drinks, going to the toilet, scratching their armpits and any other activities that can help them avoid doing what they're begin paid for for another minute.
And when they get in in the morning then you can write off the first couple of hours totally, as they're still shambling zombies from an all- night pizza, BO and coding session that only ended three hours ago. In fact there have been two occasions I had to send someone home just to shower, because we had clients coming in. Not that clients get to see the programmers if possible, you need to give the right impression after all.
No, after a frustrating year of dealing with programmers I have the greatest of respect for product managers and the like, because they are the ones that have to try and get work from people not used or willing to getting a job done. It's like squeezing blood from a stone.
The idea that schools should engage in this kind of marraige with a corporation is both frightening and typical of modern USia. Rather than encouraging education, the single most important thing a government can do for its citizens, the USian government has left its schools adrift, forcing them to rely on dubious commercial ventures like this just to get basic equipment!
Education is an area where commercialism could poison an entire generation, and it's already happening as cash-starved schools turn to greedy corporations all too willing to get their hooks into children from an early age. And whilst libertarians would love for our children to become happy corporate drones, if you're worried about the future of our nation, this story is an indication of the problem.
Anyone who thinks that corporations have any place within schools is an idiot, and is obviously more concerned with saving a few dollars a month than providing for the future of a nation's children.
Due to the fact that a lot of the details of American law is based on the English model, which is also prevalent around Europe, there aren't that many differences in the fundamental concepts behind intellectual property laws in much of the world.
Of course, the actual figures will be different owing to America's vast corporate feudal lords have more influence upon the state than in other countries, and passing laws to get all kinds of IP extended in their favour. And when Bush wins the election, you can be sure that the situation will get even worse as his corporate masters carry on pimping him...
As someone in the IT consultancy business I can tell you now that this is going to send a lot of shockwaves through the ranks of middle-managers and CTOs who consider themselves tech-savvy because they know what IIS and how to add a new printer to their machine.
Microsoft has always made a big point of claiming that they run their own products to ensure rock-solid reliability, which is why they recently moved Hotmail over from BSD to Windows. But now, people are going to worry, and it's going to affect the whole industry, not just Microsoft. Confidence will be eroded, and the only winners will be people like me who advise on setting up mission-critical platforms in exchange for large amounts of $$$.
But what of the missing source code? This gives Microsoft a huge weapon with which to engage in legislative and legal warfare with evil hackers who were involved in this backdoor penetration. There's already a fear of cybercrime in the air thanks to people like Eric Corley who consider it to be 1337 to give away people's secrets and break the law, and this is going to fuel that fire.
Microsoft can sue anyone who looks like they have a copy of their code (Wine), and what are they going to do? Nothing, open source can't compete on this level unless it incorporates itself under law, and the pseudo-communistic rantings of gurus like Stallmann will prevent this from ever happening.
Well guys, see you in court.
I find it sad that the current administration at NASA are such small thinkers, who have no sense of the vast grandeur that is out there for the taking. What has happened to the days of projects which could excite the layman and scientist alike?
Sure, they've had their budget cut, but that's no excuse for their playing it safe attitude which has led to public apathy and even more budget cuts. And without someone taking an interest in space, how will we ever see all that the Lord has created?
Personally I think that NASA need to get back into the race for the stars before either the Europeans or the Chinese succeed where we have failed for a lack of drive and a sense of wonder. Surely we don't want the first men on Mars to plant the red flag of communism on such a brave new world?
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Jon E. Erikson
History also tells us that many religions existed before Christianity, ancient civilizations had religion, native North Americans, Australian First-Peoples all had religion. What makes you so positive your Bible provides the roadmap to the one true religion? Or another religion is 'the one true religion'. Have you ever played a game of 'telephone' in grade school? Notice how the true meaning of something is vastly altered. Consider that what was surely begun as an oral-history (religions in general) has morphed into 'a bible, a jesus, a virgin mary, a lake of fire' ect. Are you honestly trying to say that your 'bible' is a document of fact?
Yes. For those of you lucky enough to feel the Truth, then there can be no doubt about the validity of Christianity. It's only those that have no guiding morals that seem to feel that there is a lack of proof - just look out the window for all the proof you could ever need!
Christian religion is not a scientific 'theory' because 'theories' require objective and nonpartisan analysis. Not piety. Theories require proof. Not belief. Theories require repeatable, quantifiable Evidence. Not promises of truth from a questionable source of history (itself). In that light Christianity is not 'simple'. Thus Occam's Razor actually will disprove (most of*) Christianity quite handily.
Hmm, and all other "scientific" (in your views) theories such as selection of fundamental constants through wormholes (see Smolin), chaotic inflation (see Linde), and, oh, superstrings as well. And these explainations are a lot more complex than God - have you ever seen the equations for a relativistic superstring in the light cone gauge, and that's one of the simplest ones!
So, no, Occam's razor comes down in favour of a Creator.
I agree - but mostly Religion is used as a hammer to justify irrational and unproven pretense. "Abortion violates the word of the Lord!" - "Premarital Sex is wrong!" - "Adultery is wrong!" - "Prostitution is wrong!" - "Dancing/Wine/InsertSinHere is wrong!". You see that these opinions/beliefs are just that, but religion confuses the reality that they are more - somehow unquestionable truths of 'god' and that any diverging opinion is unthinkable. Im saying religion does not grant truth. It is your opinion (and you know what i think about that).
It is my opinion, but it is an opinion backed up with Divine Truth, and like it or not (not I'm guessing), some things are just fundamentally wrong. Why is this so hard to understand? People without a firm set of moral guidelines are in danger of sliding into moral relativism, a state in which murder, rape and abuse are justified because everyone's morale code, or lack of it, is equally justified.
Thank God we haven't sunk that low yet.
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Jon E. Erikson
Wow - that is one blinding display of ignorance and addle-minded drivel. This is not a flame, but commentary on how/why religion and government MUST remain separate. Moderators, please read on.
Well if you think that wasn't a flame then please think again, as your first sentance was nothing more than yet another ad hominem attack of the kind that is so popular on /.
For some reason, in this age of scientific enlightenment and reason it is truly sad to see someone hold such deep piety. I have little doubt you are likely an intelligent person - with some emotional problems. You are obviously 'not very well adjusted'.
That's a bit of a blanket statement isn't it? Do you also believe that everyone of the hundreds of million Christians out there are also "not very well adjusted"? Or maybe you believe that in accepting the Truth of our Creator we do not necessarily divulge ourselves of all intelligence or scientific understanding.
As for not very well adjusted, well I'm sure my wife and kids would be amused by that statement.
Have you ever considered that maybe your wrong? Not being able to fully understand the universe and our existence does not require a "God" in order to rationalize and provide comfort.
Current scientific thinking on the causes of the Big Bang are hazy and rely on a lot of metaphysical baggage which the Creation hypothesis avoids. Why invoke the existance of an eternal chain of universes evolving through a cosmic analogue of natural selection or the background space of "chaotic inflation" when by Occam's razor the existance of a Creator is a far more elegent theory?
If there is NO God what does that mean for Jon E. Erikson? I guess allot of responsibility. For your actions, desires, thoughts, future and opinions. If you didnt have God deciding what is right and wrong you might (gasp) have to THINK FOR YOURSELF. Let go of the fantasy, wake up to reality... you can do it.
Sorry, but the Lord gave us free will to make our own decisions, good or bad! This is why there is evil in the world, and why I see it as my choice to spread the word of the Lord and try to be a good person. Note the word choice in that last sentance!
It seems to me as though you also have some issues with the entire concept of religion rather than it's particular forms. Surely as a "rational human being" (to the extent that such exist) you can see that people have the right to hold their beliefs, no matter how much you may disagree with them?
Anyway, my views aren't changed by your attempts to make me "wake the fuck up" as you so eloquently put it. At the end of the day, when I'm in Heaven, you're the one who will be burning in the lake of fire.
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Jon E. Erikson
How dare the evil government level income taxes to pay for national defense, the interstate highway system, polution control, and crime prevention? How do any of those things benefit you? Why can't we have an all-volunteer, UNPAID Army, Navy, and Air Force? That way you could have a free ride and wouldn't have to pay those odious income taxes!!
Until this century (1913 IIRC) the government collected no income taxes, instead relying on stamp duty and import taxes. We seem to have managed quite well before some bright spark in the government decided that they could do with a bit more money to spend on offices and such.
People who seem to believe that taxation is the natural state of things need to learn a bit more about our history. The fact is, that taxation is nothing more than armed robbery, and the government nothing more than a brutal and grasping thug.
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Jon E. Erikson
Who here really cares about who wins this election anymore. It's come down to the point where people are voting for one just to keep the other candidate out! Sure as hell says a lot about our wonderful "democracy" when our candidates are Dumb and Dumber, in any particular order. Oh yeah, and a few other candidates who'll get a couple of dozen sympathy votes each.
Face it folks, our once proud nation has lost its way. Rather than serving the people, our government has tried it's damdest to become our ruler instead, starting with the imposition of the 16th Amendment, making it "legal" for them to steal from us with impunity. This century has seen the Government steal more and more power from the people, all in the name of liberalist "protecting the children" legislation that violates our God given Constitutional rights.
As a citizen of America who was once proud of his nation before he saw what it was really like, I urge all right-thinking Americans to boycott the election and prepare to fight to regain control of the Government. If we don't fight back now, an already bad situation will end in tyranny and oppression the like of which we haven't seen since we overthrew the English.
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Jon E. Erikson
... you'll be the one burning in Hell along with the rest of the unbelievers whilst those of us who follow the true path of the Lord ascend to Heaven.
What good will your SMP motherboards do you then eh?
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Jon E. Erikson
Linux powered robots! God forbid, when will the blasphemy end? Here we have a perfect example of why the End Times are upon us and the horseman are saddling up in the stables of Hell, ready to unleash their doom upon the unsuspecting hordes of atheists, scientists and sodomites who mock the word of the Lord.
Firstly, these robots are attempts my men to imitate the Lord as creator of life. But, as all decent Christians know, only the Lord can give life to the inanimate, and so these "robots" are doomed to remain shambling creatures devoid of the Lord's divine grace.
Secondly, these creatures are being controlled by Linux, an operating system developed under a Communistic regime that is offensive to true Christian beliefs. The communists were all atheists who were led astray by the Devil from the path of righteousness into the cold, mechanical abyss of the factory and the moral dangers of "mass production". Anyone can see Linux is following the Communists down this slippery slope to hell.
I implore all decent Christians to wake up and realise that this isn't "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters", it is instead one of the Signs revealing to us that Armageddon is here. I shall await the Lord's coming, and I urge all Christians to do the same.
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Jon E. Erikson