Open source is great for software, which has a limited amount of stylistic influence, but you can't write a book by committee. It's the ultimate showcase of form versus function. Not that I'm wishing these folks ills. I hope they prove me wrong, but history shows that you just can't have more than 2 or 3 authors collaborate successfully (Please, don't post the 4 exceptions to this, I'm talking in general. Let's not get mired in details, al affliction infamous on/. ). You get a mishmash of styles and views that makes it hard to read. With a strong editorial staff, it could work though...
But Free Speech doesn't apply when you're on private property. On my "land" I CAN tell you what you are and are not allowed to do and say. And on the net, it's ALL private property, so I CAN tell you to go piss up a rope. I agree it's extreme, so does their lawyer, but it seems to me that as time goes on, trolls are getting WORSE. They're not just leaving nasty and annoying messages by the ton, they're resorting to DDoS attacks, IRC flooding, attempting domain "theft", spam attacks, and a host of other extreme measures. I'm somewhat torn over this too, but from the story, I'm leaning towards their side, to sue. He's cut traffic, thus potentially threatening their revenue stream. That's real damage, not just a poor response to name calling.
A) I know about Chimera.:)
B) I forgot about the PPC compilation size problem. I'm still thinking back in the sayd when classic Mac (M68x00) code was usually smaller.
This is somethign that pisses me off to no end. Where exactly do you see Mozilla being 38 megs? On my box, even counting a decent number of plugins, and all the debug files and Talkback, it's STILL not even 22 megs installed. That's a difference on 16 megs that you're tlaking about. a few megs I'd let go, but 16 is a horrible exaggeration. I have NEVER seen a Mozilla install at 38 megs. And if you're talking about the source, you're still off, because you're looking at three major platforms' worth of code.
In related news, four pale men on horses have been spotted riding through cities around the world, sometimes accompanied by winged swine. Scientists think this may be inded the end of the world. And now, sports news!
Finall, someone with a cluestick. I'm all for bringing the power of computing and the Internet to all people, but not before they can live long enough to use it. And it's not just Laos. I think we're blinding ourselves to other, more basic problems that should be fixed first. Like food riots, mass famines, widespread disease. Even here in the US we have slightly more important problems, like millions being laid off of work (real jobs, not just our cushy tech jobs), rising prescription costs (that are already FAR out of the tolerable range), and school systems using 20 year old books (and teachers that make those 20 year old books look like fountains of wisdom).
I'm being a drag, yeah, but there ARE more important things that WiFi in Chong Mek.
And to be selfish for a moment (I am an American after all), how about cheap high speed access for ME? South Korea has 8Mbps for $38 a month. I get 768/128kbps for $50. Thanks Telecommunications Reform Act! (And yeah, I voted for the guy that signed that one into law...)
And when we Trekkies do this kind of stuff, we're called losers.:)
And I don't care what ANYONE says, nothing in Trek is as goofy as those midicondrians from Ep1.:P
RMS is NOT a hero anymore...
on
Linus Is A Hero
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· Score: 1
He's a great founder, but like all founders, he is an idealist, and an un-bending one. He has helped start a great movement, but by his stubborn refusal to acknowledge that the world will never completely move to totally Free software, and refusal to acknowledge that Open source Software in general is at least a great compromise for now, holds back the movement to a degree. The FSF seems to recognize this, as they're moving away from using him as the sole point man for speaking engagements. RMS is a good man, but he needs to recognize his time is passing, and step aside, to let a new era of leadership push on.
I'm loathe to suggest it, but if MS does acquire Macromedia, I'm certainly going to start pushing for a pre-emptive class-action lawsuit to force MS to keep supporting non-MS platforms for Flash and Shockwave, as a requisite of their settlement with the DOJ, and the remaining 7 states.
That's part of the problem with monopolies; they're no longer subject to market pressure, as they ARE teh market. So the law is the last resort.
No no, the guy who would have had the phone number originally would still have it, and this new guy wouldn't have the problem of getting spam meant for the old owner.
In this age of email, web forms, IM, SMS, VoiceMail, yada yada yada, we overlook the simple telephone. I had a problem with Yahoo a few years ago, and after goign round robin with the electronic options, I picked up the phone, called teir corporate offices, and didn't stop uotil I got to someone who helped me get the problem straightened out. It took 2 days to get it done that way, versus a month of web-based frustration.
I helped a customer migrate from an ancient version of ACCPAC for DOS (Computer Associates product) to Quickbooks 99, and the upgrade to 2000. During the upgrade to 2000, we notices a much stricter set of rules for use, registration (which has always been over the top), and even simple networking of multiple systems. And the updates process was a nightmare, with more hoops to jump through than a Sigfreid and Roy show. When the customer bought 2001, and brought me back in to upgrade, the noose tightened further. Despite having several hundred dollars invested in QB over the years, I recommended heavily that they find another product to move to, because I could see how harshly Intuit was trying to keep it's small business accounting marketshare. Despite the cost and commplexity of Peachtree, I did recommend that over QB again, or moving off of a Windows based platform altogether. I still recomend this to all small businesses. Intuit is no longer the good Quicken company they were...
With DeForest Kelley (Rest in Peace, De) and Leonard Nimoy both passing on the Generations script cameo roles, why did you accept it, and let them kill off Kirk in such a low-key way? Kirk deserved a bigger send off.
Still love the acting though. How Star Trek III didn't win you at least an Oscar nomination is beyond me.
Yes, it's cost the country millions in repairing, so MS has decided that they may as well be the ones to collect money from their screwups. And the claim about insurance is a diversionary tactic. They coule still mak the product more secure without accepting insane liability. Cap unchecked buffes by default, install only the network components needed, and don't allow them to be remotely exploited by bad design, and for features like the Remote Help Center, at least allow the user to select the security level at run time, so that at least they'll be WARNED about those exploitative URLs and have a chance to CANCEL the action. By putting off the topic to insurance, they avoid having to admit that they could make the product secure without accepting massive liabilities for failure. OSS projects like Linux or Mozilla don't accept liability for the products' security failures, yet they usually go out of their way to make it secure by default, and fix holes fast, without insurance.
And what disturbs me about the story submitter is he says, "Security is like public health and education--if you think it's expensive, consider the alternative." That's much more a defense of charging for security than it is a defense of security by default. "Hey, if you think spending $500 for a secure OS that used to be $100 butinsecure, imagine what you'll spend if you are subject to a massive failure from insecurity." That's bad thinking and flawed logic.
The idea that fixed spending per capita versus a share from a bugdet shouldn't surprise anyone. Merely taking into account volume discounts of products brings the per machine cost down. But this does bring up a god point for execs to look at, in terms of security doesn't HAVE to cost a lot to be effective, if the spending is done wisely. Too many execs skimp on security due to fear of cost, and perceived low ROI, and underestimated exposure risk. It's the typical "It happens somewhere else, but never here" mentality that affects too many sections of society.
The problem from the clients I've interacted with over the years has rarely been that they spend too much due to wanted X dollars per machine, but in their failure to realize that they too may be vuilnerable to threats that they think can't happen. As in many cases in this industry, the bulk of the problem lies about 20 inches in front of the screen. I've often found that some money spent on education is what is needed the most.
First, if you read the FDA site, they explicitly state that if your are involved in athletics where blows to the head/eye are common you should NOT have this surgery. Folks who play football or box come to mind right off the bat.
Second, or maybe first, yeah, ome way to look at this is that optometrists and opthamologists may indeed have a conflict of interist, but since you'e going to pay them to do it, or at least to test you for it, I doubt that the conflict is that great.
Plus, conflict or not, I'm not going to have my local mechanic do this stuff. I don't think they went to school for 19 years to burn out my retina so he can sell me a few extra pairs of glasses.
Actually, Netscape 5.0 was stillborn. Back in March 1998 when Commuuncator was Open Sourced under the original NPL, what was released was not the source to the Communcator 4.x series, but the Netscape owned portions to the 5.x tree (they had to pull some parts containing IP they licensed from other companies, but could not legally redistribute). This was the codebase worked on until October of 1998 when everything but the new layout engine (NGLayout [Next Generation Layout], now Gecko) in favor of what is now the entire Mozilla Codebase. When this happened, the old source bacame MozClassic, and is considered the dead 5.0 tree, never finished, RIP. Interestingly, this is why Gecko still sports the 5.0 version number in teh UserAgent string... Netscape decided to call the new client "Netscape 6.0" for two reasons: Netscape 5.0 had come and gone,,DOA, and IE was already at 5.5 and close to 6.0, and they wanted to keep the version number close for marketing reasons.
Now, before you bash NS's marketing for this, remember the progression of IE was 1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0 in less than a year, with 1.0 barely ever getting distributed. Plus rememeber Office apps. Access went 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, skipped 4, 5, and 6 to go to 7.0 in Office 95. At least Netscape has a valid reason for skipping 5.0:)
Exactly. And he even blows himself away with his conspiracy theories. The auto makers don't want him to make this device? Why not? "Buy our car and never pay for gas again!" With a feature like that, at $100,000 each they'd still fly off the showroom floors.
It's a sham? Shyeah, right. Next thing you'll try and tell me that my Immortality rings form Alex Chiu aren't real either... YOU'RE NOT GETTING THEM! Nyah!
The REAL question is why have batteries at all if the car can keep them at 100% the whole time, and still move. Drop the batteries, save a few hundred pounds of weight, and let the dohickey that charges the batteries drive the motor.
Of course, there is a REASON why they do this. It's yet another 'perpetual motion' device. You show me a molecule that will last forver, and then MAYBE I'll waste valueable toilet-reading time to your device.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Umm, I submitted this story to Slashdot, I wrote the story it links to. So either way you look at it, I wrote it.
Open source is great for software, which has a limited amount of stylistic influence, but you can't write a book by committee. It's the ultimate showcase of form versus function. Not that I'm wishing these folks ills. I hope they prove me wrong, but history shows that you just can't have more than 2 or 3 authors collaborate successfully (Please, don't post the 4 exceptions to this, I'm talking in general. Let's not get mired in details, al affliction infamous on /. ). You get a mishmash of styles and views that makes it hard to read. With a strong editorial staff, it could work though...
But Free Speech doesn't apply when you're on private property. On my "land" I CAN tell you what you are and are not allowed to do and say. And on the net, it's ALL private property, so I CAN tell you to go piss up a rope. I agree it's extreme, so does their lawyer, but it seems to me that as time goes on, trolls are getting WORSE. They're not just leaving nasty and annoying messages by the ton, they're resorting to DDoS attacks, IRC flooding, attempting domain "theft", spam attacks, and a host of other extreme measures. I'm somewhat torn over this too, but from the story, I'm leaning towards their side, to sue. He's cut traffic, thus potentially threatening their revenue stream. That's real damage, not just a poor response to name calling.
A) I know about Chimera. :)
B) I forgot about the PPC compilation size problem. I'm still thinking back in the sayd when classic Mac (M68x00) code was usually smaller.
This is somethign that pisses me off to no end. Where exactly do you see Mozilla being 38 megs? On my box, even counting a decent number of plugins, and all the debug files and Talkback, it's STILL not even 22 megs installed. That's a difference on 16 megs that you're tlaking about. a few megs I'd let go, but 16 is a horrible exaggeration. I have NEVER seen a Mozilla install at 38 megs. And if you're talking about the source, you're still off, because you're looking at three major platforms' worth of code.
In related news, four pale men on horses have been spotted riding through cities around the world, sometimes accompanied by winged swine. Scientists think this may be inded the end of the world. And now, sports news!
I'm being a drag, yeah, but there ARE more important things that WiFi in Chong Mek.
And to be selfish for a moment (I am an American after all), how about cheap high speed access for ME? South Korea has 8Mbps for $38 a month. I get 768/128kbps for $50. Thanks Telecommunications Reform Act! (And yeah, I voted for the guy that signed that one into law...)
And I don't care what ANYONE says, nothing in Trek is as goofy as those midicondrians from Ep1. :P
He's a great founder, but like all founders, he is an idealist, and an un-bending one. He has helped start a great movement, but by his stubborn refusal to acknowledge that the world will never completely move to totally Free software, and refusal to acknowledge that Open source Software in general is at least a great compromise for now, holds back the movement to a degree. The FSF seems to recognize this, as they're moving away from using him as the sole point man for speaking engagements. RMS is a good man, but he needs to recognize his time is passing, and step aside, to let a new era of leadership push on.
That's part of the problem with monopolies; they're no longer subject to market pressure, as they ARE teh market. So the law is the last resort.
No no, the guy who would have had the phone number originally would still have it, and this new guy wouldn't have the problem of getting spam meant for the old owner.
1-408-731-3300
I helped a customer migrate from an ancient version of ACCPAC for DOS (Computer Associates product) to Quickbooks 99, and the upgrade to 2000. During the upgrade to 2000, we notices a much stricter set of rules for use, registration (which has always been over the top), and even simple networking of multiple systems. And the updates process was a nightmare, with more hoops to jump through than a Sigfreid and Roy show. When the customer bought 2001, and brought me back in to upgrade, the noose tightened further. Despite having several hundred dollars invested in QB over the years, I recommended heavily that they find another product to move to, because I could see how harshly Intuit was trying to keep it's small business accounting marketshare. Despite the cost and commplexity of Peachtree, I did recommend that over QB again, or moving off of a Windows based platform altogether. I still recomend this to all small businesses. Intuit is no longer the good Quicken company they were...
Still love the acting though. How Star Trek III didn't win you at least an Oscar nomination is beyond me.
And what disturbs me about the story submitter is he says, "Security is like public health and education--if you think it's expensive, consider the alternative." That's much more a defense of charging for security than it is a defense of security by default. "Hey, if you think spending $500 for a secure OS that used to be $100 butinsecure, imagine what you'll spend if you are subject to a massive failure from insecurity." That's bad thinking and flawed logic.
The problem from the clients I've interacted with over the years has rarely been that they spend too much due to wanted X dollars per machine, but in their failure to realize that they too may be vuilnerable to threats that they think can't happen. As in many cases in this industry, the bulk of the problem lies about 20 inches in front of the screen. I've often found that some money spent on education is what is needed the most.
Second, or maybe first, yeah, ome way to look at this is that optometrists and opthamologists may indeed have a conflict of interist, but since you'e going to pay them to do it, or at least to test you for it, I doubt that the conflict is that great.
Plus, conflict or not, I'm not going to have my local mechanic do this stuff. I don't think they went to school for 19 years to burn out my retina so he can sell me a few extra pairs of glasses.
Now, before you bash NS's marketing for this, remember the progression of IE was 1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0 in less than a year, with 1.0 barely ever getting distributed. Plus rememeber Office apps. Access went 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, skipped 4, 5, and 6 to go to 7.0 in Office 95. At least Netscape has a valid reason for skipping 5.0 :)
Amazon frelled up. Segways are on schedule.
Exactly. And he even blows himself away with his conspiracy theories. The auto makers don't want him to make this device? Why not? "Buy our car and never pay for gas again!" With a feature like that, at $100,000 each they'd still fly off the showroom floors.
It's a sham? Shyeah, right. Next thing you'll try and tell me that my Immortality rings form Alex Chiu aren't real either... YOU'RE NOT GETTING THEM! Nyah!
Of course, there is a REASON why they do this. It's yet another 'perpetual motion' device. You show me a molecule that will last forver, and then MAYBE I'll waste valueable toilet-reading time to your device. :)
Try PrefBar over at XULplanet. It has exactly what you're looking for.