When our company moved into a new space a little over a year ago, the new building has a White Noise System -- amplified speaker above the ceiling tiles that play *static*. Personally I find it very annoying, I can supply my own white noise with music on the radio when and if I want it. Luckily the amplified speakers have volume knobs.
The GPLed kernel changes would benefit everyone. This is a Good Thing. Fork the kernel? Maybe, maybe not.
The proprietary desktop can't be integrated with the kernel, due to GPL restrictions. This is an Even Better Thing.
Anybody who writes a non-trivial app that isn't desktop-agnostic, or at least configurable at compile-time, is limiting their own audience. What part of that is my problem?
If my app runs on "real" linux and "MS" linux, users can choose which ever distro they like. MS can make money from Linux, and so can I, and my users can have "Software That Doesn't Suck(tm)".
MS hasn't won, Linux has. Linux winning just didn't require MS to lose.
But the process is even more complex than it sounds, since most Microsoft applications--especially those in the Office suite--use a number of proprietary interfaces
You think?
Posting the BSOD must be pretty difficult I guess, that's why it's taking so long. Mainsoft has been around for a while. Of course, M$ has also been denying these rumors for past year.
Back to usage policies, clearly state what types of material aren't allowed. Then, also state that access will be logged, and that users violating the first policy will be booted. State this as policy anyway, to CYA with the community. Having the policy in place may be enough ao a deterent that actually doing the logging and booting won't be neccessary.
Re:What about the music *product*?
on
Hacker Crackdown?
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· Score: 1
Excelltent point. This is a can that the major studios should really avoid openning. The fallacy of media-portrayed voilence leading to real-world violence may have been beaten to death here at/. by Katz et al, but a legal precedent like this could bring the whole that back to the courtroom.
If Napster developers are liable for inDUHviduals misusing Napster for copyright infringment, shouldn't the producers of "The Program" be liable for those idiots who "misused" the information in the film by lying down on the freeway?
We saw acouple of progress reports from Roblimo about talking with lawyers and such, but where does it stand as of right now? Did the Redmond legal machine actually back down? Did they they just bury it and hope everyone would forget? Details, details!
In the case of mail-order or catalog sales, companies are required (federally, I believe) to collect sales tax from purchasers in states where the company has a "presence" (office or warehouse or whatever). This sales tax is then paid by the company to the state where the company is headquartered (or domiciled).
At one point, after a series of mergers, the company I work for had presence in all 50 states, so we had to collect sales tax for all 50 states. After yet another reorg, we are down to about 20 states. It has almost as confuing for our customers as it has for us.
On NC's state income tax form, there is a space for you calculate and write-in sales tax for internet purchases. Yeah, right. I don't personally know anyone who's been audited, though.
Not quite perjury. All of the questions in deposition were asked in the context of "outside of attorney-client privelege, tell us what you remember about..." The point to be made here is that, apparently, Valenti gets 100% of his information from his legal counsel, so it is therefore priveledged.
Which only goes to prove that the layers really are running this whole show.
Q: What do you have when you have 100 layers up to their necks in shit? A: Not enough shit!
I agree, the teacher is clueless. Unfortunately, clueless teachers seem to be all too common in this country. What you are up against here is *very* similar to the MCSE mindset that is so often adversarial to Linux in corprate settings. The fact that the hardware, software, and course materials may have been donated or subsidized by Microsoft (or an MS "partner") only makes it more difficult for your teacher to see that there is a non-Microsoft world out here.
Play around with Linux at school if you can, but be careful. Nothing scares a teacher more than a student who knows more than she does. You're gonna be on your own here, since the teacher can't teach it if she doesn't know it. Grab the zipslack distro from Slackware for serious stealth installs.
Grab as much Win32 GPL stuff as you can: ActiveState Perl, Cygwin GCC, even Apache. Show off any cool stuff you can do with them on Win32, and segue into the GPL that way.
Most of all, keep chiming in to questions like that. Let your classmates know that Linux is real, and that real people use it to get real work done. The ones who care will find out more on their own, just like you did.
The hitch is that you have an installed base that needs to be upgraded, which is kinda a bummer.
Welcome to Redmond. This is how MS got where it is today, by "leveraging" the installed base of Windows users into purchasing "upgrades". Remember the Word 6.0->Word 95->Word 97 file format feeding frenzy?
Since a Kerberos realm is not a Windows 2000 domain, the computer must be configured as a member of a workgroup. This is automatic when you set the Kerberos realm and add a KDC server as follows:
IIRC, the workgroup vs domain distiction is all-or-nothing. So a work station can be setup to authenticate against real Kerberos servers OR be a domain member and authenticate against Windows enhanced Kerberos servers. Again, this kills any real interoperability, that being using Windows and UNIX servers in the same environment.
Which is to point of separating the tax rules/calculations out of the app, and making them modifiable by non-developers (ie. accountants). One of many points of the bazaar model is the its driven by the people who use the software making fixes and improvements. To make an open-source tax software project work, we must have programmers improving to app, and accountants improving the rules.
The Forms are available from the IRS in PFD format, so those can probably be used as is.
Open source tax software is doable, but only with the right team. Here's the structure. The app is *real* generic, with very little data in the binary. Forms and rules live in datafiles (maybe XML), while data for a single instance of a form lives in it's own file. Build the app first and make it bullet proof.
Bazaar-mode comes into play with the data files. The key is, as stated in a previous post, testing the rules. This is where bazaar-mode shines, with lots of eyes looking at lots of pet test cases. But these eyes have to belong to folks who know what they're looking at (CPA's, preparers, maybe even auditors). The forms and rules have to be set up so that non-developers can make changes and sumbit fixes. Project leadership has to be able to turn around releases in nanosececonds. Time presure with tax software is real, and deadlines (April 15) are hard.
My bet is that independent professional accountants who do a moderate number of returns for clients would be the people to particpate in/benfit from a project like this the most. The question is "How do we get them on board?"
BTW, I work on a financial reporting product *very* similar to tax software, so I have pondered getting this package into an open-source model for some time. My company is not ready to take the plunge yet. But if another company, or just a group of hackers can make a project like this work, I believe it would set the stage for many other projects/products to move to Linux.
Take a look at how many kids cd-roms are built with a "high-level multimedia" tool like Macromedia Director (my kids have a couple) or something similar. Port the tool, and I'd wager that you've ported a significant number of titles along with it.
Macromedia for one has released Flash/Shockwave plugins for linux, so theyre not *completely* out of touch... (anyone from Macromedia listening?). Probably only a matter of time.:)
Free Internet Access from Microsoft? There has to be a catch. Here's one senario:
"Download MS Internet Exlporer 2001 with Dialup Networking Special Edition featuring XPPP protocol support! Fully integrated with Microsoft Internet Access! Absolutely Free!!"
What you ask is XPPP? That would be the eXtended Point to Point Protocol, the "comodity" PPP embraced, extended and bastardized such that the only client capable of supporting it is the Microsoft-provided one. Guess what else? Microsoft only provides it for Windoze. Maybe MacOS. Linux, BeOS, Amiga, OS/2 can forget about it.
Don't even get me started on blocked websites, newsgroups, the posibilities are endless. No way do I want any one company with that much control over what information I can or can't access. I'll support my mom-and-pop hometown ISP until they go under, then I'll just have to get my own T1.
One of my college roomates has TRaSh-80 Color, and I was an Apple ][ man all the way. My roomie once stated that he would know that he was a real programmer when he could write code that would draw the "Hyperspace Jump" effect from Star Wars. I started thinking out loud about random points on the screen, extrapolating from the origin, rate of change, etc.... He immediately started shooting ideas down-- "You can't do it that way, the coordinate system of the graphics screen is all wrong."
About a week later, I handed him a printout of about 15-20 line of BASIC and said "Look at this and tell me what it does." He wound up keying it in (I did help him translate all the magic numbers having to do with screen width, etc. from Apple to TRS-80--portability!) and running it to find out. "This can't work!" he practically shouted, as the stars streaked out of his monitor...
Doing something cool for the sake of coolness... those WERE the days.
Probably not. There is a FAQ concerning using a dimmable wall switch with ceiling fans, flourecent lights, etc. and the bottom line is it wont work. The Wall Switch (and presumably the lamp module) are wired in series to the lamp (or other), which means that control signals have to pass through the lamp (or other) to get to the switch. If the (other) is a significant load, the signals get dampened to where the module doesnt respond.
I read this after installing a wall switch for a ceiling fan. With the light on (fan on or off) the wall switch responds fine. With the light off and the fan on and the wall switch off, the wall switch will respond to turning on , but then wont respond to turning off.
Slashdot Mirror
When our company moved into a new space a little over a year ago, the new building has a White Noise System -- amplified speaker above the ceiling tiles that play *static*. Personally I find it very annoying, I can supply my own white noise with music on the radio when and if I want it. Luckily the amplified speakers have volume knobs.
The GPLed kernel changes would benefit everyone. This is a Good Thing. Fork the kernel? Maybe, maybe not.
The proprietary desktop can't be integrated with the kernel, due to GPL restrictions. This is an Even Better Thing.
Anybody who writes a non-trivial app that isn't desktop-agnostic, or at least configurable at compile-time, is limiting their own audience. What part of that is my problem?
If my app runs on "real" linux and "MS" linux, users can choose which ever distro they like. MS can make money from Linux, and so can I, and my users can have "Software That Doesn't Suck(tm)".
MS hasn't won, Linux has. Linux winning just didn't require MS to lose.
You think?
Posting the BSOD must be pretty difficult I guess, that's why it's taking so long. Mainsoft has been around for a while. Of course, M$ has also been denying these rumors for past year.
Back to usage policies, clearly state what types of material aren't allowed. Then, also state that access will be logged, and that users violating the first policy will be booted. State this as policy anyway, to CYA with the community. Having the policy in place may be enough ao a deterent that actually doing the logging and booting won't be neccessary.
Excelltent point. This is a can that the major studios should really avoid openning. The fallacy of media-portrayed voilence leading to real-world violence may have been beaten to death here at /. by Katz et al, but a legal precedent like this could bring the whole that back to the courtroom.
If Napster developers are liable for inDUHviduals misusing Napster for copyright infringment, shouldn't the producers of "The Program" be liable for those idiots who "misused" the information in the film by lying down on the freeway?
We saw acouple of progress reports from Roblimo about talking with lawyers and such, but where does it stand as of right now? Did the Redmond legal machine actually back down? Did they they just bury it and hope everyone would forget? Details, details!
In the case of mail-order or catalog sales, companies are required (federally, I believe) to collect sales tax from purchasers in states where the company has a "presence" (office or warehouse or whatever). This sales tax is then paid by the company to the state where the company is headquartered (or domiciled).
At one point, after a series of mergers, the company I work for had presence in all 50 states, so we had to collect sales tax for all 50 states. After yet another reorg, we are down to about 20 states. It has almost as confuing for our customers as it has for us.
BTW, IANACPA.
On NC's state income tax form, there is a space for you calculate and write-in sales tax for internet purchases. Yeah, right. I don't personally know anyone who's been audited, though.
Not quite perjury. All of the questions in deposition were asked in the context of "outside of attorney-client privelege, tell us what you remember about..." The point to be made here is that, apparently, Valenti gets 100% of his information from his legal counsel, so it is therefore priveledged.
Which only goes to prove that the layers really are running this whole show.
Q: What do you have when you have 100 layers up to their necks in shit?
A: Not enough shit!
I agree, the teacher is clueless. Unfortunately, clueless teachers seem to be all too common in this country. What you are up against here is *very* similar to the MCSE mindset that is so often adversarial to Linux in corprate settings. The fact that the hardware, software, and course materials may have been donated or subsidized by Microsoft (or an MS "partner") only makes it more difficult for your teacher to see that there is a non-Microsoft world out here.
Play around with Linux at school if you can, but be careful. Nothing scares a teacher more than a student who knows more than she does. You're gonna be on your own here, since the teacher can't teach it if she doesn't know it. Grab the zipslack distro from Slackware for serious stealth installs.
Grab as much Win32 GPL stuff as you can: ActiveState Perl, Cygwin GCC, even Apache. Show off any cool stuff you can do with them on Win32, and segue into the GPL that way.
Most of all, keep chiming in to questions like that. Let your classmates know that Linux is real, and that real people use it to get real work done. The ones who care will find out more on their own, just like you did.
Welcome to Redmond. This is how MS got where it is today, by "leveraging" the installed base of Windows users into purchasing "upgrades". Remember the Word 6.0->Word 95->Word 97 file format feeding frenzy?
IIRC, the workgroup vs domain distiction is all-or-nothing. So a work station can be setup to authenticate against real Kerberos servers OR be a domain member and authenticate against Windows enhanced Kerberos servers. Again, this kills any real interoperability, that being using Windows and UNIX servers in the same environment.
Proprietary? On what planet?
Remember that Cygnus is a recursive acronym for Cygnus-Your GNU [Source|Solution].
What the heck is it? Do they have a web page?
Which is to point of separating the tax rules/calculations out of the app, and making them modifiable by non-developers (ie. accountants). One of many points of the bazaar model is the its driven by the people who use the software making fixes and improvements. To make an open-source tax software project work, we must have programmers improving to app, and accountants improving the rules.
The Forms are available from the IRS in PFD format, so those can probably be used as is.
Open source tax software is doable, but only with the right team. Here's the structure. The app is *real* generic, with very little data in the binary. Forms and rules live in datafiles (maybe XML), while data for a single instance of a form lives in it's own file. Build the app first and make it bullet proof.
Bazaar-mode comes into play with the data files. The key is, as stated in a previous post, testing the rules. This is where bazaar-mode shines, with lots of eyes looking at lots of pet test cases. But these eyes have to belong to folks who know what they're looking at (CPA's, preparers, maybe even auditors). The forms and rules have to be set up so that non-developers can make changes and sumbit fixes. Project leadership has to be able to turn around releases in nanosececonds. Time presure with tax software is real, and deadlines (April 15) are hard.
My bet is that independent professional accountants who do a moderate number of returns for clients would be the people to particpate in/benfit from a project like this the most. The question is "How do we get them on board?"
BTW, I work on a financial reporting product *very* similar to tax software, so I have pondered getting this package into an open-source model for some time. My company is not ready to take the plunge yet. But if another company, or just a group of hackers can make a project like this work, I believe it would set the stage for many other projects/products to move to Linux.
Take a look at how many kids cd-roms are built with a "high-level multimedia" tool like Macromedia Director (my kids have a couple) or something similar. Port the tool, and I'd wager that you've ported a significant number of titles along with it.
Macromedia for one has released Flash/Shockwave plugins for linux, so theyre not *completely* out of touch... (anyone from Macromedia listening?). Probably only a matter of time. :)
M10 does all those things. I run M10 on Win NT 4.0, and read slashdot with it regularly.
In fact, this comment was posted with M10.
I got your "good enough to browse with" right here.
I believe that the author of the analogy intended NT as the horse-drawn cart, and Alpha as the superhighway.
But my opinion, like Suck's, is like an asshole. Everybody's got one.
... and most of them stink.
Free Internet Access from Microsoft? There has to be a catch. Here's one senario:
"Download MS Internet Exlporer 2001 with Dialup Networking Special Edition featuring XPPP protocol support! Fully integrated with Microsoft Internet Access! Absolutely Free!!"
What you ask is XPPP? That would be the eXtended Point to Point Protocol, the "comodity" PPP embraced, extended and bastardized such that the only client capable of supporting it is the Microsoft-provided one. Guess what else? Microsoft only provides it for Windoze. Maybe MacOS. Linux, BeOS, Amiga, OS/2 can forget about it.
Don't even get me started on blocked websites, newsgroups, the posibilities are endless. No way do I want any one company with that much control over what information I can or can't access. I'll support my mom-and-pop hometown ISP until they go under, then I'll just have to get my own T1.
kz
About a week later, I handed him a printout of about 15-20 line of BASIC and said "Look at this and tell me what it does." He wound up keying it in (I did help him translate all the magic numbers having to do with screen width, etc. from Apple to TRS-80--portability!) and running it to find out. "This can't work!" he practically shouted, as the stars streaked out of his monitor...
Doing something cool for the sake of coolness... those WERE the days.
kz
They should put the same money into a Beowulf cluster. 280Mil would buy a LOT of 486's.
Probably not. There is a FAQ concerning using a dimmable wall switch with ceiling fans, flourecent lights, etc. and the bottom line is it wont work. The Wall Switch (and presumably the lamp module) are wired in series to the lamp (or other), which means that control signals have to pass through the lamp (or other) to get to the switch. If the (other) is a significant load, the signals get dampened to where the module doesnt respond.
I read this after installing a wall switch for a ceiling fan. With the light on (fan on or off) the wall switch responds fine. With the light off and the fan on and the wall switch off, the wall switch will respond to turning on , but then wont respond to turning off.
Oh well, which way to Radio Shack?
kz