It's worth it, gets you access to additional features, and you aren't annoyed by ads. As a side benefit, you support one of the best sources of online journalism.
If you only read the occasional article, then don't bother, but don't complain about the ads. If you read all the time, then why haven't you signed up yet?
Now, here's my question. If you are PAYING Napster to use their software, and they are PAYING the RIAA royalties, does this finally make it "legal" in their eyes? Can a college/isp/company/etc fire/kick off/expell someone for downloading MP3's anymore if they're doing it through this system? Are ISP's still going to monitor my usage to see if I've downloaded any MP3's (I just hate that people label an audio codec automatically as something illegal, instead of its possibly content), and send me one of those warnings?
This might work - my capitalist gears are turning...
Imagine coming to some license agreement with a University - the University pays a flat rate, and all Students in the dorms and employees can get the Napster service. In return, Napster can provide some other services, like not allowing connections during business hours, or limiting connections, or some such thing to help out with the bandwidth. The university might also be able to limit bandwidth for the particular port, or some such thing...
Students get their free account, with the easy-to-use Napster interface, and it's too much trouble to try to use the other ones. Plus, if it's someone on campus that has the file, the transfer is very fast. Communities can spring up, where folks across campus find out they both like the same bands, and recommend other bands to each other. The University admins can profile the traffic, set policies, and don't have to deal with the multi-headed hydra of a million different services, except from those geeks who may know what they are doing...
Kids go home for the summer break, get their parents to buy home licenses as well. When they get out of college, they are loyal customers, as well as broadband purchasers. The record companies still get their money, and see the benefits of electronic distribution. Maybe Napster even becomes a record company, "signing" independants to electronic-only distribution. Microsoft and Linux users join hands to sing "God Bless America". The Jews and Arabs sign peace agreements, marry, and have kids. Air and water become clean and clear, and cold fusion reactions give us all clean energy for low cost.
Just because *you* didn't know who Søren Schmidt was doesn't mean that only a few did.
Checkmate! I lose! But wait...
Just because *you* knew who Søren Schmidt was doesn't mean that he's widely known.
Ah-ha! It's a draw!
But seriously, as important as due credit is, the more popular Linux and the rest get, the less recognition the "known heroes" will get for their code work, relative to how much it is used. Not that it will stop them, just make them more bitter toward the lusers...
Perhaps we need to erect the "Memorial to the Known Programmers", something like the Vietnam Memorial where the names of contributers of open source code can get their name in stone. It may end up being a monstrous and impressive list, or just a cool t-shirt.
If Søren Schmidt had gotten due recognition by the copyright being attached in the first place, then few would know of his contribution, and less would know that it was due to a good deal of reverse engineering (i.e. "Real Work").
However, since he wasn't recognized in the first place, now everyone at Slashdot knows who he is, knows what he did, and feels a little debt of gratitude toward him.
Lucky for the guy at Red Hat, he just took off the copyright rather than claimed it as his own...
BTW, to type the character ø in HTML, type "& # 2 4 8;", but without the quotes or spaces (another thing I wouldn't have known without somebody screwing up...).
Can someone explain to me *why* a developer would strip off copyright info? It's not like there are licensing fees; the guy just wants his code to be recognized and attributed. It doesn't make much sense to me...could it have been an honest mistake or a coincidence? (I'm not a programmer, so I haven't looked at the two files in question, which would mean nothing to me anyway.)
I think it was more of a matter of lazy programming than evil intentions. The header files define structures, a few constants, etc. They encode a bit of knowledge, such as data formats and the meaning of that data, but some people wouldn't consider it code. More of an interface description. Of course, if it was a document describing an interface, then most people would automatically consider the copyright to hold...
It's a bit like other forms of online "theft". Some folks think that if you download the html for a popular site, remove all the text and images, and use the layout on their own site, then it's not theft, because the copyrightable parts (images, text) were removed, and only the framework retained. But, like HTML framework, headers are the work of the programmer, and any desired copyright should be respected.
Again, I'm in the "simple mistake, fix it, move on" camp, and would like to add that Red Hat and the rest should add a line to their policy about reusing "open source" code, to retain copyrights.
If Microsoft did it, I'd expect them to do the same, but Microsoft would probably do it to force the issue, make the EFF take them to trial to define the limits of open source, the BSD liscence , and the GPL liscense. That's the difference - this will be taken care of by peers, while Microsoft conflicts almost always involve lawyers. It's the difference between getting rear-ended by an honest citizen (with or without the insurance companies getting involved), vs. an asshole celebrity who thinks the little people should take their licks and not annoy the "important people" with trivial matters like car bills and possible medical expenses.
Untill I can write on it as fast as I can on paper, untill I can trust it not to fail as much as paper (including being dropped), and the price point is more reasonably, I really don't see how I can justify the price of any PDA... Sure, checking flights wirelessly is cool, but I can do it on the cell phone for far less money now.
I'm not big on the bells and whistles either, but I find my vanilla Visor Deluxe to be the best purchase I made in a long time.
For serious data entry, I type it into the desktop software. 90% of data entry can be done this way, and the other 10% is the stuff I can keep in my head while writing, so it doesn't matter how slow it is.
I travel a lot, and sometimes have trouble getting onto the facility right after my plane lands. It's been a godsend to have the phone number of every person who has let me on, as well as building numbers and other info that is only useful for getting past security. It's also nice to have the number for that nice hotel I stayed at, so I know where to call when I go back in a year.
I've found that if I enter the data into my visor everytime I'm tempted to grab a slip of paper, then I'm not asking for info more than once. Phone numbers, IP addresses, user names for different systems, all go in, for easy retrival. I may even use one of the password keepers some day, and start using some real passwords.
I also love Project Guttenberg. Every time I have five minutes waiting for someone else, I can dig out a classic and read a few pages - and it's a lot easier than always having a paperback in my back pocket.
I'm not saying one of these is for everyone, but I've needed an appointment book, address book, and note holder for years, and I was never able to keep a huge appointment book. Finally, I can stop buying belated birthday cards!
I have dropped one, hard, but Visor seems to follow the computer maker's lead, and makes the exchange for a new one pretty painless. All the data is on the desktop, in a less portable form, but I didn't loose everything because of a hardware failure.
Anyway, it may not be for you, but for me, I was able to throw away 25 lbs of little paper notebooks and aborted attempts at address books - it's worth the cost of 12 AA batteries every year.
I can't believe the news today,
I can't close my eyes and make it go away.
How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long? Tonight we can be as one.
Broken bottles under children's feet,
Bodies strewn across a dead end street,
But I won't heed the battle call,
It puts my back up, puts my back up against the wall.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.
And the battle's just begun,
There's many lost, but tell me who has won?
The trenches dug within our hearts,
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.
How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long, Tonight we can be as one.
Tonight, tonight.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.
Wipe the tears from your eyes,
Wipe your tears away,
Wipe your blood shot eyes.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.
And it's true we are immune.
When fact is fiction and T.V. is reality,
And today the millions cry,
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die.
The real battle just begun.
To claim the victory Jesus won,
On a Sunday bloody Sunday,
Sunday bloody Sunday.
Are they anti-war? ( "But I won't heed the battle call, / It puts my back up, puts my back up against the wall." )
Do they just acknowledge the loss? ("
And the battle's just begun,/There's many lost, but tell me who has won? /
The trenches dug within our hearts, /
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart." )
Are they a call to Christian forgiveness and values? ( "The real battle just begun. / To claim the victory Jesus won, / On a Sunday bloody Sunday, /
Sunday bloody Sunday." )
Are they a call to bomb those Islamic bastards? ( "The real battle just begun. / To claim the victory Jesus won, / On a Sunday bloody Sunday, /
Sunday bloody Sunday." )
Is it a question of, "why did they die and not us? ( "And today the millions cry, /
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die." )
Or is it a call to get on with our lives, and exact revenge at a later date? ( "And today the millions cry, /
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die." )
Still, I agree - stupid to ban a song that advocates a thoughtful position toward violence. - or maybe it was for the Edge's amazing guitar work (which would help explain the Rage Against the Machine ban).
BTW - Clear Channel has banned your sig. - "The urge to destroy is a creative urge. - M. Bakunin "
WHEN TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YOUR CITIZENS DIE IN AN HOUR, IT'S NOT A CRIME SCENE - IT'S A BATTLE ZONE. THE CORRECT RESPONSE IS TO IDENTIFY THE ENEMY, TAKE THE WAR TO THEM, AND KILL THEM. THAT'S HOW WAR WORKS. THIS IS WAR.
War? Against who?
Anyone?
I know we all have guesses, but do we really know?
We have a short list - Bin Laudin (gonna have to learn how to spell that), Iran, Iraq, maybe Syria, probably not Libya, Cuba, Serbia, or a domestic group. Probably not. Should we bomb the hell out of them, because they are on the short list? For every father will kill, we'll create another supporter for terrorism. For every child, two or three. Nice strategy.
What if the culprit flies to France, then turns himself in? What if the French refuse to turn him/them over until we agree to remove the death penalty from the possible punishments? Do we bomb France?
What if all those involved were part of the plan, and buried with their victims? What then?
Someone just punched us in the nose in the dark. We should stop the bleeding, and wait until morning to figure out who it is.
Commercial airliners are difficult beasts to pilot. They needed training.
BS. I work in aircraft simulation, and I "flew" a plane the first time I sat behind the controls.
The hard part is starting the engines, the flight check off, programming the nav computer, talking to the tower, and knowing when to abort a takeoff. Landing is also hard. Once you are in the air, near cruising altitude, it's damn easy - the nav computer does most of the flying, and even if you ignore the tower, there are now on-board computers that warn you if you are too close to another aircraft.
No, if you kill or disable the pilot, even you can jump into that pilot seat, give the yoke a shake to disengage the flight computer, and point that plane where you want. If you don't know how to work the trim, you may have to flight the aero dynamics, but you could certainly target the plane. Hell, if you can work the radio enough to get in touch with the tower, you might even be able to land it.
The time for peace is over. We must identify who did this, find out where they are, go in after them, and wipe them off the face of the Earth. We will suffer more casualties doing it this way. Too bad. The death toll is going to exceed Pearl Harbor and approach if not exceed use of a tactical nuke. We are at war.
This is not state-based terrorism. This is a small group of fanatics. Your stupid, stupid tactic would make it a war.
Terrorism is cyclical, not a three step process. You are attacked, you get angry, you retaliate. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Look at Ireland, the Middle East, etc. Do you want our grandchildren to still be fighting the same damn "war"?
We wait. We continue to work. We find the black boxes, the voice recorders, we investigate. Those that did it are on the run. They are in hiding, and think we don't know where they are. Let they sweat a little. When we have the evidence, when the world knows, then we act. Maybe not even violently - put them in front of the same court as Millosevich, make them stand trial.
Above all, we show that we are rational humans, and not dogs that bite because we were bit.
Take a look at the pictures on the Jerusalem Post [jpost.com] site:
"Reports are indicating residents of eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank, and southern Lebanon are celebrating the mass terror attacks in the United States at this time".
"Dozens of Palestinian youths have taken to the streets and are distributing candies on a main thoroughfare passing through eastern Jerusalem".
For one, I won't believe it until I hear the BBC or another independant source confirm it - I don't trust anything either side says in that area.
Second - why not? For months, Isreal has been giving the Palestinians hell, and Palestine has asked the U.S. for support. The U.S. has said that Israli/Palestinian affairs are not high priority for them. Maybe now it will be.
However, I don't think that was their intent. Personally, the historical date, the anniversary of the Camp David accord, is significant - we are now back to where we were with Carter in the 1970's, or perhaps even before that. I seriously hope that GW is up to the task.
I don't know if people are reading new posts or not, but here it goes...
This was not your "normal" terrorist attack. There were no demands, it was planned before the Israel elections, and it was coordinated. This was a terrorist attack on the U.S. and Western economy.
It was timed for the opening of the stock markets, while the markets in London were still open. It was timed for the LA commute. It was timed for when most people would be in the office, in the morning.
The use of planes insured that all planes would be grounded. No planes in the sky means business people do not travel, packages are not delivered, even the U.S. Mail is not delivered. It looks like other transportation services, such as Greyhound, are also shutting down.
The president wasn't really targeted, and government offices weren't targetted. The Pentagon was targeted. Was this to ensure a crisis way of thinking from the military folks? Already people are lining up for the gas pumps in my home town. If we make some sort of surgical strike against an Arab nation, then will the Arab states retaliate with an oil embargo?
This is hitting us where it hurts - in our struggling economy. Don't be fooled - the fact that Washington and New York are shut down fills the terrorists with as much joy as the fact that Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Dallas are all in a panic, vacating all the state offices and high office buildings. They are thrilled that every American is taking a day off work, and wondering what is happening to their 401K.
Don't let this terrorism hurt the economy. Keep your money where it is - you'll buy cheap stocks that will only go up in value. bin Laudin probably has his money in gold, which will go up in value and fund the next adventure. Try to lessen his speculative portfolio a bit.
Above all, keep doing your jobs, think about the freedoms you do have as an American, and, if you are in a position to help, do so.
The most interesting detail here is that between 0.1.4 and 0.2.0 I rewrote the GUI to use floating point instead of integers to describe coordinates
He doesn't elaborate on why. Any ideas on why a desktop OS needs floating point coordinates in it's GUI?
I can only guess, since I'm not a GUI programmer, but...
It's possible that he uses some sort of abstract interface to the screen, rather than a direct, pixel based solution. For instance, you could specify screen size in inches (based on resultion and monitor size), and specify things in inches/cm rather than pixels. Also, you could assume the width of your window is 1.0, and plant something at.5 to put it in the middle of the screen. This may make certain things easier, like drawing apps or porting to different aspect screens - but given his bias toward non-expansive design, this seems unlikely.
Another posibility is that a lot of math is done on the screen coordinates, and the constant conversions between float and integer were getting in the way...
Proof that Microsoft software can't withstand the power of the Slashdot Effect.
But remember yesterday? DOJ announces that it's no longer pursuing a Microsoft breakup, and Slashdot breaks at about the same time. Now that's a headline:
Somebody needs to build an NT powered battlebot, then we can have a serious NT vs Linux battle. (Of course the bastard will probably bluescreen as soon as the competition heats up...
And it would have to be NT - if you used XP, everytime you changed the chain on the low-mounted chain saw, you'd have to call Microsoft for a new activation code. Think of all the activation reminders during an actual battle!
I agree - we need a grass-roots org. All other special interest groups have one. Microsoft and Media companies are buying them. What do they know that we don't? That there is strength in numbers, that political figures respond to personal correspondance, that the work of a few people can be used by the rest.
Usually, when I see a great idea on Slashdot, someone else says "It's already been done - go here".
So, come on - speak up - I would join one of these in a second.
Lets be frank - its not like rushing to a 1.0 release now is going to reclaim substantial market share from IE - the browser wars, at least on Windows, is basically over. We've waited years for Mozilla to get done - they ar emaking great progress in 2001, so lets just call 1.0 when the time is right.
Or, better yet, let's take a page from the closed-source playbook and call it Mozilla 7.0, or Mozilla 2002, or MMII(zilla) or MMoziIIa (something with Roman Numerals) or just Transmeta. Or, go back the the unix roots, and call it "mz".
According to Bjarne Stroustrup, the core application domain for C++ is systems programming. Having created an OS in C++, what would you say are C++ strengths and weaknesses for your needs? Has the OS evolved along with the evolving standard (the STL, templates, the new type casts, etc.), or have you stuck with the C++ that was around when you started? What features do you depend on, and which do you avoid like the plague? And, of course, if you did it today, would you use another language or make different language choices?
However, it's still possible to directly compare public school and private school costs. Just don't include the religious (church-subsidized) schools. According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, non-religious private schools actually spent *MORE* per-pupil in 1996 (the last year I have statistics for) than public schools did. Given that Catholic schools and non-religious private schools have similar student bodies and facilities, it's reasonable to expect that Catholic schools, once you add in the subsidies, have similar costs -- i.e., more expensive than the public schools.
Wow. I don't buy that you can directly compare non-religious private to religious private, to determine the difference. As others have mentioned, the number of priests and nuns in Catholic schools have seriously declined. In my Cathloic grade school, there were two nuns in teaching roles, and the rest were lay people (Christian, but not priests or nuns). That's about 1 nun for 20 lay people.
There are two factors that lower the cost. First, the teachers are willing to be paid a little less (in many cases) to work in a school that supports their religious beliefs, and that doesn't have the same problems of a public school. Second, these schools have done an amazing job of reducing administration, probably for the reason you gave - there are not many more "super-cheap" priests and nuns to help administrate.
But even given that, it is still cheaper per student. It's cheaper if you give the lay people competative salaries. It's cheaper if you replace all the Church employees with lay employees.
Why? Because the people involved have a higher purpose - educational goals and religious ones. Students are always students, but parents are dedicated, teachers are dedicated, and administrators are dedicated. Parents know they could save a big wad of cash by going public, and teachers and admins know they could make more by going public as well. But they decide to stay, and their dedication makes the experience better for the students, and cheaper too.
But public schools could be as good, and as cheap. And they were, back in the early days before federal funding, an over-priced textbook industry, computers in the classroom, and school consolidations. Education has become a busines, and a badly run one, because it doesn't work under the normal rules of supply and demand. The supply is provided by the state, as well as the demand - every kid must go to school, or the parents have to home-school them. Because some kids don't want to learn, these schools become prisons instead.
Several things could help the public schools, from better teacher salaries to smaller schools to removing the requirement that all children must go to school. But the basic questions remain - do we have the will to educate every kid, and what to we do about those who do not have the will to do so?
I think we've all had a bad teacher, but perhaps not as bad as yours. Having a bad teacher makes smart people want to get rid of them, or make rules to limit their damage.
However, I see a lot of what's wrong in education being a result of this kind of thing. Textbooks are very expensive, because they are designed each year for a moving target - the worst students and the worst teachers. But all kids have to use them. Because of a handful of school shootings, every school spends a ton of money on security.
I could go on, but you could come up with your own examples.
It seems to me we've lost our will to educate. At the same time, we are unwilling to sened kids back into the sweat-shops, so schools, which always had to cater to the worst kids that came along, are becoming nothing more than kiddie-prisons, everyone on an 18-year sentence without parole. There's quite a few parallels, from the state and federal oversight, the declining real wages of the prison's employees, the size of the facilities, the escalating violence, and the negative effects on the inmates.
Maybe if computers get to the point of interactivity that a kid could learn from home, without a teacher, I could support them. That way, only the parents that wanted the free day care / imprisonment could use schools. Until then, I fear they work the same way the T.Vs do at home - distract the kids from causing trouble.
"I have no data, but I believe kids will read more on the Palm than they do on books because Palms are their generation," said Elliot Soloway, a professor in the college of engineering and school of education at the University of Michigan.
"Books are Perry Como's generation.... The children don't see the Palm as a computer, they see the Palm as media. Media is hot. Media is exciting. That's why they're going to participate in the reading."
Soloway, who is studying Palm handheld programs in schools, said that in order for "computing technology" to be effective in class instruction, there must be enough hardware for all the students, teachers must know how to use it, and administrators and parents must be supportive of the curriculum that incorporates it.
Handheld computers have an advantage over desktop PCs or laptops in that they are small enough to be carried anywhere and relatively inexpensive -- "the cost of a pair of tennis shoes," Soloway said.
"As long as the computers are down the hall and up the stairs to the lab, they are irrelevant to education," Soloway said.
This guy sounds like one of the pie-in-the-sky technologists that loves tech for the sake of tech, and is unwilling to recognize reality. Now, it that because he is, or because Wired is so pro-tech that everything that passes by their editors sounds that way?
To pick apart his statements:
No, kids won't read more just because it is on a handheld computer. Some kids read with their spare time, others do other things. If I was a kid with a handheld computer, I might read, but more likely I would be installing games or other fun apps. I might even have fun writing games for others to play. But reading? Given the book or the e-book, I'll take the book, until e-book tech gets a bit better.
One advantage, though, is that "Penthouse Forum" looks the same as "Tom Saywer", at least from 10 ft away. Maybe kids will read more...
Soloway then says that if all kids had one, and if all the teachers knew how to use them effectively, and if the parents were behind the curiculum, then they would be useful in the classroom. Well, the same could be said for gym equipment, musical instruments, textbooks, lab equipment, or computers. The fact that this isn't the case for a majority of students is why education is in so much trouble - hand-held computers might just make it worse.
Handheld computers are as cheap as a pair of shoes? Maybe, but not any I wore as a kid... My family had to save money, so I got other kid's hand-me-downs, wore shoes til they fell apart (and were already well out of fashion), and generally wore clothes that kept me from being naked. I was aware of the kids who had the newest and most expensive clothes, and that is was a status symbol. Handheld computers would have to be the same across the board (All Visors, for instance, instead of some Visors, some Visor Prisms, and some Visor Edges), and the parents would bitch and moan - "If Johnny wants the orange one with 16MB rather than the ugly black one with 8MB, then why can't he have it? It interacts with the cheaper ones!!!" Just like in the workplace, hand-helds are a status symbol, just a more expensive one.
Please, let's not put a computer in every classroom. Please, put them down the hall. I have never met a computer program that could teach better than a teacher. Mathematica and Matlab are no substitute for a good math teacher. Shockwave Shakespeare is no substitute for a good English Teacher. Dance Dance Revolution is no substitute for a good Phys. Ed. teacher. Axis and Allies is no substitute for a good history teacher. Hell, even Microsoft Visual Studio and gcc are no substitute for a good programming teacher. Computers are tools, but they are limited tools, and the programs are expensive, and can't replace a good teacher. Let's keep the computers down the hall, where they belong, irrevlevant to education.
Slashdot Mirror
It's worth it, gets you access to additional features, and you aren't annoyed by ads. As a side benefit, you support one of the best sources of online journalism.
If you only read the occasional article, then don't bother, but don't complain about the ads. If you read all the time, then why haven't you signed up yet?
This might work - my capitalist gears are turning...
Imagine coming to some license agreement with a University - the University pays a flat rate, and all Students in the dorms and employees can get the Napster service. In return, Napster can provide some other services, like not allowing connections during business hours, or limiting connections, or some such thing to help out with the bandwidth. The university might also be able to limit bandwidth for the particular port, or some such thing...
Students get their free account, with the easy-to-use Napster interface, and it's too much trouble to try to use the other ones. Plus, if it's someone on campus that has the file, the transfer is very fast. Communities can spring up, where folks across campus find out they both like the same bands, and recommend other bands to each other. The University admins can profile the traffic, set policies, and don't have to deal with the multi-headed hydra of a million different services, except from those geeks who may know what they are doing...
Kids go home for the summer break, get their parents to buy home licenses as well. When they get out of college, they are loyal customers, as well as broadband purchasers. The record companies still get their money, and see the benefits of electronic distribution. Maybe Napster even becomes a record company, "signing" independants to electronic-only distribution. Microsoft and Linux users join hands to sing "God Bless America". The Jews and Arabs sign peace agreements, marry, and have kids. Air and water become clean and clear, and cold fusion reactions give us all clean energy for low cost.
It could happen...
Personally, I call it a draw. Good game.
Checkmate! I lose! But wait...
Just because *you* knew who Søren Schmidt was doesn't mean that he's widely known.
Ah-ha! It's a draw!
But seriously, as important as due credit is, the more popular Linux and the rest get, the less recognition the "known heroes" will get for their code work, relative to how much it is used. Not that it will stop them, just make them more bitter toward the lusers...
Perhaps we need to erect the "Memorial to the Known Programmers", something like the Vietnam Memorial where the names of contributers of open source code can get their name in stone. It may end up being a monstrous and impressive list, or just a cool t-shirt.
However, since he wasn't recognized in the first place, now everyone at Slashdot knows who he is, knows what he did, and feels a little debt of gratitude toward him.
Lucky for the guy at Red Hat, he just took off the copyright rather than claimed it as his own...
BTW, to type the character ø in HTML, type "& # 2 4 8 ;", but without the quotes or spaces (another thing I wouldn't have known without somebody screwing up...).
I think it was more of a matter of lazy programming than evil intentions. The header files define structures, a few constants, etc. They encode a bit of knowledge, such as data formats and the meaning of that data, but some people wouldn't consider it code. More of an interface description. Of course, if it was a document describing an interface, then most people would automatically consider the copyright to hold...
It's a bit like other forms of online "theft". Some folks think that if you download the html for a popular site, remove all the text and images, and use the layout on their own site, then it's not theft, because the copyrightable parts (images, text) were removed, and only the framework retained. But, like HTML framework, headers are the work of the programmer, and any desired copyright should be respected.
Again, I'm in the "simple mistake, fix it, move on" camp, and would like to add that Red Hat and the rest should add a line to their policy about reusing "open source" code, to retain copyrights.
If Microsoft did it, I'd expect them to do the same, but Microsoft would probably do it to force the issue, make the EFF take them to trial to define the limits of open source, the BSD liscence , and the GPL liscense. That's the difference - this will be taken care of by peers, while Microsoft conflicts almost always involve lawyers. It's the difference between getting rear-ended by an honest citizen (with or without the insurance companies getting involved), vs. an asshole celebrity who thinks the little people should take their licks and not annoy the "important people" with trivial matters like car bills and possible medical expenses.
I'm not big on the bells and whistles either, but I find my vanilla Visor Deluxe to be the best purchase I made in a long time.
For serious data entry, I type it into the desktop software. 90% of data entry can be done this way, and the other 10% is the stuff I can keep in my head while writing, so it doesn't matter how slow it is.
I travel a lot, and sometimes have trouble getting onto the facility right after my plane lands. It's been a godsend to have the phone number of every person who has let me on, as well as building numbers and other info that is only useful for getting past security. It's also nice to have the number for that nice hotel I stayed at, so I know where to call when I go back in a year.
I've found that if I enter the data into my visor everytime I'm tempted to grab a slip of paper, then I'm not asking for info more than once. Phone numbers, IP addresses, user names for different systems, all go in, for easy retrival. I may even use one of the password keepers some day, and start using some real passwords.
I also love Project Guttenberg. Every time I have five minutes waiting for someone else, I can dig out a classic and read a few pages - and it's a lot easier than always having a paperback in my back pocket.
I'm not saying one of these is for everyone, but I've needed an appointment book, address book, and note holder for years, and I was never able to keep a huge appointment book. Finally, I can stop buying belated birthday cards!
I have dropped one, hard, but Visor seems to follow the computer maker's lead, and makes the exchange for a new one pretty painless. All the data is on the desktop, in a less portable form, but I didn't loose everything because of a hardware failure.
Anyway, it may not be for you, but for me, I was able to throw away 25 lbs of little paper notebooks and aborted attempts at address books - it's worth the cost of 12 AA batteries every year.
Do they just acknowledge the loss? (" And the battle's just begun, /There's many lost, but tell me who has won? /
The trenches dug within our hearts, /
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart." )
Are they a call to Christian forgiveness and values? ( "The real battle just begun. / To claim the victory Jesus won, / On a Sunday bloody Sunday, / Sunday bloody Sunday." )
Are they a call to bomb those Islamic bastards? ( "The real battle just begun. / To claim the victory Jesus won, / On a Sunday bloody Sunday, / Sunday bloody Sunday." )
Is it a question of, "why did they die and not us? ( "And today the millions cry, / We eat and drink while tomorrow they die." )
Or is it a call to get on with our lives, and exact revenge at a later date? ( "And today the millions cry, / We eat and drink while tomorrow they die." )
Still, I agree - stupid to ban a song that advocates a thoughtful position toward violence. - or maybe it was for the Edge's amazing guitar work (which would help explain the Rage Against the Machine ban).
BTW - Clear Channel has banned your sig. - "The urge to destroy is a creative urge. - M. Bakunin "
I didn't see the Cure's "Killing an Arab" on that list...
War? Against who?
Anyone?
I know we all have guesses, but do we really know?
We have a short list - Bin Laudin (gonna have to learn how to spell that), Iran, Iraq, maybe Syria, probably not Libya, Cuba, Serbia, or a domestic group. Probably not. Should we bomb the hell out of them, because they are on the short list? For every father will kill, we'll create another supporter for terrorism. For every child, two or three. Nice strategy.
What if the culprit flies to France, then turns himself in? What if the French refuse to turn him/them over until we agree to remove the death penalty from the possible punishments? Do we bomb France?
What if all those involved were part of the plan, and buried with their victims? What then?
Someone just punched us in the nose in the dark. We should stop the bleeding, and wait until morning to figure out who it is.
BS. I work in aircraft simulation, and I "flew" a plane the first time I sat behind the controls.
The hard part is starting the engines, the flight check off, programming the nav computer, talking to the tower, and knowing when to abort a takeoff. Landing is also hard. Once you are in the air, near cruising altitude, it's damn easy - the nav computer does most of the flying, and even if you ignore the tower, there are now on-board computers that warn you if you are too close to another aircraft.
No, if you kill or disable the pilot, even you can jump into that pilot seat, give the yoke a shake to disengage the flight computer, and point that plane where you want. If you don't know how to work the trim, you may have to flight the aero dynamics, but you could certainly target the plane. Hell, if you can work the radio enough to get in touch with the tower, you might even be able to land it.
This is not state-based terrorism. This is a small group of fanatics. Your stupid, stupid tactic would make it a war.
Terrorism is cyclical, not a three step process. You are attacked, you get angry, you retaliate. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Look at Ireland, the Middle East, etc. Do you want our grandchildren to still be fighting the same damn "war"?
We wait. We continue to work. We find the black boxes, the voice recorders, we investigate. Those that did it are on the run. They are in hiding, and think we don't know where they are. Let they sweat a little. When we have the evidence, when the world knows, then we act. Maybe not even violently - put them in front of the same court as Millosevich, make them stand trial.
Above all, we show that we are rational humans, and not dogs that bite because we were bit.
"Reports are indicating residents of eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank, and southern Lebanon are celebrating the mass terror attacks in the United States at this time".
"Dozens of Palestinian youths have taken to the streets and are distributing candies on a main thoroughfare passing through eastern Jerusalem".
For one, I won't believe it until I hear the BBC or another independant source confirm it - I don't trust anything either side says in that area.
Second - why not? For months, Isreal has been giving the Palestinians hell, and Palestine has asked the U.S. for support. The U.S. has said that Israli/Palestinian affairs are not high priority for them. Maybe now it will be.
However, I don't think that was their intent. Personally, the historical date, the anniversary of the Camp David accord, is significant - we are now back to where we were with Carter in the 1970's, or perhaps even before that. I seriously hope that GW is up to the task.
This was not your "normal" terrorist attack. There were no demands, it was planned before the Israel elections, and it was coordinated. This was a terrorist attack on the U.S. and Western economy.
It was timed for the opening of the stock markets, while the markets in London were still open. It was timed for the LA commute. It was timed for when most people would be in the office, in the morning.
The use of planes insured that all planes would be grounded. No planes in the sky means business people do not travel, packages are not delivered, even the U.S. Mail is not delivered. It looks like other transportation services, such as Greyhound, are also shutting down.
The president wasn't really targeted, and government offices weren't targetted. The Pentagon was targeted. Was this to ensure a crisis way of thinking from the military folks? Already people are lining up for the gas pumps in my home town. If we make some sort of surgical strike against an Arab nation, then will the Arab states retaliate with an oil embargo?
This is hitting us where it hurts - in our struggling economy. Don't be fooled - the fact that Washington and New York are shut down fills the terrorists with as much joy as the fact that Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Dallas are all in a panic, vacating all the state offices and high office buildings. They are thrilled that every American is taking a day off work, and wondering what is happening to their 401K.
Don't let this terrorism hurt the economy. Keep your money where it is - you'll buy cheap stocks that will only go up in value. bin Laudin probably has his money in gold, which will go up in value and fund the next adventure. Try to lessen his speculative portfolio a bit.
Above all, keep doing your jobs, think about the freedoms you do have as an American, and, if you are in a position to help, do so.
He doesn't elaborate on why. Any ideas on why a desktop OS needs floating point coordinates in it's GUI? I can only guess, since I'm not a GUI programmer, but...
It's possible that he uses some sort of abstract interface to the screen, rather than a direct, pixel based solution. For instance, you could specify screen size in inches (based on resultion and monitor size), and specify things in inches/cm rather than pixels. Also, you could assume the width of your window is 1.0, and plant something at .5 to put it in the middle of the screen. This may make certain things easier, like drawing apps or porting to different aspect screens - but given his bias toward non-expansive design, this seems unlikely.
Another posibility is that a lot of math is done on the screen coordinates, and the constant conversions between float and integer were getting in the way...
But remember yesterday? DOJ announces that it's no longer pursuing a Microsoft breakup, and Slashdot breaks at about the same time. Now that's a headline:
MICROSOFT SLASHDOTS SLASHDOT
One is Microsoft, who has done it a couple of times now.
The second is the Church of Scientology, who got the IRS to consider them as a tax-exempt religous organization.
All I can say is, look out Heber Jentzsch and David Miscavige, Microsoft is thinking of releasing MS Religion 1.0
And it would have to be NT - if you used XP, everytime you changed the chain on the low-mounted chain saw, you'd have to call Microsoft for a new activation code. Think of all the activation reminders during an actual battle!
Seriously, this guy is describing my primary home system. Maybe it's time to upgrade. Those Matrox cards may speed things up...
Usually, when I see a great idea on Slashdot, someone else says "It's already been done - go here".
So, come on - speak up - I would join one of these in a second.
Or, better yet, let's take a page from the closed-source playbook and call it Mozilla 7.0, or Mozilla 2002, or MMII(zilla) or MMoziIIa (something with Roman Numerals) or just Transmeta. Or, go back the the unix roots, and call it "mz".
According to Bjarne Stroustrup, the core application domain for C++ is systems programming. Having created an OS in C++, what would you say are C++ strengths and weaknesses for your needs? Has the OS evolved along with the evolving standard (the STL, templates, the new type casts, etc.), or have you stuck with the C++ that was around when you started? What features do you depend on, and which do you avoid like the plague? And, of course, if you did it today, would you use another language or make different language choices?
Wow. I don't buy that you can directly compare non-religious private to religious private, to determine the difference. As others have mentioned, the number of priests and nuns in Catholic schools have seriously declined. In my Cathloic grade school, there were two nuns in teaching roles, and the rest were lay people (Christian, but not priests or nuns). That's about 1 nun for 20 lay people.
There are two factors that lower the cost. First, the teachers are willing to be paid a little less (in many cases) to work in a school that supports their religious beliefs, and that doesn't have the same problems of a public school. Second, these schools have done an amazing job of reducing administration, probably for the reason you gave - there are not many more "super-cheap" priests and nuns to help administrate.
But even given that, it is still cheaper per student. It's cheaper if you give the lay people competative salaries. It's cheaper if you replace all the Church employees with lay employees.
Why? Because the people involved have a higher purpose - educational goals and religious ones. Students are always students, but parents are dedicated, teachers are dedicated, and administrators are dedicated. Parents know they could save a big wad of cash by going public, and teachers and admins know they could make more by going public as well. But they decide to stay, and their dedication makes the experience better for the students, and cheaper too.
But public schools could be as good, and as cheap. And they were, back in the early days before federal funding, an over-priced textbook industry, computers in the classroom, and school consolidations. Education has become a busines, and a badly run one, because it doesn't work under the normal rules of supply and demand. The supply is provided by the state, as well as the demand - every kid must go to school, or the parents have to home-school them. Because some kids don't want to learn, these schools become prisons instead.
Several things could help the public schools, from better teacher salaries to smaller schools to removing the requirement that all children must go to school. But the basic questions remain - do we have the will to educate every kid, and what to we do about those who do not have the will to do so?
However, I see a lot of what's wrong in education being a result of this kind of thing. Textbooks are very expensive, because they are designed each year for a moving target - the worst students and the worst teachers. But all kids have to use them. Because of a handful of school shootings, every school spends a ton of money on security.
I could go on, but you could come up with your own examples.
It seems to me we've lost our will to educate. At the same time, we are unwilling to sened kids back into the sweat-shops, so schools, which always had to cater to the worst kids that came along, are becoming nothing more than kiddie-prisons, everyone on an 18-year sentence without parole. There's quite a few parallels, from the state and federal oversight, the declining real wages of the prison's employees, the size of the facilities, the escalating violence, and the negative effects on the inmates.
Maybe if computers get to the point of interactivity that a kid could learn from home, without a teacher, I could support them. That way, only the parents that wanted the free day care / imprisonment could use schools. Until then, I fear they work the same way the T.Vs do at home - distract the kids from causing trouble.
This guy sounds like one of the pie-in-the-sky technologists that loves tech for the sake of tech, and is unwilling to recognize reality. Now, it that because he is, or because Wired is so pro-tech that everything that passes by their editors sounds that way?
To pick apart his statements:
No, kids won't read more just because it is on a handheld computer. Some kids read with their spare time, others do other things. If I was a kid with a handheld computer, I might read, but more likely I would be installing games or other fun apps. I might even have fun writing games for others to play. But reading? Given the book or the e-book, I'll take the book, until e-book tech gets a bit better.
One advantage, though, is that "Penthouse Forum" looks the same as "Tom Saywer", at least from 10 ft away. Maybe kids will read more...
Soloway then says that if all kids had one, and if all the teachers knew how to use them effectively, and if the parents were behind the curiculum, then they would be useful in the classroom. Well, the same could be said for gym equipment, musical instruments, textbooks, lab equipment, or computers. The fact that this isn't the case for a majority of students is why education is in so much trouble - hand-held computers might just make it worse.
Handheld computers are as cheap as a pair of shoes? Maybe, but not any I wore as a kid... My family had to save money, so I got other kid's hand-me-downs, wore shoes til they fell apart (and were already well out of fashion), and generally wore clothes that kept me from being naked. I was aware of the kids who had the newest and most expensive clothes, and that is was a status symbol. Handheld computers would have to be the same across the board (All Visors, for instance, instead of some Visors, some Visor Prisms, and some Visor Edges), and the parents would bitch and moan - "If Johnny wants the orange one with 16MB rather than the ugly black one with 8MB, then why can't he have it? It interacts with the cheaper ones!!!" Just like in the workplace, hand-helds are a status symbol, just a more expensive one.
Please, let's not put a computer in every classroom. Please, put them down the hall. I have never met a computer program that could teach better than a teacher. Mathematica and Matlab are no substitute for a good math teacher. Shockwave Shakespeare is no substitute for a good English Teacher. Dance Dance Revolution is no substitute for a good Phys. Ed. teacher. Axis and Allies is no substitute for a good history teacher. Hell, even Microsoft Visual Studio and gcc are no substitute for a good programming teacher. Computers are tools, but they are limited tools, and the programs are expensive, and can't replace a good teacher. Let's keep the computers down the hall, where they belong, irrevlevant to education.