The whole point of virtual reality is that you can escape from the limitations and inhibitions of real life and engage your deepest fantasies. Let's be honest - if a Star Trek holodeck was invented and made cheap enough for the average joe to install in his house, how many people would be having sex with Drew Barrymore (or whatever famous celebrity/model/singer/actress/actor you're into) tonight? In pure virtual reality, the rules (and laws) of real life don't - and shouldn't - apply.
So now the government wants to step in and declare what kinds of virtual activity are and are not legal. They start with something obviously repulsive (kiddie porn) so that no one will protest. But what's next? Political cartoons that make fun of politicians? Animated depictions of war and violence? How about video games, as they quite often depict murder and bloodshed (quake, anyone)?
I'm not trying to defend child pornography here, but in my opinion this is not child pornography. This is computer generated imagery we're talking about, they can be created without involving any actual children. The precedent that could be set here is simple - computer generated images of [whatever] are subject to the same laws as real images of [whatever]. This could have very serious consequences in other areas, especially electronic entertainment.
Unless Hemos meant to say that there was first global warning, and sometime after that a thought, the correct english word to use is "THAN".
Irony: you post to correct a spelling error, and your post itself contains a spelling error ("global warning", I believe you mean "global warming"). You're lucky I have no moderator points today.
I used to work for a fairly small technology company (which shall remain nameless). The upper management was utterly clueless, the marketing department was given higher priority than the R&D department (even for technical product-related decisions), and in general, the morale amongst the programmers was pretty low. It was tough working there, trying to put out quality software while upper management was running around, making idiots of themselves at every opportunity.
I thought about it for a long time, and then I decided to quit. Why? I didn't feel that this company deserved any more loyalty from me. I had worked my ass off for these morons, working long hours, working weekends, and for what? Rumours were constantly circulating that R&D was up on the chopping block because the company was looking to save money. I have no illusions that they wouldn't think twice about firing me if they thought it would improve their bottom line, so where's the loyalty?
My advice, cold as it may sound, is this: screw 'em. If you aren't happy, and if it seems that the company's future is dim, then bail out. No one is looking out for your best interests except you.
Of course, there will be many in this discussion who hold the romantic notion that it's better to stay and fight, even if it means going down with the ship. I say, screw that. Work is about more than just taking home a pay cheque every two weeks, it should be something that you enjoy doing, and to me it sounds like you aren't happy where you are. Be thankful that we work in an industry where the demand for skilled workers exceeds the supply (at least, for now).
Actually, computer games do save lives in that they provide income and health benefits to a large populace in the electronic entertainment industry.
Oh, come on now. Are you telling me that everyone in the electronic entertainment industry would die if suddenly there was no more demand for new computer games? I think that most of the people in that industry would be talented enough to roll into related areas rather than slowly starve to death due to lack of income. For example, a graphics programmer could certainly get a job doing engineering graphing software (something I have done, in fact I got that job because I had experience writing games and doing graphics programming), or a game logic programmer could move into the AI field, etc, etc.
So, games do save lives, but in order to see the fact one must be willing to examine indirect economic effects.
Sorry, but it's a little too indirect to actually make the claim that it "saves lives" that way. Certainly it puts bread on the table for a lot of people, but I'm sure none of them would die if it all went away. Interesting argument, though.
Surely it's much more fulfilling to say that you created the software that runs a hospital which saves people lives, or that we sent man to the moon on one of your programs. Compared with these games seem just a little trivial.
I think you're confusing the fulfillment derived from overcoming a set of challenges with the fulfillment derived from knowing that you created something that saves lives or improves the standard of living in some way. Obviously, computer games don't save lives (if anyone cares to disagree with me on that one, I'd love to hear your argument), but writing one can be extremely fulfilling in its own way. As Abrash states in the article, game software covers a surprisingly large number of usually separate fields of knowledge, and you have to be a bit of an expert in everything in order to pull it off. I used to be into games programming myself (as an amateur, not a professional, and certainly not on the same level of quality as Abrash), and I found it more challenging than most of the work I've done as a professional software engineer since then. Not only more challenging, but a hell of a lot more interesting and fun as well.
As you say, surely some people would take more pride in writing software that runs a hospital, but for some personalities, writing a really cool game can be just as fulfilling, if not moreso, even if the usefulness of the end product in the long run is dubious at best.
It's really an unclear decision to make, whether to fully disclose every security hole or to shut up about it until the hole is fixed (or forever, whichever comes first).
Where's the incentive for a corporation to fix a security hole if they know that they can effectively keep knowledge of the existence of that hole a secret? Fixing problems costs money, covering something up is (usually) easier (i.e. cheaper) if you can catch the problem before knowledge of it grows out of hand.
Your point about script kiddies is well taken, however you have to admit that nothing motivates a corporation to fix a problem more than public attention on that problem.
My opinion (for whatever it's worth), is that attempting to keep knowledge of flaws in your product a secret is self-serving and unethical. At the very least, even if you don't have a fix for the problem, your customers deserve to know that the problem exists and if there is any way they can work around it. The corporations are *supposed* to be in business to serve their customers, not themselves.
The author flat out states that OOP doesn't allow you to do anything that you couldn't do with straight procedural programming. Okay, fine. Let's invert that, and say that procedural programming doesn't allow you to do anything that you can't do with OOP. Asking which one is "better" is missing the point - they are both valid approaches if they are done correctly. I have seen terribly written procedural code and I have seen terribly written OO code, likewise I've seen amazing procedural code and amazing OO code. The approach you choose is irrelevant, as long as everyone on the project does it the same way, and you do it right. Asking which is better is like asking whether you prefer apple juice or orange juice - they're both good for you, it's largely a matter of personal taste.
"Folders are ridiculous!" he says with a snort. "Computers have 20 things that are important, 10 things you use often and a bunch of crap. Let's put it all on one screen -- go for it!"
Somehow I can't see that being a good idea, even for a casual end user. "20 things" seems to be a bit of an understatement, and "10 things you use often" certainly isn't accurate in the case of power users or developers. Maybe this guy thinks that most of the stuff on his HD is a "bunch of crap", but I sure don't. I can't imagine trying to squeeze every app that I use frequently onto one screen, and even if I could I wouldn't because it would get too cluttered. Of course, I spend most of my time on the command line, so what the hell would I know about GUI's...
Anyone know what the SF office was responsible for? Were these software developers, marketing people, or what? The article mentions that the office was acquired when RH bought Atomic Vision, a web development company, but doesn't really say what was going on in that office.
Is this just an example of a large company stripping some fat/getting rid of the deadwood, or is this an indicator that RH is in serious trouble?
Students have to make up for their profs' bad teaching by learning the material on their own time, which only makes things worse.
Get used to that, buddy. Sometimes the best way to teach somebody something is to make them learn it themselves. In an odd way, they're giving you the skills that you're going to need once you get out into the work force. I'll admit, it sounds like your school does have a couple of problems, but all in all, creating an environment where students feel compelled to learn the course material in their own time is really not a bad thing.
I get tired of hearing about the "fight" between C, C++, and Java (and now C#), as if those are the only three programming languages in existence.
I concur. I'm especially tired of hearing comparisons between C++ and Java, as though they were the only object oriented languages around. I'm actually quite surprised that Eiffel has not seen more widespread acceptance in the OO developer community (www.eiffel.com is the "official", Bertrand Meyer-endorsed home page of Eiffel, but I personally prefer SmallEiffel, because it's free). Eiffel is a superbly well-designed object oriented language, and there are compilers available for pretty much every platform under the sun. The "compilers" are really just Eiffel to C translators, which then pass the resulting C code to a C compiler. The result is very efficient programs (probably not as efficient as actual C code would be, but certainly more efficient than Java or C++).
An excellent book on the subject is Objects Unencapsulated, by Ian Joyner. It's the only book I've ever read that does a blow-by-blow comparison of C++, Java, and Eiffel. It's pretty dry reading though, unless you're heavily into the OO stuff (as I am).
Not to malign Java, there are some good ideas with that language, but for a pure OO language, I've yet to see anything more impressive than Eiffel.
You have to admit, there's a miniscule chance that the translation is just a coincidence. Hell, it could be insoluble gibberish, but enough "analysis" produces a (somewhat) meaningful translation.
Although that is statistically possible, I find it doubtful given the circumstances.
One time pad encryption (sometimes called a vernam cipher) is the only form of encryption that is considered to be theoretically uncrackable (assuming, of course, that the pad is not compromised). The reason it is considered uncrackable is that all possible plaintexts are equally likely. For example, given a section of ciphertext n bytes in length, you could stumble upon a key of n bytes which, when xor'ed with the ciphertext in question, yielded english-language plaintext (this is somewhat akin to the "infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters" thing). It might be right, it might be wrong, it would certainly be a remarkable coincidence.
The reason I don't believe it to be likely in this case is because there is not enough entropy in the ciphertext. Just look at the puzzle, you can see repeated character sequences. If this were the output of a one time pad, it wouldn't have that kind of repetition.
Of course, there is still a valid possibility that the decryption was just a coincidence, which could explain the numerous small errors. Hey, stranger things have happened.
We must bring the Internet back under government control, in the form of a cooperative of nations.
Interesting idea, but do you really think government would be any better than corporations? Look at China and tell me we would never see censorship if governments controlled the internet. No, in order to be free from censorship, the internet should be developed by the people, for the people, with as little intervention from big brother and big corporations as possible. Besides, a "cooperative of nations" is almost a contradiction in terms. Trying to get two (or more) nations to agree on anything is an exercise in frustration.
For those tuning in late, like myself, would some mind making a brief post explaining what WIPO stands and what they do, or at least claim to do? Thanks. I feel like I'm tuning into an interesting TV show half way through.
One of the best ways that I've found to gather requirements is to write your test scripts first. It may seem odd to write tests before you actually code anything, but figuring out how to validate the software really helps you to understand exactly what the requirements are, and can force you to think a bit harder about the problem itself. This makes it lots less boring than sitting down and writing a bunch of stale documentation.
This patent covers a method for creating and displaying an onscreen focus indicator (hereafter referrred to as a "cursor") whose purpose is to inform the user where the current input focus resides.
We shall hereby distinguish two kinds of cursors: mouse cursors and text cursors. A mouse cursor shall appear on screen and shall be movable by moving the mouse input device around on the desktop. A text cursor shall flash on and off and shall be influenced by keyboard input.
Here at GreedyCorp Corporation, We feel that both of these innovations are non-obvious and have no prior art. Therefore, we are filing for two related patents on this subject. We intend to aggressively defend our intellectual property and will seek legal remedy against any individual or corporation that attempts to make use of a "cursor" without paying a small royalty to us.
But how much of that is going to go towards lawyer and court fees? The lawyer's cut alone is probably thirty or forty percent. A million bucks may be a drop in the ocean for Microsoft, but it sure won't do much for Bristol at this stage in the game. Ten million would have been a more fitting number, but what do I know, IANAL.
Such an action would probably be viewed more as a terrorist demand (we're shutting down the web until you give us back our DeCSS!) than as a protest. There's simply too much money flowing through the web every day to shut it down without seriously hurting somebody, somewhere.
The kind of hostile protest that you propose would only convince the US government to try and exert even more control over the net.
That was a remarkably Ameri-centric response. Why is it that people think just because something is made illegal in the US it automatically affects the entire internet? You speak of first amendment rights and refer to the internet as a "form of public utility, grown in the mysterious space where ownership is shared among the government and the telecommunciations industry (...) the government has regulatory final say over everything that goes on over that network". Hogwash. If I (in Canada) link to a DeCSS site, is the American government going to step in and shut me down? How about if someone in England does it? France? Japan? How does Kaplan realistically expect this ruling to have any effect? The only way I see this working is if all the nations in the world band together to pass similar laws in their respective countries.
You say that individuals have much less control than they thought, perhaps that is true in certain countries, but the internet is global and cannot be ruled by any one nation's laws. If linking to DeCSS is made illegal in the US, fine, the links will just move elsewhere, and people in the US can link to the sites that link to DeCSS. Kaplan's ruling changes nothing.
Junior high school kids: Hey, you guys have internet access in here, right?
Laundromat guy: Yeah, right this way. Here you go, surf all you want. Oh, by the way, please don't view all the images of hot naked ladies in various sexual poses. Thanks.
Junior high school kids: uh, okay...
Yes, and while we're at it, let's gather a bunch of hungry wolves around a pile of bloody meat and tell them to stayyy.... good boys...
Face it, giving people access to the internet and then trying to arbitrarily block out certain sites is an idea that is doomed to fail. Censorware and blocking software is nowhere near 100% effective and probably never will be. If you are that concerned about pr0n, I suggest you set up a local network with copies of popular web sites and just let them browse locally. This will allow them to become familiar with the basic concepts of the internet without exposing yourself to irate parents and such.
Slashdot Mirror
How long before that goatse guy gets a hold of this?
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So now the government wants to step in and declare what kinds of virtual activity are and are not legal. They start with something obviously repulsive (kiddie porn) so that no one will protest. But what's next? Political cartoons that make fun of politicians? Animated depictions of war and violence? How about video games, as they quite often depict murder and bloodshed (quake, anyone)?
I'm not trying to defend child pornography here, but in my opinion this is not child pornography. This is computer generated imagery we're talking about, they can be created without involving any actual children. The precedent that could be set here is simple - computer generated images of [whatever] are subject to the same laws as real images of [whatever]. This could have very serious consequences in other areas, especially electronic entertainment.
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Irony: you post to correct a spelling error, and your post itself contains a spelling error ("global warning", I believe you mean "global warming"). You're lucky I have no moderator points today.
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I thought about it for a long time, and then I decided to quit. Why? I didn't feel that this company deserved any more loyalty from me. I had worked my ass off for these morons, working long hours, working weekends, and for what? Rumours were constantly circulating that R&D was up on the chopping block because the company was looking to save money. I have no illusions that they wouldn't think twice about firing me if they thought it would improve their bottom line, so where's the loyalty?
My advice, cold as it may sound, is this: screw 'em. If you aren't happy, and if it seems that the company's future is dim, then bail out. No one is looking out for your best interests except you.
Of course, there will be many in this discussion who hold the romantic notion that it's better to stay and fight, even if it means going down with the ship. I say, screw that. Work is about more than just taking home a pay cheque every two weeks, it should be something that you enjoy doing, and to me it sounds like you aren't happy where you are. Be thankful that we work in an industry where the demand for skilled workers exceeds the supply (at least, for now).
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Oh, come on now. Are you telling me that everyone in the electronic entertainment industry would die if suddenly there was no more demand for new computer games? I think that most of the people in that industry would be talented enough to roll into related areas rather than slowly starve to death due to lack of income. For example, a graphics programmer could certainly get a job doing engineering graphing software (something I have done, in fact I got that job because I had experience writing games and doing graphics programming), or a game logic programmer could move into the AI field, etc, etc.
Sorry, but it's a little too indirect to actually make the claim that it "saves lives" that way. Certainly it puts bread on the table for a lot of people, but I'm sure none of them would die if it all went away. Interesting argument, though.
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I think you're confusing the fulfillment derived from overcoming a set of challenges with the fulfillment derived from knowing that you created something that saves lives or improves the standard of living in some way. Obviously, computer games don't save lives (if anyone cares to disagree with me on that one, I'd love to hear your argument), but writing one can be extremely fulfilling in its own way. As Abrash states in the article, game software covers a surprisingly large number of usually separate fields of knowledge, and you have to be a bit of an expert in everything in order to pull it off. I used to be into games programming myself (as an amateur, not a professional, and certainly not on the same level of quality as Abrash), and I found it more challenging than most of the work I've done as a professional software engineer since then. Not only more challenging, but a hell of a lot more interesting and fun as well.
As you say, surely some people would take more pride in writing software that runs a hospital, but for some personalities, writing a really cool game can be just as fulfilling, if not moreso, even if the usefulness of the end product in the long run is dubious at best.
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Where's the incentive for a corporation to fix a security hole if they know that they can effectively keep knowledge of the existence of that hole a secret? Fixing problems costs money, covering something up is (usually) easier (i.e. cheaper) if you can catch the problem before knowledge of it grows out of hand.
Your point about script kiddies is well taken, however you have to admit that nothing motivates a corporation to fix a problem more than public attention on that problem.
My opinion (for whatever it's worth), is that attempting to keep knowledge of flaws in your product a secret is self-serving and unethical. At the very least, even if you don't have a fix for the problem, your customers deserve to know that the problem exists and if there is any way they can work around it. The corporations are *supposed* to be in business to serve their customers, not themselves.
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Somehow I can't see that being a good idea, even for a casual end user. "20 things" seems to be a bit of an understatement, and "10 things you use often" certainly isn't accurate in the case of power users or developers. Maybe this guy thinks that most of the stuff on his HD is a "bunch of crap", but I sure don't. I can't imagine trying to squeeze every app that I use frequently onto one screen, and even if I could I wouldn't because it would get too cluttered. Of course, I spend most of my time on the command line, so what the hell would I know about GUI's...
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Is this just an example of a large company stripping some fat/getting rid of the deadwood, or is this an indicator that RH is in serious trouble?
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Get used to that, buddy. Sometimes the best way to teach somebody something is to make them learn it themselves. In an odd way, they're giving you the skills that you're going to need once you get out into the work force. I'll admit, it sounds like your school does have a couple of problems, but all in all, creating an environment where students feel compelled to learn the course material in their own time is really not a bad thing.
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I concur. I'm especially tired of hearing comparisons between C++ and Java, as though they were the only object oriented languages around. I'm actually quite surprised that Eiffel has not seen more widespread acceptance in the OO developer community (www.eiffel.com is the "official", Bertrand Meyer-endorsed home page of Eiffel, but I personally prefer SmallEiffel, because it's free). Eiffel is a superbly well-designed object oriented language, and there are compilers available for pretty much every platform under the sun. The "compilers" are really just Eiffel to C translators, which then pass the resulting C code to a C compiler. The result is very efficient programs (probably not as efficient as actual C code would be, but certainly more efficient than Java or C++).
An excellent book on the subject is Objects Unencapsulated, by Ian Joyner. It's the only book I've ever read that does a blow-by-blow comparison of C++, Java, and Eiffel. It's pretty dry reading though, unless you're heavily into the OO stuff (as I am).
Not to malign Java, there are some good ideas with that language, but for a pure OO language, I've yet to see anything more impressive than Eiffel.
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Although that is statistically possible, I find it doubtful given the circumstances.
One time pad encryption (sometimes called a vernam cipher) is the only form of encryption that is considered to be theoretically uncrackable (assuming, of course, that the pad is not compromised). The reason it is considered uncrackable is that all possible plaintexts are equally likely. For example, given a section of ciphertext n bytes in length, you could stumble upon a key of n bytes which, when xor'ed with the ciphertext in question, yielded english-language plaintext (this is somewhat akin to the "infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters" thing). It might be right, it might be wrong, it would certainly be a remarkable coincidence.
The reason I don't believe it to be likely in this case is because there is not enough entropy in the ciphertext. Just look at the puzzle, you can see repeated character sequences. If this were the output of a one time pad, it wouldn't have that kind of repetition.
Of course, there is still a valid possibility that the decryption was just a coincidence, which could explain the numerous small errors. Hey, stranger things have happened.
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That's funny, according to O'Reilly's "Running Linux", it stands for "resource configuration".
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Interesting idea, but do you really think government would be any better than corporations? Look at China and tell me we would never see censorship if governments controlled the internet. No, in order to be free from censorship, the internet should be developed by the people, for the people, with as little intervention from big brother and big corporations as possible. Besides, a "cooperative of nations" is almost a contradiction in terms. Trying to get two (or more) nations to agree on anything is an exercise in frustration.
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You seem to be confusing "open source" with "free". Open source does not necessarily mean free. Please review the difference between free and open source.
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WIPO - World Intellectual Property Organization
www.wipo.org
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We shall hereby distinguish two kinds of cursors: mouse cursors and text cursors. A mouse cursor shall appear on screen and shall be movable by moving the mouse input device around on the desktop. A text cursor shall flash on and off and shall be influenced by keyboard input.
Here at GreedyCorp Corporation, We feel that both of these innovations are non-obvious and have no prior art. Therefore, we are filing for two related patents on this subject. We intend to aggressively defend our intellectual property and will seek legal remedy against any individual or corporation that attempts to make use of a "cursor" without paying a small royalty to us.
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But how much of that is going to go towards lawyer and court fees? The lawyer's cut alone is probably thirty or forty percent. A million bucks may be a drop in the ocean for Microsoft, but it sure won't do much for Bristol at this stage in the game. Ten million would have been a more fitting number, but what do I know, IANAL.
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Tell me, and I may forget.
Show me, and I may remember.
Involve me, and I will understand.
- [ancient chinese proverb]
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The kind of hostile protest that you propose would only convince the US government to try and exert even more control over the net.
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You say that individuals have much less control than they thought, perhaps that is true in certain countries, but the internet is global and cannot be ruled by any one nation's laws. If linking to DeCSS is made illegal in the US, fine, the links will just move elsewhere, and people in the US can link to the sites that link to DeCSS. Kaplan's ruling changes nothing.
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Laundromat guy: Yeah, right this way. Here you go, surf all you want. Oh, by the way, please don't view all the images of hot naked ladies in various sexual poses. Thanks.
Junior high school kids: uh, okay...
Yes, and while we're at it, let's gather a bunch of hungry wolves around a pile of bloody meat and tell them to stayyy.... good boys...
Face it, giving people access to the internet and then trying to arbitrarily block out certain sites is an idea that is doomed to fail. Censorware and blocking software is nowhere near 100% effective and probably never will be. If you are that concerned about pr0n, I suggest you set up a local network with copies of popular web sites and just let them browse locally. This will allow them to become familiar with the basic concepts of the internet without exposing yourself to irate parents and such.
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