Its easy to go very in depth in email. Its also very easy to go off the deep end.
It's also VERY easy to write and send an email in the heat of the moment. I had a friend recently who was on the verge of emailing her old job and giving them a piece of her mind. I reminded her that, in 5 years, when the old management are long gone and she wants a job, that email will still be sitting on file.
In the Olden Days, people wrote angry letters, but you still had to get an envelope, a stamp, and take it to the post box. By the time you got there, the anger had worn off, and the letter didn't seem quite so clever any more. I thin kflame wars continue largely due to the instant communication available...
Basically the junk mail folder will become just another spam-infested inbox.
Given that the inbox on any given AOL user right now is likely to contain 1,000 emails saying: "LOLOLOLOLOLOL ME TOO!!!1! ROFL" I can't quite see the distinction you are attempting to draw.
Spelling generally doesn't really matter that much, in terms of making yourself understood.
I can think of many people who would disagree...
Doctor Samuel Johnson, for one:-)
I agree with your point about snobbishness; people do judge social standing by use of language. But that's a human social thing.. it would be nice to have accurate communication without that, but hey - this is the real world, with real (snobbish) people it in..:-(
I'm much more concerned about the fact that taco can't differentiate "to" and "too". Even assuming it's not very important - usually, I admit, it isn't - it does take some time to parse incorrectly formed sentences.
I half to disagree. Misuse off gramma, spelling and/or punctuation make's every reader waste a few second's while they work out what it actually mean's. Well all have to do a double-parsing, if you like.
So every reader waste's about as much time as it would have taken the writer to check that what they had written was correct in the first place.
Of course, some people just don't know the rule's; but that is the precise definition of an editors job; too correct. Too correct and amend exactly the sort of ambiguous things which mislead. Thats why these thing's annoy people; because they mislead, and say thing's they don't mean to say - not because off an anal demand that all rule's be obeyed without question and unerringly.
My favoutite examples of misleading mistakes:
"I helped my uncle jack off a horse"
-- which letter(s) should have been capitalised?
"To my parents, Mary and God"
-- an Oxford comma would prevent the author from claiming to be Christ
I want to say that most cultures have an "up yours" gesture of some sort involving a hand punching up with some kind of finger gesture, but that's probably my ethnocentrism speaking.
Not really ethnocentric. The phallic symbolism is pretty much global. Though one or two cultures prefer to make a round shape, indicating a different set of genitalia are in play.
In rural Greece, showing the palm of the hand (link covers many types of "finger") is the rudest gesture you can make. If you go there, don't wave at anyone. Really.
In the USA, making a "V" sign is always a good sign; meaning victory, or success, or maybe just "two". In the UK, if the knuckles face inwards, it means "victory" or "good". If they face outwards, it's the equivalent of the US middle-digit. Not polite. At all. I remember being momentarily stunned when a guy on a market in NYC indicated a price of two dollars by, apparently, gesturing that I should F-Off. It took my UK-based American friend who was next to me to remind me that "honey, we ain't in Kansas any more." And everyone finds those pictures of Sir Winston Churchill doing it the wrong way around very amusing indeed. It's like a photo of JFK flipping the bird at an entire crowd, who cheer him as he does so.
the companies will either find a "compromise" solution that infuriates people less (for instance, a rootkit without horrific security flaws), or simply establish rootkits and other malware as the "industry standard", critics (read: angry geeks) be damned.
As long as there are geeks, and they get angry, there will be free software and operating systems, which you can't inject copy spy^H^H^Hprotection onto, but can use to play music. Geeks may not buy the CDs if they require said software to play. But they sure as heck better play in a CD player; and if you can play a sound down a wire to a speaker, you can rip it onto a computer. The Geeks will stay safe, if annoyed and going round the houses to listen to some music.
It is The Great Unwashed who are actually in danger here.. they will probably just accept it until there's a huge security scandal somewhere..
China's laws regarding freedom of speech (or, specifically, the lack thereof) are not moral; thus, no, MS should not obey them (nor should anyone else).
I disagree. Who are you (or me, or anyone else) to break another country's laws when in that country? I don't like that law, so I'm not going to move to China (and I pity the people who are being oppressed). But saying that a company should break laws in a foreign country it is operating in because they don't like the law is plain wrong.
In The Netherlands, marijuana can be sold quite openly, and it could well be legalised at some point. If that happens, would you support Dutch companies who bring weed into the USA and sell it there? By your reasoning, this would be acceptable, because the laws in the USA (and the UK) making it illegal are plainly immoral in my view. What about pr0n sites? If (say) the Vatican City owned an ISP, should we insist that the ISP cannot remove a pr0n site specialising in Nuns, because pr0n featuring Nuns is legal where I live? OK, that's a bit far fetched, but it illustrates my point better than a bit of pot:-)
When you operate in a country, you obey their laws. All of them. Or you stay out.
Granted, I don't know much/anything about how Swedish politics works, but in the US I could never vote in someone who only runs on one platform, even if it was a platform I agreed on.
A quick wiki confirmed my initial assumption that Sweden (like a fair few European countries) has a government elected by proportional representation.
So if enough people vote for you over the country as a whole, you get a seat in the elected body which legislates. This means that while you have the extreme parties represented (far right, far left etc), minority views like the Greens also get a look in.
All in all, IMHO, it's a much fairer system than the first-past-the-post we have in the UK, and in the USA, whereby if you're not a member of a major party, you simply don't stand a chance (freak exceptions where the other candidates all stand down aside). So any minority view (ie one which the all major parties feel would lose them votes) will never even get discussed, because nobody would be mad enough to get up and propose it - and even if they do, they'll get short shrift.
The Roman republic already 'married' [Democracy and a Republic] and ended up with something that is a republic in the sense of having an 'appointed' leadership, but it also had a form of representive democracy through the senate.
Actually, the Roman Senate was not democratically elected, and neither was it a legislative body. It could make recommendations about laws, but could not enact legislation, which was left to various bodies , but the system of voting meant that results were (deliberately) heavily slanted towards the wealthy.
And the "appointed" leadership were elected - Consuls were were the main power was held, and they were elected.
The Senate did contain men who had held elected office, but whether they had been elected "democratically" is another matter entirely. Remember that much of Roman politics was based on having enough money to have enough people owe you favours to ensure they they all had to vote how you told them to vote.
Actually, come to think of it, maybe they were a democracy very similar to the modern ideal..
If you are referring to the code you write, then the same applies
Not necessarily. Depends on the understanding at the time of hiring.
Good point. Every employment contract I've ever seen has had some sort of "the company owns your code" clause, but there's no reason some people wouldn't miss it out.
Keep your emails... They have a copy, you have a copy. What is wrong with that?
Nothing as far as I can see, as long as they don't contain confidential information that you're going to distribute. No company would allow their employees to take next year's strategic planning documents home, photocopy them and give them out to competitors. That's the point; confidential is confidential, regardless of the medium it's on.
while you're sitting at your desk using company equipment, you are part of the company.
There's a difference between working for someone and being owned by them. Stop being a good little prole. Its degrading just watching.
Hey, thanks! I always enjoy a pointless flame:) Especially one which uses rhetoric in lieu of any kind of argument.
I stand by what I originally said. If you're employed by a company, you are acting on behalf of that company. They are renting your mental ability. If that wasn't the case, I could take all the code I've ever written and sell it to competitors. That would be ridiculous, frankly. There's a difference between being owned by a company and being employed to create stuff that the company can sell (and hence stay in business). Do skilled factory workers all own the bits of something they produced? No? So why should code be any different? Because it's copyable?
"Your e-mail address is still $foo, right? Ah, OK, good. I'm sending you an e-mail with my rate card right now."
Yeah, I have always supported this approach. Especially if the ex-employer didn't pay overtime:-) It's never happened to me, but a colleague of mine gave notice at his previous job and was treated very badly during his notice period. And they started to be nasty to his partner, who still worked there. He asked my advice when they started calling him up to ask about the systems he was involved in there. After we spoke, they had a conversation that went something like this:
"Hi mate.. do you know about X?"
"Yes I certainly do!"
"Can you tell me how to do it?"
"Of course! No problem. But I'm actually at my new employer right now, and it's office hours. Tell you what, get [the boss] to fax me over a contract, and I'll be more than happy to talk for as long as you want after half past five tonight. My contract rate is £100 per hour, rounded up to the nearest 30 minutes. Just get him to sign a contract and fax it to me and call me back later - no worries!"
(click)
He never heard from them again.. but if he had, he would have been earning lots of nice dosh. It was a win-win for him, really:-) And you'll note he took a very polite, professional tone instead of just telling them to get lost.
Sorry, but if I wrote it, its MINE. Copyright law is clear on that. Its copyright ME the minute I write it. No notice necessary. Law trumps policy.
if someone sent it to me, it's MINE.
That only applies to your own, personal email account and documents you write using your personal equipment on your personal time. Companies also have legal rights, and while you're sitting at your desk using company equipment, you are part of the company. In the same way that if an employee of a company writes you an email from a company email account and they slander you, you sue the company - not the individual. That email was the company's email. Not the employee's.
If you are referring to the code you write, then the same applies. If it didn't, then vast swathes of MS source code would be open now, as any employee who left the company would be able to release anything they wrote into the PD.
an distract from actual comprehension of what is going on while reading the code, particularly when there are bits of orphaned antique leftover comments
I know this is a religous topic, but I personally would say that old, left-over comments are simply bad practice. Well-maintained comments and well maintained code are the ideal solution. I don't think there's any excuse for not updating a comment which is right there, in the code you're about to change.
I've suffered from antique comments, and also no comments; IMHO, they are both as bad.
Glad you're a biologist - most of the computer geeks here wouldn't get past the design document.
It's not the design document I object to, so much as some parts of the initial spec.
1.13 Maintenence (part 1) In the Model I, there will be lots of poo-poo and other bodily excretions. These can be cleaned easily, using Tissue (tm), available from most high street stores. We are not planning to add any extra functionality to deal with this - the users haven't complained yet, so it can't be a huge issue.
12.4.9 (c) Sport After a few years, the Model XII will abandon previous sporting loyalties which have been carefully installed over a number of years, and adopt new loyalties for teams who are currently successful. There is no known workaround for this behaviour at the present time; seems to be an inherant design flaw. Note - Model XII-F may choose whichever team whose members have the best thighs.
13.3.4.5 (a) Randomness The new adolescent Model XIII will be designed to adopt new ideas and concepts at the fastest rate ever. Sometimes a new concept will be adopted before the end of the sentence explaining the old concept. Proof, justification and coherance modules may be provided as an optional extra, but only on the luxury models.
79.1 Memory Leaks Older models will start to suffer memory leaks, resulting in a slowing of perfromance. Either replace with a newer model, or simply store in a suitable warm place with lots of tea. But let's face it, by the time that happens, it will be obsolete anyway.
At first, though, there is a rather large demand for the new music But for there to be a demand, people must have heard the music.. for that to happen it must have been distributed in a listenable format to people who are now able to pass it on for free; even if it's not the highest quality. If it generates demand for live shows - great.. unless the artist isn't in a position to perform (back to an earlier point).
Derivative Works Good points, which I mostly agree with, but shan't go into detail due to the longevity of this thread, as you mentioned:)
"Distribution stuff" I still think that lower (almost non-existant) distribution costs can lead to chaper, more easily available music without any change to the copyright law.
I think where we disgaree is the legality; anyone can follow you the methods propose right now if they choose to - but I wouldn't want to have it forced upon me. The cartels will have to change in time, as new artists take advantage of the new distribution mechanisms. So trying to force change quickly through repealing copyright laws in a fashion wich could have damaging effects for many people is unneccesary, IMO.
Slashdot Mirror
Its easy to go very in depth in email. Its also very easy to go off the deep end.
It's also VERY easy to write and send an email in the heat of the moment. I had a friend recently who was on the verge of emailing her old job and giving them a piece of her mind. I reminded her that, in 5 years, when the old management are long gone and she wants a job, that email will still be sitting on file.
In the Olden Days, people wrote angry letters, but you still had to get an envelope, a stamp, and take it to the post box. By the time you got there, the anger had worn off, and the letter didn't seem quite so clever any more. I thin kflame wars continue largely due to the instant communication available...
Basically the junk mail folder will become just another spam-infested inbox.
Given that the inbox on any given AOL user right now is likely to contain 1,000 emails saying:
"LOLOLOLOLOLOL ME TOO!!!1! ROFL"
I can't quite see the distinction you are attempting to draw.
Here's a Google cache for that slashdotted site.
w ww.illmob.org/+%22William+Genovese%22&hl=en&gl=uk& ct=clnk&cd=9&client=firefox-a"
Apologies; "A HREF" doesn't seem to want to work with this on slashdot.
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:7K18878iJ3gJ:
Spelling generally doesn't really matter that much, in terms of making yourself understood.
:-)
:-(
I can think of many people who would disagree...
Doctor Samuel Johnson, for one
I agree with your point about snobbishness; people do judge social standing by use of language. But that's a human social thing.. it would be nice to have accurate communication without that, but hey - this is the real world, with real (snobbish) people it in..
Also..."parsing" and "double parsing"? You're not a freakin' compiler or an interpreter, you're a human being.
Erm.. the computer-related word "parsing" derives from the word.. erm.. "parsing", which means:
To break (a sentence) down into its component parts of speech with an explanation of the form, function, and syntactical relationship of each part.
I think its use was fully justified, as was the "double parsing" analogy in my original post.
I'm much more concerned about the fact that taco can't differentiate "to" and "too". Even assuming it's not very important - usually, I admit, it isn't - it does take some time to parse incorrectly formed sentences.
I half to disagree. Misuse off gramma, spelling and/or punctuation make's every reader waste a few second's while they work out what it actually mean's. Well all have to do a double-parsing, if you like.
So every reader waste's about as much time as it would have taken the writer to check that what they had written was correct in the first place.
Of course, some people just don't know the rule's; but that is the precise definition of an editors job; too correct. Too correct and amend exactly the sort of ambiguous things which mislead. Thats why these thing's annoy people; because they mislead, and say thing's they don't mean to say - not because off an anal demand that all rule's be obeyed without question and unerringly.
My favoutite examples of misleading mistakes:
"I helped my uncle jack off a horse"
-- which letter(s) should have been capitalised?
"To my parents, Mary and God"
-- an Oxford comma would prevent the author from claiming to be Christ
And would the results be different if they tested the average Slashdotter's toilet that only gets cleaned twice a year?
I want to know: would the results be different if you're using the keyboard while sitting on the lavatory?
I want to say that most cultures have an "up yours" gesture of some sort involving a hand punching up with some kind of finger gesture, but that's probably my ethnocentrism speaking.
Not really ethnocentric. The phallic symbolism is pretty much global. Though one or two cultures prefer to make a round shape, indicating a different set of genitalia are in play.
In rural Greece, showing the palm of the hand (link covers many types of "finger") is the rudest gesture you can make. If you go there, don't wave at anyone. Really.
In the USA, making a "V" sign is always a good sign; meaning victory, or success, or maybe just "two". In the UK, if the knuckles face inwards, it means "victory" or "good". If they face outwards, it's the equivalent of the US middle-digit. Not polite. At all. I remember being momentarily stunned when a guy on a market in NYC indicated a price of two dollars by, apparently, gesturing that I should F-Off. It took my UK-based American friend who was next to me to remind me that "honey, we ain't in Kansas any more." And everyone finds those pictures of Sir Winston Churchill doing it the wrong way around very amusing indeed. It's like a photo of JFK flipping the bird at an entire crowd, who cheer him as he does so.
I found this interesting site the other day when looking for a rootkit detector: www.rootkit.com
Dude, you slashdotted a rootkit (detection?) site.
Somewhere there's irony in that.
the companies will either find a "compromise" solution that infuriates people less (for instance, a rootkit without horrific security flaws), or simply establish rootkits and other malware as the "industry standard", critics (read: angry geeks) be damned.
As long as there are geeks, and they get angry, there will be free software and operating systems, which you can't inject copy spy^H^H^Hprotection onto, but can use to play music. Geeks may not buy the CDs if they require said software to play. But they sure as heck better play in a CD player; and if you can play a sound down a wire to a speaker, you can rip it onto a computer. The Geeks will stay safe, if annoyed and going round the houses to listen to some music.
It is The Great Unwashed who are actually in danger here.. they will probably just accept it until there's a huge security scandal somewhere..
But I think you are right.. it will happen.
China's laws regarding freedom of speech (or, specifically, the lack thereof) are not moral; thus, no, MS should not obey them (nor should anyone else).
:-)
I disagree. Who are you (or me, or anyone else) to break another country's laws when in that country? I don't like that law, so I'm not going to move to China (and I pity the people who are being oppressed). But saying that a company should break laws in a foreign country it is operating in because they don't like the law is plain wrong.
In The Netherlands, marijuana can be sold quite openly, and it could well be legalised at some point. If that happens, would you support Dutch companies who bring weed into the USA and sell it there? By your reasoning, this would be acceptable, because the laws in the USA (and the UK) making it illegal are plainly immoral in my view. What about pr0n sites? If (say) the Vatican City owned an ISP, should we insist that the ISP cannot remove a pr0n site specialising in Nuns, because pr0n featuring Nuns is legal where I live? OK, that's a bit far fetched, but it illustrates my point better than a bit of pot
When you operate in a country, you obey their laws. All of them. Or you stay out.
I would also like to see manifestos made legally binding
;-)
What a fabulous idea! Unfortunately, however, I think it would appear in manifestos, but somehow never get legislated
Granted, I don't know much/anything about how Swedish politics works, but in the US I could never vote in someone who only runs on one platform, even if it was a platform I agreed on.
A quick wiki confirmed my initial assumption that Sweden (like a fair few European countries) has a government elected by proportional representation.
So if enough people vote for you over the country as a whole, you get a seat in the elected body which legislates. This means that while you have the extreme parties represented (far right, far left etc), minority views like the Greens also get a look in.
All in all, IMHO, it's a much fairer system than the first-past-the-post we have in the UK, and in the USA, whereby if you're not a member of a major party, you simply don't stand a chance (freak exceptions where the other candidates all stand down aside). So any minority view (ie one which the all major parties feel would lose them votes) will never even get discussed, because nobody would be mad enough to get up and propose it - and even if they do, they'll get short shrift.
Having pondered on this for a minute I've achieved a new state of Quantum Enlightenment. I both get it and don't get it, at the same time!
Wow! Here, have a saucer of milk, as a reward.
And this my friends is how the wiki was born.
That's just a common "misconception".
Sorry.
The Roman republic already 'married' [Democracy and a Republic] and ended up with something that is a republic in the sense of having an 'appointed' leadership, but it also had a form of representive democracy through the senate.
Actually, the Roman Senate was not democratically elected, and neither was it a legislative body. It could make recommendations about laws, but could not enact legislation, which was left to various bodies , but the system of voting meant that results were (deliberately) heavily slanted towards the wealthy.
And the "appointed" leadership were elected - Consuls were were the main power was held, and they were elected.
The Senate did contain men who had held elected office, but whether they had been elected "democratically" is another matter entirely. Remember that much of Roman politics was based on having enough money to have enough people owe you favours to ensure they they all had to vote how you told them to vote.
Actually, come to think of it, maybe they were a democracy very similar to the modern ideal..
Do cyber models also appeal for world peace in their winning speech?
No, they ask people not to play Medal Of Honour quite so much.
And appeal for help defragging HDDs of those living in less technically literate parts of the world.
must.. resist... ..must... resist...
Arrrgghhhh!
Imagine a beowulf clust...
Not necessarily. Depends on the understanding at the time of hiring.
Good point. Every employment contract I've ever seen has had some sort of "the company owns your code" clause, but there's no reason some people wouldn't miss it out.
Keep your emails...
They have a copy, you have a copy. What is wrong with that?
Nothing as far as I can see, as long as they don't contain confidential information that you're going to distribute. No company would allow their employees to take next year's strategic planning documents home, photocopy them and give them out to competitors. That's the point; confidential is confidential, regardless of the medium it's on.
There's a difference between working for someone and being owned by them. Stop being a good little prole. Its degrading just watching.
Hey, thanks! I always enjoy a pointless flame
I stand by what I originally said. If you're employed by a company, you are acting on behalf of that company. They are renting your mental ability. If that wasn't the case, I could take all the code I've ever written and sell it to competitors. That would be ridiculous, frankly. There's a difference between being owned by a company and being employed to create stuff that the company can sell (and hence stay in business). Do skilled factory workers all own the bits of something they produced? No? So why should code be any different? Because it's copyable?
"Your e-mail address is still $foo, right? Ah, OK, good. I'm sending you an e-mail with my rate card right now."
:-) It's never happened to me, but a colleague of mine gave notice at his previous job and was treated very badly during his notice period. And they started to be nasty to his partner, who still worked there. He asked my advice when they started calling him up to ask about the systems he was involved in there. After we spoke, they had a conversation that went something like this:
:-) And you'll note he took a very polite, professional tone instead of just telling them to get lost.
Yeah, I have always supported this approach. Especially if the ex-employer didn't pay overtime
"Hi mate.. do you know about X?"
"Yes I certainly do!"
"Can you tell me how to do it?"
"Of course! No problem. But I'm actually at my new employer right now, and it's office hours. Tell you what, get [the boss] to fax me over a contract, and I'll be more than happy to talk for as long as you want after half past five tonight. My contract rate is £100 per hour, rounded up to the nearest 30 minutes. Just get him to sign a contract and fax it to me and call me back later - no worries!"
(click)
He never heard from them again.. but if he had, he would have been earning lots of nice dosh. It was a win-win for him, really
Sorry, but if I wrote it, its MINE. Copyright law is clear on that. Its copyright ME the minute I write it. No notice necessary. Law trumps policy.
if someone sent it to me, it's MINE.
That only applies to your own, personal email account and documents you write using your personal equipment on your personal time. Companies also have legal rights, and while you're sitting at your desk using company equipment, you are part of the company. In the same way that if an employee of a company writes you an email from a company email account and they slander you, you sue the company - not the individual. That email was the company's email. Not the employee's.
If you are referring to the code you write, then the same applies. If it didn't, then vast swathes of MS source code would be open now, as any employee who left the company would be able to release anything they wrote into the PD.
"To write a poem
In seventeen syllables
Is very diffic"
-- John Cooper Clarke
an distract from actual comprehension of what is going on while reading the code, particularly when there are bits of orphaned antique leftover comments
:)
I know this is a religous topic, but I personally would say that old, left-over comments are simply bad practice. Well-maintained comments and well maintained code are the ideal solution. I don't think there's any excuse for not updating a comment which is right there, in the code you're about to change.
I've suffered from antique comments, and also no comments; IMHO, they are both as bad.
Feel free to flame me now
Glad you're a biologist - most of the computer geeks here wouldn't get past the design document.
It's not the design document I object to, so much as some parts of the initial spec.
1.13 Maintenence (part 1)
In the Model I, there will be lots of poo-poo and other bodily excretions. These can be cleaned easily, using Tissue (tm), available from most high street stores. We are not planning to add any extra functionality to deal with this - the users haven't complained yet, so it can't be a huge issue.
12.4.9 (c) Sport
After a few years, the Model XII will abandon previous sporting loyalties which have been carefully installed over a number of years, and adopt new loyalties for teams who are currently successful. There is no known workaround for this behaviour at the present time; seems to be an inherant design flaw. Note - Model XII-F may choose whichever team whose members have the best thighs.
13.3.4.5 (a) Randomness
The new adolescent Model XIII will be designed to adopt new ideas and concepts at the fastest rate ever. Sometimes a new concept will be adopted before the end of the sentence explaining the old concept. Proof, justification and coherance modules may be provided as an optional extra, but only on the luxury models.
79.1 Memory Leaks
Older models will start to suffer memory leaks, resulting in a slowing of perfromance. Either replace with a newer model, or simply store in a suitable warm place with lots of tea. But let's face it, by the time that happens, it will be obsolete anyway.
Thanks for clarifying :)
:)
:)
At first, though, there is a rather large demand for the new music
But for there to be a demand, people must have heard the music.. for that to happen it must have been distributed in a listenable format to people who are now able to pass it on for free; even if it's not the highest quality. If it generates demand for live shows - great.. unless the artist isn't in a position to perform (back to an earlier point).
Derivative Works
Good points, which I mostly agree with, but shan't go into detail due to the longevity of this thread, as you mentioned
"Distribution stuff"
I still think that lower (almost non-existant) distribution costs can lead to chaper, more easily available music without any change to the copyright law.
I think where we disgaree is the legality; anyone can follow you the methods propose right now if they choose to - but I wouldn't want to have it forced upon me. The cartels will have to change in time, as new artists take advantage of the new distribution mechanisms. So trying to force change quickly through repealing copyright laws in a fashion wich could have damaging effects for many people is unneccesary, IMO.
I think we shall have to agree to differ, sir