While we're at it, let's decentralize both the national government *and* fat, monopolistic corporations. Too much waste and economic torture on both accounts!
I wish Ebbers could get the death penalty for perpretrating this heinous economic crime. When considering all the lives and livelihoods trashed, he deserves worse than death.
Without open, clear auditability, these machines cannot even be defined as voting machines. It's horrifying that the public officials in charge of purchasing the devices didn't know of auditability being an absolute requirement. Now, Palm Beach County really has no choice but to open the black box!
This happens a lot with some people who get into power positions. They will call democracy "a noble experiment" or "unworkable," when in reality it's the best way to resolve issues (when consensus doesn't occur). These kind of people are despot-wannabes. They want absolute power. However, they have *no* right to this kind of power. Thus, ICANN must be destroyed.
Of course, we'll see 2/3 of the trailer in the multitude of peek-ahead snips that ET will show before actually showing 9/10 of the whole thing at the end of their show. This freaked-up show is so full of fluff, I have to wonder if they spend any more than 5 minutes preparing the actual content.
The article's title should have read...
on
Is Linux Dead?
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· Score: 2
Microsoft Finally Goes Off Deep End in Response to Fierce Competitor Linux
Arthur Andersen must be destroyed. They've committed tremendous egregious wrongdoing against the public interest, and their charter should be revoked.
New tax system to replace all others: Corporate Revenue Flat Tax (yes, revenue, not profits) applied to all revenues over $1 million. Everyone else pays these taxes indirectly via purchases. Actually, this means simpler accounting for most businesses, less cheating (harder to hide revenue), no more corporate welfare, a more decentralized economy (as smaller businesses will have lower price pressures than they do now), and rids most of the rest of us from having to deal with tax forms and the April 15 mess!
Send some of these creeps responsible for wrongdoing at Andersen, Enron, Worldcom, etc. TO PRISON, for 's sake!!!
A companion to "Upgrade-itis"
on
Version Fatigue
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· Score: 2
Upgrade-itis is the continual sick feeling that the money (or time, since time = money) you're spending on software upgrades is not worth the very small degree of enhancement provided in the upgrade, but you have to upgrade anyway because either 1) everyone else is, 2) you're addicted to upgrading (obsessive-compulsive disorder possible here), or 3) the upgrade contains a fix for a bug that drives you crazy (of course, the new version will contain new bugs of its own).
Thanks for your remark. It illustrates the point that many programmers are seemingly too willing to only chase the "sexy" or buzz-y side of software development. Law enforcement very much needs basic records management to cover the meat n' potatoes of their operations. Sounds boring, yes, but only on the surface. Does anyone realize that law enforcement agencies, for the most part, have highly inadequate systems for tracking perp aliases? This is a major chunk of these records mgmt systems.
Local and state law enforcement agencies out there need a really good, common, mobile and intercommunicating records management system. There's nothing on the market today that's close to being decent.
Someone needs to solve the problem of "a different data collection/review/production system in every shop". This area needs standards (based on best practices) like a newly birthed baby needs oxygen. Yes, this solution will put many crap consultants out of business, but at least you'll get their money and can laugh all the way to the bank. Also helps the overall economy like a mofo.
Somebody needs to write a really good P2P mechanism for collaboration on document/code review.
My personal hope is that all the above will be developed as open source projects, but certainly, a good programming group with drive could make some very good money off these ideas as well.
Well, XML and SOAP are the basis for the web services component of.NET, but.NET is also MS' too-late, feeble (bound to be low-quality before multiple service packs) attempt at creating an OO API for Windows that (supposedly) is easily accessible by any language (that is, any language compilable to their.NET IL; MS is foisting C#).
Studying what you like doesn't work unless what you like is a current "hot trend".
Buzzzt! Guess again. Try counting up all the actual programming jobs using the "hot trends"; this number will be *far* lower than the "other" programming jobs out there (no... don't just look at Monster... I mean all potential programming jobs). There are many shops underserved with regards to the meat n' potatoes apps that a lot of "good" programmers snub their noses at, so these shops end up with money-grubbing consultants who swoop in and leave crap behind. Commit yourself to *high* quality and helping (yes, really HELPING) businesses thrive. Fix their existing systems and build quality new systems, and you'll go far. Sticking to the bleeding edge stuff (i.e.,.NET) will drive you crazy and lead you off many "lemmings cliffs."
After the many calls for this idiotic Board to step down, they continue to refuse to do this. What gives them the right to thwart democracy? Nothing. Out on their arses, I say! Out on their hairy arses!
I understand the pressure from shareholders, but all corporations get the same pressure. But not all companies are run by CEOs who get a tremendous direct return from profits and inflating share values. A CEO that is more disconnected from this direct financial feedback will tend to look more at their community reputation as well as the long-term financial health of the company, which includes maintaining good will with customers, employees and people at-large. Enron took short-term thinking (and criminal activity) to an extreme, and they destroyed themselves. Microsoft continues to milk its corporate, government and other customers for its cash-cow office suite, even as the intrinsic economic value of office suites is collapsing.
The bottom line is that corporations that get into the mindset that fat, short-term profits rule over all decisions end up falling down like a house of cards before long. IBM corrected itself in the nick of time. Will Microsoft?
Enzyme looks like a piece of the puzzle that I'm trying to put together. I'll try to investigate it more deeply in the near future. Also, in the next month or so, I may release my initial rough ideas for OpenEDC on my personal web site.
I don't think that when companies build in-house systems, they should feel compelled to release their source, as this would oftentimes be tantamount to handing over their business to their competitors. However, thinking in reverse, I think it would behoove companies to implement their in-house solutions with open-source software for all the good reasons I won't list here.
Further, since a vast number of systems that businesses/organizations build in-house seem to entail data collection, quality control and workflow, then it should make sense for the open-source community to put together a generic "OpenEDC" (Enterprise Data Collection) that easily adapts to a company's data collection needs, follows best practices and hooks into any database server product. There are mounds of custom software being developed for data collection that are so *badly* designed. If we *really* want to see productivity go up across the board, OpenEDC would do it.
I just started working on a project that uses Crystal Reports recently. I was flabbergasted to see that the Crystal Enterprise product didn't recognize Apache as a valid web server for working with their product. Maybe they should change their company name from Crystal Decisions to Rocks-in-their-Head Decisions.
In order to adopt an open source mentality, it would need to be demonstrated that open source is as profitable as closed-source projects.
When a corporation gets as big and profit-positive as Microsoft, their central and overriding goal is to get an extremely high return on any investment they make. Any projects that make only small profits are rejected in favor of the biggest cash cows, which are oftentimes of less value to the public than the projects with small profits. Companies like this get into the mentality that they are entitled to continued high profits and will do anything to maintain that, even skirting or breaking anti-trust law. They won't allow anything to get in the way of their income, even if they have to do evil things.
Anyone who looks at history will know IBM used to be what MS is now, until they got slammed with their own anti-trust suit and simultaneously was selling overpriced products from an old paradigm they were desperately trying to prop up. I'm very confident that the past will be prologue here.
They don't want to open up IIS because it will expose all of the existing installations to attacks until patches are written. They'd rather keep it closed to protect the morons who don't apply patches than to open it up to fix the rest of the holes.
I suspect MS won't open their IIS code because of the sheer embarrassment they will face when they're criticized for sloppy, poorly written code. Their software developers will appear to be dumb before the world. It's about false pride in crap code.
a way to help people naturally prevent the farts caused by all the good food we're supposed to be eating. Instead of taking a beano with the meal, I'd rather have a daily magic pill or gene therapy to prevent all that nasty, stinky gas.
Re:the beauty of credit cards
on
Disconnecting
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· Score: 2
This is a problem that has a tailor-made solution: A ballot initiative to force credit card companies to provide "merchant block" capability for their customers. It's a simple software implementation for them, and they know it. There's no excuse they can't provide it.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone who dresses as a hollow corporate clone is a SLAVE. People should begin emancipating themselves from the corporate mindset.
While we're at it, let's decentralize both the national government *and* fat, monopolistic corporations. Too much waste and economic torture on both accounts!
I wish Ebbers could get the death penalty for perpretrating this heinous economic crime. When considering all the lives and livelihoods trashed, he deserves worse than death.
Without open, clear auditability, these machines cannot even be defined as voting machines. It's horrifying that the public officials in charge of purchasing the devices didn't know of auditability being an absolute requirement. Now, Palm Beach County really has no choice but to open the black box!
This happens a lot with some people who get into power positions. They will call democracy "a noble experiment" or "unworkable," when in reality it's the best way to resolve issues (when consensus doesn't occur). These kind of people are despot-wannabes. They want absolute power. However, they have *no* right to this kind of power. Thus, ICANN must be destroyed.
How loud can I yell AMEN? :)
I just had to respond. You are a moron.
Of course, we'll see 2/3 of the trailer in the multitude of peek-ahead snips that ET will show before actually showing 9/10 of the whole thing at the end of their show. This freaked-up show is so full of fluff, I have to wonder if they spend any more than 5 minutes preparing the actual content.
Microsoft Finally Goes Off Deep End in Response to Fierce Competitor Linux
Three ideas:
Upgrade-itis is the continual sick feeling that the money (or time, since time = money) you're spending on software upgrades is not worth the very small degree of enhancement provided in the upgrade, but you have to upgrade anyway because either 1) everyone else is, 2) you're addicted to upgrading (obsessive-compulsive disorder possible here), or 3) the upgrade contains a fix for a bug that drives you crazy (of course, the new version will contain new bugs of its own).
Thanks for your remark. It illustrates the point that many programmers are seemingly too willing to only chase the "sexy" or buzz-y side of software development. Law enforcement very much needs basic records management to cover the meat n' potatoes of their operations. Sounds boring, yes, but only on the surface. Does anyone realize that law enforcement agencies, for the most part, have highly inadequate systems for tracking perp aliases? This is a major chunk of these records mgmt systems.
My personal hope is that all the above will be developed as open source projects, but certainly, a good programming group with drive could make some very good money off these ideas as well.
Well, XML and SOAP are the basis for the web services component of .NET, but .NET is also MS' too-late, feeble (bound to be low-quality before multiple service packs) attempt at creating an OO API for Windows that (supposedly) is easily accessible by any language (that is, any language compilable to their .NET IL; MS is foisting C#).
Buzzzt! Guess again. Try counting up all the actual programming jobs using the "hot trends"; this number will be *far* lower than the "other" programming jobs out there (no... don't just look at Monster... I mean all potential programming jobs). There are many shops underserved with regards to the meat n' potatoes apps that a lot of "good" programmers snub their noses at, so these shops end up with money-grubbing consultants who swoop in and leave crap behind. Commit yourself to *high* quality and helping (yes, really HELPING) businesses thrive. Fix their existing systems and build quality new systems, and you'll go far. Sticking to the bleeding edge stuff (i.e., .NET) will drive you crazy and lead you off many "lemmings cliffs."
After the many calls for this idiotic Board to step down, they continue to refuse to do this. What gives them the right to thwart democracy? Nothing. Out on their arses, I say! Out on their hairy arses!
I did my research just fine. Crystal Enterprise doesn't support Apache on Windows.
I understand the pressure from shareholders, but all corporations get the same pressure. But not all companies are run by CEOs who get a tremendous direct return from profits and inflating share values. A CEO that is more disconnected from this direct financial feedback will tend to look more at their community reputation as well as the long-term financial health of the company, which includes maintaining good will with customers, employees and people at-large. Enron took short-term thinking (and criminal activity) to an extreme, and they destroyed themselves. Microsoft continues to milk its corporate, government and other customers for its cash-cow office suite, even as the intrinsic economic value of office suites is collapsing.
The bottom line is that corporations that get into the mindset that fat, short-term profits rule over all decisions end up falling down like a house of cards before long. IBM corrected itself in the nick of time. Will Microsoft?
Enzyme looks like a piece of the puzzle that I'm trying to put together. I'll try to investigate it more deeply in the near future. Also, in the next month or so, I may release my initial rough ideas for OpenEDC on my personal web site.
I don't think that when companies build in-house systems, they should feel compelled to release their source, as this would oftentimes be tantamount to handing over their business to their competitors. However, thinking in reverse, I think it would behoove companies to implement their in-house solutions with open-source software for all the good reasons I won't list here.
Further, since a vast number of systems that businesses/organizations build in-house seem to entail data collection, quality control and workflow, then it should make sense for the open-source community to put together a generic "OpenEDC" (Enterprise Data Collection) that easily adapts to a company's data collection needs, follows best practices and hooks into any database server product. There are mounds of custom software being developed for data collection that are so *badly* designed. If we *really* want to see productivity go up across the board, OpenEDC would do it.
I just started working on a project that uses Crystal Reports recently. I was flabbergasted to see that the Crystal Enterprise product didn't recognize Apache as a valid web server for working with their product. Maybe they should change their company name from Crystal Decisions to Rocks-in-their-Head Decisions.
When a corporation gets as big and profit-positive as Microsoft, their central and overriding goal is to get an extremely high return on any investment they make. Any projects that make only small profits are rejected in favor of the biggest cash cows, which are oftentimes of less value to the public than the projects with small profits. Companies like this get into the mentality that they are entitled to continued high profits and will do anything to maintain that, even skirting or breaking anti-trust law. They won't allow anything to get in the way of their income, even if they have to do evil things.
Anyone who looks at history will know IBM used to be what MS is now, until they got slammed with their own anti-trust suit and simultaneously was selling overpriced products from an old paradigm they were desperately trying to prop up. I'm very confident that the past will be prologue here.
I suspect MS won't open their IIS code because of the sheer embarrassment they will face when they're criticized for sloppy, poorly written code. Their software developers will appear to be dumb before the world. It's about false pride in crap code.
a way to help people naturally prevent the farts caused by all the good food we're supposed to be eating. Instead of taking a beano with the meal, I'd rather have a daily magic pill or gene therapy to prevent all that nasty, stinky gas.
This is a problem that has a tailor-made solution: A ballot initiative to force credit card companies to provide "merchant block" capability for their customers. It's a simple software implementation for them, and they know it. There's no excuse they can't provide it.