Most of them are technical writers that review documentation written by "specialists" that have a great deal of trouble communicating with anyone that is a non-specialist.
In my experience it not that specialists have difficulty writing to anyone other than other specialists, rather it's that we don't have the time to write anything other than terse technical prose.
Vim is best? Pshaw! Try Vigor!
on
VIM 6.0 is Out
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· Score: 1
When not using Notepad to peck out the occasional.asp file, I use Vigor. Now in version Pi! Of course, Vigor is the best text editor in the world!
Perhaps the reason why there's no easily found Pro-Napster sentiment other than "Napster Rulez!" is that there's no thoughtful argument for why it's "a good thing" to steal people's work without their permission.
Good thing that GNU stands for 'freedom', huh? The freedom to oppress.
Actually, it's only the freedom to opress if you give other users of your oppressive code the source. You don't have the "freedom" to opress if you want to keep it all to yourself.
It appears to me that the public-at-large's perception is that the sole use of DeCss is to make illegal copies of DVD content (if they're aware of it at all). It certainly is the popular medias and many politicians perception. I've read in the press, a number of times, that DeCss is used to de-crypt DVDs. While this is true, the connotation is wrong. Only twice can I recall that it was written that DeCss was used to create software to play DVDs.
There seems something profoundly unfair in allowing an industry to sell a product in the marketplace and place restrictions on it's lawful use. I can't understand what the movie studios have to gain from limiting HOW their content is played.
Is it your belief that DMCA was applied correctly in this case? If not, what changes to DMCA would you like to see being made and how much support from other legislators do you have?
Uh, I suspect the hard part about mining asteroids is not so much the task of digging. It's not exactly trivial or cheap to get the mined resources from the asteroid to someplace useful, for example Earth.
What's the matter with:
1. Wait for a clear line of site to earth
2. Point ore towards the center of the earth.
3. Give it a decent push.
4. Let gravity take over.
Ohh... You wanted a controlled descent. Never mind.
This sounds like an off the cuff remark from a teacher that's gone awry. And now he's leaving the kid to twist in the wind! Kind of a spineless act in my mind.
Who knows, maybe the teachers mind isn't on classtime, but rather where he's going skiing for his week long winter break. Maybe he's planning something for his two month summer break. Who knows
Gamers are the new artists, visionaries, and story-tellers of our time, sparked by astonishingly inventive new technologies like the PS 2. Ready or not, they will become increasingly influential.
Umm... Is this because you, Mr. Katz, are a gamer and see "artists, visionaries and story-tellers" as the type of people that you admire? Personally, I'd like to be a gamer. I've got a PIII 933MHZ and a Prophet II Ultra for those blazingly fast frame rates. Unfortunately, I'm too damn busy to play any games. Between the MASSIVE amount of reading required to remain current in this field, plus the work itself, any free time left is taken up by my family.
Of course, I'm not a kid, but when I was, I was much more interested in WRITING software than playing it. Personally, I think the new generation of artists, visionaries and story-tellers will be busy testing their talents and creatively stretching themselves than spending large amounts of time playing video games.
Then there's that FUCKED UP LITTLE PAPER CLIP that there appears to be no option to disable...you have to uninstall the software using the CD.
Or, you could right click the FUCKED UP LITTLE PAPER CLICK, select Options from the menu, choose the Options window and uncheck the "Use the Office Assistant" checkbox.
Granted, it's not that intuitive, but it's not that un-intuitive, either. And it's a hell of a lot easier than uninstalling the software.
Hey... Isn't Exabyte trademarked? They oughta sue! It's not fair that these hard drive manufacturers get to use the name of their company when describing HD capacity. They should send everybody cease and desist letters! Too bad they didn't have a patent! Think of the licensing fees they could charge!
The definitions of an exempt employee in the software field are fairly specific. See some leagalese here.
If you search around more in this document you'll find out that one of the requirements for expemtion was how much you are paid. I couldn't find it today, but during some previous investigation in this topic, I remember reading that software professionals must be paid 6.5 x minimum wage to be considered exempt. Plus, I think it is very arguable that the service that these AOL assistance provide does not meet the criteria set forth for a professional. However, for Open Source projects, this might be a problem. Especially for someone without very a lot of work history.
Another point, the exemption is only from minimum wage and overtime regulations. Definitely not "most labor laws".
It seems to me that this has already been settled. I've just forgotten the outcome. Didn't Apple sue Microsoft over the "Look and Feel" of Windows violating their copyright.
Kind of the same thing, isn't it? Does anyone remember how this case was settled?"
I have another question, too. This kind of relates to the CueCat discussion, here. Can a company expose services openly available on the internet and then restrict me from using them for their stated purpose? I thought that's where the CueCat Cease and Desist letters were going to complain about. It would appear that I've given their lawyers and management much more credit than they deserve. However, having your servers on the Internet seems to me an invitation to communicate with them. That's what the internet is for, isn't it? Are their any current US legal decisions that have limited access to unprotected service via the internet where the user didn't cause any damage or try to defeat any scurity devices guarding the service?
I think I'm going to try for a new business model patent. I had this idea years ago and mentioned it to my friend Ted.
Anyway, the gist is I'm going to provide a service for free that essentially compiles the work of the "Internet community". Then after I've compiled enough work to make the business useful, I'll start charging for the service and deny anyone access to it that refuses to sign an exclusive and ponderous licensing agreement with me.
I kind of decided not to persue because I didn't think it would be a profitable model, but it seems to be working for the CDDB boys...
Hmmm... where did I put Ted's e-mail? I'll need to be setting up an appointment between him and my lawyer!
Slashdot Mirror
I work without a contract every day! I prefer to let my work's value set my salary rather than rely on my ability to to obstruct business.
You have to see some truth in the statement that unions only afford more protection to the mediocre worker than they do to the above average worker.
With the new SONY / TIVO Agreement in mind, it does have TIVO built in, right?
We've had gasoline powered aircraft for years. I think those big jets have experimented with other exotic fuels as well.
What? Gasoline and hydrogen are different? Well... Not according to Taco!
Smirk, giggle, guffaw!
In my experience it not that specialists have difficulty writing to anyone other than other specialists, rather it's that we don't have the time to write anything other than terse technical prose.
When not using Notepad to peck out the occasional .asp file, I use Vigor. Now in version Pi! Of course, Vigor is the best text editor in the world!
Perhaps the reason why there's no easily found Pro-Napster sentiment other than "Napster Rulez!" is that there's no thoughtful argument for why it's "a good thing" to steal people's work without their permission.
Actually, it's only the freedom to opress if you give other users of your oppressive code the source. You don't have the "freedom" to opress if you want to keep it all to yourself.
I guess it's really not totally free.
It appears to me that the public-at-large's perception is that the sole use of DeCss is to make illegal copies of DVD content (if they're aware of it at all). It certainly is the popular medias and many politicians perception. I've read in the press, a number of times, that DeCss is used to de-crypt DVDs. While this is true, the connotation is wrong. Only twice can I recall that it was written that DeCss was used to create software to play DVDs.
There seems something profoundly unfair in allowing an industry to sell a product in the marketplace and place restrictions on it's lawful use. I can't understand what the movie studios have to gain from limiting HOW their content is played.
Is it your belief that DMCA was applied correctly in this case? If not, what changes to DMCA would you like to see being made and how much support from other legislators do you have?
I've cracked RSA. Unfortunately, the details of my algorithm are slightly too large to fit into this here Comment box.
-P. Fermat
What's the matter with:
Ohh... You wanted a controlled descent. Never mind.
This sounds like an off the cuff remark from a teacher that's gone awry. And now he's leaving the kid to twist in the wind! Kind of a spineless act in my mind.
Who knows, maybe the teachers mind isn't on classtime, but rather where he's going skiing for his week long winter break. Maybe he's planning something for his two month summer break. Who knows
Maybe I'm just bitter. Or jealous!
Umm... Is this because you, Mr. Katz, are a gamer and see "artists, visionaries and story-tellers" as the type of people that you admire? Personally, I'd like to be a gamer. I've got a PIII 933MHZ and a Prophet II Ultra for those blazingly fast frame rates. Unfortunately, I'm too damn busy to play any games. Between the MASSIVE amount of reading required to remain current in this field, plus the work itself, any free time left is taken up by my family.
Of course, I'm not a kid, but when I was, I was much more interested in WRITING software than playing it. Personally, I think the new generation of artists, visionaries and story-tellers will be busy testing their talents and creatively stretching themselves than spending large amounts of time playing video games.
Or, you could right click the FUCKED UP LITTLE PAPER CLICK, select Options from the menu, choose the Options window and uncheck the "Use the Office Assistant" checkbox.
Granted, it's not that intuitive, but it's not that un-intuitive, either. And it's a hell of a lot easier than uninstalling the software.
Hey... Isn't Exabyte trademarked? They oughta sue! It's not fair that these hard drive manufacturers get to use the name of their company when describing HD capacity. They should send everybody cease and desist letters! Too bad they didn't have a patent! Think of the licensing fees they could charge!
I belive that after tera comes petabyte
Ahh, yes. The vegetarian byte!
Hmmm... Maybe I should have quit when I was ahead.
"...that fits in 1U (1.75") of rack space or 1 terrabyte in 5.25"
Precisely how many bytes is a terrabyte? Is it a single terrestrial byte? Perhaps one byte as big as the earth? Maybe a byte made of dirt?
I don't want a byte made of dirt. Perhaps I shall give it a squirt! Squirt that dirt!
But I digress...
The definitions of an exempt employee in the software field are fairly specific. See some leagalese here.
If you search around more in this document you'll find out that one of the requirements for expemtion was how much you are paid. I couldn't find it today, but during some previous investigation in this topic, I remember reading that software professionals must be paid 6.5 x minimum wage to be considered exempt. Plus, I think it is very arguable that the service that these AOL assistance provide does not meet the criteria set forth for a professional. However, for Open Source projects, this might be a problem. Especially for someone without very a lot of work history.Another point, the exemption is only from minimum wage and overtime regulations. Definitely not "most labor laws".
Wait... Dare I say it? Maybe he died 100-200 million years ago?
Maybe I've been wrong about this whole religion thing. Maybe there is a God and he's messing with our minds!
It seems to me that this has already been settled. I've just forgotten the outcome. Didn't Apple sue Microsoft over the "Look and Feel" of Windows violating their copyright.
Kind of the same thing, isn't it? Does anyone remember how this case was settled?"
I have another question, too. This kind of relates to the CueCat discussion, here. Can a company expose services openly available on the internet and then restrict me from using them for their stated purpose? I thought that's where the CueCat Cease and Desist letters were going to complain about. It would appear that I've given their lawyers and management much more credit than they deserve. However, having your servers on the Internet seems to me an invitation to communicate with them. That's what the internet is for, isn't it? Are their any current US legal decisions that have limited access to unprotected service via the internet where the user didn't cause any damage or try to defeat any scurity devices guarding the service?
Ok, Rudy... It's back to the island for you!
I think I'm going to try for a new business model patent. I had this idea years ago and mentioned it to my friend Ted. Anyway, the gist is I'm going to provide a service for free that essentially compiles the work of the "Internet community". Then after I've compiled enough work to make the business useful, I'll start charging for the service and deny anyone access to it that refuses to sign an exclusive and ponderous licensing agreement with me. I kind of decided not to persue because I didn't think it would be a profitable model, but it seems to be working for the CDDB boys... Hmmm... where did I put Ted's e-mail? I'll need to be setting up an appointment between him and my lawyer!
I'd get one of these for my wife, but I'd be afraid that she'd use it on me!
Put a Bluetooth radio on it along with the Linux Bluetooth stack, link it to your Bluetooth aware cell phone and you've almost got a Dick Tracy watch.
Of course, it's probably esier just to use your cell phone.
The weenies on "Survivor" have a Leatherman. That's Rudy!