Note that the author of the review is also the author of the Light and Matter books. Very cool guy. Erm, okay. I have a rather odd definition of "cool," but what he's doing could become very important.
Just out of curiosity, I checked the license for the TLDP documentation, and it looks liberal enough that we could start dumping copies of the HOWTOs into the new project.
Slight confusion detected. Ideas are inherently valuable--the good ones at least. But the amount that a good idea can be sold for (due to copyright/patent protection) is miniscule compared to the value that comes from applying the idea (reading a published work or using an invention based on the idea). So ideally, the protection of an idea's sale value should be enough to keep the good ideas coming, without adversely affecting the application value.
Now, an idea cannot be "stolen", unless it's so sophisticated that the owner has to keep it all on paper instead of inside the cerebellum. Copyright/patent infringement happens when someone takes advantage of the use value without compensating the legal "owner" for the idea's sale value. The owner still has the idea to use for himself, but the sale value of his "property" is diminished.
Questar [STR] is pretty much a natural gas monopoly here in Utah. A cursory look at Yahoo's information didn't bring up any immediate red flags regarding major investors.
I did notice Dixie Leavitt [wife of former governor-turned-EPA-director Mike Leavitt] is on the board of directors, and I remember there was a small controversy a couple of years ago because Mikey was working on legislation that would impact Questar when his dad stood to benefit from the legislation.
Anyhow, it's got a lot of Utah connections. I wouldn't be surprised if a deeper investigation turned up something more interesting.
I thought the actual wording was that EV1 bought $1M worth of licenses. That is to say, they bought 1400, "valued" at $699 each. But say that SCO offered a 99% discount just to get the good press for their licensing...
Seriously, if you have no idea what the fuss is about, buy/borrow/steal the DVDs and watch them. The only downside was watching half way through an excellent season, and realizing you would never get to see everything resolved.
If nothing else, the movie will be a chance to give the series the ending it deserved. If it leads to a resurrection of the series, even better.
It's not really a bad idea. Carrying an extra eight pounds is no big deal, especially since that means you can take advantage of cheaper desktop components.
What I think would be really cool: Drop five pounds or so by doing away with the battery entirely. Use the weight savings to pump up the specs even more, or to use more cheap desktop parts. Just keep it hefty, cheap, and lug-and-pluggable, and I'll be happy.
Sure, some will whine about the no-battery thing. But the last laptop I bought would only last 2 hours on a full charge anyways, so it wouldn't be a big loss.
I can't believe Linus and RMS would do this to us. Have they been secretly taking kickbacks from IBM? It's absolutely shameful how they convinced so many innocent young coders to start writing software for The Man, without expecting 1500 marks per license in remuneration.
I wonder how many more enterprising businesspeople could have saved tens of hours every week if Mr. Vasters had decided to charge somewhat less than four months salary for his amazing intellectual property?
I'm also saddened that "the good looking, intelligent girl over there at the bar" doesn't care that young Aiden is a bright young lad who wants to contribute something positive to our culture. Nor does she seem interested in the fact that he has the skills necessary to do so. But according to Mr. Vasters, she is deeply concerned about whether Aiden owns his own car. Aiden, forget this girl. Go after her friend with the hyperactive social conscience. She's probably a better fit.
I would rant onward, but I'm out of time. Try the veal.
Start with a Linux setup. Apps like OpenOffice and Mozilla are trivial to convert because there are Win32 versions available. Perl and Python environs are available for Windows. GTK libraries work on Windows.
Apache has a Windows port. Your Windows users can't tell if their home directory is being served up by a Windows server or Samba.
If you desperately need some application that only works on Linux, you can set up a computer or two with Linux and present the apps over the network. Cygwin is also a viable option.
It's all about open standards and interoperability.
You're right. If only the government had stepped in and started heavily regulating the Internet around 1985...
I'm glad to see my Utah legislature taking time out of its busy schedule of banning gay marriage and getting us out of the UN to meddle in technology it doesn't even begin to understand. Gives me a real warm, fuzzy feeling all over.
Not that I wouldn't like to see some sane, well-considered legislation on the subject. But every year, they prove over the course of forty-five days that they're not capable of crafting legislation even remotely like that.
It takes all of two sentences to explain networked printing to Aunt Tillie. "You hook the printer up to this computer over here, and you can print to it from this computer over there. Just be sure and shoo the cat off the printer before you hit 'print.'" If you'll notice, the second sentence is a bit gratuitous.
ESR never claimed to be an ignorant newbie. In fact, he's pretty computer literate, and this was the only thing that allowed him to beat it into submission. His point is correct: if Linux is going to make inroads on the desktop, the learning curve has to be flattened enormously.
Don't laugh. It's already happening to me. I have cousins a mere decade younger than myself. Introducing them to my MP3 collection was the first time I felt like an absolute, black-socks-and-striped-suspenders-pulling-my-pant s-up-above-my-navel-denture-wearing-geezer-who- s pends-his-time-complaining-about-the-gubmint.
Elvis who? That Metallica guy had a great beat going, but his voice ruins it. Only three Linkin Park songs? Lame! Whaddayamean, no Britney Spears? Can I download some? Sucks . Sucks . Sucks. Boring. Sucks... Don't you have *anything* cool?
Then I tried to introduce them to The Cure. Bad, bad idea. You don't know the meaning of pain until you've proffered all your most cherished music to a dismissive fifteen year old.
Your absurd and unfounded generalizations aren't going to get you much respect either.
Think about it: All the citizens from every country on Earth want nothing more than to live in the United States? The French are nailing themselves into boxes and mailing themselves to Akron, Ohio? The Aussies are building makeshift rafts and setting out for southern California?
It's not true. A certain percentage of the citizens of any given country will be wishing they were somewhere else. Some French folks want to be Americans. Some Germans want to be Swedes. A lot of Malaysians want to live in India. A sharply increasing number of Americans would prefer to live in Canada [National Motto: "Eh?"].
But much in the manner of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, your glaring, superficial logical fallacy serves to draw attention away from the more subtle, fundamental logical fallacy: a person can want to live here even as they hate us.
Sure, we've got our hands full trying to keep people from coming in illegally. But while some come for political asylum, many more try to sneak in for the same reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks: "That's where the money is."
Just because somebody takes a job with a company, it doesn't mean they love the people running it, or the way it's run. Most people are quite willing to take a paycheck even while thinking that the people paying their salary are a bunch of ignorant pricks.
Further, it is possible for someone to be pissed at certain foreign policies we insist on inflicting on everyone, without it rising to the level of "hate."
And another thing: What did the parent post say that had anything to do with socialism? Everyone who dislikes Bush and his policies is a socialist?
You seem to have difficulty grasping subtle distinctions. This makes me sad.
Out of curiosity, could you describe your approach to unsolicited e-mail in greater detail? How did the customer selection process work? How many unsolicited e-mails did you send out each day? What was your average response rate? How carefully did you study each customer prior to making your pitch?
Well, now at least we have a good lead on who this "Anonymous Coward" guy is.
Dude. You're a top IT exec for a Fortune 50 company. You have to have something better to do with your time. And I thought I posted too much.
Re:Spike in ratings.
on
WB Cancels Angel
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I'm already embarassingly overinvolved in this thread, but what the hell. Spoilers blah blah blah.
When we left Spike 'neath the Hellmouth, he was going all pillar-of-fire. As it turns out, his whaddayacallit (I was going to say "essence," but that gives an illusion of concreteness that really isn't there) was trapped in the medallion he was wearing. Somehow, the medallion (owned by evil law firm Wolfram and Hart) was mailed back to Angel. Angel, for his part, has just been given the position of CEO of Wolfram and Hart (read: Hell, Incorporated).
Angel opens the package, and Spike materializes. Sort of. He's not precisely corporeal, and he's attached to Wolfram and Hart's main offices somehow, so he can't leave.
He narrowly escapes being sucked into Hell, and then another package arrives. When it's opened, Spike gets his body back. This triggers some sort of clause in the Prophecy (which up until now we've assumed means that Angel will someday become human) because now there are two vampires with souls, and both of them are champions. Somehow, this fact is dragging the world towards some sort of apocalypse.
It's been kind of fun to watch the show explore the rivalry between Angel and Spike. Tuning in wouldn't be too bad an idea.
Moderators: There is no -1, Idiot Fanboy. But there should be.
Re:This sucks, but go out nova style.
on
WB Cancels Angel
·
· Score: 1
Not a bad idea, actually. In my first post to the thread, I was under the assumption that WB had told Joss about the decision in time for him to write the entire season with the cancellation in mind, and the news was just getting to the rest of us.
But now it looks like they sprung it on him last Friday afternoon. So the creator got caught flat-footed just like everyone else. I don't know how many episodes are still in production, but it seems kind of awkward to shoehorn a fitting conclusion into what little remains.
The other alternative is to just stay the course, and hope that the show gets picked up somewhere else.
Or simply blast it into oblivion. It would be worth it just to see what Evil Fred is like.
Actually, that's the way its been since the first season of Buffy. The overall season always has a general plot. But there are always at least a handful of stand-alone episodes that don't fundamentally push that plot forward, or only give it a minute or two to remind you that there are still unresolved issues hanging over everyone's heads.
You see, there's this little trick I've found for browsing Slashdot: Don't click on stories you're not interested in.
The pitfall is, you lose out on the opportunity to make fun of people for caring about things you find boring and trivial. But you save hours upon hours of time, which you can put towards important things like blogging, or trying out yet another test release of Fedora Core, or any of those other things that you personally enjoy but 99% of the world finds pointless and trivial.
Sad. Angel is one of only three shows I actually go out of my way to watch. It's always had a good mix of drama and humor. I also enjoy the fact that it has an overarching plotline, which rewards loyal viewers.
It's nice that they told Joss early so that he could wrap up the series. But it never feels like TV shows are cancelled at the right time. Either a show gets cancelled just as it seems to be hitting a good stride (Futurama), or it gets dragged out until it becomes a tired self-parody (Friends, and to some extent, The Simpsons).
Maybe after it finally wraps up, fans can look back on a very satisfying conclusion. But I tend to think that it had a couple of solid years left.
This isn't like any executive summary I've read, because at least half the article focuses on things that I wouldn't consider part of the official open source movement (if there is such a thing). Things like OpenCola, the Human Genome Project, openeducationalmaterials (a movement which--according to my credit card statement--isn't going nearly quickly enough).
Well, my first attempt at responding sounded just as leftist-pinko-ranty as my original post. Let's just say that I never specifically cited India as a cheap labor hellhole, and I'm still a little fuzzy on the math.
Slashdot Mirror
Note that the author of the review is also the author of the Light and Matter books. Very cool guy. Erm, okay. I have a rather odd definition of "cool," but what he's doing could become very important.
I'm not familiar with this author. Can somebody tell me where I can download some of his works?
Hear that? ahdeoz is being alienated by your wacky Wiki ways. Stop the presses, unplug the servers, and start working on a nice, detailed PDF.
Just out of curiosity, I checked the license for the TLDP documentation, and it looks liberal enough that we could start dumping copies of the HOWTOs into the new project.
Slight confusion detected. Ideas are inherently valuable--the good ones at least. But the amount that a good idea can be sold for (due to copyright/patent protection) is miniscule compared to the value that comes from applying the idea (reading a published work or using an invention based on the idea). So ideally, the protection of an idea's sale value should be enough to keep the good ideas coming, without adversely affecting the application value.
Now, an idea cannot be "stolen", unless it's so sophisticated that the owner has to keep it all on paper instead of inside the cerebellum. Copyright/patent infringement happens when someone takes advantage of the use value without compensating the legal "owner" for the idea's sale value. The owner still has the idea to use for himself, but the sale value of his "property" is diminished.
Hope that confuses you further.
Questar [STR] is pretty much a natural gas monopoly here in Utah. A cursory look at Yahoo's information didn't bring up any immediate red flags regarding major investors.
I did notice Dixie Leavitt [wife of former governor-turned-EPA-director Mike Leavitt] is on the board of directors, and I remember there was a small controversy a couple of years ago because Mikey was working on legislation that would impact Questar when his dad stood to benefit from the legislation.
Anyhow, it's got a lot of Utah connections. I wouldn't be surprised if a deeper investigation turned up something more interesting.
I thought the actual wording was that EV1 bought $1M worth of licenses. That is to say, they bought 1400, "valued" at $699 each. But say that SCO offered a 99% discount just to get the good press for their licensing...
All I can say is... ...ahem...
WHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOOO!!!
Seriously, if you have no idea what the fuss is about, buy/borrow/steal the DVDs and watch them. The only downside was watching half way through an excellent season, and realizing you would never get to see everything resolved.
If nothing else, the movie will be a chance to give the series the ending it deserved. If it leads to a resurrection of the series, even better.
It's not really a bad idea. Carrying an extra eight pounds is no big deal, especially since that means you can take advantage of cheaper desktop components.
What I think would be really cool: Drop five pounds or so by doing away with the battery entirely. Use the weight savings to pump up the specs even more, or to use more cheap desktop parts. Just keep it hefty, cheap, and lug-and-pluggable, and I'll be happy.
Sure, some will whine about the no-battery thing. But the last laptop I bought would only last 2 hours on a full charge anyways, so it wouldn't be a big loss.
I can't believe Linus and RMS would do this to us. Have they been secretly taking kickbacks from IBM? It's absolutely shameful how they convinced so many innocent young coders to start writing software for The Man, without expecting 1500 marks per license in remuneration.
I wonder how many more enterprising businesspeople could have saved tens of hours every week if Mr. Vasters had decided to charge somewhat less than four months salary for his amazing intellectual property?
I'm also saddened that "the good looking, intelligent girl over there at the bar" doesn't care that young Aiden is a bright young lad who wants to contribute something positive to our culture. Nor does she seem interested in the fact that he has the skills necessary to do so. But according to Mr. Vasters, she is deeply concerned about whether Aiden owns his own car. Aiden, forget this girl. Go after her friend with the hyperactive social conscience. She's probably a better fit.
I would rant onward, but I'm out of time. Try the veal.
Much less. Much, much, much less.
Start with a Linux setup. Apps like OpenOffice and Mozilla are trivial to convert because there are Win32 versions available. Perl and Python environs are available for Windows. GTK libraries work on Windows.
Apache has a Windows port. Your Windows users can't tell if their home directory is being served up by a Windows server or Samba.
If you desperately need some application that only works on Linux, you can set up a computer or two with Linux and present the apps over the network. Cygwin is also a viable option.
It's all about open standards and interoperability.
You're right. If only the government had stepped in and started heavily regulating the Internet around 1985...
I'm glad to see my Utah legislature taking time out of its busy schedule of banning gay marriage and getting us out of the UN to meddle in technology it doesn't even begin to understand. Gives me a real warm, fuzzy feeling all over.
Not that I wouldn't like to see some sane, well-considered legislation on the subject. But every year, they prove over the course of forty-five days that they're not capable of crafting legislation even remotely like that.
It takes all of two sentences to explain networked printing to Aunt Tillie. "You hook the printer up to this computer over here, and you can print to it from this computer over there. Just be sure and shoo the cat off the printer before you hit 'print.'" If you'll notice, the second sentence is a bit gratuitous.
ESR never claimed to be an ignorant newbie. In fact, he's pretty computer literate, and this was the only thing that allowed him to beat it into submission. His point is correct: if Linux is going to make inroads on the desktop, the learning curve has to be flattened enormously.
Don't laugh. It's already happening to me. I have cousins a mere decade younger than myself. Introducing them to my MP3 collection was the first time I felt like an absolute, black-socks-and-striped-suspenders-pulling-my-pant s-up-above-my-navel-denture-wearing-geezer-who-
s pends-his-time-complaining-about-the-gubmint.
Elvis who?
That Metallica guy had a great beat going, but his voice ruins it.
Only three Linkin Park songs? Lame!
Whaddayamean, no Britney Spears? Can I download some?
Sucks . Sucks . Sucks. Boring. Sucks... Don't you have *anything* cool?
Then I tried to introduce them to The Cure. Bad, bad idea. You don't know the meaning of pain until you've proffered all your most cherished music to a dismissive fifteen year old.
Your absurd and unfounded generalizations aren't going to get you much respect either.
Think about it: All the citizens from every country on Earth want nothing more than to live in the United States? The French are nailing themselves into boxes and mailing themselves to Akron, Ohio? The Aussies are building makeshift rafts and setting out for southern California?
It's not true. A certain percentage of the citizens of any given country will be wishing they were somewhere else. Some French folks want to be Americans. Some Germans want to be Swedes. A lot of Malaysians want to live in India. A sharply increasing number of Americans would prefer to live in Canada [National Motto: "Eh?"].
But much in the manner of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, your glaring, superficial logical fallacy serves to draw attention away from the more subtle, fundamental logical fallacy: a person can want to live here even as they hate us.
Sure, we've got our hands full trying to keep people from coming in illegally. But while some come for political asylum, many more try to sneak in for the same reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks: "That's where the money is."
Just because somebody takes a job with a company, it doesn't mean they love the people running it, or the way it's run. Most people are quite willing to take a paycheck even while thinking that the people paying their salary are a bunch of ignorant pricks.
Further, it is possible for someone to be pissed at certain foreign policies we insist on inflicting on everyone, without it rising to the level of "hate."
And another thing: What did the parent post say that had anything to do with socialism? Everyone who dislikes Bush and his policies is a socialist?
You seem to have difficulty grasping subtle distinctions. This makes me sad.
Out of curiosity, could you describe your approach to unsolicited e-mail in greater detail? How did the customer selection process work? How many unsolicited e-mails did you send out each day? What was your average response rate? How carefully did you study each customer prior to making your pitch?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Well, now at least we have a good lead on who this "Anonymous Coward" guy is.
Dude. You're a top IT exec for a Fortune 50 company. You have to have something better to do with your time. And I thought I posted too much.
I'm already embarassingly overinvolved in this thread, but what the hell. Spoilers blah blah blah.
When we left Spike 'neath the Hellmouth, he was going all pillar-of-fire. As it turns out, his whaddayacallit (I was going to say "essence," but that gives an illusion of concreteness that really isn't there) was trapped in the medallion he was wearing. Somehow, the medallion (owned by evil law firm Wolfram and Hart) was mailed back to Angel. Angel, for his part, has just been given the position of CEO of Wolfram and Hart (read: Hell, Incorporated).
Angel opens the package, and Spike materializes. Sort of. He's not precisely corporeal, and he's attached to Wolfram and Hart's main offices somehow, so he can't leave.
He narrowly escapes being sucked into Hell, and then another package arrives. When it's opened, Spike gets his body back. This triggers some sort of clause in the Prophecy (which up until now we've assumed means that Angel will someday become human) because now there are two vampires with souls, and both of them are champions. Somehow, this fact is dragging the world towards some sort of apocalypse.
It's been kind of fun to watch the show explore the rivalry between Angel and Spike. Tuning in wouldn't be too bad an idea.
Moderators: There is no -1, Idiot Fanboy. But there should be.
Not a bad idea, actually. In my first post to the thread, I was under the assumption that WB had told Joss about the decision in time for him to write the entire season with the cancellation in mind, and the news was just getting to the rest of us.
But now it looks like they sprung it on him last Friday afternoon. So the creator got caught flat-footed just like everyone else. I don't know how many episodes are still in production, but it seems kind of awkward to shoehorn a fitting conclusion into what little remains.
The other alternative is to just stay the course, and hope that the show gets picked up somewhere else.
Or simply blast it into oblivion. It would be worth it just to see what Evil Fred is like.
Actually, that's the way its been since the first season of Buffy. The overall season always has a general plot. But there are always at least a handful of stand-alone episodes that don't fundamentally push that plot forward, or only give it a minute or two to remind you that there are still unresolved issues hanging over everyone's heads.
You see, there's this little trick I've found for browsing Slashdot: Don't click on stories you're not interested in.
The pitfall is, you lose out on the opportunity to make fun of people for caring about things you find boring and trivial. But you save hours upon hours of time, which you can put towards important things like blogging, or trying out yet another test release of Fedora Core, or any of those other things that you personally enjoy but 99% of the world finds pointless and trivial.
Give it a try.
Sad. Angel is one of only three shows I actually go out of my way to watch. It's always had a good mix of drama and humor. I also enjoy the fact that it has an overarching plotline, which rewards loyal viewers.
It's nice that they told Joss early so that he could wrap up the series. But it never feels like TV shows are cancelled at the right time. Either a show gets cancelled just as it seems to be hitting a good stride (Futurama), or it gets dragged out until it becomes a tired self-parody (Friends, and to some extent, The Simpsons).
Maybe after it finally wraps up, fans can look back on a very satisfying conclusion. But I tend to think that it had a couple of solid years left.
This isn't like any executive summary I've read, because at least half the article focuses on things that I wouldn't consider part of the official open source movement (if there is such a thing). Things like OpenCola, the Human Genome Project, open educational materials (a movement which--according to my credit card statement--isn't going nearly quickly enough).
Well, my first attempt at responding sounded just as leftist-pinko-ranty as my original post. Let's just say that I never specifically cited India as a cheap labor hellhole, and I'm still a little fuzzy on the math.
Yeah, I asked him last time I beat him by snail mail. He refuses to touch the Internet. /me just got a +5, and is gleefully pushing his luck.