"Arguing over which UNIX is better is pointless because until you get to the source level they look, feel and behave about the same"
This is just not true and shows how very little you know about Operating Systems strengths and weaknesses. Like Slashdot noted, OpenBSD is designed for security. They actively seek and destroy anything that could be used to compromise the system and the OpenBSD group has been very sucessful with this. That's a strength. Linux runs Q3A and UT, and thousands of scientific applications, those are strengths. IRIX has a superb OpenGL implementation. MacOS X has one of the best GUI's around. FreeBSD is fast.
My point, the differences between Unixes are not in the source, but are much more obvious. Each development team has goals. Each goal shows through in the over all design of the OS and makes it so that each Unix does have a reason for existing in a world of generic Unixes.
Now, on the question of which is better...Well, actually, it depends on your goals.....everyones goals are different. Some people have political agenda's (GPL vs. BSD), some people have specific needs (absolute securty at any price, playing games, or graphics performance), and some people just don't care and get what is easiest for them to use. There is no "best" only what is best for you, cause not a SINGLE unix distrib has an all round strength (though I would argue that if Apple integrated X-Win into Aqua, the combination of default security, Java2, OpenGL, Quicktime, BSD core services, et al would bring it close to being the strongest for all round uses, but hey, thats MY bias)
Nobody is forcing you to close your source code or "non-free" source code. If you find it repulsive, make sure you are developing software that is GPL'd, or make sure they are Lgpl'd. It's very simple.
Of course, if you are just an closed source basher, that's not saying very much for you personally. I can understand your sentiment, but I don't think you can extrapolate sentiment to a generalized condemnation of a software license. Think hard about other people's freedoms to do whatever they damn well want to, including use a software license that furthers their interests.
Companies that use closed source software know very well what they are getting into. IBM has a literal army of lawyers analyzing every legal move the company makes. They dont consider the closed source a threat to their "freedom" if IBM follows a few guidelines about its use. And if they do use closed source software wisely they stand to benefit greatly. They already have wagered and continue to wager billion dollars on close source software, including several closed source operating systems, with the calculation that it will pay off greatly.
Maybe you should reconsider the fallacies you've just propounded. They are obviously wrong and misleading.
Those who read the article (which at this time appears to be the minority of the respondents) who know that he considers Privacy an economic issue.
"Any company that doesn't properly safeguard people's personal information will suffer the same fate as a bank that doesn't safeguard people's money. It will go out of business."
It appears McNealy thinks that ecomonic theory will control how privacy taken care off. If someones love for inflatable dollies gets out in the wild, noone will buy inflatable dollies from that company again. Fair enough. But McNealy seems to believe people will want thier phone to reccomend where to eat in a new city and its this reason that absolute privacy is wrong. Let me say exactly why I don't want my phone to do that.
Technology like this treats the user like an idiot who doesn't have the mindfulness to remeber what they want to do. It's why people are terrified of Computers and its also why Apple can sell computers at a premium. MS has a habit of trying to predict what the user wants to do, and fails miseribly at it.
Technology like this doesn't offer the consumer choice. Great example is AOL. AOL gives a very convient place for thier consumers to find news, stocks, games, chat, IM, and community building. Are the sites on AOLs main page there because they are the best? In short, no. They are there because those sites signed contracts with AOL, where by they pay AOL to direct users to thier site. The cell phone of the future that McNealy is talking about will operate in the same exact way.
Furthermore, he is wrong in thinking that its a truely economic issue. If ALL companies are selling your buying habits, your address, your name, your dogs name, your phone number, what pr0n sites you read, and that you like little inflatable dollies, what choice does the consumer have? What happens when your boss buys a data base for "market purposes" and notices two years ago you buy some inflatable sheep on your credit card, even if you bought them as a joke?
No thank you McNealy, I don't want my Cell Phone to tell me where to eat, but you are right about one thing: If I have a heart attack, I do want the EMTs in the ambulance to have access to the entirity of my medical records, which is why we need a standardized Medical ID that I carry in my pocket. Then all they have to do is open my wallet and slide in a machine and they know everything they need to know to save my life.
"To that end, please publish your home address, all phone numbers you can be reached at, your bank account balance, all credit cards you have and their limits, your Social Security number, all of the websites you've visited over the past 9 days, and everything you've purchased using anything but cash in the last 2 years."
Dear Mr Dragon:
Since it is now clear you cannot read basic English, I will explain to you why I did not claim in the article that All My Privacy are Belong to You.
You see, absolute privacy is INCONVIENT. We are not talking about credit card information, or Social Securtiy information here, we are talking about the fact that if you have a heart attack, you will be very happy that the ambulance driver has the ability to access your Medical Records on the spot to save your paranoid ass.
I may have said things in the past that upset you, but assured you have no idea what context the comment was said in and that regardless of context, rabid animals everywhere will jump on me for wanting to know everything about you, when in fact, I have no such desire.
"We have a right to privacy in regards to the actions of the government. Not to actions taken by Sun Microsystems"
Given the fact that how campaigns are financed in the US amounts to nothing more than legalized bribery, where by economicly prosperous companies can buy laws on a whim, I don't see much of a difference between Sun Microsystems (and other assorted companies) and the government of the US.
The arguement against censorship of media (TV,Music,et al), which I agree with, goes along the lines of "raise your kids right, go outside and play with them and make sure they aren't causing trouble and they will be okay". The VERY SAME people saying this also have a tendancy to blather that "controlling" your child is somehow "bad". You can't have it both ways. Either give parents the ability to know what their kids are up to, OR allow for the possibility that the lowest common demoninator will be applied to new and "improved" censorship laws. It your choice.
"chools across the country are adopting computer programs that allow parents to check the Internet daily to see whether their kids skipped class, handed in their homework and even what they had for lunch."
Oh yeah, heaven forbid someone actually knows if their kid(s) is(are) doing the basics like going to school, doing their homework and using that money they gave them in the morning for lunch. What is this world coming to? Next they won't be able to go outside with thier friends till AFTER their homework is done, or in the worst case being fussed at for smoking. I mean, if kids wanna skip PE and smoke a cig down the street, what business is it of the parents. The kids obviously can take care of themselves, since they don't have to pay bills, make morgage payments, buy groceries, pay car insurance, or anything like that.
"I have seen SGI workstations that have a bank of 6 dials/knobs for doing similar things....Anyone know where to get them? "
We have some of those sitting around our lab. We use to use them for a software package called O, we don't anymore. Mainly the people who knew how they worked are gone. Anyhow, its my understanding, these things were/are PRICY and anyone who has them aren't getting rid of them. You have a better chance of getting your hands on a PXL-2000 for less than $100 (US) than getting one of those.
"pay 25 cents a minute at the airport to check your email"
Why would I do that when I can fire up Airport (Apples stuff) set up DHCP and download pr0n while checking my email for free in that very same airport.
Try it sometime.
"the guy actually claims a patent on it (it's a split keyboard with a joystick. Let's not get full of ourselves;)"
YOU didn't think of it did you? How bout anyone else here. Go look at the page, look at his designs, look at the consideration he's put into this and come back and tell me its not an invention. It is. Not calling this an invention is like calling a light bulb "just a piece of wire headed by electricity...for peats sake haven't you seen lightning light up the sky".
No, It isn't Sorenson, since it plays on IRIX6.5's Media Player. It's probabally just CinePak MPG3, or something equally as old. At any rate, if it players on IRIX, its an old Quicktime format and as such should play in Realplayer, MediaPlayer, Quicktime, and probabally some OSS codecs.
....and BASE jumpers everywhere rejoiced at the idea of climbing such great treasures as, the World Trade Center, The Arch, and other such "natural" landmarks.
Apple's whole corporate image relies on making the customer feel like Apple helps them express themselves, with out the hardware/software technical issues getting in the way.
AOL's whole image is about making you think the Internet is a terrible complicated world of Porn, Violence, and Evil "Free Thinkers" that you have to be protected from.
Apple tries to make you feel smart, AOL reaffirms your belief in your own stupidity. Two mutually exclusive ways of treating a customer.
"Stealing garbage is against the law. I kid you not."
Actually its not, if it was put out for the garbage man, or thrown into a publicly acessable dumpster. Its common practice for police to look through the garbage of a suspect when they dont have enough evidence to get a warrent to search thier premisises, and has been deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court (private investigators do this also).
"I didn't break in! I walked through the guys back door which he forgot to close."
Although funny, its not relevent. I think leaving a DB wide open on the internet is akin to putting some very personal information in the garbage can outside your house, rather than in a locked safe as you meant. Then one day, you put that garbage on the side of the road (which is akin to turning on the computer and hooking it up to a very unprivate internet), and someone comes along and takes it. Well that information is no longer private and that person has broken no laws taking your garbage (there is no expectation of privacy when you put out your garbage).
"Word got out about the honor investigation a week before this semester's term papers were due. When he tested the latest patch, he found almost no plagiarism"
"almost no plagiarism"...this seems to assume someone still did it after a butload of kids got caught, this is just fucking astonishing!
Friend: "Dude, you sure you still want this paper, I mean that proff guy nailed all those people with his computer.."
Stupid Cheater: "What? Uhh...Yeah dude...Whatever, just pass the bong."
I think the best thing for IT workers to do is form a guild that has a seal of approval. Here's how it goes.
The guild fights for additional training, for example, for IT pros. The IT pro's agree that for a mutually agreed period of time they wont leave their job for another. If they do, they are kicked of of the guild and loose the guild seal of approval (read certication). If the Guild actually enforced rules on its members in a such a way that companies would no longer see the Guild as a threat, then IT kiddie could actually start seeing better mobility and a promising future within a job rather than by changing jobs and companies would have the piece of mind that their Buzzword compliantly trained emplyees won't leave them for a bigger and better position upon learning a new craft.
"Ok enough jokes:) What do you guys use your CDR's for?"
Well honestly, I use CDRs for the standard:pr0n, mp3's, backup shit. I don't use that many.
At work, on the other hand, we go through about 50 CDR's a month backing up negatives shot our EM's and scanned on our $150,000 Zeiss scanner and data coming directly off the CCD in one of our Microscopes. Not only that but we recently got a Confocal Microscope (also Zeiss). You would be amazed how much diskspace I use for one project, much less everything I'm working, and even much more less what everyone else in our lab is working on.
"All they needed was more investors, 300 programmers, 200 administrative staffers, a mile of warehousing space, a fleet of private jets, and a few international trade treaties to be rewritten."
"Why not let people adjust their screen settings from anywhere in the world over the web? At the time we could barely comprehend how profound of a concept that was, and I was excited to be part of it."
I bet he was coding this for Windows. Since Mac OS's contrast/brightness/ColorSync settings are all done in software (and hardware) (for color calibration purposes), I'm willing to bet this could be coded for MacOS by one person in one day.
Does this mean I could be the next.com millionaire?
I didn't know you could log into a Linux Box using a voice print ID? I didn't know a blind person could active necissary GUI functions with their voice in Linux? Since when did Linux do this out of the box?
"Quicktime is no inherent advantage to Apple. Neither is TrueType. Both are available to a competitor that could KILL Apple if it really desired to. "
You really don't know what you are talking about, do you? Why is the video editiing industry moving to Macs? Now that sillyness about them being available to competitors, well thats true, but they can't kill Apple with them, since both are based of Apple PATENTED technologies.
"Also, MacOS 10 is not quite that impressive. It certainly doesn't constitute "beyond Linux developer's dreams".
You obviously have never USED OS X other than maybe a screenshot or seeing it at CompUSA.
"All Apple has done is recycle SOMEONE ELSE'S successful attempt at making Unix easy. "
1. OpenStep was never successful
2. I've USED OpenStep when I was doing sound production a few years ago. Although, technologically impressive, it certainly had nowhere the user friendlyness of Mac OS X. It didnt have the Apple core technologies, and it certainly didnt have the graphics capabilities of OS X.
Hate to burst your FSF bubble, but Apples owes YOU nothing. Quicktime, Aqua, ColorSync, Speech Recogn, Good printing abilities, true ease of use, et al. are why people pay extra for Apple machines. It's why I did. It's also why my 300Mhz is now nothing more than a file server and I picked up an older mac for my Wife to use instead.
Another thing, while Im in the trolling mood. I think its interesting that in the four-Five years since Apple bought Next, they have done much more to bring Unix to the masses then Linux could ever dream to do.
"Yeah, but the FSF and its supporters do have a holier-than-thou attitude, and some of us find it quite offensive for anyone to piss away $13 million, let alone a company that is connected to, and building on, pure volunteer work."
Now that I'm not trying to get a post early and make it end up sounding like an idiot on steroids wrote it, I'll address this.
You're right, the FSF does have a "holier-than-thou attitude", to that I say: So what if they do? Does it make them any more correct or incorrect? Let me let you in on a little secret I learned years ago: everybody has a "holier-than-thou attitude", everybody does. I do, when I say the FSF is full of shit, I mean exactly that, they are full of shit. I don't like their made up definition of free, I don't like how Stallman comes off sounding like an asshole whenever someone says Open Source near him, I don't like how they view closed source with the same level of dogma that a Religious Fanatic would view an infidel. That my friend, is whats called a holier than thout attitude. It's also called being sure of your opinions. Big deal. If you want to attack the FSF, attack them for concrete things, like disputing their definition of free and giving an alternative definition. That's called a dialog.
You're also right, it is "offensive (that) anyone (pissed) away $13 million", especially since the average life span of a person in Africa is now 40 years due to famine and HIV. But it isn't my money. I wasn't the idiot who gave it too them, and hopefully neither were you. Hopefully the Investment Capitalist who gave them that money have learned their lesson and will spend it wisely next time.
I read it, twice. It seems the writer is hell bent in saying the FSF is in bed with for-profit-companies who have a habit of wasting money on stupid shit and he demands to see how the FSF is wasting its donations. Well, it's not that important, since he blasts the FSF for there made up definition of free and Gnomes dogmatic attack against KDE for not being "free" (which it is, even in the FSF sense), then who the fuck cares what the FSF says, does, or pisses on. I certaintly don't. Who cares if Eazel is going to survive, is the code they wrote gonna magicially die with them? You get the point.
The writer spends a lot of energy blasting companies, that for the most part don't actually ship much in the way of products (previews, stuff like that don't count) and certainly dont earn much money, he then spends a lot of energy attacking FSF and doing his best not to kiss Stallmans ass, only to demand to know whats going on.
Well, i got some advice for this writer. Shut the fuck up. If the FSF is full of shit (at it is, IMHO) and these companies might go out of business, then fuck em. Use your copy of Red Hat, download Eazel, don't download Eazel, whatever. They dont have to answer to you, just like Muslims dont have to answer to the Pope.
Sorry for the troll, but even from my Mac using point of view, this guy is an idiot.
"Litigation is costly, time-consuming, and uncertain, regardless of the merits of the other side's case. Ultimately we, the authors, reached a collective decision not to expose ourselves, our employers, and the conference organizers to litigation at this time."
This is why when someone brings a law suit against someone else and looses, they should not only compensate that person/company, but should do so 100X the costs it took to defend themselves. Then the RIAA would have to reconsider next time it was to use terrorism and its bought Senators to push researchers around.
"We remain committed to free speech and to the value of scientific debate to our country and the world. We believe that people benefit from learning the truth about the products they are asked to buy. We will continue to fight for these values, and for the right to publish our paper."
I like the language he chose here: "We believe that people benefit from learning the truth about the products they are asked to buy.". This sums up the nature of the music industry as it exists today. All of the weathy labels have united to form a monolopy over artists. These artists are forced to release their copyright, or they don't get the large resources of the Labels promotional firm at thier disposal. As a result of this, these companies hold the copyrights to the majority of the popular music in the United States and work togethor, with hardware makers, to force on the public any format the RIAA wants. If they wanted to switch to an "encrypted" cd format in the next 5 years, just like MPAA did with DVD's, they could. Then when "DeCSS" for music comes out so people can encode mp3s, or listen to there "AudioDVDs" on Linux, the RIAA could sue some kid into the ground for breaking their equivalent of ROT26 encryption.
Fucking bullshit, I tell you. I no longer fear my govt, I fear the companies the Senators are giving the power too. Before you pass me off as some "Rage against the Machine" fanatic, I'm not. I'm just pissed that the RIAA has more control over the Senators and Represenatives that I voted for, that my fellow citizens and I.
I say publish the damned paper, break all of their encryptions, and take a piss on the steps of the steps to the RIAA's lawyers.
"And just which court do you think you would go to to get such a search warrant"
I'm sure down the road from their office is a federal court that has a judge who would sign a warrent to invistage crimes commited against people on American soil. They HAVE juristiction, else they couldn't arrest these people for their crimes.
"Certainly it has been proven in court that foreign nationals on foreign soil are not granted US protections."
What if these people had been americans? FBI didn't know where they were, they could have just as easily been americans.
"The natural result of forcing US protections on non-US citizens on foreign soil is that the US would have the right to prosecute foreign nationals who have violated American laws without harming American interests. This sort of extra-territoriality would not be thought of highly."
"In this case, the FBI did the right thing."
I have address part of this in a previous post and above, and would like to point out the contradiction. First you point out how "extra-territoriality would not be thought of highly" then go on to say "In this case, the FBI did the right thing". Interesting. Since by the FBI's claim (and your assumed acceptence of said claim), it had no jurisdiction in Russia, yet it was investigating a crime commited by people on Russian soil against American interests. Isn't that the "extra-territoriality" that wouldn't be "thought highly of" you were talking about? How is it a good thing in the light of it being "extra-territorial"?
My claim is the crime was commited on American soil. The server that was attacked was on US soil, the data was stolen from US soil, every part of the crime was on US soil. US laws do apply, even such inconveinces as warrents and due process. As such the FBI needs a warrent.
Slashdot Mirror
This is just not true and shows how very little you know about Operating Systems strengths and weaknesses. Like Slashdot noted, OpenBSD is designed for security. They actively seek and destroy anything that could be used to compromise the system and the OpenBSD group has been very sucessful with this. That's a strength. Linux runs Q3A and UT, and thousands of scientific applications, those are strengths. IRIX has a superb OpenGL implementation. MacOS X has one of the best GUI's around. FreeBSD is fast.
My point, the differences between Unixes are not in the source, but are much more obvious. Each development team has goals. Each goal shows through in the over all design of the OS and makes it so that each Unix does have a reason for existing in a world of generic Unixes.
Now, on the question of which is better...Well, actually, it depends on your goals.....everyones goals are different. Some people have political agenda's (GPL vs. BSD), some people have specific needs (absolute securty at any price, playing games, or graphics performance), and some people just don't care and get what is easiest for them to use. There is no "best" only what is best for you, cause not a SINGLE unix distrib has an all round strength (though I would argue that if Apple integrated X-Win into Aqua, the combination of default security, Java2, OpenGL, Quicktime, BSD core services, et al would bring it close to being the strongest for all round uses, but hey, thats MY bias)
You are sadly mistaken
Nobody is forcing you to close your source code or "non-free" source code. If you find it repulsive, make sure you are developing software that is GPL'd, or make sure they are Lgpl'd. It's very simple.
Of course, if you are just an closed source basher, that's not saying very much for you personally. I can understand your sentiment, but I don't think you can extrapolate sentiment to a generalized condemnation of a software license. Think hard about other people's freedoms to do whatever they damn well want to, including use a software license that furthers their interests.
Companies that use closed source software know very well what they are getting into. IBM has a literal army of lawyers analyzing every legal move the company makes. They dont consider the closed source a threat to their "freedom" if IBM follows a few guidelines about its use. And if they do use closed source software wisely they stand to benefit greatly. They already have wagered and continue to wager billion dollars on close source software, including several closed source operating systems, with the calculation that it will pay off greatly.
Maybe you should reconsider the fallacies you've just propounded. They are obviously wrong and misleading.
Those who read the article (which at this time appears to be the minority of the respondents) who know that he considers Privacy an economic issue.
"Any company that doesn't properly safeguard people's personal information will suffer the same fate as a bank that doesn't safeguard people's money. It will go out of business."
It appears McNealy thinks that ecomonic theory will control how privacy taken care off. If someones love for inflatable dollies gets out in the wild, noone will buy inflatable dollies from that company again. Fair enough. But McNealy seems to believe people will want thier phone to reccomend where to eat in a new city and its this reason that absolute privacy is wrong. Let me say exactly why I don't want my phone to do that.
Technology like this treats the user like an idiot who doesn't have the mindfulness to remeber what they want to do. It's why people are terrified of Computers and its also why Apple can sell computers at a premium. MS has a habit of trying to predict what the user wants to do, and fails miseribly at it.
Technology like this doesn't offer the consumer choice. Great example is AOL. AOL gives a very convient place for thier consumers to find news, stocks, games, chat, IM, and community building. Are the sites on AOLs main page there because they are the best? In short, no. They are there because those sites signed contracts with AOL, where by they pay AOL to direct users to thier site. The cell phone of the future that McNealy is talking about will operate in the same exact way.
Furthermore, he is wrong in thinking that its a truely economic issue. If ALL companies are selling your buying habits, your address, your name, your dogs name, your phone number, what pr0n sites you read, and that you like little inflatable dollies, what choice does the consumer have? What happens when your boss buys a data base for "market purposes" and notices two years ago you buy some inflatable sheep on your credit card, even if you bought them as a joke?
No thank you McNealy, I don't want my Cell Phone to tell me where to eat, but you are right about one thing: If I have a heart attack, I do want the EMTs in the ambulance to have access to the entirity of my medical records, which is why we need a standardized Medical ID that I carry in my pocket. Then all they have to do is open my wallet and slide in a machine and they know everything they need to know to save my life.
Dear Mr Dragon: Since it is now clear you cannot read basic English, I will explain to you why I did not claim in the article that All My Privacy are Belong to You.
You see, absolute privacy is INCONVIENT. We are not talking about credit card information, or Social Securtiy information here, we are talking about the fact that if you have a heart attack, you will be very happy that the ambulance driver has the ability to access your Medical Records on the spot to save your paranoid ass.
I may have said things in the past that upset you, but assured you have no idea what context the comment was said in and that regardless of context, rabid animals everywhere will jump on me for wanting to know everything about you, when in fact, I have no such desire.
Given the fact that how campaigns are financed in the US amounts to nothing more than legalized bribery, where by economicly prosperous companies can buy laws on a whim, I don't see much of a difference between Sun Microsystems (and other assorted companies) and the government of the US.
"chools across the country are adopting computer programs that allow parents to check the Internet daily to see whether their kids skipped class, handed in their homework and even what they had for lunch."
Oh yeah, heaven forbid someone actually knows if their kid(s) is(are) doing the basics like going to school, doing their homework and using that money they gave them in the morning for lunch. What is this world coming to? Next they won't be able to go outside with thier friends till AFTER their homework is done, or in the worst case being fussed at for smoking. I mean, if kids wanna skip PE and smoke a cig down the street, what business is it of the parents. The kids obviously can take care of themselves, since they don't have to pay bills, make morgage payments, buy groceries, pay car insurance, or anything like that.
Get real, idiot.
We have some of those sitting around our lab. We use to use them for a software package called O, we don't anymore. Mainly the people who knew how they worked are gone. Anyhow, its my understanding, these things were/are PRICY and anyone who has them aren't getting rid of them. You have a better chance of getting your hands on a PXL-2000 for less than $100 (US) than getting one of those.
Why would I do that when I can fire up Airport (Apples stuff) set up DHCP and download pr0n while checking my email for free in that very same airport. Try it sometime.
YOU didn't think of it did you? How bout anyone else here. Go look at the page, look at his designs, look at the consideration he's put into this and come back and tell me its not an invention. It is. Not calling this an invention is like calling a light bulb "just a piece of wire headed by electricity...for peats sake haven't you seen lightning light up the sky".
No, It isn't Sorenson, since it plays on IRIX6.5's Media Player. It's probabally just CinePak MPG3, or something equally as old. At any rate, if it players on IRIX, its an old Quicktime format and as such should play in Realplayer, MediaPlayer, Quicktime, and probabally some OSS codecs.
....and BASE jumpers everywhere rejoiced at the idea of climbing such great treasures as, the World Trade Center, The Arch, and other such "natural" landmarks.
Apple's whole corporate image relies on making the customer feel like Apple helps them express themselves, with out the hardware/software technical issues getting in the way.
AOL's whole image is about making you think the Internet is a terrible complicated world of Porn, Violence, and Evil "Free Thinkers" that you have to be protected from.
Apple tries to make you feel smart, AOL reaffirms your belief in your own stupidity. Two mutually exclusive ways of treating a customer.
Actually its not, if it was put out for the garbage man, or thrown into a publicly acessable dumpster. Its common practice for police to look through the garbage of a suspect when they dont have enough evidence to get a warrent to search thier premisises, and has been deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court (private investigators do this also).
Although funny, its not relevent. I think leaving a DB wide open on the internet is akin to putting some very personal information in the garbage can outside your house, rather than in a locked safe as you meant. Then one day, you put that garbage on the side of the road (which is akin to turning on the computer and hooking it up to a very unprivate internet), and someone comes along and takes it. Well that information is no longer private and that person has broken no laws taking your garbage (there is no expectation of privacy when you put out your garbage).
"almost no plagiarism"...this seems to assume someone still did it after a butload of kids got caught, this is just fucking astonishing!
Friend: "Dude, you sure you still want this paper, I mean that proff guy nailed all those people with his computer.."
Stupid Cheater: "What? Uhh...Yeah dude...Whatever, just pass the bong."
Fucking idiots.
The guild fights for additional training, for example, for IT pros. The IT pro's agree that for a mutually agreed period of time they wont leave their job for another. If they do, they are kicked of of the guild and loose the guild seal of approval (read certication). If the Guild actually enforced rules on its members in a such a way that companies would no longer see the Guild as a threat, then IT kiddie could actually start seeing better mobility and a promising future within a job rather than by changing jobs and companies would have the piece of mind that their Buzzword compliantly trained emplyees won't leave them for a bigger and better position upon learning a new craft.
Well honestly, I use CDRs for the standard:pr0n, mp3's, backup shit. I don't use that many.
At work, on the other hand, we go through about 50 CDR's a month backing up negatives shot our EM's and scanned on our $150,000 Zeiss scanner and data coming directly off the CCD in one of our Microscopes. Not only that but we recently got a Confocal Microscope (also Zeiss). You would be amazed how much diskspace I use for one project, much less everything I'm working, and even much more less what everyone else in our lab is working on.
Oh yeah, like thats a really good idea at this point.
"Why not let people adjust their screen settings from anywhere in the world over the web? At the time we could barely comprehend how profound of a concept that was, and I was excited to be part of it."
I bet he was coding this for Windows. Since Mac OS's contrast/brightness/ColorSync settings are all done in software (and hardware) (for color calibration purposes), I'm willing to bet this could be coded for MacOS by one person in one day.
Does this mean I could be the next .com millionaire?
I didn't know you could log into a Linux Box using a voice print ID? I didn't know a blind person could active necissary GUI functions with their voice in Linux? Since when did Linux do this out of the box?
"Quicktime is no inherent advantage to Apple. Neither is TrueType. Both are available to a competitor that could KILL Apple if it really desired to. "
You really don't know what you are talking about, do you? Why is the video editiing industry moving to Macs? Now that sillyness about them being available to competitors, well thats true, but they can't kill Apple with them, since both are based of Apple PATENTED technologies.
"Also, MacOS 10 is not quite that impressive. It certainly doesn't constitute "beyond Linux developer's dreams".
You obviously have never USED OS X other than maybe a screenshot or seeing it at CompUSA.
"All Apple has done is recycle SOMEONE ELSE'S successful attempt at making Unix easy. "
1. OpenStep was never successful
2. I've USED OpenStep when I was doing sound production a few years ago. Although, technologically impressive, it certainly had nowhere the user friendlyness of Mac OS X. It didnt have the Apple core technologies, and it certainly didnt have the graphics capabilities of OS X.
3. You're clueless.
Another thing, while Im in the trolling mood. I think its interesting that in the four-Five years since Apple bought Next, they have done much more to bring Unix to the masses then Linux could ever dream to do.
Now that I'm not trying to get a post early and make it end up sounding like an idiot on steroids wrote it, I'll address this.
You're right, the FSF does have a "holier-than-thou attitude", to that I say: So what if they do? Does it make them any more correct or incorrect? Let me let you in on a little secret I learned years ago: everybody has a "holier-than-thou attitude", everybody does. I do, when I say the FSF is full of shit, I mean exactly that, they are full of shit. I don't like their made up definition of free, I don't like how Stallman comes off sounding like an asshole whenever someone says Open Source near him, I don't like how they view closed source with the same level of dogma that a Religious Fanatic would view an infidel. That my friend, is whats called a holier than thout attitude. It's also called being sure of your opinions. Big deal. If you want to attack the FSF, attack them for concrete things, like disputing their definition of free and giving an alternative definition. That's called a dialog.
You're also right, it is "offensive (that) anyone (pissed) away $13 million", especially since the average life span of a person in Africa is now 40 years due to famine and HIV. But it isn't my money. I wasn't the idiot who gave it too them, and hopefully neither were you. Hopefully the Investment Capitalist who gave them that money have learned their lesson and will spend it wisely next time.
The writer spends a lot of energy blasting companies, that for the most part don't actually ship much in the way of products (previews, stuff like that don't count) and certainly dont earn much money, he then spends a lot of energy attacking FSF and doing his best not to kiss Stallmans ass, only to demand to know whats going on.
Well, i got some advice for this writer. Shut the fuck up. If the FSF is full of shit (at it is, IMHO) and these companies might go out of business, then fuck em. Use your copy of Red Hat, download Eazel, don't download Eazel, whatever. They dont have to answer to you, just like Muslims dont have to answer to the Pope.
Sorry for the troll, but even from my Mac using point of view, this guy is an idiot.
This is why when someone brings a law suit against someone else and looses, they should not only compensate that person/company, but should do so 100X the costs it took to defend themselves. Then the RIAA would have to reconsider next time it was to use terrorism and its bought Senators to push researchers around. "We remain committed to free speech and to the value of scientific debate to our country and the world. We believe that people benefit from learning the truth about the products they are asked to buy. We will continue to fight for these values, and for the right to publish our paper."
I like the language he chose here: "We believe that people benefit from learning the truth about the products they are asked to buy.". This sums up the nature of the music industry as it exists today. All of the weathy labels have united to form a monolopy over artists. These artists are forced to release their copyright, or they don't get the large resources of the Labels promotional firm at thier disposal. As a result of this, these companies hold the copyrights to the majority of the popular music in the United States and work togethor, with hardware makers, to force on the public any format the RIAA wants. If they wanted to switch to an "encrypted" cd format in the next 5 years, just like MPAA did with DVD's, they could. Then when "DeCSS" for music comes out so people can encode mp3s, or listen to there "AudioDVDs" on Linux, the RIAA could sue some kid into the ground for breaking their equivalent of ROT26 encryption.
Fucking bullshit, I tell you. I no longer fear my govt, I fear the companies the Senators are giving the power too. Before you pass me off as some "Rage against the Machine" fanatic, I'm not. I'm just pissed that the RIAA has more control over the Senators and Represenatives that I voted for, that my fellow citizens and I.
I say publish the damned paper, break all of their encryptions, and take a piss on the steps of the steps to the RIAA's lawyers.
I'm sure down the road from their office is a federal court that has a judge who would sign a warrent to invistage crimes commited against people on American soil. They HAVE juristiction, else they couldn't arrest these people for their crimes.
"Certainly it has been proven in court that foreign nationals on foreign soil are not granted US protections."
What if these people had been americans? FBI didn't know where they were, they could have just as easily been americans.
"The natural result of forcing US protections on non-US citizens on foreign soil is that the US would have the right to prosecute foreign nationals who have violated American laws without harming American interests. This sort of extra-territoriality would not be thought of highly."
"In this case, the FBI did the right thing."
I have address part of this in a previous post and above, and would like to point out the contradiction. First you point out how "extra-territoriality would not be thought of highly" then go on to say "In this case, the FBI did the right thing". Interesting. Since by the FBI's claim (and your assumed acceptence of said claim), it had no jurisdiction in Russia, yet it was investigating a crime commited by people on Russian soil against American interests. Isn't that the "extra-territoriality" that wouldn't be "thought highly of" you were talking about? How is it a good thing in the light of it being "extra-territorial"?
My claim is the crime was commited on American soil. The server that was attacked was on US soil, the data was stolen from US soil, every part of the crime was on US soil. US laws do apply, even such inconveinces as warrents and due process. As such the FBI needs a warrent.