That's correct, which is why I call this whole affair BS.
As I said before, this is a group of people who apparently had enough sophistication to create targeted attacks, yet they failed to the origin of their traffic? I call bullshit, that does not compute. It's not even a nice try.
Here's a question for you: who benefits from this war of words? China? Hardly. Google?
Oh yes - it doesn't have the market coverage to bully everyone out of the way it did in the rest of the world, and it's not likely to get it either. So:
1 - if they go uncensored they will be the only one, thus gathering traffic. Unlikely, the Chinese want some control, something they were happy to go along with if it helped them entering the market. 2 - if Google pulls out it must make it look like it did so for some BS reason, not because it wasn't successful in the market. Hence the fight; it satisfies both the Google egos that they can pick a fight with a sovereign government, yet at the same time prepares the ground for slinking away with the tail between their legs without it looking that way.
I liked Google when it was an innovative company, I don't like it now it's becoming MS in every bad sense of the word.
My problem is that I really have to start memorising a new series of words for this sort of crap. It makes "moron" a compliment, which isn't quite my intention. Even "room temperature IQ" won't do unless you qualify that that is at the North Pole with the windows open.. Sjeez.
This is the RIAA. We have found unauthorised used of Billy Joel lyrics, and the bill will be underway as soon as we figure out who you are. Ah. Dang.:-)
As for the main article, well, duh. That has exactly been the growing problem over the two decades or so: escaping consequences. Every time someone is allowed to hide behind a system, company or rule the problem grows, and does so exponentially. It's a cancer.
Minor detail, AFAIK it's physics. In the main, however, you do voice my own doubts as well.
I have yet to come across ANY wireless transmission method that didn't incorporate a degree of loss.
I would have been FAR more interested in getting at last a Really Universal Power Supply (let's call it a RUPS) that could feed everything I jacked into it. My problem isn't plugging in, my problem is the vast plethora of chargers required to keep all this stuff going, which has partially driven my preference for anything USB connected.
However, from an eco perspective we're leaving the most obvious elements untouched: neon power lights. With what one of these uses you can almost light a room by using LEDs, yet they're in almost any power block I've used last year..
There is no f*cking way I will allow Google to plaster my house with ads, especially those I cannot control. If I don't allow people to deface the sides of my house, why should I allow this virtual graffiti?
Search term "abortion clinic" in your browser? All the ads may lead to pro life supporters (or imaging a abortion clinic ad plastered on a church). Tiger Woods' house? Ads for relationship agencies (as a matter of fact, I have already seen that with Google ads surrounding Tiger Woods reporting). Looking at Neverland? Hey, cool place to stick child protection ads..
Someone who doesn't support Google? I wonder what that house will get for ads..
It would be the equivalent of putting up all those ad boards, but without having to seek permission from the locals.
I can see your point, but there are two separate angles you must consider.
A developer needs to stand out, and prove himself. A contribution to an Open Source project creates credibility because not every code makes it into production, and the fact that you are confident of your skills to open up what you write helps too. So it doesn't DIRECTLY make you money, it contributes to you snagging a better job or work order - it strengthens your negotiations. It goes further, however, when you employed and know about Open Source, see next angle.
A company needs to operate as efficient as possible. For this it needs software. Software is never *just right*, it needs adapting - which means development work. Let's take CMS as an example: you can spend budget X on a proprietary solution, or you can spend part of it on an Open Source CMS and then PAY THE DEVELOPERS or other people involved to add the bits you need for your own company. The clever thing is then to push the changes back out to teh community because that gives you also marketing capital, but even if you don't you will get EXACTLY what you need for your own specific business, and still come in under the cost of proprietary solutions.
However, the original question was why a company wants to outright buy a FOSS product, and I must admit I'm a bit at a loss there. It could be to gain complete control (thus losing the community benefits, which is what I see happening with Zimbra) and sell proprietary versions - I don't like that approach because that's really taking advantage of the work of others, or to actually take it off the market, which is what I see happening with MySQL to great chagrin of banks. AFAIK, quite a lot of trading setups use MySQL because it's light and fast, it appears Postgresql cannot handle the large volume (that's what I was told, I'm no DB expert or coder). OpenOffice came to be because SUN wanted to harm MS's revenue base, another argument.
So, I can see developer and company benefit to using FOSS, less so to buy a whole project..
The USA was a pirate nation for the first 100 years of its existence, ripping off the patents and trademarks of the imperial European powers it had liberated itself from with blood. By keeping their GDP at home, the US revolutionaries were able to bootstrap their nation into an industrial powerhouse. Now, it seems, their descendants are bent on ensuring that no other country can pull the same trick off.
I could not have said it better, other than summarising it: hypocrites..
Can't be asked to look it up, but we've had dead people and grandmothers without PCs being set fanmail.
Ergo: it doesn't matter if you're guilty or not, you WILL have the aggravation and expense (if you look it up you'll see that being dead or elderly and not computer equipped appeared not a valid argument to cancel the process).
Nope - there is also a class of Slashdotters who work on the basis of factual evidence, and actually have a life.
I have both. Those researchers really need to work on their fact gathering. And sexual technique.
First off, the G-spot is a side effect from how we grow into man or woman, and it's easy to locate on a recent anatomic drawing.
Secondly, once you find it there isn't a chance you'll be allowed to forget it by your partner:-).
Thirdly, if you can't find it try getting her aroused first, that makes it easier to find. In some women it is the *only* way to find it, and I personally don't think you should approach the subject (and location) without that arousal anyway (tip: also keep your nails trimmed and filed). "Brace yourself" only worked for Mrs Doubtfire..
Fourth but not least, the Net isn't exactly short of instructions on how to locate it, which further suggests the researchers can't tell their rear end from their elbows (which may explain something:-).
.. it helps enormously if you're already aroused. Here too, foreplay is your friend.
Personally, I think they could not have shot themselves more accurately in their feet if they user laser sights. The G-spot is even anatomically documented - there was just a gap for a century when any extra pleasure centre was censored out of anatomical drawings (no, I kid you not) but these days anatomical drawings are accurate..
Duh duh duh.
Actually, isn't Angela Jolie on the lookout for a new, more creative and accepting mate? Hmm, research..
I don't recall you having any basis in study for your uttering. Just because you got rich hopping around on a stage wailing into a microphone doesn't make you an expert in everything.
No, all you have done now is discredited the good work you *did* manage to do.
I do not steal music, but I am just as likely to be dragged into court as anyone else because the detection methods used by the RIAA are (a) flawed and (b) irrelevant - they are not interested in the conviction per se, but the chilling effect. Well, they have chilled two things: (1) my respect for the legal system, as I have seen it abused in many ways over the last 8 years and (2) my enthusiasm for buying music - I switched to web radio instead. In the last 5 years I have bought ONE (1) CD, and I know I'm far from the only one.
You see, the RIAA idiots forget two things. Firstly, those they sue now would have been their future customers. Instead, by manipulating the amount of fines they will be denied a future. So, no future sales. Secondly, we age, which means what we like now is old tomorrow but we'll hang on to those records. Again, no new sales.
Last but not least, there is another chilling effect. For someone who is so-called "creative" you appear to have a short memory, or maybe that has been bought by the RIAA as well? Any creativity has roots, has examples. I have seen fantastic new ways in which music has developed based on examples people grew up with and experimented with.
What the RIAA is doing is chilling the experimental, the new growth. That leaves only the manufactured bands, with a few exceptions (when the singers accidentally have talent too) - and that is on the decline because it's unoriginal crap which requires (costly) marketing to sell. You could get a computer to make that stuff, and most sounds like it too.
So it's not just a child that dies every time you clap your hands (did you stop clapping?) - it's also the market that gave you the money to change from a moderately interesting singer to an idiot used by politicians and sales droids, and I haven't failed to notice that quite a few things you have been promoted involved making more money for the parties involved (like "RED" - buy our stuff and we'll give a -small- percentage to the cause). Yes, money ruins a lot - U2, it seems..
Sorry, that's BS. I have access to quite a lot of information and controls that could cause havoc if abused, and I share that situation with many other people, but it's insulting to suggest that it follows automatically that I (or others in my profession) *WILL* abuse that privilege - I have my own personal ethics which go well above any policy people can throw at me.
As an aside, I *love* audit records, because they have a flipside: they can provide extra evidence that adverse events were not the result of anything I did. Not that I have to prove my innocence, but it's nice to have the independent backup.
The basic fact is that someone must have an escalation route to that level of access, and it's no good pretending you don't. You can minimise that exposure, sure, but there will always be a few people who will have that privilege. The trick is to get hold of people who can handle that.
1 - it appears that's ALL he did, so I wouldn't call that "systematic" abuse, this is to me more on the level of an expense fiddle or taking a company car home once. 2 - the guy ADMITS that he was wrong, in other words, he has at least the right view of his actions. To me that runs counter to your argument that he shouldn't be trusted with the guardianship, at least this guy seems to know right from wrong 3 - because of his admission he will be under far greater scrutiny than any "Mr Teflon" who has managed to get away with transgressions without anyone noticing. The latter is much more dangerous IMHO because they tend to grow into a view of considering their transgressions "normal". 4 - I am unwilling to hang someone for being a normal human being - I'm a normal guy too. It would be a bit like taking someone's driving license for life for going over the speed limit once. That approach is exactly what produced the modern politician, the "holier-than-thou" breed where managing press disclosure becomes more important than governing the country, and enabling newspapers to buy your privacy via your "friends". Case in point: Clinton vs Bush. One made the mistake of finding the only girl in town who didn't know how to clean a dress but created the first budget surplus in years, the other one appeared Mr Clean but wrecked the US and global economy by his actions. Bonus point for counting just how many laws Bush excluded himself from with signing statements.
BTW, the most perfectly managed transgression ever was with Sarkozy: when he was asked if he had a mistress (now his wife), he answered: "And?". Perfect answer, as it killed the sensation stone dead. OK, admittedly the French press is more restrained anyway, but from a publicity point of view it was the *perfect* answer..
You switch to LEDs to save energy, changing back strikes me as failing to address the root cause, temperature.
Where I live we have a couple of awkward corners so they mounted mirrors to allow people to see oncoming traffic. As we get snow, those mirrors have a built-in heating element that only switches on when it's cold - precisely the right idea.
If I recall correctly, there's also a self-regulating tape which is used to be embedded with water pipes to prevent them from freezing, so it's not like there aren't any solutions.
Just going back to wasting energy ALL THE TIME is mad IMHO.
£25 per year per connection seems like a lot. In the US, the process can be largely automated
Sure, and that automation comes free of any hardware/software/maintenance/running costs, yes? Apart from the fact that ISPs should not be made into another defective police force there is also the small matter that UK Courts are in my experience, well, crap (I'm being polite here). I can't explain why judges are so far removed from reality other than that there are maybe drugs involved, and a conman with a good story gets away with murder. No normal, decent family stands a chance. It's actually amazing how close the US and UK have become in certain matters..
They do have a point, though. Why should a newspaper (and their online equivalent) pay tax when other companies can avoid it on the basis of what is basically BS?
Slashdot Mirror
AFAIK, the one doesn't exclude the other.
However, assuming evil is more fun :-)
That's correct, which is why I call this whole affair BS.
As I said before, this is a group of people who apparently had enough sophistication to create targeted attacks, yet they failed to the origin of their traffic? I call bullshit, that does not compute. It's not even a nice try.
Here's a question for you: who benefits from this war of words? China? Hardly. Google?
Oh yes - it doesn't have the market coverage to bully everyone out of the way it did in the rest of the world, and it's not likely to get it either. So:
1 - if they go uncensored they will be the only one, thus gathering traffic. Unlikely, the Chinese want some control, something they were happy to go along with if it helped them entering the market.
2 - if Google pulls out it must make it look like it did so for some BS reason, not because it wasn't successful in the market. Hence the fight; it satisfies both the Google egos that they can pick a fight with a sovereign government, yet at the same time prepares the ground for slinking away with the tail between their legs without it looking that way.
I liked Google when it was an innovative company, I don't like it now it's becoming MS in every bad sense of the word.
"Besides - you really think someone would be stupid enough to *pay* us for them?"
Dunno. How well do they burn? :-)
.. you need councelling. :-)
My problem is that I really have to start memorising a new series of words for this sort of crap. It makes "moron" a compliment, which isn't quite my intention. Even "room temperature IQ" won't do unless you qualify that that is at the North Pole with the windows open.. Sjeez.
This is the RIAA. We have found unauthorised used of Billy Joel lyrics, and the bill will be underway as soon as we figure out who you are. Ah. Dang. :-)
As for the main article, well, duh. That has exactly been the growing problem over the two decades or so: escaping consequences. Every time someone is allowed to hide behind a system, company or rule the problem grows, and does so exponentially. It's a cancer.
"Your passport doesn't work, sir"
"Oh sorry, I work in a metal factory. I guess the passport ought to have had shielding"
Oh yes - probably deniability..
I'm not entirely sure this is a load of bollocks, or a load about bollocks. :-)
.. compliance with local laws where it interferes with making money.
Just ask Japan or Switzerland..
Minor detail, AFAIK it's physics. In the main, however, you do voice my own doubts as well.
I have yet to come across ANY wireless transmission method that didn't incorporate a degree of loss.
I would have been FAR more interested in getting at last a Really Universal Power Supply (let's call it a RUPS) that could feed everything I jacked into it. My problem isn't plugging in, my problem is the vast plethora of chargers required to keep all this stuff going, which has partially driven my preference for anything USB connected.
However, from an eco perspective we're leaving the most obvious elements untouched: neon power lights. With what one of these uses you can almost light a room by using LEDs, yet they're in almost any power block I've used last year..
There is no f*cking way I will allow Google to plaster my house with ads, especially those I cannot control. If I don't allow people to deface the sides of my house, why should I allow this virtual graffiti?
Search term "abortion clinic" in your browser? All the ads may lead to pro life supporters (or imaging a abortion clinic ad plastered on a church). Tiger Woods' house? Ads for relationship agencies (as a matter of fact, I have already seen that with Google ads surrounding Tiger Woods reporting). Looking at Neverland? Hey, cool place to stick child protection ads..
Someone who doesn't support Google? I wonder what that house will get for ads..
It would be the equivalent of putting up all those ad boards, but without having to seek permission from the locals.
No way, not ever.
I can see your point, but there are two separate angles you must consider.
A developer needs to stand out, and prove himself. A contribution to an Open Source project creates credibility because not every code makes it into production, and the fact that you are confident of your skills to open up what you write helps too. So it doesn't DIRECTLY make you money, it contributes to you snagging a better job or work order - it strengthens your negotiations. It goes further, however, when you employed and know about Open Source, see next angle.
A company needs to operate as efficient as possible. For this it needs software. Software is never *just right*, it needs adapting - which means development work. Let's take CMS as an example: you can spend budget X on a proprietary solution, or you can spend part of it on an Open Source CMS and then PAY THE DEVELOPERS or other people involved to add the bits you need for your own company. The clever thing is then to push the changes back out to teh community because that gives you also marketing capital, but even if you don't you will get EXACTLY what you need for your own specific business, and still come in under the cost of proprietary solutions.
However, the original question was why a company wants to outright buy a FOSS product, and I must admit I'm a bit at a loss there. It could be to gain complete control (thus losing the community benefits, which is what I see happening with Zimbra) and sell proprietary versions - I don't like that approach because that's really taking advantage of the work of others, or to actually take it off the market, which is what I see happening with MySQL to great chagrin of banks. AFAIK, quite a lot of trading setups use MySQL because it's light and fast, it appears Postgresql cannot handle the large volume (that's what I was told, I'm no DB expert or coder). OpenOffice came to be because SUN wanted to harm MS's revenue base, another argument.
So, I can see developer and company benefit to using FOSS, less so to buy a whole project..
The USA was a pirate nation for the first 100 years of its existence, ripping off the patents and trademarks of the imperial European powers it had liberated itself from with blood. By keeping their GDP at home, the US revolutionaries were able to bootstrap their nation into an industrial powerhouse. Now, it seems, their descendants are bent on ensuring that no other country can pull the same trick off.
I could not have said it better, other than summarising it: hypocrites..
Can't be asked to look it up, but we've had dead people and grandmothers without PCs being set fanmail.
Ergo: it doesn't matter if you're guilty or not, you WILL have the aggravation and expense (if you look it up you'll see that being dead or elderly and not computer equipped appeared not a valid argument to cancel the process).
QED.
Nope - there is also a class of Slashdotters who work on the basis of factual evidence, and actually have a life.
I have both. Those researchers really need to work on their fact gathering. And sexual technique.
First off, the G-spot is a side effect from how we grow into man or woman, and it's easy to locate on a recent anatomic drawing.
Secondly, once you find it there isn't a chance you'll be allowed to forget it by your partner :-).
Thirdly, if you can't find it try getting her aroused first, that makes it easier to find. In some women it is the *only* way to find it, and I personally don't think you should approach the subject (and location) without that arousal anyway (tip: also keep your nails trimmed and filed). "Brace yourself" only worked for Mrs Doubtfire..
Fourth but not least, the Net isn't exactly short of instructions on how to locate it, which further suggests the researchers can't tell their rear end from their elbows (which may explain something :-).
Congratulations - you have scored the first ROFL class comment of 2010 for me.
Thanks (wiping tears out of my eyes). Hahahaha..
.. because the steaks are too high (quoting Tommy Cooper).
More, more!
.. it helps enormously if you're already aroused. Here too, foreplay is your friend.
Personally, I think they could not have shot themselves more accurately in their feet if they user laser sights. The G-spot is even anatomically documented - there was just a gap for a century when any extra pleasure centre was censored out of anatomical drawings (no, I kid you not) but these days anatomical drawings are accurate..
Duh duh duh.
Actually, isn't Angela Jolie on the lookout for a new, more creative and accepting mate? Hmm, research..
(ducks :-).
I don't recall you having any basis in study for your uttering. Just because you got rich hopping around on a stage wailing into a microphone doesn't make you an expert in everything.
No, all you have done now is discredited the good work you *did* manage to do.
I do not steal music, but I am just as likely to be dragged into court as anyone else because the detection methods used by the RIAA are (a) flawed and (b) irrelevant - they are not interested in the conviction per se, but the chilling effect. Well, they have chilled two things: (1) my respect for the legal system, as I have seen it abused in many ways over the last 8 years and (2) my enthusiasm for buying music - I switched to web radio instead. In the last 5 years I have bought ONE (1) CD, and I know I'm far from the only one.
You see, the RIAA idiots forget two things. Firstly, those they sue now would have been their future customers. Instead, by manipulating the amount of fines they will be denied a future. So, no future sales. Secondly, we age, which means what we like now is old tomorrow but we'll hang on to those records. Again, no new sales.
Last but not least, there is another chilling effect. For someone who is so-called "creative" you appear to have a short memory, or maybe that has been bought by the RIAA as well? Any creativity has roots, has examples. I have seen fantastic new ways in which music has developed based on examples people grew up with and experimented with.
What the RIAA is doing is chilling the experimental, the new growth. That leaves only the manufactured bands, with a few exceptions (when the singers accidentally have talent too) - and that is on the decline because it's unoriginal crap which requires (costly) marketing to sell. You could get a computer to make that stuff, and most sounds like it too.
So it's not just a child that dies every time you clap your hands (did you stop clapping?) - it's also the market that gave you the money to change from a moderately interesting singer to an idiot used by politicians and sales droids, and I haven't failed to notice that quite a few things you have been promoted involved making more money for the parties involved (like "RED" - buy our stuff and we'll give a -small- percentage to the cause). Yes, money ruins a lot - U2, it seems..
Sorry, that's BS. I have access to quite a lot of information and controls that could cause havoc if abused, and I share that situation with many other people, but it's insulting to suggest that it follows automatically that I (or others in my profession) *WILL* abuse that privilege - I have my own personal ethics which go well above any policy people can throw at me.
As an aside, I *love* audit records, because they have a flipside: they can provide extra evidence that adverse events were not the result of anything I did. Not that I have to prove my innocence, but it's nice to have the independent backup.
The basic fact is that someone must have an escalation route to that level of access, and it's no good pretending you don't. You can minimise that exposure, sure, but there will always be a few people who will have that privilege. The trick is to get hold of people who can handle that.
A couple of points.
1 - it appears that's ALL he did, so I wouldn't call that "systematic" abuse, this is to me more on the level of an expense fiddle or taking a company car home once.
2 - the guy ADMITS that he was wrong, in other words, he has at least the right view of his actions. To me that runs counter to your argument that he shouldn't be trusted with the guardianship, at least this guy seems to know right from wrong
3 - because of his admission he will be under far greater scrutiny than any "Mr Teflon" who has managed to get away with transgressions without anyone noticing. The latter is much more dangerous IMHO because they tend to grow into a view of considering their transgressions "normal".
4 - I am unwilling to hang someone for being a normal human being - I'm a normal guy too. It would be a bit like taking someone's driving license for life for going over the speed limit once. That approach is exactly what produced the modern politician, the "holier-than-thou" breed where managing press disclosure becomes more important than governing the country, and enabling newspapers to buy your privacy via your "friends". Case in point: Clinton vs Bush. One made the mistake of finding the only girl in town who didn't know how to clean a dress but created the first budget surplus in years, the other one appeared Mr Clean but wrecked the US and global economy by his actions. Bonus point for counting just how many laws Bush excluded himself from with signing statements.
BTW, the most perfectly managed transgression ever was with Sarkozy: when he was asked if he had a mistress (now his wife), he answered: "And?". Perfect answer, as it killed the sensation stone dead. OK, admittedly the French press is more restrained anyway, but from a publicity point of view it was the *perfect* answer..
You switch to LEDs to save energy, changing back strikes me as failing to address the root cause, temperature.
Where I live we have a couple of awkward corners so they mounted mirrors to allow people to see oncoming traffic. As we get snow, those mirrors have a built-in heating element that only switches on when it's cold - precisely the right idea.
If I recall correctly, there's also a self-regulating tape which is used to be embedded with water pipes to prevent them from freezing, so it's not like there aren't any solutions.
Just going back to wasting energy ALL THE TIME is mad IMHO.
As long as you make sure the isotopes give more light than the LEDs :-).
£25 per year per connection seems like a lot. In the US, the process can be largely automated
Sure, and that automation comes free of any hardware/software/maintenance/running costs, yes? Apart from the fact that ISPs should not be made into another defective police force there is also the small matter that UK Courts are in my experience, well, crap (I'm being polite here). I can't explain why judges are so far removed from reality other than that there are maybe drugs involved, and a conman with a good story gets away with murder. No normal, decent family stands a chance. It's actually amazing how close the US and UK have become in certain matters..
.. that it would STILL be better than Windows..
They do have a point, though. Why should a newspaper (and their online equivalent) pay tax when other companies can avoid it on the basis of what is basically BS?