Ah, the fun with "melt"--I think every first-time Apollo user got hit with that one.
Just to make my points more briefly, by MS-Dos 3.0 it was well known that one needed a virus scanner/disk cleaner. And the internet worm of 1988 was devastating. I still assert that by the end of the 80s O/S vendors had no excuse for ignoring security concerns. Unixes slowly got better (took Sun until about 1995 to clean up the easy SunOS hacks), but the Microsoft platforms didn't. VMS could be locked down, though often wasn't.
Dude, I think I'm older than you--I remember when my job first gave me a 2400 baud modem, and at the time thinking ruefully of all the time I had wasted with 300 baud modems. I still have a Codex 2264 modem (It's the size of a shoebox, has a three prong plug and a fan, and seems to be immortal).
As to your contention that microsoft gets a pass because nobody thought of security back "then", I'll take "then" to be the 10 years immediately prior to the release of Windows 3.0. Multi-user PCs were a well-known concept to every student who's done work in the general-population 'computer lab'. Remember Banyan, Appletalk, Netware (you mentioned it)? They may not have been Microsoft products, but they were ubiquitous. Unix workstations (Apollo, Sun, Microvax, etc.) were in very common use among engineers and product designers, and they all were networked. (of course, most unixes and VMS versions were very hackable, but that was part of the fun)
What's more, there were thousands of anti-mal-ware software products for MS-DOS, some samples here. The virus vector was BBS downloads and floppy disks rather than open port attacks or browser overruns, but the concept of attacking PCs was already well known. So, no, Microsoft does not "get a pass" for a security problem that nobody could have predicted (sarcasm). They made conscious choices to de-emphasize and ignore security in order to maintain market share at all costs. The economics proved them correct, so far, but they still should carry the blame for those choices.
This is yet another example of how you can't retrofit security; the first Windows versions were designed when security wasn't even an issue, when the Internet was barely a twinkle in Al Gore's eye.
Uh, no. The internet was already alive and well and quite mainstream in academe in the early 80s, when Microsoft still thrashing around with early versions of MS-DOS, and networked PCs were well-known by the late 80s. Even before that almost every PC came with a modem.
So, no, sorry, Microsoft does not get a pass for allegedly having developed windows in some misty time of yore when "security wasn't even an issue". Security was an issue on MS-DOS, for modem-using consumers, academic networks of shared PCs, and especially for corporate deployments.
Sigh. Please toss the straw man off your bandwagon. I recall saying "prefer", not "never". Inheritance has its uses, but over-application of inheritance is the most common mistake programmers make in their first five years out of school.
The point of inheritance is to express the author's intent in the class hierarchy, to express the Is-A relationship. The Uses, or Is-Very-Similar-To-In-Behavior relations are not Is-A. Repeat after me, "Implementation Inheritance is a four-letter word, Implementation Inheritance is a four-letter word..." Rookies don't even understand why superclasses should almost always be abstract, even in Java.
(Not picking on your gui project, insufficient detail to criticize usefully. If in java, I hope you're using interfaces to express the required subclass implementation).
So if the Google "Caste System" is exceptional in that it promotes software developers over others in the corporation, what does that say about the "caste" rankings in most companies? Or do we only start seeing phrases like "caste system" when big media companies feel threatened by successful businesses using disruptive methods?
This rather reminds me of Wall Street's desperate attempts to declare the Google auction IPO a failure, even after Google got more than twice the dollars per share than they would have in an investment bank-priced IPO. If you can't beat them, have your puppet press hang an ugly label on them.
You claim equivalence of ID and evolution in this statement:
I'm claiming that neither should be taught as fact. Both (or neither) can be given as possible explanations for the origin of life.
You also include a straw-man, "the origin of life". Evolutionary theory does not explain the existence of the universe either. So what? It is not directed towards origin of life or existence of the universe. That does not diminish its utility in explaining and predicting how species change over time. Once again, sophistry: Look, evolution doesn't explain X! Therefore it is just as faith-based as ID! (or you could call this Chewbacca science)
As one (evolutionist) poster said earlier, ID and evolution are both MODELS.
I did not write that quote, but since you cite it I will take it that you claim ID provides a "model". Ok, what does it model--what can I use it to model and make a prediction of when an event will occur?
Finally, would you please explain what you mean by "macro-evolution"? I don't want the goal-posts moved on me if I try to respond to anything you say about "macro-evolution". Is it speciation?
You're welcome. But you're employing sophistry when you say because our current knowledge of the mechanics of DNA mutation cannot predict exactly when "macro-evolution" (do you mean speciation?) will occur, therefore a 100% faith based theory is equivalent to one that provides an accurate statistical prediction in short-life-spanned creatures, and can be used to produce repeatable results and explain the rate of fossil change over time.
Look, you're welcome to your faith, and should I see you proselytizing in the airport I wouldn't bother you (unless you get in my face like a Hairy Fishnut). But, this slashdot article is about the attempt to use the apparatus of Kansas government to force the teaching of a faith-based theory in science class, to the children of those who have no use for it. Even if no direct harm is done to the kids (such as making them ineligible for med school or life sciences research), the time given to the teaching of ID comes at the expense of something useful that could be taught.
You're welcome to screw up your own kids. Don't fuck with mine.
I'm not aware of any fossil evidence showing half-way mutated species.
Sophistry, again. How do you prove a given fossil is not half-way mutated? Oh, and if you'd like a living beastie, how about the duck-billed platypus?
The overall problem with your reasoning is that you're saying essentially: Since evolutionary theory can't be completely verified due to the absense of a working time machine (bidrectional), therefore any other theory that is not completely verifiable is also acceptable. Never mind that ID is 100% non-verifiable and is useless for precition, whereas evolutionary theory does have predictive value.
No, it is not science; it is rechanneled christian creation myth. Think of it this way--in the absence of creation mythology (whatever religion), would a researcher be likely to attribute complexity to intelligent design, or to the observable competitive forces acting upon organisms where the more successful mutations generally add complexity?
And by the way, evolution has been observed in real time, in animals with short lifespans. The only reason we don't directly observe it in humans is that each of us gets to observe at most, three generations. Meanwhile, we keep finding those danged homind fossils--did the intelligent designer put them there? What? He's ominipotent, too? Sounds like christian creation myth to me.
Learn the truth about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, essentially intelligent design with the diety replaced by the flying spaghetti monster. No more provable/disprovable than ID, and lots more fun.
IBM customers can use the Google-IBM search combination by buying IBM products and services and building their own in-house system or rely on IBM to create a pre-packaged system, tailored to the company's industry, the company said.
Does IBM websphere licensing or IBM Global Services even look at any any accounts under seven figures? (not sure, maybe they go as low as six figures) Seems like this would most likely be an incremental thing sold to existing websphere accounts--I can't see anyone embracing websphere just to get this search capability.
Um, is this Microsoft plus 350 other companies averaging 42 lawsuits apiece? Kind of like the average net worth of the people in a bar going to one billion dollars when Bill Gates walks in?
Electricity to electrolysis to hydrogen to fuel cell to electricity is very inefficient. You'd be better off pumping water uphill and using it to run a turbine, as some British Columbia utilities did during the power "crisis" of 2000 and 2001. (though they pumped at night, and ran the turbine during the day) Maybe for a household one could spin up a flywheel?
This will probably get slapped down pretty quickly via the interstate commerce clause of the constitution. State regulations still might apply to people selling within the state, but somehow I don't think there's too many North Dakotans selling to other North Dakotans, as opposed to out of state. Large states (CA, NY, TX) simply won't be that stupid, at least, not if governors and state legislators want to be re-elected.
Interstate Commerce Clause
Think of all the bad (yes, there were many good ones) Mel Brooks films that devolved into on-screen musicals. I dunno, but it seems like musicals are *the* vehicle for directors to attempt a recapture of past glory.
Now that is genuinely interesting. I hadn't thought of the need to apply "certificates of standards compliance" to open source projects, and didn't know RUP had its hooks into US gov procurements. Are there also requirements for CMM or (gawdhelpus) ISO9000 certs?
IBM is "donating" the methods of RUP to open source projects? I thought IBM liked open source?
As far as RUP goes, it's kind of like communism. Looks good in theory, but goes all pear-shaped when real human beings get involved. Pull the UML out of RUP and leave it at that--the rest is madness, enobling "process" over productivity.
Science is complex. More often than not very well-trained and experienced scientists get it completely wrong
Bzzt. No. Scientists do not "get it completely wrong" more than 50% of the time. What kind of anti-intellectual tripe are you trying to push here? Because genuine science defines the statistical limits within which a result is believed to be correct, therefore it is "wrong"?
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, the fun with "melt"--I think every first-time Apollo user got hit with that one.
Just to make my points more briefly, by MS-Dos 3.0 it was well known that one needed a virus scanner/disk cleaner. And the internet worm of 1988 was devastating. I still assert that by the end of the 80s O/S vendors had no excuse for ignoring security concerns. Unixes slowly got better (took Sun until about 1995 to clean up the easy SunOS hacks), but the Microsoft platforms didn't. VMS could be locked down, though often wasn't.
As to your contention that microsoft gets a pass because nobody thought of security back "then", I'll take "then" to be the 10 years immediately prior to the release of Windows 3.0. Multi-user PCs were a well-known concept to every student who's done work in the general-population 'computer lab'. Remember Banyan, Appletalk, Netware (you mentioned it)? They may not have been Microsoft products, but they were ubiquitous. Unix workstations (Apollo, Sun, Microvax, etc.) were in very common use among engineers and product designers, and they all were networked. (of course, most unixes and VMS versions were very hackable, but that was part of the fun)
What's more, there were thousands of anti-mal-ware software products for MS-DOS, some samples here. The virus vector was BBS downloads and floppy disks rather than open port attacks or browser overruns, but the concept of attacking PCs was already well known. So, no, Microsoft does not "get a pass" for a security problem that nobody could have predicted (sarcasm). They made conscious choices to de-emphasize and ignore security in order to maintain market share at all costs. The economics proved them correct, so far, but they still should carry the blame for those choices.
Malor said:
This is yet another example of how you can't retrofit security; the first Windows versions were designed when security wasn't even an issue, when the Internet was barely a twinkle in Al Gore's eye.
Uh, no. The internet was already alive and well and quite mainstream in academe in the early 80s, when Microsoft still thrashing around with early versions of MS-DOS, and networked PCs were well-known by the late 80s. Even before that almost every PC came with a modem.
So, no, sorry, Microsoft does not get a pass for allegedly having developed windows in some misty time of yore when "security wasn't even an issue". Security was an issue on MS-DOS, for modem-using consumers, academic networks of shared PCs, and especially for corporate deployments.
Sigh. Please toss the straw man off your bandwagon. I recall saying "prefer", not "never". Inheritance has its uses, but over-application of inheritance is the most common mistake programmers make in their first five years out of school.
The point of inheritance is to express the author's intent in the class hierarchy, to express the Is-A relationship. The Uses, or Is-Very-Similar-To-In-Behavior relations are not Is-A. Repeat after me, "Implementation Inheritance is a four-letter word, Implementation Inheritance is a four-letter word..." Rookies don't even understand why superclasses should almost always be abstract, even in Java.
(Not picking on your gui project, insufficient detail to criticize usefully. If in java, I hope you're using interfaces to express the required subclass implementation).
Learn why derivation is a good thing, learn inheritance,
Uh, better yet, learn why you should prefer composition over inheritance.
...and we're better looking, too.
So if the Google "Caste System" is exceptional in that it promotes software developers over others in the corporation, what does that say about the "caste" rankings in most companies? Or do we only start seeing phrases like "caste system" when big media companies feel threatened by successful businesses using disruptive methods?
This rather reminds me of Wall Street's desperate attempts to declare the Google auction IPO a failure, even after Google got more than twice the dollars per share than they would have in an investment bank-priced IPO. If you can't beat them, have your puppet press hang an ugly label on them.
Uh, just who is the opposition here to waterless urinals?
Hot on the heals...
What, Skype heals as well as connects people? IT IS A SIGN! THE SECOND COMING IS NIGH!
Or maybe slashdot editors are the worst fucking users of english since the Beverley Hillbillies?
I know, I know, -1 redundant for flaming a mangled slashsubmission, but holy shit, can't the editors even proof the first goddamned sentence?
You claim equivalence of ID and evolution in this statement:
I'm claiming that neither should be taught as fact. Both (or neither) can be given as possible explanations for the origin of life.
You also include a straw-man, "the origin of life". Evolutionary theory does not explain the existence of the universe either. So what? It is not directed towards origin of life or existence of the universe. That does not diminish its utility in explaining and predicting how species change over time. Once again, sophistry: Look, evolution doesn't explain X! Therefore it is just as faith-based as ID! (or you could call this Chewbacca science)
As one (evolutionist) poster said earlier, ID and evolution are both MODELS.
I did not write that quote, but since you cite it I will take it that you claim ID provides a "model". Ok, what does it model--what can I use it to model and make a prediction of when an event will occur?
Finally, would you please explain what you mean by "macro-evolution"? I don't want the goal-posts moved on me if I try to respond to anything you say about "macro-evolution". Is it speciation?
You're welcome. But you're employing sophistry when you say because our current knowledge of the mechanics of DNA mutation cannot predict exactly when "macro-evolution" (do you mean speciation?) will occur, therefore a 100% faith based theory is equivalent to one that provides an accurate statistical prediction in short-life-spanned creatures, and can be used to produce repeatable results and explain the rate of fossil change over time.
Look, you're welcome to your faith, and should I see you proselytizing in the airport I wouldn't bother you (unless you get in my face like a Hairy Fishnut). But, this slashdot article is about the attempt to use the apparatus of Kansas government to force the teaching of a faith-based theory in science class, to the children of those who have no use for it. Even if no direct harm is done to the kids (such as making them ineligible for med school or life sciences research), the time given to the teaching of ID comes at the expense of something useful that could be taught.
You're welcome to screw up your own kids. Don't fuck with mine.
I'm not aware of any fossil evidence showing half-way mutated species.
Sophistry, again. How do you prove a given fossil is not half-way mutated? Oh, and if you'd like a living beastie, how about the duck-billed platypus?
The overall problem with your reasoning is that you're saying essentially: Since evolutionary theory can't be completely verified due to the absense of a working time machine (bidrectional), therefore any other theory that is not completely verifiable is also acceptable. Never mind that ID is 100% non-verifiable and is useless for precition, whereas evolutionary theory does have predictive value.
It is science, just weak science.
No, it is not science; it is rechanneled christian creation myth. Think of it this way--in the absence of creation mythology (whatever religion), would a researcher be likely to attribute complexity to intelligent design, or to the observable competitive forces acting upon organisms where the more successful mutations generally add complexity?
And by the way, evolution has been observed in real time, in animals with short lifespans. The only reason we don't directly observe it in humans is that each of us gets to observe at most, three generations. Meanwhile, we keep finding those danged homind fossils--did the intelligent designer put them there? What? He's ominipotent, too? Sounds like christian creation myth to me.
Learn the truth about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, essentially intelligent design with the diety replaced by the flying spaghetti monster. No more provable/disprovable than ID, and lots more fun.
From TFA:
IBM customers can use the Google-IBM search combination by buying IBM products and services and building their own in-house system or rely on IBM to create a pre-packaged system, tailored to the company's industry, the company said.
Does IBM websphere licensing or IBM Global Services even look at any any accounts under seven figures? (not sure, maybe they go as low as six figures) Seems like this would most likely be an incremental thing sold to existing websphere accounts--I can't see anyone embracing websphere just to get this search capability.
Um, is this Microsoft plus 350 other companies averaging 42 lawsuits apiece? Kind of like the average net worth of the people in a bar going to one billion dollars when Bill Gates walks in?
Electricity to electrolysis to hydrogen to fuel cell to electricity is very inefficient. You'd be better off pumping water uphill and using it to run a turbine, as some British Columbia utilities did during the power "crisis" of 2000 and 2001. (though they pumped at night, and ran the turbine during the day) Maybe for a household one could spin up a flywheel?
This will probably get slapped down pretty quickly via the interstate commerce clause of the constitution. State regulations still might apply to people selling within the state, but somehow I don't think there's too many North Dakotans selling to other North Dakotans, as opposed to out of state. Large states (CA, NY, TX) simply won't be that stupid, at least, not if governors and state legislators want to be re-elected. Interstate Commerce Clause
Think of all the bad (yes, there were many good ones) Mel Brooks films that devolved into on-screen musicals. I dunno, but it seems like musicals are *the* vehicle for directors to attempt a recapture of past glory.
Yeah, yeah. I should have said "Looks plausible in theory" but fell into the cliche instead.
Now that is genuinely interesting. I hadn't thought of the need to apply "certificates of standards compliance" to open source projects, and didn't know RUP had its hooks into US gov procurements. Are there also requirements for CMM or (gawdhelpus) ISO9000 certs?
IBM is "donating" the methods of RUP to open source projects? I thought IBM liked open source?
As far as RUP goes, it's kind of like communism. Looks good in theory, but goes all pear-shaped when real human beings get involved. Pull the UML out of RUP and leave it at that--the rest is madness, enobling "process" over productivity.
And the product name is, wait for it, Microsoft DIVX.
Science is complex. More often than not very well-trained and experienced scientists get it completely wrong
Bzzt. No. Scientists do not "get it completely wrong" more than 50% of the time. What kind of anti-intellectual tripe are you trying to push here? Because genuine science defines the statistical limits within which a result is believed to be correct, therefore it is "wrong"?
Google has something that Microsoft doesn't - a brand name that's used as a verb.
Oh, I don't know that Microsoft doesn't have a brand name used as a verb... tell me, what comes to mind when i say "FUD"?