I bet these are both private schools. Generally private schools are a little harder to get into than public schools (though no always!) and are very expensive. Because they make most of their money from tuition and alumni donations they will do almost anything to keep from flunking a student. Including holding little Johnny's hand in class so he will look at the boring professor instead of the naked girls in his laptop.
Public schools are a lot cheaper and usually easier to get into. The result is that they are actively TRYING to flunk people out. Their main worry about little Johnny's in class porn problem is that they don't want to be sued for sexual harrasment by sweet Sue who just happens to see a gyno shot while looking over Johnny's shoulder while trying to take notes. They also don't want Johnny to use the net during a test. IMing your buddy who aced the test for answers or sending the test questions to his idiot buddies might help people pass when they should be flunked out.
Worry #1, we are making the assumption that we CAN identify encrypted communications. We've seen a number of posts on/. about steganography. Just sitting here for 5 minutes I've come up with at least 4 ways to exchange encrypted and non-encrypted information in ways that don't involve sending obviously encrypted information via email. They don't involve email at all. I'm not going to out line them because I'm suddenly very paranoid about who may by reading this...
Worry #2, "it starts when you're always afraid, step outta line, the man come and take you away, we better stop..." Will the simple act of sending and encrypted email make you a suspected terrorist?
Stonewolf
Quotation from "For What It's Worth" By Stephen Stills
I don't know how it affects other people but this is my story...
I once had a job doing software development where I worked at home full time. The first thing I noticed was that I spent a lot more time working. Instead of getting to work between 8 and 9 a.m. I was getting to my PC at 7:00 a.m. Instead of taking an hour to get out of the office and eat lunch I was taking 10 minutes to make a sandwich in the kitchen and eating as I worked. Instead of getting up from my desk, driving home, and putting work aside for the day I worked until my wife came home. I helped make dinner, ate, and then went back to work. I went to bed some after 10 p.m. In other words, my 8 to 10 hour workday turned into a 14 to 16 hour workday. Yeah, I watered the lawn, did the dishes, and did some laundry. But, that didn't take an hour out of the day.
After a while I got so lonely that I started driving over to a mall to eat lunch just to see people.
I eventually found another job where I had to actually go to work. I learned that I work much harder when I supervise my self than I have ever work for any one else.
Long term studies of telecommuters conducted by IBM show that in the long run there is a bout a 30% increase in productivity of telecommuting employees and due to reduced infrastructure costs there is also a great reduction in cost per employee.
What can I do to help?
What can I do to make sure nothing like this happens to ANYONE again?
What must I NOT do because it will just make things worse?
They are celebrating because they are fools. They think that hurting the US will make the US treat them better. In fact, the video of those celebrations will be shown all over the US for days, and the vast majority of the citizens of the US will react with horror. They will come away believing that the Palestinians are a deadly threat to the US. Over the last century we have seen many cases where countries and groups took actions against the US that showed that they had no understanding of the basic psychology of the American people.
Historically the US has reacted to deadly threats not by backing away from them, but by near total destruction of the threat. The last time someone hurt us this badly we nuked two of their cities. At the time we only had two nukes.
The TV is reporting that a Palestinian group conducted these attacks. No matter who did it many Americans will believe that it was done by Palestinians. Over the last 5 years public opinion in the US has been turning toward the Palestinians and away from the Israelis.
But now, this attack will rate up their with the loss of the Battleship Maine and the attack on Pearl Harbor. Who ever has done this has doomed themselves, and they have destroyed Palestine as well.
If you are religious this would be a good time to pray that no nukes are used in retaliation. There will be retatliation. Even God can't stop that.
I've done a lot of different kinds of volunteer work. I like it because it makes me feel like I am helping the world be a better place. Writing free software gives me the same feeling, only better.
Why is it better than volunteering at a school or helping set up a public education event? Because those things can only reach a small number of people and then they fade away. Open Source software can help many many people from now until... well, forever? And what I do can either improve something that already exists or it can become the basis of new things that help even more people.
On a purely selfish note it is also a way to advertise your expertise. And, a great way to learn. What better way to learn than to write something as well as you can and then expose it to the world and be told what is wrong with it and how to fix it?
Here in Austin Good Will has their own computer store and they are glad to take parts. They sell complete computers and they also sell parts. Great place to pick up a working computer cheap.
I've donated crates of old hardware and software to them.
Please contrast and compare TRAC and Forth. Please concetrate on the applications you see each being suited for. Also, tell us why they are still relavant in the modern world?
I've implemented both languages (20 to 25 years ago) and find them both to be gems. Well worth studying.
Stonewolf
Cynicism is not always a good thing...
on
Linux Is 10 Today
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Ten years ago I saw a posting from Linus about his new operating system. I read it. I remember he was asking for people to help him develop it. I thought it sounded very very nice. I started to compose an email back to him telling him that I would devote all my spare time to the project and make it my lifes goal to support it.
And then I said, "Yeah.... right.... Some college kid is going to implement UNIX. Yeah... Walk away slowly..." And I deleted the partially composed email.
They say the only things you truely regret are the things you didn't do. Well, I KNOW that is not true, but not sending that email is something I DO regret.
If we paid teachers as well as we pay engineers or doctors most of the people who are currently teaching would be out of a job in five years.
Why? Because if we paid teachers that much then a lot of people who decided to study harder subject (to get the higher pay) would study teaching instead. With the result that there would be a lot of competition for teaching jobs and the smarter people would get them.
Personally, it would be worth the higher taxes to see the current crop of teachers kicked out.
I pulled down the code from Bailey's site (http://www.nersc.gov/~dhbailey/piqp.c) and have been playing with it this morning. In at least one place the code as written expects there to be 64 bits of fraction in a double (normally 64 bits total) floating point number. So, I assume he runs this on a machine where double is at least 80 bits long.
So, before we all go off building what ever you build out of a PI digit generator, check the code carefully. And test it. Looks like it may have some precision problems with large digit indices.
According to the contents of the actual ruling, the legal definition of a monopoly in the US is controlling roughly 70% of the market. But, the real test is whether or not the company has monopoly powers. I.e the ability to force other people to do things based on their control of a market.
Also, being a monopoly is not illegal as long as you don't use the power of the monopoly to hurt competition. The court ruled that Microsoft is a monopoly and that they did use their monopoly power to hurt competition.
No matter what you might WANT to think, looking up a definition in a dictionary is no substitute for reading the ruling and seeing how the court used guidance from 100 years of supreme court decisions to come to the conclusions they came to. You have to consider what is happening in the historic context of US monopoly laws.
Reality is a lot more complex than you seem to want it to be. Get used to it.
No, Microsoft has not beaten the US Government. Despite what the boys in Redmond have told you and the press they lost. And, they lost BIG TIME. They have been found guilty in a US Federal Appeals court of illegaly abusing their monopoly.
The appeals court decided that since the lower court judge acted as if he may be biased to let another judge decide how to punish Microsoft.
I have noticed that we Americans have a very hard time putting "paid" to a moral debt. So, no matter that we bailed out the French in WWI and WWII and tried to help you in Viet Nam and the rest of southeast asia (where we stuck around long after the French gave up and got our asses whooped) we still feel some sort of a debt from the help you gave us during the revolution, the war of 1812, and for the Statue of Liberty. And, it PISSES US OFF. (I have never claimed that we Americans are rational. If you ever seen the weird liqour laws here you know what I'm talking about.)
When you look at the balance sheet it looks pretty even to me. I think the Normandy invasion and freeing the whole country should balance one big statue and a century or two of protectionism. They don't call it the longest day for nothing. Especially considering that we could have skipped the entire invasion and just waited until we had enough nukes and B36s to turn Germany into a waste land.
And if that doesn't balance things then trying to help France reclaim its empire in southeast asia certainly does.
So why don't we just call it even and get on with finding new reasons to hate each other? Honestly, I've never understood why we Americans love the British and hate the French it should be the other way around. (See what I said about Americans and rationality.)
I'll bet people said exactly the same thing when the first integrated circuits were put onto boards with discrete components.
This is a first step. The second step will put more functionality into the nano device. In the end you'll see a few microcircuits left for interfacing between the nanocircuits and the macro world with all the funtionality in the nanocircuits.
This is a strong indication that the DOJ has given up trying to negotiate a settlement with
Microsoft. DOJ has the ability to negotiate for
as long as they want to before asking the court
to send the case back for a new punishment trial.
Asking for the case to be sent back to the lower
court means that DOJ has either given up trying to settle the case with Microsoft, or they are
putting strong pressure on Microsoft to negotiate.
Considering the astonishing statements that
Microsoft executives have made about what the
appeal court ruling means and the equally astonishing statements they have made about what is or is not negotiable I have no doubt that the DOJ has given up on them and will let the court decide.
One thing you should really understand about this case. What I have seen in the press about what the appeals courts did and said ranges from highly "spun" to out right lies. The only way you can get a true understanding of how much trouble Microsoft is in is to read the appeals court ruling. Everything that Microsft has said about the ruling is a blatant and total lie.
StoneWolf
P.S.
IANAL, but for self protection I have learned to read a contract and a court ruling.
One of the ways that Microsoft established its monopoly was by tolerating a certain level of software theft. They didn't make a big deal out of companies casually using a few unlicensed copies of their software. They had licenses that encouraged people to use their copy of Office at work and at home where it often wound up on several PCs.
For home users they made it very easy to buy one copy of a new version of Windows and then install it on every PC in the house. I remember having to reinstall a version of Windows (95 I think) after a complete reformat of my drive. Even though I only had an "upgrade" copy of the OS (completely legal BTW) it let me install the OS even though it couldn't find any verification that I was entitled to an upgrade.
The result is that Windows and Office spread and became required for doing business.
Now that the monopoly is firmly established Microsoft is doing what monopolies do best, raising the prices above the level that would normally be supported by the market. They are doing it two ways First, by simply raising prices, have you LOOKED at the price of Office 2000? Secondly, by going after all the people who were actually encouraged or forced by Microsoft's monopoly power to steal copies.
The law is very clear on this subject, Microsoft and the BSA appear to have every right to do what they are doing. But, theft is not always morally wrong. If my family were starving I would not hesitate to steal to feed them. On the other hand, I have argued with cashier to get them to take back the extra dollar of change they gave me. It is a gray area of morality. Being poor does not give you the right to steal from the rich. But, being rich does create (in my mind) and obligation to help the poor.
No matter the law or the morality of the situation if Microsoft did not have a monopoly and did not abuse its monopoly power, this situation could not have happened.
Recently I found a deal on a stack of used laptops. So, I bought them. (Each came with a fully document license for a copy of Windows BTW.) And, I've been slowly selling them at a nice profit.
Funny thing though... 3/4ths of the calls I get end when I explain that no, I will NOT put a "free" copy of Office 2000 on a laptop. People come right out and DEMAND that I put a stolen copy of Office on the laptops as a condition of buying it.
The first time it happened the end of the call went something like this:
SW: You want me to buy a copy of Office 2000 and install it for you? I can do that, but I'll have to charge you for my time.
Customer: Great! So the finaly price will be, what about $600?
SW: Right, that's for the laptop, plus something for my time and whatever I have to pay for Office 2000.
Customer: No no! I'm not going to PAY for Office...
SW: Uh, mayber I'm being stupid, but I don't see how I make any money giving away software that costs as much as Office.
Customer: Yuu put a copy on every laptop you sell...
SW: Soooo, I'm supposed lose hundreds of dollars per laptop?
Customer: NO! You just buy one copy and use it on every computer you sell!.
SW: OH! So, you want me to STEAL a copy of Office for you?
Cusotmer: Well, if you want to put it that way...
SW: No, I don't do that. Do you want the laptop or not?
Customer: click
At least 3/4ths of my potential customers ask or expect me to steal Office for them. Some are even SURPRISED, that I won't do that. And no, they won't accept a copy of StarOffice as an alternative.
So, I have to say the Microsoft has something when they claim there is a lot of software theft going on. On the other hand, people would just buy it if it wasn't so DAMN expensive. On the third hand, the combination of a crack down on theft and very high prices will result in people using other product.
In a way... Microsoft's crack down on theft may go a long way to restoring the free market in Office software products.
Allows the lawyers to bill this guy? The lawyers work for Adobe, Adobe has to pay them. Adobe has ALREADY paid them or they wouldn't be doing this. The only way they can bill this poor fellow is if they win a court judgement.
Comply with the rest of the letter. But when it comes to money tell them to piss up a rope. Point out that there is no money to sue for and they will probably just go away.
It was because of the scandal that erupted when it was revealed that the show was based on the Book Of Mormon. There was a VERY strong negative reaction at the time. Does anyone know if the new version of the show will continue with the Mormon based theology?
I say, "Art is anything created with the intent of causing an emotional response."
Notice the difference between the definitions. The first two cannot be tested or argued. My definition, can be used to test to see if something is "art." Although my definition may well be crap, at least it can be tested.
So, I bet that by my definition of art, your work is ART.
Trouble is, that MY definition is highly influenced by rational scientific thinking. On the few occasions I have tried this definition out on "real" artists the reaction was either bafflement or extreme rage. "How dare you try to quantify the eneffable! Next, you'll be trying to define God. Or the trying to understand the origin of the Universe!"
On the other hand, a good friend of mine got through his MFA by doing paintings in which he recreated the "glowing" colors seen on computer screens. It seems that a painting of a computer screen was accepted as "art" while an image on a computer screen was not.
Slashdot Mirror
I bet these are both private schools. Generally private schools are a little harder to get into than public schools (though no always!) and are very expensive. Because they make most of their money from tuition and alumni donations they will do almost anything to keep from flunking a student. Including holding little Johnny's hand in class so he will look at the boring professor instead of the naked girls in his laptop.
Public schools are a lot cheaper and usually easier to get into. The result is that they are actively TRYING to flunk people out. Their main worry about little Johnny's in class porn problem is that they don't want to be sued for sexual harrasment by sweet Sue who just happens to see a gyno shot while looking over Johnny's shoulder while trying to take notes. They also don't want Johnny to use the net during a test. IMing your buddy who aced the test for answers or sending the test questions to his idiot buddies might help people pass when they should be flunked out.
Stonewolf
Worry #0, I actually agreed with JonKatz...
/. about steganography. Just sitting here for 5 minutes I've come up with at least 4 ways to exchange encrypted and non-encrypted information in ways that don't involve sending obviously encrypted information via email. They don't involve email at all. I'm not going to out line them because I'm suddenly very paranoid about who may by reading this...
Worry #1, we are making the assumption that we CAN identify encrypted communications. We've seen a number of posts on
Worry #2, "it starts when you're always afraid, step outta line, the man come and take you away, we better stop..." Will the simple act of sending and encrypted email make you a suspected terrorist?
Stonewolf
Quotation from "For What It's Worth" By Stephen Stills
I don't know how it affects other people but this is my story...
I once had a job doing software development where I worked at home full time. The first thing I noticed was that I spent a lot more time working. Instead of getting to work between 8 and 9 a.m. I was getting to my PC at 7:00 a.m. Instead of taking an hour to get out of the office and eat lunch I was taking 10 minutes to make a sandwich in the kitchen and eating as I worked. Instead of getting up from my desk, driving home, and putting work aside for the day I worked until my wife came home. I helped make dinner, ate, and then went back to work. I went to bed some after 10 p.m. In other words, my 8 to 10 hour workday turned into a 14 to 16 hour workday. Yeah, I watered the lawn, did the dishes, and did some laundry. But, that didn't take an hour out of the day.
After a while I got so lonely that I started driving over to a mall to eat lunch just to see people.
I eventually found another job where I had to actually go to work. I learned that I work much harder when I supervise my self than I have ever work for any one else.
Long term studies of telecommuters conducted by IBM show that in the long run there is a bout a 30% increase in productivity of telecommuting employees and due to reduced infrastructure costs there is also a great reduction in cost per employee.
Stonewolf
Let it out slowly...
Now ask yourself:
What can I do to help?
What can I do to make sure nothing like this happens to ANYONE again?
What must I NOT do because it will just make things worse?
Take another deep breath...
Let it out slowly...
Now, go do what you know is right.
Stonewolf
They are celebrating because they are fools. They think that hurting the US will make the US treat them better. In fact, the video of those celebrations will be shown all over the US for days, and the vast majority of the citizens of the US will react with horror. They will come away believing that the Palestinians are a deadly threat to the US. Over the last century we have seen many cases where countries and groups took actions against the US that showed that they had no understanding of the basic psychology of the American people.
Historically the US has reacted to deadly threats not by backing away from them, but by near total destruction of the threat. The last time someone hurt us this badly we nuked two of their cities. At the time we only had two nukes.
The TV is reporting that a Palestinian group conducted these attacks. No matter who did it many Americans will believe that it was done by Palestinians. Over the last 5 years public opinion in the US has been turning toward the Palestinians and away from the Israelis.
But now, this attack will rate up their with the loss of the Battleship Maine and the attack on Pearl Harbor. Who ever has done this has doomed themselves, and they have destroyed Palestine as well.
If you are religious this would be a good time to pray that no nukes are used in retaliation. There will be retatliation. Even God can't stop that.
Stonewolf
I've done a lot of different kinds of volunteer work. I like it because it makes me feel like I am helping the world be a better place. Writing free software gives me the same feeling, only better.
Why is it better than volunteering at a school or helping set up a public education event? Because those things can only reach a small number of people and then they fade away. Open Source software can help many many people from now until... well, forever? And what I do can either improve something that already exists or it can become the basis of new things that help even more people.
On a purely selfish note it is also a way to advertise your expertise. And, a great way to learn. What better way to learn than to write something as well as you can and then expose it to the world and be told what is wrong with it and how to fix it?
Stonewolf
I've donated crates of old hardware and software to them.
Stonewolf
I've implemented both languages (20 to 25 years ago) and find them both to be gems. Well worth studying.
Stonewolf
And then I said, "Yeah.... right.... Some college kid is going to implement UNIX. Yeah... Walk away slowly..." And I deleted the partially composed email.
They say the only things you truely regret are the things you didn't do. Well, I KNOW that is not true, but not sending that email is something I DO regret.
Stonewolf
Why? Because if we paid teachers that much then a lot of people who decided to study harder subject (to get the higher pay) would study teaching instead. With the result that there would be a lot of competition for teaching jobs and the smarter people would get them.
Personally, it would be worth the higher taxes to see the current crop of teachers kicked out.
Stonewolf
StoneWolf
So, before we all go off building what ever you build out of a PI digit generator, check the code carefully. And test it. Looks like it may have some precision problems with large digit indices.
StoneWolf
Also, being a monopoly is not illegal as long as you don't use the power of the monopoly to hurt competition. The court ruled that Microsoft is a monopoly and that they did use their monopoly power to hurt competition.
No matter what you might WANT to think, looking up a definition in a dictionary is no substitute for reading the ruling and seeing how the court used guidance from 100 years of supreme court decisions to come to the conclusions they came to. You have to consider what is happening in the historic context of US monopoly laws.
Reality is a lot more complex than you seem to want it to be. Get used to it.
StoneWolf
The appeals court decided that since the lower court judge acted as if he may be biased to let another judge decide how to punish Microsoft.
This is a huge loss for Microsoft.
StoneWolf
When you look at the balance sheet it looks pretty even to me. I think the Normandy invasion and freeing the whole country should balance one big statue and a century or two of protectionism. They don't call it the longest day for nothing. Especially considering that we could have skipped the entire invasion and just waited until we had enough nukes and B36s to turn Germany into a waste land.
And if that doesn't balance things then trying to help France reclaim its empire in southeast asia certainly does.
So why don't we just call it even and get on with finding new reasons to hate each other? Honestly, I've never understood why we Americans love the British and hate the French it should be the other way around. (See what I said about Americans and rationality.)
StoneWolf
StoneWolf
This is a first step. The second step will put more functionality into the nano device. In the end you'll see a few microcircuits left for interfacing between the nanocircuits and the macro world with all the funtionality in the nanocircuits.
StoneWolf
Considering the astonishing statements that Microsoft executives have made about what the appeal court ruling means and the equally astonishing statements they have made about what is or is not negotiable I have no doubt that the DOJ has given up on them and will let the court decide.
One thing you should really understand about this case. What I have seen in the press about what the appeals courts did and said ranges from highly "spun" to out right lies. The only way you can get a true understanding of how much trouble Microsoft is in is to read the appeals court ruling. Everything that Microsft has said about the ruling is a blatant and total lie.
StoneWolf
P.S.
IANAL, but for self protection I have learned to read a contract and a court ruling.
For home users they made it very easy to buy one copy of a new version of Windows and then install it on every PC in the house. I remember having to reinstall a version of Windows (95 I think) after a complete reformat of my drive. Even though I only had an "upgrade" copy of the OS (completely legal BTW) it let me install the OS even though it couldn't find any verification that I was entitled to an upgrade.
The result is that Windows and Office spread and became required for doing business.
Now that the monopoly is firmly established Microsoft is doing what monopolies do best, raising the prices above the level that would normally be supported by the market. They are doing it two ways First, by simply raising prices, have you LOOKED at the price of Office 2000? Secondly, by going after all the people who were actually encouraged or forced by Microsoft's monopoly power to steal copies.
The law is very clear on this subject, Microsoft and the BSA appear to have every right to do what they are doing. But, theft is not always morally wrong. If my family were starving I would not hesitate to steal to feed them. On the other hand, I have argued with cashier to get them to take back the extra dollar of change they gave me. It is a gray area of morality. Being poor does not give you the right to steal from the rich. But, being rich does create (in my mind) and obligation to help the poor.
No matter the law or the morality of the situation if Microsoft did not have a monopoly and did not abuse its monopoly power, this situation could not have happened.
StoneWolf
Funny thing though... 3/4ths of the calls I get end when I explain that no, I will NOT put a "free" copy of Office 2000 on a laptop. People come right out and DEMAND that I put a stolen copy of Office on the laptops as a condition of buying it.
The first time it happened the end of the call went something like this:
SW: You want me to buy a copy of Office 2000 and install it for you? I can do that, but I'll have to charge you for my time.
Customer: Great! So the finaly price will be, what about $600?
SW: Right, that's for the laptop, plus something for my time and whatever I have to pay for Office 2000.
Customer: No no! I'm not going to PAY for Office...
SW: Uh, mayber I'm being stupid, but I don't see how I make any money giving away software that costs as much as Office.
Customer: Yuu put a copy on every laptop you sell...
SW: Soooo, I'm supposed lose hundreds of dollars per laptop?
Customer: NO! You just buy one copy and use it on every computer you sell!.
SW: OH! So, you want me to STEAL a copy of Office for you?
Cusotmer: Well, if you want to put it that way...
SW: No, I don't do that. Do you want the laptop or not?
Customer: click
At least 3/4ths of my potential customers ask or expect me to steal Office for them. Some are even SURPRISED, that I won't do that. And no, they won't accept a copy of StarOffice as an alternative.
So, I have to say the Microsoft has something when they claim there is a lot of software theft going on. On the other hand, people would just buy it if it wasn't so DAMN expensive. On the third hand, the combination of a crack down on theft and very high prices will result in people using other product.
In a way... Microsoft's crack down on theft may go a long way to restoring the free market in Office software products.
StoneWolf
The Salt Lake City Tribune and the local TV stations news shows in SLC.
Comply with the rest of the letter. But when it comes to money tell them to piss up a rope. Point out that there is no money to sue for and they will probably just go away.
StoneWolf
It was because of the scandal that erupted when it was revealed that the show was based on the Book Of Mormon. There was a VERY strong negative reaction at the time. Does anyone know if the new version of the show will continue with the Mormon based theology?
StoneWolf
The Artist says, "Whatever I DO is art."
I say, "Art is anything created with the intent of causing an emotional response."
Notice the difference between the definitions. The first two cannot be tested or argued. My definition, can be used to test to see if something is "art." Although my definition may well be crap, at least it can be tested.
So, I bet that by my definition of art, your work is ART.
Trouble is, that MY definition is highly influenced by rational scientific thinking. On the few occasions I have tried this definition out on "real" artists the reaction was either bafflement or extreme rage. "How dare you try to quantify the eneffable! Next, you'll be trying to define God. Or the trying to understand the origin of the Universe!"
On the other hand, a good friend of mine got through his MFA by doing paintings in which he recreated the "glowing" colors seen on computer screens. It seems that a painting of a computer screen was accepted as "art" while an image on a computer screen was not.
StoneWolf