I remember back when I started web development, Netscape (3|4) was the browser everyone loved to hate. It was the one you had to bend everything to fit for (resize fix, anyone?). IE4, on the other hand, was fantastic. You could make it do all sorts of cool things really easily. I thought it was the best toy in the shop.
Today, IE is the browser that has people swearing blue murder because of the amount of effort it takes to make a page that works properly in the other browsers look correct in IE. As someone pretty high up in the dev team, does this bother you/niggle your professional pride? And perhaps more importantly, are there any plans to try to win back the affection of the web dev community?
Personally, I think IE7 is a step in the right direction, but I think Netscape had to get to 7 or 8 before I started thinking it was a decent browser again - old hatreds die hard...
The really scary part is that when I tried that search, I got 13,000,000 results, implying that somewhat over 12 million/.ers have already quoted your figure...
What percentage of abuses were discovered? That's the next question.
Actually, to be reasonable about it, this is a very good question to which everyone seems to assume the answer is 'not many'.
If you think about it though, there are 3 possible answers. 1. All abuses were noted and investigated 2. Some (but not all) cases of abuse were spotted 3. 153 investigations took place. Some uncovered abuses, some were false alarms.
Now, I very much doubt number 1. The tinfoil hat wearing part of me says 2 is more likely. But you have to admit, it IS possible that the bureau went overboard, investigated every suspicious use of the law (after all, investigation is what they do), and that not all 'suspicous' activity was related to an actual abuse of power.
I guess that does suggest an overzealous protection-of-your-rights approach from a federal agency... but it is theoretically possible...
I drove three hours just to set up her printer... and failed miserably... the conclusion I had to make was that my favorite distribution wasn't ready for the vast majority of regular computer users out there
Heh, I've been there, my friend, just trying to install a mouse of all things (ok, it was an original apple ADB one-button-classic under gentoo, but still...). For comparison though, my GF borrowed a scanner from her parents to digitise all her holiday photos. Several hours of effort later, with a broadband connection, all the info the web can offer, AND the manufacturer's drivers, we still couldn't get it to work.
All this under Win2k.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that problems with hardware aren't unique to linux distros. Following your argument, I could say that Win2k isn't ready for the vast majority of regular computer users out there...
I'd agree that there are more unsupported/problematic hardware issues if you want to use linux, but I don't think that should be regarded as the root of the problem. Most people don't sort out their own hardware anyway - they expect it to just work when they take it home from the store.
I'd say the thing that is slowing Linux adoption on the home desktop is less the hardware drivers/support and more the fact that you're less likely to find a fully installed and properly configured linux kit when your mom wants to go looking for a new kit. Being able to buy a set-up and supported machine from a reputable vendor would fix most problems, I think.
Whilst it looks like the grandparent believes that the USA should own it, having been the first country to land people on it, as a non-US citizen I have to wonder if the US would abide by the terms of the treaty should you have the chance to claim the moon for your own.
Given the current US administration's disregard for every other treaty that got in their way, I'd have to say that I don't believe that the USA would adhere to it's treaty obligations.
Face it; whilst we (the people of the world, cooperatively) have agreements in place which should ensure that any developments on the moon or other bodies in the solar system 'shall be the province of all mankind', the world outside of the USA knows that your government has no respect for said agreements.
The tone of your post suggests to me that you're a decent human being; that you agree that the moon, mars and anywhere else we can get to shouldn't be owned by any earthly power. I'm heartened by the fact that there are US citizens who feel as you do (and I'm not being sarcastic). But the straight-up fact of the matter is that if there's a profit or military advantage to be had, recent history has shown that the government of the USA will be at the forefront of those trying to work their way around any applicable treaties, simply because you have the muscle to do so.
And that sucks, because most of the people I've met from the US are people like you, and I'd like to think we, as a species, have a chance.
My GF had a new card stolen from her mail, and only noticed 3 days later when her account was empty. The police went to the store where the largest purchase was made and caught the thieves from the CCTV footage.
I'm going with the 'public place, CCTV warnings all over, you should expect your privacy to be compromised, especially since you're on someone else's property' position.
Flame on:)
Slightly on-topic (sorry, I had to), some form of card initialisation would have prevented this happening. It was the fact that the card worked straight out of the envelope that allowed the scumbags to spend the money.
Not only that, but even today, some companies still force Nutscrape 4 support - a six year old browser IIRC.
I found a nice answer to this problem. In the UK, under the disability discrimination act, a company and it's agents (ie the new media company they hired to do it) have a legal responsibility to make their website accessible to everyone; I think the wording is something along the lines of 'a reasonable effort'.
Netscape4 compatible code doesn't get through the w3c's html validator, and I don't think anyone can argue that using valid html is unreasonable.
So when someone tells me a site has to work in NS4, I tell them that doing so would leave them (and us) open to lawsuits, examples of which have been fought and won by people with disabilities who rightfully feel that they've been discriminated against. I give the project manager a choice between legal liability and an extra tiny fraction of a percent market share, and I haven't had to break standards compliance for years.
I've got a friend who used to do weather pattern modelling at the Met office. Apparently they've got statistical modelling predictions for at least 6 months. The problem is, after a week or so, the probabilities of getting a type of weather on a certain day drops too low to have any kind of certainty about it.
Somehow, I can't see swamping their sensing wavelengths with noise is going to improve that.
The most useful (?) piece of info he came out with is that there's one prediction that is consistently 75% accurate.
Personally, as another islander, I'd have to say that in my experience, a fair percentage of the population of Paris are arrogant bastards.
But then, I'd also say that a fair percentage of Londoners are obnoxious wankers with their own share of arrogance. Not for nothing do the residents of London enjoy a certain reputation around the rest of the country.
I wouldn't call either group representative of the general population of their countries though. Most of the French people I've met here or in France have been genuinely nice, friendly people. Same goes for the 'fat loud obnoxious yanks' mentioned earlier - most Americans are decent interesting people.
There just seems to be something about living in large cities that destroys people's consideration for others. Nothing to do with the country...
Actually, I think the reason most people think pngs produce larger filesize images is that most professional graphics bods use photoshop, which, despite being a fantastic bit of software, is shit at optimising pngs.
Heh, they've noticed your link - it redirects back to yro.slashdot.org:)
For those of you who might still want to go have a look at these bastards, and, I dunno, maybe refresh the page a couple of dozen times while you read their blurb, here's another link to those fuckers.
Well, then assume I'm stupid and show me exactly where this evidence is. If there's so damn much of it, it shouldn't take you any time at all to provide examples.
No can do, man. The SCO business model is the new Black.
According to the filing as read by me on groklaw, SCO's attempt to impose extra licensing requirements puts them in breach of GPL section 5, which terminates their right to distribute under section 4. (ianal, could have read it completely wrong)
IBM has IP in linux that they have only licensed under GPL. If SCO has no GPL rights, they have no right to distribute the code, and they're therefore infringing IBM's copyright.
I've never met an American I didn't like (ok, that's a lie, I met one guy I thought was a total wanker, and there's always those loud-mouthed why-won't-you-accept-dollars tourists, but hey, British tourists suck too). Individually, in my experience, you're good people. Collectively, as a country...
The US government comes across as the Microsoft of global politics. It seems like there's nothing they won't do to further the US cause. They agree to global standards, and then blow them off when it suits them.
The hatred of MS around here is, as I reckon you all know and play along with, more than they deserve - they're 'evil'. But it doesn't kill anyone.
The interesting trend here is for individual laws of nations to be "leveled" or "normalized" to reflect the laws of other nations only because it simplifies the economic situation to do so
For this to be a good thing, you have to assume that the normalised sovereign law is beneficial to the populace of the countries that are covered by the treaty. I get your good law, you get mine...
the W.T.O. turns out to be a tool to not only resolve trade disputes but also to (attempt to) force nations to change their laws.
It could just be my opinion, but I don't think a nation (or its representatives) should sign up to international treaties if they aren't going to treat them as law in their own countries. I believe that's what a treaty is supposed to be, a legal agreement between nations to act in a certain way.
Some nations don't appear to respect this basic rule of civilisation.
I know this might be an unpopular viewpoint here, but I'd ask you to hear me out, and if I'm wrong, reply and explain why.
I'm aware that most of the currently proposed uses for drm are... well, I tend to think of them as unethical, or immoral. Proposals like reinforcing MS's product activation scheme, or anti-competitive measures (ie if drm validation costs money, how are small companies going to compete?)
This article _does_ present some good arguments in favour of it. A lot of Americans around here question the use of e-voting (whole 'nuther discussion), and rightly, I think. What if drm could give you a more foolproof method of ensuring an honest ballot? How about if you could register your kit against your credit card? Do you think the e-commerce industry (which I'd guess a lot of us work in) would benefit? How about being able to validate a mail server's hardware signature against a known spammer list? IPs can be spoofed.
At the moment, I think we've got a hell of a lot more bathwater than babies, and I think the companies and organisations pushing this are doing so purely because they see profit and/or financial safety in it. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad idea (or, at least, not an idea that doesn't have any beneficial uses).
I'm thinking of it like this; you can write and sell an operating system with a view to making everyone pay for your product. Lock them in. Make them dependant on your other products. Charge them for it, and for upgrades every too often.
Or, you can build one and give it away because _you_ happen to have a particular use for it, and you like the idea too much not to try it.
I'd vote more often if I could do it from my kit and could trust the system. I'd probably buy groceries from my local store if I could order it online and they'd deliver, and I knew I could enter my card details on a cheap website. And I definitely don't need this much spam.
I think it's worth looking at, even if there aren' t any immediately obvious "I'd like this" uses. It might all turn out to be shit, but there might be some good things we could do with this.
Damn, GF got on a train three hours ago, and I'm already drunk, stoned and re-reading my./ posts for grammar and presentation...
...any country in the EU that gets in a fight with any country that has access to handheld GPS systems should have the right to destroy the GPS system (well, they'd be forced to, right?).
This is more like bullying tactics - the argument basically comes out as 'You play by our rules or we might have to destroy your new toys'. I can see the point he's making, but I can't see that the US (or any other country) has any right to make a demand like this for their military convenience.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember back when I started web development, Netscape (3|4) was the browser everyone loved to hate. It was the one you had to bend everything to fit for (resize fix, anyone?). IE4, on the other hand, was fantastic. You could make it do all sorts of cool things really easily. I thought it was the best toy in the shop.
Today, IE is the browser that has people swearing blue murder because of the amount of effort it takes to make a page that works properly in the other browsers look correct in IE. As someone pretty high up in the dev team, does this bother you/niggle your professional pride? And perhaps more importantly, are there any plans to try to win back the affection of the web dev community?
Personally, I think IE7 is a step in the right direction, but I think Netscape had to get to 7 or 8 before I started thinking it was a decent browser again - old hatreds die hard...
Why wait for the revolution before taking any other action? Your position is ridiculous.
Why assume there's a revolution coming? Your assumption that everyone wants to live in a country just like yours is similarly ridiculous.
The really scary part is that when I tried that search, I got 13,000,000 results, implying that somewhat over 12 million /.ers have already quoted your figure...
Actually, to be reasonable about it, this is a very good question to which everyone seems to assume the answer is 'not many'.
If you think about it though, there are 3 possible answers.
1. All abuses were noted and investigated
2. Some (but not all) cases of abuse were spotted
3. 153 investigations took place. Some uncovered abuses, some were false alarms.
Now, I very much doubt number 1. The tinfoil hat wearing part of me says 2 is more likely. But you have to admit, it IS possible that the bureau went overboard, investigated every suspicious use of the law (after all, investigation is what they do), and that not all 'suspicous' activity was related to an actual abuse of power.
I guess that does suggest an overzealous protection-of-your-rights approach from a federal agency... but it is theoretically possible...
I drove three hours just to set up her printer ... and failed miserably ... the conclusion I had to make was that my favorite distribution wasn't ready for the vast majority of regular computer users out there
Heh, I've been there, my friend, just trying to install a mouse of all things (ok, it was an original apple ADB one-button-classic under gentoo, but still...).
For comparison though, my GF borrowed a scanner from her parents to digitise all her holiday photos. Several hours of effort later, with a broadband connection, all the info the web can offer, AND the manufacturer's drivers, we still couldn't get it to work.
All this under Win2k.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that problems with hardware aren't unique to linux distros. Following your argument, I could say that Win2k isn't ready for the vast majority of regular computer users out there...
I'd agree that there are more unsupported/problematic hardware issues if you want to use linux, but I don't think that should be regarded as the root of the problem. Most people don't sort out their own hardware anyway - they expect it to just work when they take it home from the store.
I'd say the thing that is slowing Linux adoption on the home desktop is less the hardware drivers/support and more the fact that you're less likely to find a fully installed and properly configured linux kit when your mom wants to go looking for a new kit. Being able to buy a set-up and supported machine from a reputable vendor would fix most problems, I think.
By international treaty, no nation can own the moon.
Whilst it looks like the grandparent believes that the USA should own it, having been the first country to land people on it, as a non-US citizen I have to wonder if the US would abide by the terms of the treaty should you have the chance to claim the moon for your own.
Given the current US administration's disregard for every other treaty that got in their way, I'd have to say that I don't believe that the USA would adhere to it's treaty obligations.
Face it; whilst we (the people of the world, cooperatively) have agreements in place which should ensure that any developments on the moon or other bodies in the solar system 'shall be the province of all mankind', the world outside of the USA knows that your government has no respect for said agreements.
The tone of your post suggests to me that you're a decent human being; that you agree that the moon, mars and anywhere else we can get to shouldn't be owned by any earthly power. I'm heartened by the fact that there are US citizens who feel as you do (and I'm not being sarcastic). But the straight-up fact of the matter is that if there's a profit or military advantage to be had, recent history has shown that the government of the USA will be at the forefront of those trying to work their way around any applicable treaties, simply because you have the muscle to do so.
And that sucks, because most of the people I've met from the US are people like you, and I'd like to think we, as a species, have a chance.
Ok, start the fun - they do this in england :)
:)
My GF had a new card stolen from her mail, and only noticed 3 days later when her account was empty. The police went to the store where the largest purchase was made and caught the thieves from the CCTV footage.
I'm going with the 'public place, CCTV warnings all over, you should expect your privacy to be compromised, especially since you're on someone else's property' position.
Flame on
Slightly on-topic (sorry, I had to), some form of card initialisation would have prevented this happening. It was the fact that the card worked straight out of the envelope that allowed the scumbags to spend the money.
I found a nice answer to this problem. In the UK, under the disability discrimination act, a company and it's agents (ie the new media company they hired to do it) have a legal responsibility to make their website accessible to everyone; I think the wording is something along the lines of 'a reasonable effort'.
Netscape4 compatible code doesn't get through the w3c's html validator, and I don't think anyone can argue that using valid html is unreasonable.
So when someone tells me a site has to work in NS4, I tell them that doing so would leave them (and us) open to lawsuits, examples of which have been fought and won by people with disabilities who rightfully feel that they've been discriminated against. I give the project manager a choice between legal liability and an extra tiny fraction of a percent market share, and I haven't had to break standards compliance for years.
I've got a friend who used to do weather pattern modelling at the Met office. Apparently they've got statistical modelling predictions for at least 6 months. The problem is, after a week or so, the probabilities of getting a type of weather on a certain day drops too low to have any kind of certainty about it.
Somehow, I can't see swamping their sensing wavelengths with noise is going to improve that.
The most useful (?) piece of info he came out with is that there's one prediction that is consistently 75% accurate.
Tomorrow's weather? Same as today.
Let me repeat an earlier post:
commercial software, binary only, Intel
There's nothing 'open' about this. It's just a publicly declared 'standard'. It's a bunch of companies agreeing on a set of rules that they own.
There's no free beer or speech here.
Isn't that one of the obvious security risks businesses face these days? Ex-employees walking off with sensitive data?
Good idea, methinks. I like this one.
Ok, troll away...
Cool.
:)
Let's go
Personally, as another islander, I'd have to say that in my experience, a fair percentage of the population of Paris are arrogant bastards.
But then, I'd also say that a fair percentage of Londoners are obnoxious wankers with their own share of arrogance. Not for nothing do the residents of London enjoy a certain reputation around the rest of the country.
I wouldn't call either group representative of the general population of their countries though. Most of the French people I've met here or in France have been genuinely nice, friendly people. Same goes for the 'fat loud obnoxious yanks' mentioned earlier - most Americans are decent interesting people.
There just seems to be something about living in large cities that destroys people's consideration for others. Nothing to do with the country...
Actually, I think the reason most people think pngs produce larger filesize images is that most professional graphics bods use photoshop, which, despite being a fantastic bit of software, is shit at optimising pngs.
The GIMP does a much better job of it.
Heh, they've noticed your link - it redirects back to yro.slashdot.org :)
:)
For those of you who might still want to go have a look at these bastards, and, I dunno, maybe refresh the page a couple of dozen times while you read their blurb, here's another link to those fuckers.
Enjoy
...stop with the misleading headlines already. I want my pr0n!
testing/testing works all over the place too :)
Well, then assume I'm stupid and show me exactly where this evidence is. If there's so damn much of it, it shouldn't take you any time at all to provide examples.
No can do, man. The SCO business model is the new Black.
btw, you owe me $699...
Natalie portman. That's what he's thinking.
For those of you who (like me) regularly check groklaw for updates and news, they've got a cut down headlines-only page.
= Headlines
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page
That page puts less stress on their server, so if you'd like to help reduce their bandwidth costs...
According to the filing as read by me on groklaw, SCO's attempt to impose extra licensing requirements puts them in breach of GPL section 5, which terminates their right to distribute under section 4. (ianal, could have read it completely wrong)
IBM has IP in linux that they have only licensed under GPL. If SCO has no GPL rights, they have no right to distribute the code, and they're therefore infringing IBM's copyright.
...why so many people dislike Americans.
I've never met an American I didn't like (ok, that's a lie, I met one guy I thought was a total wanker, and there's always those loud-mouthed why-won't-you-accept-dollars tourists, but hey, British tourists suck too). Individually, in my experience, you're good people. Collectively, as a country...
The US government comes across as the Microsoft of global politics. It seems like there's nothing they won't do to further the US cause. They agree to global standards, and then blow them off when it suits them.
The hatred of MS around here is, as I reckon you all know and play along with, more than they deserve - they're 'evil'. But it doesn't kill anyone.
US foreign policy does.
The interesting trend here is for individual laws of nations to be "leveled" or "normalized" to reflect the laws of other nations only because it simplifies the economic situation to do so
For this to be a good thing, you have to assume that the normalised sovereign law is beneficial to the populace of the countries that are covered by the treaty. I get your good law, you get mine...
the W.T.O. turns out to be a tool to not only resolve trade disputes but also to (attempt to) force nations to change their laws.
It could just be my opinion, but I don't think a nation (or its representatives) should sign up to international treaties if they aren't going to treat them as law in their own countries. I believe that's what a treaty is supposed to be, a legal agreement between nations to act in a certain way.
Some nations don't appear to respect this basic rule of civilisation.
I may have missed your point...
I know this might be an unpopular viewpoint here, but I'd ask you to hear me out, and if I'm wrong, reply and explain why.
./ posts for grammar and presentation...
I'm aware that most of the currently proposed uses for drm are... well, I tend to think of them as unethical, or immoral. Proposals like reinforcing MS's product activation scheme, or anti-competitive measures (ie if drm validation costs money, how are small companies going to compete?)
This article _does_ present some good arguments in favour of it. A lot of Americans around here question the use of e-voting (whole 'nuther discussion), and rightly, I think. What if drm could give you a more foolproof method of ensuring an honest ballot? How about if you could register your kit against your credit card? Do you think the e-commerce industry (which I'd guess a lot of us work in) would benefit? How about being able to validate a mail server's hardware signature against a known spammer list? IPs can be spoofed.
At the moment, I think we've got a hell of a lot more bathwater than babies, and I think the companies and organisations pushing this are doing so purely because they see profit and/or financial safety in it. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad idea (or, at least, not an idea that doesn't have any beneficial uses).
I'm thinking of it like this; you can write and sell an operating system with a view to making everyone pay for your product. Lock them in. Make them dependant on your other products. Charge them for it, and for upgrades every too often.
Or, you can build one and give it away because _you_ happen to have a particular use for it, and you like the idea too much not to try it.
I'd vote more often if I could do it from my kit and could trust the system. I'd probably buy groceries from my local store if I could order it online and they'd deliver, and I knew I could enter my card details on a cheap website. And I definitely don't need this much spam.
I think it's worth looking at, even if there aren' t any immediately obvious "I'd like this" uses. It might all turn out to be shit, but there might be some good things we could do with this.
Damn, GF got on a train three hours ago, and I'm already drunk, stoned and re-reading my
...any country in the EU that gets in a fight with any country that has access to handheld GPS systems should have the right to destroy the GPS system (well, they'd be forced to, right?).
This is more like bullying tactics - the argument basically comes out as 'You play by our rules or we might have to destroy your new toys'. I can see the point he's making, but I can't see that the US (or any other country) has any right to make a demand like this for their military convenience.