Also funny because...
on
Hacker Culture
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· Score: 3, Interesting
...most hackers have traditionally been found in, on, or near large, well-computerized research universities.
In fact, that person sitting next to you in class could be a hacker! Your prof could be a hacker! Your friendly school janitor could be a hacker!
(Are you now, or have you ever been a hacker?)
Heh...
Academicians have been talking about hackers for a long time. (I seem to recall writing a paper on the subject for a grad school class, and doing some reading up for it, anyway.) Maybe people just didn't notice until now.
Personally, I think Cringely's idea is pretty good. Unfortunately, I don't think most people are brave enough to try it. I also think a lot of people aren't principled enough to put their money where their mouths are, but that's another story.
Reminds me of Jello Biafra talking about "conservatives on the farty old left" and un-fun protests: "You know what we're going to do? We're going to have *meetings,* dammit!"
Sigh. (Otherwise, click the sig link and check out my rant on the mechanics of dollar voting!)
...if Porche made cars the average person could afford (or was willing to pay), they might find themselves suddenly occupying a far larger niche than they do now, on name alone.
Likewise, I can tell just from reading Slashdot that there are a lot of people out there with "Mac envy," who'd really like a chance to use a Mac, but who either won't or can't pay for the hardware. Me, I'd join up in a split instant.
I wonder what would happen if all of us on RIAA boycott wrote nice letters to the RIAA saying "Well, I make X per year, and of that, I would normally spend Y on CDs, but because of your policies, I have decided to spend my money elsewhere." If enough of those letters came in, I wonder if they'd sit up and take notice.
It certainly works at the microcosm level -- check out the look on the store manager's face when you tell him, "See this money? I was going to spend all of that here today, but since you don't carry this band, and this band, and this band, I'm going to spend it down the street at the cool music store where they do, instead." (BTW, I learned this tactic from Jello Biafra, and it's quite effective, at least on the small scale. I notice that our local HMVs have started carrying the Dead Kennedys and TISM again...)
The problem with opt-out dollar voting is that unless you specifically make your targets aware that they're losing sales, they don't notice, or attribute it to the right cause.
I always use my teeth to strim wires - are they illegal too?
So does my SO. He's got notches in his teeth in a variety of gauges -- handy, but only good for the dentist's wallet in the long run.
Also, he is a journalist, and has spent so much time messing with hardware over the last 30 years or so, he might as well be an engineer...
In any case, they're not likely to haul people with wire-stripping tooth notches away to jail anytime soon -- a lot of wrongfully-arrested tailors/seamstresses/costumers (ever heard of a "tailor's notch"?) could make a pretty big stink.:)
What Canada are you living in? Not my Canada, apparently. I've watched the US go charging off blindly, led by a cadre of "chickenhawks" (war-mongers who were "otherwise engaged" when their turn to go fight in wars came along), looking to attack anyone and anything that might even be remotely connected in some vague manner to terrorist attacks. So far, their "reasoned, intelligent, and graceful" response has given the world
a so-called "war" on Afghanistan, despite no real proof's ever coming out that Afghanistan was really involved in the Sept. 11th attacks;
a looming "war" with Iraq, for no apparent reason other than that GWB doesn't like Saddam Hussein;
a $50B increase in military spending in the US, an increase which by itself alone is more than the military budget of any other country in the world;
a steady erosion of US civil liberties and rights, including the imprisonment without due process of two American citizens on spurious charges (Lindh and Padilla) as "enemy combatants";
an extraterritorial concentration camp for unfortunate POWs in Guantanamo Bay;
the odious phrase "regime change" and a resurgence in the belief that the US has the right to effect such changes worldwide by dictatorial fiat, military force, or covert operations;
a steadily worsening situation in the Middle East, particularly involving Israel, Palestine, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, possibly because of the eschatological beliefs of the US government's three major players;
a "perpetual war for perpetual peace" bred out of (as far as I can see) a revenge mentality and a refusal to accept the last death. (As Martin Luther King said, "An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.");
the US's disregard for international criminal courts (such as the ICC, to which the US is opposed) and the rule of law shifting from tacit assumption to formal policy, making explicit the seeming belief of US policy-makers that there are two sets of rules: one for the US and one for everyone else.
Well, if these are the results of a reasoned, intelligent, and graceful response, I'd hate to see the results if they just decided to act out of nationalistic fury...
Slashdot affect
on
0wnz0red
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Except that judging from the writing around here, most Slashdotters wouldn't know the difference...
Affect and effect are two different words, people.
But seriously, on topic, I really liked that Doctorow story. The beginning was definitely a bit klunky by my standards, but by the middle it started to pick up quite a bit. The self-conscious (or didn't you guys catch that part?) references to '1337-speak' (the written language with no spoken form!) were rather amusing.
It's nice to see someone play with language, and it's nice to see someone who apparently knows a little bit of something (instead of a whole lot of nothing) about computers writing speculative fiction, for a change. Or don't you guys get a little bit annoyed about totally impossible (instead of wildly improbable) computers (and/or technology) in speculative fiction?
Also, another question: Considering all the geek holy wars, can geeks truly be said to have a demographic?
As Robertson Davies said about another United church, would that be the "oatmeal of" Linux?
He said that the United Church is "the oatmeal of religion." I'm not sure the United church IS a real religion. First of all, its members can't even seem to decide what its credos are. (Go read the editorial page of the United Church Observer if you doubt me.) Secondly, it's a mangling of about three other denominations.
Hmm, do I see a trend here? Maybe they're run by the same people!:)
Interrobang, whose parents are (inexplicably) Uniteds, and who is Divided in Linux, and absolutely unchurched
Well, at one time you folks wanted it all, and at one time, you folks didn't want parts of MI or WI... Make up your minds!
(Actually, I'm not so sure where this fabled "inaccuracy" would come in, since the Canada/US border follows the 49th parallel through most of the countries, and bisects the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway for most of the rest of it.)
...where the RIAA is legally allowed to break into your computer and DDoS you, and you are legally allowed to use any hacking trick necessary to plug the software's "security holes," bugs, flaws and other "undocumented features" (to stop them), and so on. Boy, it could be fun for just...minutes!
I've never heard anyone mention UNIX while rapping. I think I'd kinda like that, given the apparent intelligence level in most (but not all) popular music.
Anyone out there got any hardcore geek music? I don't mean MC Hawking, either, but you can check it out for chuckles.
Hey, the paper didn't suck...the design of the UI sucks. Learn to parse a sentence. English doesn't come with software to do that for you...which is probably why so many code jockeys are so bad at it.
I'd put the paper up somewhere and share it with everyone, but the original's sadly gone to Data Heaven, and the disk copy is probably in the same pocket universe as half the rest of my stuff...
Related case in (original) point, the button on Netscape that used to say "Guide" in English said "Guide" in German, because the direct translation is der Fuehrer.
Sloppy thinking. I mock in their general direction.
Not only that, but the metaphorics are equally cringe-worthy.
Might he be onto something?
on
GUIs for Everyone
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· Score: 3, Interesting
When I was in grad school, I did a paper on the Windows interface from an end-user design perspective, and it sucks. Surely there are other ways to handle a GUI that might make sense.
"Don't they have something better to do during the summer than hack our site?" asked the RIAA representative, who asked not to be identified. "Perhaps it at least took 10 minutes away from stealing music."
I thought it would be April 1.
Since it's not, we might as well throw the petulant Anonymous Coward RIAA rep a pity party, 'cause they've certainly got their streamers up! Ok, 1, 2, 3...
AWWW!!
I still can't quite believe that article isn't satire.
Coming from my perspective, DRM is not "more imprortant than any previous civil rights battle" (I value my right to vote, and, unlike 50% of your country, I actually vote!).
While it is very important to be as free as possible (the "Fire!" principle) from censorship, full citizenship (for women, non-white people, the handicapped, gays and lesbians etc.) is much more important. Those who have the franchise (and historically have always had the franchise) are more easily able to overlook it. After all, when you are a second-class citizen, you have NO rights at all, never mind a curtailment of your freedom of speech!
Also, could you get a little more arrogant?
As the US government turns it's back on the Bill of Rights, hope for freedom in this world grows dim. There's no place left to run.
That's funny. I don't see much of anything happening to my freedom...but I don't have a Bill of Rights, either (I have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms). Why don't you Americocentrists travel outside the US and see for yourselves why pronouncements like the above make us a little annoyed?
Just so you know what to look out for: the watermarking/DRM equipment will most likely not be expensive.... The keys to produce and widely distribute DRM/watermarks will be expensive.
Either way, the --ahem-- key word is expensive. I think that's what the content-brokerage cartel wants, but that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it.
Forced watermarking could be a very bad idea for all of us who produce music/movies/literature in our basements (or reasonable hand-drawn facsimiles). Where am I, a piker who puts together stuff with a PC and freeware, going to get expensive watermarking equipment?
Likewise, what would be the impact on those of us who don't live in the US, but might want to export our created media there (I have a lot of US friends and I like to share)?
What about independent record labels etc. within the US who don't particularly mind people sharing their music? I seem to remember one of the original Dead Kennedys albums came on one side of a cassette tape, with an inscription in the liner notes something like "Home-recorded cassettes are killing the music industry. Go and do your part."
Even though one poster had the valid point that this bill seems to be aimed at direct copyright infringement, where the MP/RIAA and friends are concerned, the definition of "copyright infringement" seems to be "any media transaction where we don't take a cut." We (here in Canada) already have levies on blank media (yeah, the equivalent to the MP/RIAA gets paid for every CD-ROM backup I make) -- what more could they want? Our first-born children? Our souls?
Good, finally a company doing what is right for the people that OWN the company. I guess Enron, Worldcom and a few others should have done that too.
Actually, believing that shareholders "own" the company, and that the most important thing to do is to keep the shareholders happy is precisely what got Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, and others in trouble -- they were so concerned with inflating (artificially) their share prices (to benefit their insider-trading shareholders) that they lost track of what really drives businesses' success or failure: keeping their customers (internal or external) happy. Speculation is precisely that: speculation. It truly doesn't create wealth (in any conventional sense), but it certainly has the potential to destroy it, as we learned when the entire Enron pension fund went belly-up.
Let's hope that HP has a little more sense than to let shareholders dictate their entire company policy out of their self-interests (what about HP's customers?), whether or not Perens ever goes on stage. Still, I thought it would have been interesting to see.
Legal issues aside, I'm not sure how Perens' planned demonstration would affect HP customers...
Yes, I agree with you. I'm not even technically a "computer person," if that isn't some horrible pun. Trained rhetoricians (who make their living tech writing) also like "explicitly described meaning," and tend to get really upset when people generalize words to the point where they have no meaning anymore (and not because that's just the way the language is moving, but to sell a product [?!]).
Could OpenSource have evolved without this strange commodity we call "free time?" Most of human history was involved with very few activities: eating, sleeping, reproducing, fighting, and running away from things try to kill you. Only in the last few centuries have societies evolved with "free time" built into them.
Well, that depends on how you define "the last few centuries." If you're talking 100 or 150 centuries, or so, you're probably right. That's not, incidentally, my definition of "a few."
Anthropologists will tell you that the traditional or customary pattern of human life is long-ish periods of inactivity or mild activity, punctuated by short periods of backbreaking labour (the "punctuated equilibrium" I tossed off in the title). Even today, farming works this way, as many things only need to be done three or four weeks a year, and only can be done between sunup and sundown.
"Free time" (not a commodity, by the way) is what produced those astonishing paleolithic art objects (such as the Willendorf "Venus" or the Lascaux cave paintings), the first textiles (and most textile products [weaving, spinning, embroidering, sewing] until well into the 20th century), music, and religion. Depending on where you live, those winter nights (and days) are long, and there's not much to do, really, or those summer days are long, and it's too hot to do much. These types of patterns continue even today in many, if not most, cultures around the world.
What has this to do with Open Source? Well, Open Source in and of itself is not precisely a new idea, just sort of a new variation on and old idea. In earlier times, anyone would be free to look at anything produced by a local artist, artisan, or crafter, and imitate it/improve upon it as best he or she could. (In fact, some cultures, such as among the habitant girls in New France, improvements [in this case, in embroidery skills and patterns] are/were ritualized into a game, often with very specific social meaning.)
So if you want to build yourself a bog dress from someone else's pattern, you can (and you could if you lived in Moy centuries ago, too), just as you can take someone else's source code and build yourself a customized program that fits your needs like a tailored garment fits your body.
software to connect information, people, systems and services
That's not a definition, that's a mission statement. And like all mission statements I've ever seen, it's generalized (in the specific rhetorical sense) to the point of meaninglessness, and therefore, uselessness.
Microsoft, I mock in your general direction. With all that money, you can't find higher-calibre copywriting talent than that?! (Actually, having seen some of their press releases and other "marketing collateral," I now know that software isn't all Microsoft does badly.)
I dunno, sounds like a teenage starlet to me. Or maybe a teenage porn starlet.;)
[shrugs] Hell, if I were going to market myself as a porn starlet, I'd choose a name just like that...kinda Vassar-y in an amoral sort of way, or something.
Getting away from the porn angle, what is it with these people's parents and their bright ideas for naming their kids anyway? (I pity the next generation, where everyone's classes will have three Tuckers, a Fisher, and a Taylor, 4/5ths of whom will be girls, choose any four.)
"If you do not want a thing heard, do not say it." The amended version might be, "If you do not want a thing heard, do not say it online." I think most of the people named in this article (with the possible exception of the Palestinian guy, who's liable, in this political climate, to be dumped on no matter what he says) are just clueless and don't realize the way the medium works.
Folks, you know and I know that if you put something online, it's there, and it's going to stay there, and people can find it. I still get the odd e-mail from someone (reforwarded endlessly to chase my morphing e-mail addresses) about my first shitty website that I built in 1997 or so.
On the other hand, I'm not carping or whining about it like the people in this article. Yes, I hold some pretty, uh, interesting political views, but if I weren't willing to stand up for my views, what kind of person would I be? (Oh, yeah, a parlour-political whiner like most people.) Maybe they've cost me some jobs, or other opportunities. Ok. That was a choice I made, and I have to live with it. (Besides, if they didn't like my politics, would I really want to work there?
So I guess it all comes down to that: Say only that which you want heard, and if you're too chickenshit to say what you really feel (because it might ruin your life or something), then I guess you have to examine your beliefs (and/or the state of your life). On the other hand, bitching about your loss of privacy as an identified source in the (inter)national press (and a known Paper of Record, too) is hardly likely to get you any accolades from me, except "Hypocrite."
Whoo! That was much more vitriolic than I had intended...
Slashdot Mirror
...most hackers have traditionally been found in, on, or near large, well-computerized research universities.
In fact, that person sitting next to you in class could be a hacker! Your prof could be a hacker! Your friendly school janitor could be a hacker!
(Are you now, or have you ever been a hacker?)
Heh...
Academicians have been talking about hackers for a long time. (I seem to recall writing a paper on the subject for a grad school class, and doing some reading up for it, anyway.) Maybe people just didn't notice until now.
Personally, I think Cringely's idea is pretty good. Unfortunately, I don't think most people are brave enough to try it. I also think a lot of people aren't principled enough to put their money where their mouths are, but that's another story.
Reminds me of Jello Biafra talking about "conservatives on the farty old left" and un-fun protests: "You know what we're going to do? We're going to have *meetings,* dammit!"
Sigh. (Otherwise, click the sig link and check out my rant on the mechanics of dollar voting!)
...if Porche made cars the average person could afford (or was willing to pay), they might find themselves suddenly occupying a far larger niche than they do now, on name alone.
Likewise, I can tell just from reading Slashdot that there are a lot of people out there with "Mac envy," who'd really like a chance to use a Mac, but who either won't or can't pay for the hardware. Me, I'd join up in a split instant.
I wonder what would happen if all of us on RIAA boycott wrote nice letters to the RIAA saying "Well, I make X per year, and of that, I would normally spend Y on CDs, but because of your policies, I have decided to spend my money elsewhere." If enough of those letters came in, I wonder if they'd sit up and take notice.
It certainly works at the microcosm level -- check out the look on the store manager's face when you tell him, "See this money? I was going to spend all of that here today, but since you don't carry this band, and this band, and this band, I'm going to spend it down the street at the cool music store where they do, instead." (BTW, I learned this tactic from Jello Biafra, and it's quite effective, at least on the small scale. I notice that our local HMVs have started carrying the Dead Kennedys and TISM again...)
The problem with opt-out dollar voting is that unless you specifically make your targets aware that they're losing sales, they don't notice, or attribute it to the right cause.
I'm on first name terms with the guy -- he's a Chas.
Chucky Dickens, indeed...hmf!
Since it's Tori Amos, we don't really have to worry about that...
...or are there actually people out there who will listen to Tori Amos while not under duress?
(wince)
Along those same lines, this shouldn't be the RIAA's problem at all. It should fall under the EPA's guidelines for "noise pollution."
I always use my teeth to strim wires - are they illegal too?
:)
So does my SO. He's got notches in his teeth in a variety of gauges -- handy, but only good for the dentist's wallet in the long run.
Also, he is a journalist, and has spent so much time messing with hardware over the last 30 years or so, he might as well be an engineer...
In any case, they're not likely to haul people with wire-stripping tooth notches away to jail anytime soon -- a lot of wrongfully-arrested tailors/seamstresses/costumers (ever heard of a "tailor's notch"?) could make a pretty big stink.
a so-called "war" on Afghanistan, despite no real proof's ever coming out that Afghanistan was really involved in the Sept. 11th attacks;
a looming "war" with Iraq, for no apparent reason other than that GWB doesn't like Saddam Hussein;
a $50B increase in military spending in the US, an increase which by itself alone is more than the military budget of any other country in the world;
a steady erosion of US civil liberties and rights, including the imprisonment without due process of two American citizens on spurious charges (Lindh and Padilla) as "enemy combatants";
an extraterritorial concentration camp for unfortunate POWs in Guantanamo Bay;
the odious phrase "regime change" and a resurgence in the belief that the US has the right to effect such changes worldwide by dictatorial fiat, military force, or covert operations;
a steadily worsening situation in the Middle East, particularly involving Israel, Palestine, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, possibly because of the eschatological beliefs of the US government's three major players;
a "perpetual war for perpetual peace" bred out of (as far as I can see) a revenge mentality and a refusal to accept the last death. (As Martin Luther King said, "An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.");
the US's disregard for international criminal courts (such as the ICC, to which the US is opposed) and the rule of law shifting from tacit assumption to formal policy, making explicit the seeming belief of US policy-makers that there are two sets of rules: one for the US and one for everyone else.
Well, if these are the results of a reasoned, intelligent, and graceful response, I'd hate to see the results if they just decided to act out of nationalistic fury...
Except that judging from the writing around here, most Slashdotters wouldn't know the difference...
Affect and effect are two different words, people.
But seriously, on topic, I really liked that Doctorow story. The beginning was definitely a bit klunky by my standards, but by the middle it started to pick up quite a bit. The self-conscious (or didn't you guys catch that part?) references to '1337-speak' (the written language with no spoken form!) were rather amusing.
It's nice to see someone play with language, and it's nice to see someone who apparently knows a little bit of something (instead of a whole lot of nothing) about computers writing speculative fiction, for a change. Or don't you guys get a little bit annoyed about totally impossible (instead of wildly improbable) computers (and/or technology) in speculative fiction?
Also, another question: Considering all the geek holy wars, can geeks truly be said to have a demographic?
As Robertson Davies said about another United church, would that be the "oatmeal of" Linux?
:)
He said that the United Church is "the oatmeal of religion." I'm not sure the United church IS a real religion. First of all, its members can't even seem to decide what its credos are. (Go read the editorial page of the United Church Observer if you doubt me.) Secondly, it's a mangling of about three other denominations.
Hmm, do I see a trend here? Maybe they're run by the same people!
Interrobang, whose parents are (inexplicably) Uniteds, and who is Divided in Linux, and absolutely unchurched
Well, at one time you folks wanted it all, and at one time, you folks didn't want parts of MI or WI... Make up your minds!
(Actually, I'm not so sure where this fabled "inaccuracy" would come in, since the Canada/US border follows the 49th parallel through most of the countries, and bisects the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway for most of the rest of it.)
...where the RIAA is legally allowed to break into your computer and DDoS you, and you are legally allowed to use any hacking trick necessary to plug the software's "security holes," bugs, flaws and other "undocumented features" (to stop them), and so on. Boy, it could be fun for just...minutes!
Ok, I'm removing my tongue from my cheek now!
I've never heard anyone mention UNIX while rapping. I think I'd kinda like that, given the apparent intelligence level in most (but not all) popular music.
Anyone out there got any hardcore geek music? I don't mean MC Hawking, either, but you can check it out for chuckles.
Hey, the paper didn't suck...the design of the UI sucks. Learn to parse a sentence. English doesn't come with software to do that for you...which is probably why so many code jockeys are so bad at it.
I'd put the paper up somewhere and share it with everyone, but the original's sadly gone to Data Heaven, and the disk copy is probably in the same pocket universe as half the rest of my stuff...
Related case in (original) point, the button on Netscape that used to say "Guide" in English said "Guide" in German, because the direct translation is der Fuehrer.
Sloppy thinking. I mock in their general direction.
Not only that, but the metaphorics are equally cringe-worthy.
When I was in grad school, I did a paper on the Windows interface from an end-user design perspective, and it sucks. Surely there are other ways to handle a GUI that might make sense.
Other people who've weighed in on this subject include prominent researchers like Jpseph Goguen, Terry Winograd, and Eben Moglen.
Right now I'm not proposing a solution, either, but I am working on understanding the problem.
Since it's not, we might as well throw the petulant Anonymous Coward RIAA rep a pity party, 'cause they've certainly got their streamers up! Ok, 1, 2, 3... I still can't quite believe that article isn't satire.
While it is very important to be as free as possible (the "Fire!" principle) from censorship, full citizenship (for women, non-white people, the handicapped, gays and lesbians etc.) is much more important. Those who have the franchise (and historically have always had the franchise) are more easily able to overlook it. After all, when you are a second-class citizen, you have NO rights at all, never mind a curtailment of your freedom of speech!
Also, could you get a little more arrogant? That's funny. I don't see much of anything happening to my freedom...but I don't have a Bill of Rights, either (I have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms). Why don't you Americocentrists travel outside the US and see for yourselves why pronouncements like the above make us a little annoyed?
Forced watermarking could be a very bad idea for all of us who produce music/movies/literature in our basements (or reasonable hand-drawn facsimiles). Where am I, a piker who puts together stuff with a PC and freeware, going to get expensive watermarking equipment?
Likewise, what would be the impact on those of us who don't live in the US, but might want to export our created media there (I have a lot of US friends and I like to share)?
What about independent record labels etc. within the US who don't particularly mind people sharing their music? I seem to remember one of the original Dead Kennedys albums came on one side of a cassette tape, with an inscription in the liner notes something like "Home-recorded cassettes are killing the music industry. Go and do your part."
Even though one poster had the valid point that this bill seems to be aimed at direct copyright infringement, where the MP/RIAA and friends are concerned, the definition of "copyright infringement" seems to be "any media transaction where we don't take a cut." We (here in Canada) already have levies on blank media (yeah, the equivalent to the MP/RIAA gets paid for every CD-ROM backup I make) -- what more could they want? Our first-born children? Our souls?
Let's hope that HP has a little more sense than to let shareholders dictate their entire company policy out of their self-interests (what about HP's customers?), whether or not Perens ever goes on stage. Still, I thought it would have been interesting to see.
Legal issues aside, I'm not sure how Perens' planned demonstration would affect HP customers...
Yes, I agree with you. I'm not even technically a "computer person," if that isn't some horrible pun. Trained rhetoricians (who make their living tech writing) also like "explicitly described meaning," and tend to get really upset when people generalize words to the point where they have no meaning anymore (and not because that's just the way the language is moving, but to sell a product [?!]).
Anthropologists will tell you that the traditional or customary pattern of human life is long-ish periods of inactivity or mild activity, punctuated by short periods of backbreaking labour (the "punctuated equilibrium" I tossed off in the title). Even today, farming works this way, as many things only need to be done three or four weeks a year, and only can be done between sunup and sundown.
"Free time" (not a commodity, by the way) is what produced those astonishing paleolithic art objects (such as the Willendorf "Venus" or the Lascaux cave paintings), the first textiles (and most textile products [weaving, spinning, embroidering, sewing] until well into the 20th century), music, and religion. Depending on where you live, those winter nights (and days) are long, and there's not much to do, really, or those summer days are long, and it's too hot to do much. These types of patterns continue even today in many, if not most, cultures around the world.
What has this to do with Open Source? Well, Open Source in and of itself is not precisely a new idea, just sort of a new variation on and old idea. In earlier times, anyone would be free to look at anything produced by a local artist, artisan, or crafter, and imitate it/improve upon it as best he or she could. (In fact, some cultures, such as among the habitant girls in New France, improvements [in this case, in embroidery skills and patterns] are/were ritualized into a game, often with very specific social meaning.)
So if you want to build yourself a bog dress from someone else's pattern, you can (and you could if you lived in Moy centuries ago, too), just as you can take someone else's source code and build yourself a customized program that fits your needs like a tailored garment fits your body.
All of these endeavours take (free) time, though.
Microsoft, I mock in your general direction. With all that money, you can't find higher-calibre copywriting talent than that?! (Actually, having seen some of their press releases and other "marketing collateral," I now know that software isn't all Microsoft does badly.)
[shrugs] Hell, if I were going to market myself as a porn starlet, I'd choose a name just like that...kinda Vassar-y in an amoral sort of way, or something.
Getting away from the porn angle, what is it with these people's parents and their bright ideas for naming their kids anyway? (I pity the next generation, where everyone's classes will have three Tuckers, a Fisher, and a Taylor, 4/5ths of whom will be girls, choose any four.)
"If you do not want a thing heard, do not say it." The amended version might be, "If you do not want a thing heard, do not say it online." I think most of the people named in this article (with the possible exception of the Palestinian guy, who's liable, in this political climate, to be dumped on no matter what he says) are just clueless and don't realize the way the medium works.
Folks, you know and I know that if you put something online, it's there, and it's going to stay there, and people can find it. I still get the odd e-mail from someone (reforwarded endlessly to chase my morphing e-mail addresses) about my first shitty website that I built in 1997 or so.
On the other hand, I'm not carping or whining about it like the people in this article. Yes, I hold some pretty, uh, interesting political views, but if I weren't willing to stand up for my views, what kind of person would I be? (Oh, yeah, a parlour-political whiner like most people.) Maybe they've cost me some jobs, or other opportunities. Ok. That was a choice I made, and I have to live with it. (Besides, if they didn't like my politics, would I really want to work there?
So I guess it all comes down to that: Say only that which you want heard, and if you're too chickenshit to say what you really feel (because it might ruin your life or something), then I guess you have to examine your beliefs (and/or the state of your life). On the other hand, bitching about your loss of privacy as an identified source in the (inter)national press (and a known Paper of Record, too) is hardly likely to get you any accolades from me, except "Hypocrite."
Whoo! That was much more vitriolic than I had intended...