Tell me about it; it's sad to see so much space devoted to a meaningless statistic (which it is, for the purpose being described).
To assess the progress of Platform A versus Platform B, one must know not only how many people are switching to Platform A (and from where), but also how many are switching to Platform B (and from where). We've been given only one cell in the table, and that -- by itself -- is meaningless.
The folks at Netcraft should be ashamed of themselves for pushing this kind of nonsense (and that goes double for the Slashdot editors).
Until I played with one at Office Depot.
I found navigating it was awkward and non-intuitive. It just reeked of "desktop computer" crammed into the PDA.
PalmOS is just so much easier to deal with on such a small device.
Actually, FWIW, I've not had major complaints vis a vis the software. My two greatest annoyances with the SL-5500 have been 1) the case design (the cover is too flimsy to protect the exposed screen, and the whole thing is too big to easily carry in a pocket), and 2) the lack of a backslash character on the pull-out keyboard. Believe it or not, this last has been a real irritant....I do a lot of writing/editing while traveling, mostly in LaTeX, and a backslash key would be quite handy. (As it is, I usually use some other symbol and search/replace later...not fatal, but annoying.)
I have also had a surprising amount of trouble with the Linux sync issue, but this has more to do with USB issues on the (Linux) desktop than with the Zaurus. One hopes that these will fade as Linux USB support matures.
Overall, I really do like the Zaurus, but I would tend to agree with those who see the SL-5500 as being a bit rough around the edges. It looks like Sharp is continuing to improve the product, I'd certainly consider another Zaurus for my next PDA.
I agree that I certainly wouldn't want the software to scan around my network looking for illicit copies of stuff. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about a cracked program that, when started, determines that it is cracked, then reports that fact back to the publisher, along with information that will identify where the stolen property is.
Actually, there is no stolen property here. A copyright violation may have occurred when the software was installed, but the software per se is not property and cannot be stolen. Copyright is just that -- a (limited) legal right to control copying, distribution, etc. of certain expressions. The copyright holder's "intellectual property" (which may be sold, given away, etc.) is the copyright to the work, not the work in and of itself. (IANAL and all that.)
I was simply responding to the phrase as presented by an earlier poster. If you want it in my terms, then how about this: "The long term commercial viability of Linux desktop operating systems could be in grave peril after the market's leading vendor announced it is withdrawing from all currently available distribution channels other than direct online."
Ah. Much more reasonable, although I don't think the peril is as grave as some seem to say. (On the other hand, the arguments that this is a no-brainer seem improbable as well.) Time will tell, I suppose....
I may be feeding a troll here, but since this has come up more than once....
Could we please try to expunge this inane "Linux desktop is dead" meme? First off, it isn't -- or else my desktop is an illusion -- and secondly, you could only believe this if you hadn't been watching the evolution of Linux over the past ten years. I've been using it since the SLS days, and I can unequivocally state that the Linux desktop has been improving (at an increasing rate) ever since. Repeating alarmist but catchy phrases about the demise of the Linux desktop reveals the speaker's ignorance to those who use said desktops, without adding anything of consequence to the discussion.
About the only thing "dead" regarding the Linux desktop is twm...and it's only sleeping!
With no mod points, I must be content to add my name to the chorus...info is substantially bloated for my purposes, and the habit of deprecating man pages is a great frustration to me as well.
IMHO man wasn't broken (at least, not for "quick access" documentation), and info is certainly not a fix in any event.
You know, I've heard this many times, but I've never seen hard evidence on this score. Anyone got a cite to an authenticated source? (And if it has happened in the US, how many times has it happened? Virtually anything can happen once....)
On the other hand, you should keep in mind that the inferential power of a test is strongest in the middle range...tests probably should be designed so that the most important grading distinctions occur fairly close to the 50% mark. While a test on which most students score in the 35-45% interval is a bit inefficient, it's a lot more efficient than one which is calibrated for scores in the 90-100% range. Perhaps your prof was more on the ball than you thought.:-)
INSNA site is good... but like all new subjects I need a pioneer or a guide to lead the way and this is where "popular writers" do the trick. Many academic journals are written to further a debate on small element of theory. Which to the general reader - myself - are not the way in.
In that respect, I think that these recent popularizations have had a positive impact....my concern is merely that they present a very distorted picture of the field as a whole. (Like, for instance, ignoring it.) This is a not uncommon gripe about popularizations, I suppose, although that doesn't make it without justification....
If you want a more technical (but still approachable) introduction to social network analysis, you might want to look at Wasserman and Faust's 1994 Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. This one is a getting a little dated, but it's a still the broadest methods text available. John Scott wrote a little book simply called Social Network Analysis some years back (don't recall the publication year) which may be more approachable yet, although it is much more limited. Really good, up-to-date texts are hard to find in such a rapidly evolving field, but these are adequate to get you sufficiently prepared to start reading the scientific literature (which is where the real action is).
There was no math to speak of either. I think Sociology is a bogus discipline designed to get communists into our school system.
Might I suggest perusing the Journal of Mathematical Sociology or Social Networks for a different view of the field? While some self-described "sociologists" neatly fit your description, those of us doing actual social science would appreciate not being lumped in with the rest....
Barabasi and co-author Albert are literarily inventing a new field of physics/math; I'm not even quite sure of what to call it. However, they are very much in touch with current research in the field, and their work is very timely (who else could tell you that the "degree of separation" on the web is 19 and not 6?)
Not here, they're not. Search your local university library for "graph theory." See also my comment below regarding the tremendous body of extant literature in the field. Claiming that Linked reveals a "new science" is rather like claiming that Al Gore created the Internet....
Contrary to what the author of Linked would have you believe, the scientific study of social networks has been around since the late 1920s/early 1930s. (Some of the very early work was a bit loopy -- check out Jacob Moreno's Who Shall Survive? for an example -- but the field rapidly progressed beyond this stage.) The first real network journal, Sociometry has been around since the late 1930s (longer than Barabasi has been alive, I expect), and today it's mantle is held by Social Networks; that's where you should look for current research in the field. Empirical, theoretical, and methodological work on social networks is also regularly published in the Journal of Mathematical Sociology, the Journal of Mathematical Psychology, the American Journal of Sociology, Sociological Methods and Research, Sociological Methodology, and Social Forces (among others). It turns out that we know quite a lot more about networks than Barabasi suggests in his book, and indeed the hub/connectivity issues on which his book focuses are only a very limited part of the overall picture.
If you're interested in learning more about the large body of literature in this area, be sure to visit the INSNA web site. I think you'll find it much more informative than reading popular books on the subject.
Of which are you more afraid: of what you say in public or of death from above while you're just minding your own business?
If you chose the former, you probably don't live in NYC.
Perhaps you should try looking to the side, or below you, from threats. New Yorkers (and everyone else) have orders of magnitude more to fear from traffic accidents and accidental slips and falls than from malevolent aircraft.
(And I won't even mention the threat posed by what's on your dinner plate...)
If you are willing to die so you can carry a nail clipper onto an airplane, you're foolish beyond belief.
And if you are foolish enough to think that these so-called "security" measures are somehow "worth it," I've got a large bridge to sell you. Tell me, how many miles per year do you travel by automobile? Do you have any idea how much more likely you are to be killed by a car wreck than by a terrorist? The cold, hard fact of the matter is that majority of Americans are quite willing to make risk/convenience trade-offs on a daily basis which display far less risk aversion than would be needed to justify the massive inconvenience of current airport security measures. Alas, mention the "T-word," and all sanity flees the room on wings of silver. "If even one terrorist is stopped," we are told, "any price is worth it!" But this is folly, and should be identified as such. We don't think this way when purchasing insurance, and we surely should not do so when purchasing questionable security with our valuable time, freedom, and money.
I for one, will take chances for my freedom -- and, yes, for my convenience as well. Ironically, so will virtually everyone else, so long as the decision isn't framed in terms of a "terrorist threat."
It was attacked by young radical Islamic fundamentalist men. Does it suprise you that greater attention is paid to people fit this description? Or would you prefer we waste every last resource frisking old ladies from Alberta just so it does not make you feel *uncomfortable*. Oh the discrimination!
Even if it were true that all terrorists met some sort of "young radical Islamic fundamentalist" stereotype (they don't, as the Irish can attest), this would not imply that all (or even many) "young radical Islamic fundamentalists" are terrorists. Indeed, there is no reason to believe that fitting the stereotype in question is at all diagnostic of terrorism, since the number of stereotypees exceeds the number of known terrorists by several orders of magnitude....
I suspect that you are confusing the probability of a piece of evidence given a hypothesis with the probability of said hypothesis given the evidence. These two numbers are, in general, not the same. In fact, they are often radically different. Alas, it is precisely this kind of mistaken reasoning which has lead to the attitude you display: "better search all those muslims, they might be terrorists!"
If our school system provided better education in the basic principles of statistical inference, perhaps these grim mistakes would occur with less frequency. Alas, for the time being, I expect the pseudodiagnostic nonsense to continue.
The onus is not only on the automotive industry itself but also on the users. Most countries require that all automobiles undergo regular inspection and maintain an up to date "Warrant of Fitness".
In the same way, if you want a secure IT infrastructure, eventually the software design, implementation and each deployment will have to undergo the same type of regulation and scrutiny.
And, furthermore, if you want a secure IT infrastructure, it will cost you. A lot. This cost will be paid not only in higher software/hardware prices, but also in a greatly decreased diversity of options in available software. Why is this so? It is because this kind of regulation will produce overhead costs which cannot be borne by most small producers, producers who will then be forced to pull their products from the market.
The most vulnerable producers, of course, are the authors of Free Software. Currently, many of us produce code which we make available to others; in turn, we rely on this body of code for our own work. Many of us are not professional programmers, much less software engineers, but we do the job well enough that most things work, most of the time. Now, ask yourself how many of us will be able to continue this practice under the threat either of product liability or of draconian licensing requirements? Precious few! I've got enough work to do as it is; there's simply no way that I can do the work of a team of professional software engineers in addition to my primary occupation. Right now, I deal with this by telling users up-front that the (free) code they get is experimental and as-is....I do what I can to see that things work, but I make no promises. If I am not allowed to proceed in this fashion, I will have to pull my code. One small, very specialized project vanishes, which is no great loss...but how many of my peers are in similar straits?
Freedom and diversity, or security and quality insurance? You pays your money and you takes your choice. For the non-critical systems which make up the vast majority of user-level applications, I'll take the former any day. Alas, I fear that once the regulatory ball gets rolling we may lose the ability to make that choice for ourselves...and the price will be higher than many people anticipate.
Someone which sociologists are lacking in. You may call this a troll, but please go read up on sociology. It is just junk science.
While I can sympathize with the general complaint that not all work in the field is sterling, your overall conclusion is simply wrong. Pick up any copy of one of the better journals in the field (e.g., the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Journal of Mathematical Sociology, Social Networks, or Social Psychology Quarterly (actually a sociology journal)) and you'll find genuine social science research. As in any field, some studies are better than others, but, on the whole, the discipline does manage to lurch forward despite the claims of naysayers.
That said, I will not deny that there's a lot of non-science (and nonsense) which manages to fly under the "sociology" label. As a professional sociologist, this probably angers me a lot more than it angers you, but this is not a matter which can be rectified overnight. My colleagues and I try to do good science, to support others who do good science, and to encourage the use of rigorous standards in evaluating each others' research. Alas, many of those outside the discipline are more interested in throwing stones at the field as a whole than in aiding those who are trying to make a difference....
So here's a hint: if you want to help improve the quality of sociology, stop painting the whole discipline with the "junk science" brush. The charicature is incorrect, and it serves to undermine the quiet majority of scientists who work hard to expand human knowledge in this area.
There is actually quite a bit of SNA software available; check out the INSNA software page for some pointers. Some of this is free software, e.g., the sna package for the R statistical computing environment. Of course, most of this software is designed for research purposes (rather than visual excitement), but it is there for those who want it....
Actually, the SFI people are also quite new to this business. If you are really interested in learning more about the (large) body of empirical literature on the subject, I would recommend looking at past issues of Sociometry and Social Networks. (The latter now fills the role of the former, which was the primary outlet for such work from the 1930s through the 1960s.) Useful papers also appear in the Journal of Mathematical Sociology, the Journal of Mathematical Psychology, and (more rarely) the American Journal of Sociology. You can find all of the above in your local university library.
You should also try Wasserman and Faust's (1994) book on the subject. It is showing its age a bit, but remains the best single volume on the subject.
Running OSS won't stop them. Running obviously non-intel hardware won't stop them. They don't care, and due to the wonderful aegis of the 'anonymous tipster,' they don't need a legitimate reason.
Yes, but they still need "weight of evidence" to make the accusation stick in court. I'd guess that simply not helping them, letting them run up costs in a battle they cannot win, and then filing a massive counter-suit for harrassment (with additional punative damages, of course) could be a very effective deterrent to future action. (Then again, IANAL, and perhaps this would be too expensive to be a reasonable strategy (even given the high probability of a payoff in the end).)
One almost envisions OSS firms acting like little tar pits...every one the BSA crosses could cost it vast sums of money, in addition to undermining its credibility. How many of these could the BSA afford to attack, I wonder?
-Carter
My turn to feed the trolls, I guess....
on
A Look Inside the BSA
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Listen, buddy. As Richard Stallman points out, software is an entire different entity. It's very easily copied. It's easy to take those copies and transfer them. Therefore, the amount of damage that can be done by pirating software is massive and much larger than other more tangible products.
Actually, your argument implies precisely the opposite: since the act of unauthorized copying does not remove the initial item being copied, such an act clearly does less damage in any conventional sense of the term than theft (i.e., the illegal removal of tangible goods). Indeed, unauthorized copying (in the context being discussed) can do only hypothetical damage to anyone, since the "damage" claim rests entirely on the hypothetical counterfactual that the copier would have purchased a copy if he/she had not instead resorted to unauthorized means.
In any event, this is a non-sequiteur: the amount of "damage" which could, in principle, be done by unauthorized copying does not legitimately motivate the pre-emptive search of businesses or individuals for which there is not already reasonable grounds to suspect unauthorized copying. One does not have the authority to arbitrarily search others on the grounds that they may have committed some infraction against you; that firms have allowed the BSA to get away with such behavior is IMHO quite scandalous.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, note the "N=8" at the bottom of the figures; the odds of this replicating are very poor.
-Carter
-Carter
To assess the progress of Platform A versus Platform B, one must know not only how many people are switching to Platform A (and from where), but also how many are switching to Platform B (and from where). We've been given only one cell in the table, and that -- by itself -- is meaningless.
The folks at Netcraft should be ashamed of themselves for pushing this kind of nonsense (and that goes double for the Slashdot editors).
-Carter
I have also had a surprising amount of trouble with the Linux sync issue, but this has more to do with USB issues on the (Linux) desktop than with the Zaurus. One hopes that these will fade as Linux USB support matures.
Overall, I really do like the Zaurus, but I would tend to agree with those who see the SL-5500 as being a bit rough around the edges. It looks like Sharp is continuing to improve the product, I'd certainly consider another Zaurus for my next PDA.
(YMMV, of course.)
-Carter
Actually, there is no stolen property here. A copyright violation may have occurred when the software was installed, but the software per se is not property and cannot be stolen. Copyright is just that -- a (limited) legal right to control copying, distribution, etc. of certain expressions. The copyright holder's "intellectual property" (which may be sold, given away, etc.) is the copyright to the work, not the work in and of itself. (IANAL and all that.)
-Carter
-Carter
Could we please try to expunge this inane "Linux desktop is dead" meme? First off, it isn't -- or else my desktop is an illusion -- and secondly, you could only believe this if you hadn't been watching the evolution of Linux over the past ten years. I've been using it since the SLS days, and I can unequivocally state that the Linux desktop has been improving (at an increasing rate) ever since. Repeating alarmist but catchy phrases about the demise of the Linux desktop reveals the speaker's ignorance to those who use said desktops, without adding anything of consequence to the discussion.
About the only thing "dead" regarding the Linux desktop is twm...and it's only sleeping!
-Carter
(And yes, some of us really did like twm....)
-Carter
IMHO man wasn't broken (at least, not for "quick access" documentation), and info is certainly not a fix in any event.
-Carter
-Carter
-Carter
If you want a more technical (but still approachable) introduction to social network analysis, you might want to look at Wasserman and Faust's 1994 Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. This one is a getting a little dated, but it's a still the broadest methods text available. John Scott wrote a little book simply called Social Network Analysis some years back (don't recall the publication year) which may be more approachable yet, although it is much more limited. Really good, up-to-date texts are hard to find in such a rapidly evolving field, but these are adequate to get you sufficiently prepared to start reading the scientific literature (which is where the real action is).
-Carter
-Carter
-Carter
If you're interested in learning more about the large body of literature in this area, be sure to visit the INSNA web site. I think you'll find it much more informative than reading popular books on the subject.
-Carter
Perhaps you should try looking to the side, or below you, from threats. New Yorkers (and everyone else) have orders of magnitude more to fear from traffic accidents and accidental slips and falls than from malevolent aircraft.
(And I won't even mention the threat posed by what's on your dinner plate...)
-Carter
And if you are foolish enough to think that these so-called "security" measures are somehow "worth it," I've got a large bridge to sell you. Tell me, how many miles per year do you travel by automobile? Do you have any idea how much more likely you are to be killed by a car wreck than by a terrorist? The cold, hard fact of the matter is that majority of Americans are quite willing to make risk/convenience trade-offs on a daily basis which display far less risk aversion than would be needed to justify the massive inconvenience of current airport security measures. Alas, mention the "T-word," and all sanity flees the room on wings of silver. "If even one terrorist is stopped," we are told, "any price is worth it!" But this is folly, and should be identified as such. We don't think this way when purchasing insurance, and we surely should not do so when purchasing questionable security with our valuable time, freedom, and money.
I for one, will take chances for my freedom -- and, yes, for my convenience as well. Ironically, so will virtually everyone else, so long as the decision isn't framed in terms of a "terrorist threat."
-Carter
I suspect that you are confusing the probability of a piece of evidence given a hypothesis with the probability of said hypothesis given the evidence. These two numbers are, in general, not the same. In fact, they are often radically different. Alas, it is precisely this kind of mistaken reasoning which has lead to the attitude you display: "better search all those muslims, they might be terrorists!"
If our school system provided better education in the basic principles of statistical inference, perhaps these grim mistakes would occur with less frequency. Alas, for the time being, I expect the pseudodiagnostic nonsense to continue.
-Carter
And, furthermore, if you want a secure IT infrastructure, it will cost you. A lot. This cost will be paid not only in higher software/hardware prices, but also in a greatly decreased diversity of options in available software. Why is this so? It is because this kind of regulation will produce overhead costs which cannot be borne by most small producers, producers who will then be forced to pull their products from the market.
The most vulnerable producers, of course, are the authors of Free Software. Currently, many of us produce code which we make available to others; in turn, we rely on this body of code for our own work. Many of us are not professional programmers, much less software engineers, but we do the job well enough that most things work, most of the time. Now, ask yourself how many of us will be able to continue this practice under the threat either of product liability or of draconian licensing requirements? Precious few! I've got enough work to do as it is; there's simply no way that I can do the work of a team of professional software engineers in addition to my primary occupation. Right now, I deal with this by telling users up-front that the (free) code they get is experimental and as-is....I do what I can to see that things work, but I make no promises. If I am not allowed to proceed in this fashion, I will have to pull my code. One small, very specialized project vanishes, which is no great loss...but how many of my peers are in similar straits?
Freedom and diversity, or security and quality insurance? You pays your money and you takes your choice. For the non-critical systems which make up the vast majority of user-level applications, I'll take the former any day. Alas, I fear that once the regulatory ball gets rolling we may lose the ability to make that choice for ourselves...and the price will be higher than many people anticipate.
-Carter
While I can sympathize with the general complaint that not all work in the field is sterling, your overall conclusion is simply wrong. Pick up any copy of one of the better journals in the field (e.g., the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Journal of Mathematical Sociology, Social Networks, or Social Psychology Quarterly (actually a sociology journal)) and you'll find genuine social science research. As in any field, some studies are better than others, but, on the whole, the discipline does manage to lurch forward despite the claims of naysayers.
That said, I will not deny that there's a lot of non-science (and nonsense) which manages to fly under the "sociology" label. As a professional sociologist, this probably angers me a lot more than it angers you, but this is not a matter which can be rectified overnight. My colleagues and I try to do good science, to support others who do good science, and to encourage the use of rigorous standards in evaluating each others' research. Alas, many of those outside the discipline are more interested in throwing stones at the field as a whole than in aiding those who are trying to make a difference....
So here's a hint: if you want to help improve the quality of sociology, stop painting the whole discipline with the "junk science" brush. The charicature is incorrect, and it serves to undermine the quiet majority of scientists who work hard to expand human knowledge in this area.
-Carter
-Carter
You should also try Wasserman and Faust's (1994) book on the subject. It is showing its age a bit, but remains the best single volume on the subject.
-Carter
Yes, but they still need "weight of evidence" to make the accusation stick in court. I'd guess that simply not helping them, letting them run up costs in a battle they cannot win, and then filing a massive counter-suit for harrassment (with additional punative damages, of course) could be a very effective deterrent to future action. (Then again, IANAL, and perhaps this would be too expensive to be a reasonable strategy (even given the high probability of a payoff in the end).)
One almost envisions OSS firms acting like little tar pits...every one the BSA crosses could cost it vast sums of money, in addition to undermining its credibility. How many of these could the BSA afford to attack, I wonder?
-Carter
Actually, your argument implies precisely the opposite: since the act of unauthorized copying does not remove the initial item being copied, such an act clearly does less damage in any conventional sense of the term than theft (i.e., the illegal removal of tangible goods). Indeed, unauthorized copying (in the context being discussed) can do only hypothetical damage to anyone, since the "damage" claim rests entirely on the hypothetical counterfactual that the copier would have purchased a copy if he/she had not instead resorted to unauthorized means.
In any event, this is a non-sequiteur: the amount of "damage" which could, in principle, be done by unauthorized copying does not legitimately motivate the pre-emptive search of businesses or individuals for which there is not already reasonable grounds to suspect unauthorized copying. One does not have the authority to arbitrarily search others on the grounds that they may have committed some infraction against you; that firms have allowed the BSA to get away with such behavior is IMHO quite scandalous.
-Carter
http://www.perl.com/language/misc/Artistic.html
See particularly clauses 5 and 8. You could look at other licenses named in the EULA as well, but this one happened to be handy....
-Carter