(the above message repeats, with details, in a few moments. If Slashdot supported the infamous Flash tag, I'd use it here)
Wow, nerds really are utterly clueless about how profoundly the rest of the world doesn't understand or care about I/T.
In the real world,
a server isn't a machine, it's a waitress,
FTP is a misspelling of someone that sends flowers,
nobody uses '2' instead of 'to',
'get that bare metal' isn't recognizable slang,
'get a copy of open office' makes heads explode since you obviously left out a noun, a comma and 'then' (most folks would read this as 'get a copy of ****, then open office'),
what's html?
what's sane html?
why can't I use office?
how do I save-as?
'insert script/program' kills a few more innocent bystanders due to exploding-head shrapnel,
'upload to server' and 'server root' are baffling phrases. The concepts behind them are worse. Ditto this 'worse' remark for my last comment about scripts, come to think of it.
There's this thing called whitespace. Your post didn't have any. Now, I am not aiming for a low blow, since I'll bet you just forgot to downgrade your comment from html-formatted to plain-old-text and slashdot screwed you. I make the same mistake once a week. If experts can regularly get screwed by our own tools what chance does Nick the chef have?!
Let me finish by saying again:
DO NOT RUN YOUR COMPANY WEBSERVER ON YOUR OWN PC!
Configuring and maintaining a desktop pc to act as a commercial site webhost is insane. Always. Full stop, no exceptions. First, getting server-class upstream bandwidth is spendier than using some hosting service. Second, a PC handling both the restaurant books *and* an IIS server (it's "common sense" to have your work computer do both) is even crazier, since a website compromise could lead to massive PR/Fraud/Theft/sabotage damage. Third, if you leave a server anywhere other than in a locked/alarmed location that has just 1 key that you wear around your neck like some kid at day-camp, some nimrod *will* harm it. They'll turn the computer off or use it for a quick web-surf or to play some online game. The machine will fall victim to unintended uses that are likely to get spyware infections going. That's really not an ideal medium for the company website, or any computer holding financial/company data.
A better glimpse of a hot topic is to check out Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. Both go on for pages, both articles strive to remain in a voice that doesn't hold an opinion, and both are interesting reads.
But don't believe me; try it yourself: pick something controversial and look it up.
To amplify this answer with an example, the current wikipedia entry for Earth both mentions the flat earth theory and links to a wikipedia entry for Flat Earth. Flat Earth gives a lengthy recap of the theory's history, proponents, and contemporary proponents.
If a controversy pops up, usually in the form of edit wars, there are a few mechanisms for calming the issue. Edits toward a NPOV perspective are attempted, temporary suspension of edits to allow interested parties to calm, and a locked edit by some disinterested (and trusted by the wikimedia leads) third party are examples (if I'm not mistaken).
Since nothing captures the wikipedia style of embracing the whole breadth of knowledge or views like a hard example, here's some wikipedia text from the Earth and Flat Earth entries:
Earth
Descriptions of Earth
Earth has often been personified as a deity, in particular a goddess. See Gaia and Mother Earth. In Norse mythology, the earth goddess Jord was the mother of Thor and the daughter of Annar.
Earth has also been described as a massive spaceship, with a life support system that requires maintenance. See Spaceship Earth.
Since Earth is rather large, it is not immediately obvious to the naked eye viewing from the surface that it is an oblate spheroid, bulging slightly at the equator and slightly flattened at the poles. In the past there were varying levels of belief in a flat Earth because of this. Prior to the introduction of space flight, this belief was countered with deductions based on observations of the secondary effects of the earth's shape and parallels drawn with the shape of other planets.
A photo taken of the Earth by Voyager 1 inspired Carl Sagan to describe the planet as a "Pale Blue Dot".
In science fiction the Earth is frequently the capital or a major administrative center of a hypothetical galactic government (especially when that galactic government is postulated to be human-dominated), often a representative federal republic, though empires and dictatorships are definitely not unseen. Notable are Star Trek and Babylon 5. However, in other science fiction, people in the future no longer know what planet they originally came from (for example, Battlestar Galactica and The Foundation Series).
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a book series by Douglas Adams, describes Earth as "Mostly Harmless". In the same series, Earth is said to be a supercomputer built by highly advanced pan-dimensional beings to find out what the question that The Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything answers actually is.
Flat Earth:
As of the beginning of the 21st Century AD, there remain populations within rural cultures which, unexposed to technological civilization, consider the world to be flat. With no long-distance communication requirements or other technological endeavours, their beliefs appear to suffice.
From a European perspective, Portuguese exploration of Africa and Asia in the 15th century removed any serious doubts, and Magellan and Drake's circumnavigations any remaining ones. The myth that Christopher Columbus's sailors feared they would fall off the edge of the world is false: they were understandably uncertain about a voyage into the unknown, and were also worried that food supplies would run out. In fact Columbus did not provide sufficient supplies to reach China or the East Indies, his original destination, and if America had not existed then those on the voyage would have died of starvation.
Some Christians in England and America tried to revive Flat Earth thinking in the 19th century. Modern people who do not accept the spherical Earth and base this opinion on Scripture do not represent a continuing school of Biblical exegesis, although some small groups such as the Flat Earth Society work hard to keep the concept alive, and have
Regarding RTFA, I did. The OP stated that the fine was due to 'failure to keep (a) site current'. The articles indicate owner unwillingness, but the owner was quoted as claiming he lacked the time or the skills to fix the site.
If you know a few business-owners (esp restaurant owners), you'll agree that some are utterly clueless on IT and economic/finance practices. What if this guy really is just clueless?
This NZ$3000 case isn't an ideal case for what I'm saying, but what about the precedent? This potentially sets a legal and public-opinion precedent that I'm not thrilled with:
First precedent: publishing specific details are risky on your website, because you can be held accountable long after you've forgotten that you ever created some orphan page. Think I'm crazy? Imagine a one-time web ad: 'throughout june, mention this ad and get a surf-n-turf special for $12.95'.... oops, no year. Now, your cut-rate $50-per-modification webmaster cuts the link in July, but leaves the html on the server for your/his future reuse, and some webcrawler never forgets it. As I said, 'In other news, the Staten Island Ferry was fined $30,000 after a customer got in line clutching a rate card from 1958.'
Suing a company for old, orphaned, or flawed webpages creates a small barrier against entry. It gives an avenue for large firms to hammer on smaller/weaker competitors (into oblivion) for insufficient detail or inaccuracies online. If they act defensively, they publish less detail, and we lose detailed data because of the maintenance costs.
Would you rather price information for some shops be utterly unavailable online? Is that the stance of everyone disagreeing with me here? 'Cuz we risk a subtle chilling effect happening if the 'net is policed for accuracy, whether by a government commission or by competitors given more leeway to frivolously sue.
Would the restaurant's site be sufficiently fixed if a tiny bit of print said: 'last updated 21-Sept-2004'? Because I can't count the number of restaurants, bars and arts venues, online stores, peer-review sites and newspaper/magazine-based reviews that have some small bit of out-of-date info on the 'net.
Hell, even this story suffers the time-distortion effects of the web: it was old enough news that I literally found 130 copies of the story on the web. Apparently, nerds are among the last to know that this happened in February.
Screwed by a gift: a friend/customer/admirer or some wannabe offers you a bargain website? Turn it down, because they might not give you keys to the site, maintain it, etc., but you'll be held responsible. Or, in my facetious tone, '...it was discovered that, in a locked, donated trunk of old books and papers, they had been in posession of WWII-era Nazi propaganda.'
Would you rather only *large* companies advertise online? Because that's another risk: if you can't afford to pay for the maintenance, don't advertise online. Also, if you can't afford to have your ad vetted for legal risks, don't run it.
Killed by bad press: even a lame claim against a PR-dependent company can
do massive damage. And PETA's founder was forced to resign today after it was learned his father once ate a steak. Rare.
Would yu want your favorite hangout to take the PR hit for being 'under investigation' or for news that they're being sued by a customer?
My original post was off-the-cuff, but I'll stand by it, even if it does mean another round of moderator smack-down. This is one of those road-to-hell / good-intentions things. Worse, the commission/judge used buzz-phrases that made them sound like a bad web-advertising seminar from '98, they seem oblivious to international issues, they don't seem aware of the high cost of content maintenance, etc. Meanwhile, sensible web marketing advice like datestamp or expiration notices never got mentioned and they're making legal precedents that are easily abused.
heh, love the rutherford quote. Hear-hear on the rest, though, as another physics geek. I would watch a friend memorize stuff for organic chem, then microbiology, etc. I can't memorize random stuff for s**t, so physics was ideal *for me*. For him, chemistry's complexity of thousands of patterns and families of behavior (and what for me was alphabet soup) made sense.
Sorta reminds me of once watching two physics undergrads struggle with economics until a third one started explaining it using thermodynamic terms. Or seeing a good musician with a hint of math insight explain to a mathematician that 'right' music can have so many mathematically-beautiful characteristics, then admit that music is best when it throws the recognizable math out the window at just the right instant.
In other news, the Staten Island Ferry was fined $30,000 after a customer got in line clutching a rate card from 1958.
Turning to Europe, a German recycling firm was shuttered over the weekend when it was discovered that, in a locked, donated trunk of old books and papers, they had been in posession of WWII-era Nazi propaganda.
And PETA's founder was forced to resign today after it was learned his father once ate a steak. Rare.
For a while after finishing college, you feel drawn back to the college life. Be sure you're not going back just because it's comfortable. If you don't even care if you're gonna become a manager, head-geek, marketdroid, tech-writer, tech-law guru or whatever (what *Degree* depends on your answer to that question), you're seriously not prime for grad school.
One friend's dad offered to pay for her grad school completely after she'd worked 5 years. Wise man: she's never looked back.
Another friend, the smartest science/tech student in years at my high school, stopped with a BS, moved to Silicon Valley, and says she'd literally *fall behind* in her field if she left work for 1-3 years. I kind of doubt this, since she could nail additional courses in her area as they paralleled her work until the degree sorta just plopped in her lap one day. She publishes enough. She studies and learns new stuff enough. But the degree also stopped mattering to anyone she knows *years* ago.
Another friend nailed a triple major, which took him longer than the rest of us. It didn't gain him any of the cash or glamour he bragged he'd get. That's some serious money wasted.
My own take is that graduate work should wait until you start finding something really compelling to become gods-own-expert in. Let me say it again: if you don't even care if you're gonna become a manager, head-geek, marketdroid, tech-writer, tech-law guru or whatever (what *Degree* depends on your answer to that question), you're seriously not prime for grad school. Take a class or two. Or just dive into some side project to gain some focus: pick a subset from that list of career paths and find a way to get experience in it.
I did some grad courses, and exited because it was clear that I wasn't sure what I wanted to do yet, and figured if I was going to become a PhD, it had better be in something I gave a rat's-ass about.
Ten years later, I'm fairly certain what that might be. If I weren't having so much fun with work, wife, kids, life in general, I'd probably go back. Once the kids aren't a delightful distraction, I'll start picking an ideal college/mentor or three to contact and apply to.
Caveat: grad degrees are candy: I approve, but I don't preach 'em. OTOH, Bachelor's degrees are not optional IMHO: they're a 2-way vaccine: at some point not having one can kill your career advancement; and they're used by employers as a yardstick. Doesn't apply to you, doesn't matter here, but it's a big deal to me: I've seen a few friends really hurt by not having BS behind their name (usually happens pretty late in life). Mileage may vary and that's my humble opinion and the value-of-a-degree subject has been hammered to death on/.
I sit at the computer no less than 40 hours per week, sometimes 12 hours in a day. I use the mouse very frequently and have never had any of these problems. Are they trying to create a market where none exists, or do some people really get a sore wrist from mousing?
Well, my wrist hurts right now.
Then again, there's this spiral notepad, and it's sitting on the desk between me and the mousepad. My wrist is resting on the spiral wire part. That might be a factor...
The federal code takes up about sixteen feet of bookshelf. Then toss in
a few thousand linear feet for the total state and local regulation
one can run afoul of, and another library to hold a few hundred years of jurisprudence (how often is jurisprudence an oxymoron, like military intelligence?)
Given that complexity, it's never simple enough to just toss out a
sentence and be done.
Private property used for public uses has a very complicated legal
history. Currently, trends are toward it getting the sort of
protections you suggest, but there is both a strong history and
a considerable segment of the population that disagree with this:
public use of private space should have citizens' rights that
approach those of genuine public spaces. Public space rules
should apply even more when private spaces are subsidized by taxes or
tarrifs or other public funding... like airports and civic
stadiums and large shopping centers.
In the above case, there are also a lot of us that feel that air travel
is a commmon enough thing that the carriers, not us, should have
their rights reduced. Carriers shouldn't be able to refuse
passengers without a published, governmentally-approved reason.
Frankly, as market-friendly as I am, the market is as much an ass
as the law is. Any attempt to add a rule for denying a passenger
should come with documentation as to why or how the rule is
intended to be used, and a framework for challenging it by
anyone that disagrees.
Last of all, is there anyone dumb enough to think that someone
willing to die for their cause isn't going to risk a misdemeanor
for forging an ID? Hell, having been thru identity theft and
seeing how utterly clueless cops and corps are, my opinion of
the usefulness of ID mechanisms couldn't be lower.
Identity-based security checks have always
seemed to me to be designed to create another narrow
profit niche for airlines. In terms of stopping terrorists,
the idea rates up there with tracking all buying and selling
of something absurd like shoelaces. What's the point!?
scientists suggest replacing the kilogram artifact -- a cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy about the size of a plum --with a definition based on one of two unchanging natural phenomena, either a quantity of light or the mass of a
fixed number of atoms.
Geek1: Six hundred two sextillion, two hundred fourteen quintillion, one hundred ninety eight quadrillion, nine hundred ninety nine trillion, nine hundred ninety nine billion, nine hundred ninety nine million, nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety. Six hundred two sextillion, two hundred fourteen quintillion, one hundred ninety eight quadrillion, nine hundred ninety nine trillion, nine hundred ninety nine billion, nine hundred ninety nine million, nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety one. Six hundred two sextillion, two hundred fourteen quintillion, one hundred ninety eight quadrillion, nine hundred ninety nine trillion, nine hundred ninety nine billion, nine hundred ninety nine million, nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety two. Six hundred two sextillion, two hundred fourteen quintillion, one hundred ninety eight quadrillion, nine hundred ninety nine trillion, nine hundred ninety nine billion, nine hundred ninety nine million, nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety three. Six hundred two sextillion, two hundred fourteen quintillion, one hundred ninety...
Geek2: Whatcha doin', man?
Geek1: Um, I'm about done recalibrating this universal standard kilogram. Just got a... um... er... shit. One. Two. Three...
That said, between preexisting public domain (myths, legends, Grimm, Aesop, Arthur) and reformulating known PD stories, it's doable.
Heck, there actually *are* cheap animated knockoffs of the same stories redone by Disney. And, like pixar, we can start short and CC (I suggest attributable S&SA) them to let others build on our work.
But to get those films *distributed* takes a studio. To get your film distributed, you have to sign away all kinds of rights to your movie. And I GUARANTEE that no distributor would agree to distribute your film under some kind of "open-source" license. There's just no fucking way.
Wa-ay off topic, but when I made an offer on a house once, the realtor (renowned locally for his arrogance) and the seller (an attorney, similar 'leet attitude) responded that they had received 2 offers, both below the asking price, and they gave me 2 days to bid it up with the other prospective buyer, subject to a complex, quirky page of additional conditions and auction rules. After my realtor gave the details, she and I blurted out simultaneously that it appeared that they were apparently trying to impress each other.
For some, ego is everything once they've got too much money. Your two guys probably were less interested in the 5k than the win. Once you see someone with this, you can sometimes find ways to tweak this urge in 'em for fun and profit.
Being wealthy doesn't destroy character. Wealth reveals character.
Yeah, I tried to completely dodge this subtopic because I'm partisan, have a strong opinion on it, and didn't want to get into that side subject because it'd detract from my primary goal of pointing out that:
By allowing this sort of john-doe suit to reveal sources, we'd be subverting the legal protection a whistleblower gets against being retaliated against by being an anonymous source.
Given the value of anonymous sources, I disagree with anything that harms the practice.
Protecting sources has *few* limitations. Until the PlameGate stuff, I didn't realize there were any limits.
Corporate espionage isn't an exact fit, either, since that is usually intercorporate activity, designed to gain knowledge that could be used for a business/competitive purpose. Prerelease of new models has some of that, but there is so much consumer interest that it'd be unfair to say that the publication of the prerelease info was for competitors.
Releasing trade secrets, gained through an unnamed source, generally won't be whistleblowing. However, they're not a viable exception for the protections against court-compelled revealing of sources.
If the exception was created by the courts, it would have the negative impact of creating a path for disclosing and retaliating against whistleblowers.
As with privacy and a zillion other common-to-slashdot discussions, any general concept needs to be distrusted if it allows abuses possible in special cases. The problem with forcing this guy to out his sources is there's nothing stopping some malicious company from using this precedent to create a string of circumstances that show how negative publicity (smoking studies, carcinogens in food, exploding tires, adverse reactions to a medication) hurt them.
As for whistleblowing law, if I stumbled across something truly evil, I doubt I'd be eager to put my ability to work on stuff I enjoy, my life, my kids, my family, and my financial future on the line directly when a careful leak to a reporter could start people investigating to find the evil on their own. That's how *little* I trust whistleblowing law. In fact, I'd sooner divorce my wife, disown my kids, and *then* go public. That is how little faith I have in little-guy-vs-corporation conflicts.
While current laws' superficial promise of protection, plus stronger protections in SarbOx and against federal abuse-of-funds are a good start, I've seen too few success stories and too many whistleblowers' lives ruined to trust the system. And protecting sources is a system that works, even if it allows bloggers to make a fast buck publishing insider info they bribed out of employees. It isn't that I consider this whistleblowing and retaliation against whistleblowing, it's that the law protects this, and if that is changed, it could impact anonymous sources when the stuff is good.
Like with free speech, it isn't enough to protect the obvious cases. You need to protect the marginal stuff you personally disagree with, too.
Now, if you can please explain how releasing trade secrets of an upcomming/possibly upcomming product that will not do harm to the general public in any way or will not cause harm to the government/national security in any way, I'd love to hear it.
I think you left out a word or two here, but I hope I answered your response.
The first one can also just publish how to make that amazing paint job. So, your example really is about intellectual property, in that sense.
He doesn't share... out of a desire for profit. As I said, quite clearly, I wasn't interested in getting into the ethical aspects of the goodness/evilness of anyone so motivated. I was just saying that Apple's desire is profit, and the website's author was after fame or profit, too. And all the rest of us are willing to chase the newest story.
In my book, greed can be either ethical or not. And that ethical line can be shifted just by altering the story a bit. As long as both Apple and the writer desire to capitalize on something, they're going to disagree on what is ethical or right.
As for 'altering the story a bit', let's recast your example:
business 1 is a japanese auto manufacturer. They make the same so-so car with awesome paint, and they keep the process a secret.
business 2 is an american auto manufacturer. Yeah, I realize this is a quaint, 30-year-old business case, given multinationalization of all industrial processes. Seeing the downturn due to business 1's success, boss 2 resorts to industrial espionage to get the process. Some engineer at 1 hands him the info, and within a year, business 2 is able to regain the market lead, selling a car with a better engine and the nice paint job.
Customers win out, business 2 gets to keep his employees working, and business 1 has to improve his engines to compete. Any nationalists will also point out that doing so is a noble act for (god and) country. Meanwhile, another bloc of nationalists might be so upset as to demand a war.
How is industrial espionage in this case bad for disinterested consumers (by disinterested, I mean anyone that doesn't care who makes the car or etc... they just want the best car for their money), for the people at company 2, their shareholders, etc? And what if I feel that tolerating a mediocre engine is slightly more crooked, compared to resorting to bribing an engineer to rebalance the competitive scales?
If you aren't a participant or former participant, the H in IMHO probably should be incremented to I, for Irrelevant:
I never have caught on to the (crafting, hockey, NASCAR, gay, neocons, rap, college, intarweb, wine, art, photography, religion, burning-man, PTA, michael jackson) thing. The only time I ever hear about X is when a friend mentions it, especially when they talk about all the hot chicks there.
Um, aren't trade secrets and NDA's and all that pretty much all about greed, too? For that matter, most journalists will tell you they'd take a bit of risk to get a big scoop, because that is how they get fame and... a bigger paycheck.
Disclaimer: I am NOT commenting on whether these profit-minded constructs (NDA, trade secrets, and soliciting the violation of 'em for a for-profit tattler website) are good or bad. Just noting some irony.
Oh, and journalists' ability to protect sources has few limitations (we're seeing one in the US headlines now, with two reporters facing jail time for refusing to reveal who violated national security by outing a CIA operative). This ain't one of 'em, and for good reason, since it'd be too easy for a large corporation to cast a chilling effect on whistleblowing by stringing together some chain-of-profit in court, then retaliate on the whistleblower once they were outed.
All the character names, 'mostly harmless', Sass, hoopy, frood, towels, an aching diode, 'is just this guy', whales and flowerpots 'oh, no... not again',... if the only geek code you're able to pull out of H2G2 (itself, a geek code) is the number 42, you're not trying hard enough.
Why on *earth* would you hide in your room & r
on
Low Tech Gutenberg?
·
· Score: 1
Seriously. Why on *earth* would you hide in your room & read?
You sign up for '2 years that'll change your life', that'll show you another world, let you make a difference in that distant place, and then you use your off time to read a stack of old books?!
Send your friend a few classics, in hardcover, because a little reading material is always a good thing. Shop around and you'll find 'pocket' editions of classics: smaller books with durable covers and a premium thin/strong/opaque paper. I buy 'em for backpacking trips. Hardcover favorite books have the 2nd advantage of make lasting gifts to friends. Also, anyone can survive 2 years of reading shakespeare, emerson*, Hopkins, or any other collection of a favorite great author/poet (ok, I'd also carry fluff like Douglas Adams* and the occasional USA Today or New Yorker*, even if it's months old and brought in by anyone coming from a nearby city).
But (s)he should meet people, learn a language, try to find someone* willing to teach them the local music/cooking/customs/arts, offer to start up an ad-hoc night class in anything uncontroversial (english, simple math, personal finance*, sanitation (don't laugh...), toe-holds into the world economy*, or whatever). Time spent making relationships with the right people* can also help get PCorps projects done.
Meanwhile, you can put your effort into
acting as their on-call remote techie,
providing a resource for phone calls (and calling cards!).
You can handle other friend-in-america tasks that can be impossible just because vendors won't ship to Africa,
respond promptly to letters, to their written requests,
perhaps creating a weblog to enable others to track your friend's activities and offer additional support.
You can provide web research and technical advice,
Suggest situationally-appropriate unconventional* things like web printouts off a website on DIY foundries (metalcasting) or water-purification or schematics for winning low-tech 50-mile 802.11b designs*.
Send stuff like music*, Knoppix* and Gutenberg* and GnuWIN CD's*, even if they are very likely to get stolen. Even if your friend doesn't happen to be a techie, they might encounter someone that is willing to learn and experiment.
Yeah, sending this crap gets expensive. But a couple cd's, a book, some koolade packets, and the latest music from (insert favorite band)*, packed in tootsie rolls, can be worth every cent.
Oh, and be sure to take others' advice and do a little dismantling before shipment, always use words like used, surplus, non-working, parts, scrap, or any other buzzwords your friend recommends, so theft and the VAT or tarrifs don't make the package cost soar even higher. A friend used to even have new pairs of shoes shipped in 2 packages, a month apart: nobody'd steal *one* shoe.
*A lot of asterisks, cuz this is important: Always keep clear of things that'll get people killed for political/power reasons. For 12 years, Mozambique hasn't been a place I'd consider spooky, according to travel.state.gov's current report, but many african nations are, and the political situations can change rapidly, and these people have to live there long after your friend leaves.
Slashdot Mirror
DO NOT RUN YOUR COMPANY WEBSERVER ON YOUR OWN PC!
(the above message repeats, with details, in a few moments. If Slashdot supported the infamous Flash tag, I'd use it here)
Wow, nerds really are utterly clueless about how profoundly the rest of the world doesn't understand or care about I/T.
In the real world,
- a server isn't a machine, it's a waitress,
- FTP is a misspelling of someone that sends flowers,
- nobody uses '2' instead of 'to',
- 'get that bare metal' isn't recognizable slang,
- 'get a copy of open office' makes heads explode since you obviously left out a noun, a comma and 'then' (most folks would read this as 'get a copy of ****, then open office'),
- what's html?
- what's sane html?
- why can't I use office?
- how do I save-as?
- 'insert script/program' kills a few more innocent bystanders due to exploding-head shrapnel,
- 'upload to server' and 'server root' are baffling phrases. The concepts behind them are worse. Ditto this 'worse' remark for my last comment about scripts, come to think of it.
- There's this thing called whitespace. Your post didn't have any. Now, I am not aiming for a low blow, since I'll bet you just forgot to downgrade your comment from html-formatted to plain-old-text and slashdot screwed you. I make the same mistake once a week. If experts can regularly get screwed by our own tools what chance does Nick the chef have?!
Let me finish by saying again:DO NOT RUN YOUR COMPANY WEBSERVER ON YOUR OWN PC!
Configuring and maintaining a desktop pc to act as a commercial site webhost is insane. Always. Full stop, no exceptions. First, getting server-class upstream bandwidth is spendier than using some hosting service. Second, a PC handling both the restaurant books *and* an IIS server (it's "common sense" to have your work computer do both) is even crazier, since a website compromise could lead to massive PR/Fraud/Theft/sabotage damage. Third, if you leave a server anywhere other than in a locked/alarmed location that has just 1 key that you wear around your neck like some kid at day-camp, some nimrod *will* harm it. They'll turn the computer off or use it for a quick web-surf or to play some online game. The machine will fall victim to unintended uses that are likely to get spyware infections going. That's really not an ideal medium for the company website, or any computer holding financial/company data.
But don't believe me; try it yourself: pick something controversial and look it up.
If a controversy pops up, usually in the form of edit wars, there are a few mechanisms for calming the issue. Edits toward a NPOV perspective are attempted, temporary suspension of edits to allow interested parties to calm, and a locked edit by some disinterested (and trusted by the wikimedia leads) third party are examples (if I'm not mistaken).
Since nothing captures the wikipedia style of embracing the whole breadth of knowledge or views like a hard example, here's some wikipedia text from the Earth and Flat Earth entries:
Earth
Flat Earth:
If you know a few business-owners (esp restaurant owners), you'll agree that some are utterly clueless on IT and economic/finance practices. What if this guy really is just clueless?
This NZ$3000 case isn't an ideal case for what I'm saying, but what about the precedent? This potentially sets a legal and public-opinion precedent that I'm not thrilled with:
- First precedent: publishing specific details are risky on your website, because you can be held accountable long after you've forgotten that you ever created some orphan page. Think I'm crazy? Imagine a one-time web ad: 'throughout june, mention this ad and get a surf-n-turf special for $12.95'.... oops, no year. Now, your cut-rate $50-per-modification webmaster cuts the link in July, but leaves the html on the server for your/his future reuse, and some webcrawler never forgets it. As I said, 'In other news, the Staten Island Ferry was fined $30,000 after a customer got in line clutching a rate card from 1958.'
- Screwed by a gift: a friend/customer/admirer or some wannabe offers you a bargain website? Turn it down, because they might not give you keys to the site, maintain it, etc., but you'll be held responsible. Or, in my facetious tone, '...it was discovered that, in a locked, donated trunk of old books and papers, they had been in posession of WWII-era Nazi propaganda.'
- Killed by bad press: even a lame claim against a PR-dependent company can
do massive damage. And PETA's founder was forced to resign today after it was learned his father once ate a steak. Rare.
My original post was off-the-cuff, but I'll stand by it, even if it does mean another round of moderator smack-down. This is one of those road-to-hell / good-intentions things. Worse, the commission/judge used buzz-phrases that made them sound like a bad web-advertising seminar from '98, they seem oblivious to international issues, they don't seem aware of the high cost of content maintenance, etc. Meanwhile, sensible web marketing advice like datestamp or expiration notices never got mentioned and they're making legal precedents that are easily abused.Suing a company for old, orphaned, or flawed webpages creates a small barrier against entry. It gives an avenue for large firms to hammer on smaller/weaker competitors (into oblivion) for insufficient detail or inaccuracies online. If they act defensively, they publish less detail, and we lose detailed data because of the maintenance costs.
Would you rather price information for some shops be utterly unavailable online? Is that the stance of everyone disagreeing with me here? 'Cuz we risk a subtle chilling effect happening if the 'net is policed for accuracy, whether by a government commission or by competitors given more leeway to frivolously sue.
Would the restaurant's site be sufficiently fixed if a tiny bit of print said: 'last updated 21-Sept-2004'? Because I can't count the number of restaurants, bars and arts venues, online stores, peer-review sites and newspaper/magazine-based reviews that have some small bit of out-of-date info on the 'net.
Hell, even this story suffers the time-distortion effects of the web: it was old enough news that I literally found 130 copies of the story on the web. Apparently, nerds are among the last to know that this happened in February.
Would you rather only *large* companies advertise online? Because that's another risk: if you can't afford to pay for the maintenance, don't advertise online. Also, if you can't afford to have your ad vetted for legal risks, don't run it.
Would yu want your favorite hangout to take the PR hit for being 'under investigation' or for news that they're being sued by a customer?
heh, love the rutherford quote. Hear-hear on the rest, though, as another physics geek. I would watch a friend memorize stuff for organic chem, then microbiology, etc. I can't memorize random stuff for s**t, so physics was ideal *for me*. For him, chemistry's complexity of thousands of patterns and families of behavior (and what for me was alphabet soup) made sense.
Sorta reminds me of once watching two physics undergrads struggle with economics until a third one started explaining it using thermodynamic terms. Or seeing a good musician with a hint of math insight explain to a mathematician that 'right' music can have so many mathematically-beautiful characteristics, then admit that music is best when it throws the recognizable math out the window at just the right instant.
How cheap is dining in new zealand, if a 17% discount corresponds to 15c? Either your math is bolluxed or everything costs under a buck!
In other news, the Staten Island Ferry was fined $30,000 after a customer got in line clutching a rate card from 1958.
Turning to Europe, a German recycling firm was shuttered over the weekend when it was discovered that, in a locked, donated trunk of old books and papers, they had been in posession of WWII-era Nazi propaganda.
And PETA's founder was forced to resign today after it was learned his father once ate a steak. Rare.
For a while after finishing college, you feel drawn back to the college life. Be sure you're not going back just because it's comfortable. If you don't even care if you're gonna become a manager, head-geek, marketdroid, tech-writer, tech-law guru or whatever (what *Degree* depends on your answer to that question), you're seriously not prime for grad school.
/.
One friend's dad offered to pay for her grad school completely after she'd worked 5 years. Wise man: she's never looked back.
Another friend, the smartest science/tech student in years at my high school, stopped with a BS, moved to Silicon Valley, and says she'd literally *fall behind* in her field if she left work for 1-3 years. I kind of doubt this, since she could nail additional courses in her area as they paralleled her work until the degree sorta just plopped in her lap one day. She publishes enough. She studies and learns new stuff enough. But the degree also stopped mattering to anyone she knows *years* ago.
Another friend nailed a triple major, which took him longer than the rest of us. It didn't gain him any of the cash or glamour he bragged he'd get. That's some serious money wasted.
My own take is that graduate work should wait until you start finding something really compelling to become gods-own-expert in. Let me say it again: if you don't even care if you're gonna become a manager, head-geek, marketdroid, tech-writer, tech-law guru or whatever (what *Degree* depends on your answer to that question), you're seriously not prime for grad school. Take a class or two. Or just dive into some side project to gain some focus: pick a subset from that list of career paths and find a way to get experience in it.
I did some grad courses, and exited because it was clear that I wasn't sure what I wanted to do yet, and figured if I was going to become a PhD, it had better be in something I gave a rat's-ass about.
Ten years later, I'm fairly certain what that might be. If I weren't having so much fun with work, wife, kids, life in general, I'd probably go back. Once the kids aren't a delightful distraction, I'll start picking an ideal college/mentor or three to contact and apply to.
Caveat: grad degrees are candy: I approve, but I don't preach 'em. OTOH, Bachelor's degrees are not optional IMHO: they're a 2-way vaccine: at some point not having one can kill your career advancement; and they're used by employers as a yardstick. Doesn't apply to you, doesn't matter here, but it's a big deal to me: I've seen a few friends really hurt by not having BS behind their name (usually happens pretty late in life). Mileage may vary and that's my humble opinion and the value-of-a-degree subject has been hammered to death on
Then again, there's this spiral notepad, and it's sitting on the desk between me and the mousepad. My wrist is resting on the spiral wire part. That might be a factor...
So, everyone follows Mitnick's advice, customer service will get *worse*?!
<Sarcasm>Gee, THANKS Kevin!</Sarcasm>
I got a mental image of a 24x7 network for SNL's andro-Pat.
(cringe!)
Given that complexity, it's never simple enough to just toss out a sentence and be done.
Private property used for public uses has a very complicated legal history. Currently, trends are toward it getting the sort of protections you suggest, but there is both a strong history and a considerable segment of the population that disagree with this: public use of private space should have citizens' rights that approach those of genuine public spaces. Public space rules should apply even more when private spaces are subsidized by taxes or tarrifs or other public funding... like airports and civic stadiums and large shopping centers.
In the above case, there are also a lot of us that feel that air travel is a commmon enough thing that the carriers, not us, should have their rights reduced. Carriers shouldn't be able to refuse passengers without a published, governmentally-approved reason. Frankly, as market-friendly as I am, the market is as much an ass as the law is. Any attempt to add a rule for denying a passenger should come with documentation as to why or how the rule is intended to be used, and a framework for challenging it by anyone that disagrees.
Last of all, is there anyone dumb enough to think that someone willing to die for their cause isn't going to risk a misdemeanor for forging an ID? Hell, having been thru identity theft and seeing how utterly clueless cops and corps are, my opinion of the usefulness of ID mechanisms couldn't be lower.
Identity-based security checks have always seemed to me to be designed to create another narrow profit niche for airlines. In terms of stopping terrorists, the idea rates up there with tracking all buying and selling of something absurd like shoelaces. What's the point!?
I'm shocked --SHOCKED!--to learn that there is gambling going on in this establishment.
Geek2: Whatcha doin', man?
Geek1: Um, I'm about done recalibrating this universal standard kilogram. Just got a... um... er... shit. One. Two. Three...
I hope you're trollin.
That said, between preexisting public domain (myths, legends, Grimm, Aesop, Arthur) and reformulating known PD stories, it's doable.
Heck, there actually *are* cheap animated knockoffs of the same stories redone by Disney. And, like pixar, we can start short and CC (I suggest attributable S&SA) them to let others build on our work.
That actually sounds like fun...
Um, ever heard of blogs and bittorrent?
Wa-ay off topic, but when I made an offer on a house once, the realtor (renowned locally for his arrogance) and the seller (an attorney, similar 'leet attitude) responded that they had received 2 offers, both below the asking price, and they gave me 2 days to bid it up with the other prospective buyer, subject to a complex, quirky page of additional conditions and auction rules. After my realtor gave the details, she and I blurted out simultaneously that it appeared that they were apparently trying to impress each other.
For some, ego is everything once they've got too much money. Your two guys probably were less interested in the 5k than the win. Once you see someone with this, you can sometimes find ways to tweak this urge in 'em for fun and profit.
Being wealthy doesn't destroy character. Wealth reveals character.
Oh, and the house? Took 4 more months to sell.
Yeah, I tried to completely dodge this subtopic because I'm partisan, have a strong opinion on it, and didn't want to get into that side subject because it'd detract from my primary goal of pointing out that:
By allowing this sort of john-doe suit to reveal sources, we'd be subverting the legal protection a whistleblower gets against being retaliated against by being an anonymous source.
Given the value of anonymous sources, I disagree with anything that harms the practice.
Corporate espionage isn't an exact fit, either, since that is usually intercorporate activity, designed to gain knowledge that could be used for a business/competitive purpose. Prerelease of new models has some of that, but there is so much consumer interest that it'd be unfair to say that the publication of the prerelease info was for competitors.
Releasing trade secrets, gained through an unnamed source, generally won't be whistleblowing. However, they're not a viable exception for the protections against court-compelled revealing of sources.
If the exception was created by the courts, it would have the negative impact
of creating a path for disclosing and retaliating against whistleblowers.
As with privacy and a zillion other common-to-slashdot discussions, any general concept needs to be distrusted if it allows abuses possible in special cases. The problem with forcing this guy to out his sources is there's nothing stopping some malicious company from using this precedent to create a string of circumstances that show how negative publicity (smoking studies, carcinogens in food, exploding tires, adverse reactions to a medication) hurt them.
As for whistleblowing law, if I stumbled across something truly evil, I doubt I'd be eager to put my ability to work on stuff I enjoy, my life, my kids, my family, and my financial future on the line directly when a careful leak to a reporter could start people investigating to find the evil on their own. That's how *little* I trust whistleblowing law. In fact, I'd sooner divorce my wife, disown my kids, and *then* go public. That is how little faith I have in little-guy-vs-corporation conflicts.
While current laws' superficial promise of protection, plus stronger protections in SarbOx and against federal abuse-of-funds are a good start, I've seen too few success stories and too many whistleblowers' lives ruined to trust the system. And protecting sources is a system that works, even if it allows bloggers to make a fast buck publishing insider info they bribed out of employees. It isn't that I consider this whistleblowing and retaliation against whistleblowing, it's that the law protects this, and if that is changed, it could impact anonymous sources when the stuff is good.
Like with free speech, it isn't enough to protect the obvious cases. You need to protect the marginal stuff you personally disagree with, too.
I think you left out a word or two here, but I hope I answered your response.
The first one can also just publish how to make that amazing paint job. So, your example really is about intellectual property, in that sense.
... out of a desire for profit. As I said, quite clearly, I wasn't interested in getting into the ethical aspects of the goodness/evilness of anyone so motivated. I was just saying that Apple's desire is profit, and the website's author was after fame or profit, too. And all the rest of us are willing to chase the newest story.
He doesn't share
In my book, greed can be either ethical or not. And that ethical line can be shifted just by altering the story a bit. As long as both Apple and the writer desire to capitalize on something, they're going to disagree on what is ethical or right.
As for 'altering the story a bit', let's recast your example:
business 1 is a japanese auto manufacturer. They make the same so-so car with awesome paint, and they keep the process a secret.
business 2 is an american auto manufacturer. Yeah, I realize this is a quaint, 30-year-old business case, given multinationalization of all industrial processes. Seeing the downturn due to business 1's success, boss 2 resorts to industrial espionage to get the process. Some engineer at 1 hands him the info, and within a year, business 2 is able to regain the market lead, selling a car with a better engine and the nice paint job.
Customers win out, business 2 gets to keep his employees working, and business 1 has to improve his engines to compete. Any nationalists will also point out that doing so is a noble act for (god and) country. Meanwhile, another bloc of nationalists might be so upset as to demand a war.
How is industrial espionage in this case bad for disinterested consumers (by disinterested, I mean anyone that doesn't care who makes the car or etc... they just want the best car for their money), for the people at company 2, their shareholders, etc? And what if I feel that tolerating a mediocre engine is slightly more crooked, compared to resorting to bribing an engineer to rebalance the competitive scales?
Um, aren't trade secrets and NDA's and all that pretty much all about greed, too? For that matter, most journalists will tell you they'd take a bit of risk to get a big scoop, because that is how they get fame and... a bigger paycheck.
Disclaimer: I am NOT commenting on whether these profit-minded constructs (NDA, trade secrets, and soliciting the violation of 'em for a for-profit tattler website) are good or bad. Just noting some irony.
Oh, and journalists' ability to protect sources has few limitations (we're seeing one in the US headlines now, with two reporters facing jail time for refusing to reveal who violated national security by outing a CIA operative). This ain't one of 'em, and for good reason, since it'd be too easy for a large corporation to cast a chilling effect on whistleblowing by stringing together some chain-of-profit in court, then retaliate on the whistleblower once they were outed.
All the character names, 'mostly harmless', Sass, hoopy, frood, towels, an aching diode, 'is just this guy', whales and flowerpots 'oh, no... not again', ... if the only geek code you're able to pull out of H2G2 (itself, a geek code) is the number 42, you're not trying hard enough.
You sign up for '2 years that'll change your life', that'll show you another world, let you make a difference in that distant place, and then you use your off time to read a stack of old books?!
Send your friend a few classics, in hardcover, because a little reading material is always a good thing. Shop around and you'll find 'pocket' editions of classics: smaller books with durable covers and a premium thin/strong/opaque paper. I buy 'em for backpacking trips. Hardcover favorite books have the 2nd advantage of make lasting gifts to friends. Also, anyone can survive 2 years of reading shakespeare, emerson*, Hopkins, or any other collection of a favorite great author/poet (ok, I'd also carry fluff like Douglas Adams* and the occasional USA Today or New Yorker*, even if it's months old and brought in by anyone coming from a nearby city).
But (s)he should meet people, learn a language, try to find someone* willing to teach them the local music/cooking/customs/arts, offer to start up an ad-hoc night class in anything uncontroversial (english, simple math, personal finance*, sanitation (don't laugh...), toe-holds into the world economy*, or whatever). Time spent making relationships with the right people* can also help get PCorps projects done.
Meanwhile, you can put your effort into
Yeah, sending this crap gets expensive. But a couple cd's, a book, some koolade packets, and the latest music from (insert favorite band)*, packed in tootsie rolls, can be worth every cent.
Oh, and be sure to take others' advice and do a little dismantling before shipment, always use words like used, surplus, non-working, parts, scrap, or any other buzzwords your friend recommends, so theft and the VAT or tarrifs don't make the package cost soar even higher. A friend used to even have new pairs of shoes shipped in 2 packages, a month apart: nobody'd steal *one* shoe.
*A lot of asterisks, cuz this is important: Always keep clear of things that'll get people killed for political/power reasons. For 12 years, Mozambique hasn't been a place I'd consider spooky, according to travel.state.gov's current report, but many african nations are, and the political situations can change rapidly, and these people have to live there long after your friend leaves.