I agree, it's a matter of ethics. If you have no ethical problems stealing the candy, then steal it. If you have no ethical problems copying the book, copy it.
I personally would have an ethical issue with stealing the candy, because if I have the candy the previous owner of the candy no longer has it. If I copy the book, the previous owner of the book still has everything he/she did beforehand.
The issue of being forced to buy the book is a red herring and has nothing to do with the argument. It's about being forced to do something, or not to do something you don't agree with.
The crux of the disagreement I have with this whole issue is in your comment If one does not believe in IP rights, then one should, ethically, not purchase or use any copyrighted material! I don't believe ethics should force you to adhere to laws you don't believe in.
Taking things to extremes, say there was a law that said you were not allowed to travel more than 1km from the place you were born. Or that required you to keep at least one slave. If you do not believe in these laws, do ethics dictate that you should follow them as well?
I say if you don't believe in a law, break it, but be prepared to face the consequences.
You can only sue him if he violated the terms he agreed to. If I stole the book from him, or copied it without his consent or knowledge you couldn't sue him.
And yes, I am forced to accept copyright laws, that's why you can force me to get a copy of your book only on your terms. If I declare I do not accept copyright laws then go and copy your book, you can nail me. Therefore I am forced to accept copyright laws.
Saying I don't have to accept the laws is like this: say there's a line on the ground that it's illegal to cross. You're saying that I don't have to accept that law -- that I can choose not to cross the line. Those aren't the same things. I want to be able to cross the line without facing a penalty. That's the only way in which I would not be forced to accept that law.
The article does contain some arguments which are not that strong, but it is not a "stupid" article.
patent law does not prevent an individual from building a patented device for his own personal use
I believe it does but I may be wrong. From what I understand patent law gives the owner the ability to exclude others from making, using or selling the invention. I don't think it makes any mention of a requirement that the use be for commerce.
Say someone patents a means of mixing chemicals to produce heat over a few hours (like those boot warmer packs for skiing).
If a huge multinational ski company like K2 starts selling those with skis then it's clearly a violation of patent laws.
What if it's some local guy at a ski hill who is giving them out with the ski passes he sells? Or what if it's a member of the volunteer ski patrol who is giving them out so people don't get frostbite? It's easy to reduce this situation to one where a guy uses the idea to keep himself from losing a foot to frostbite.
Admittedly this is reducing the situation to a point of absurdidty where nobody is likely to refuse the right to use the patent. But that's not the point. Legally they could say "no, you must not use my patented means to heat your foot" in any one of those situations.
Say I see a cool logo on Joe Blow's web page. If I decide to put it on my web page, I can be nailed for copyright violation.
But if copyright law didn't exist it would be different. I could not be nailed for taking the image because I never signed a contract or in any other way promised I wouldn't take the image.
To make this analogy closer to the book metaphor, imagine Joe Blow bought the book and signed the contract saying he wouldn't distribute the book. Then say without his permission I photocopy the book. He didn't distribute the book and I now have a copy. I never signed any contract so the author can't legally do anything to punish/stop me. But if copyrights existed I could be nailed.
The difference between copyrights and contracts is that you have no choice to "accept a copyright", but you have a choice to accept or reject a contract. If you have never signed a contract saying you won't do something then you can't be nailed for doing that thing.
To me that's the one of the real important issues with copyrights (and many other things), they're rules you're forced to obey without ever having agreed to obey them.
Personally, I abhor the concept of countries. Because I happened to be born north of an imaginary line in North America I happen to be Canadian.
To me one of the great things about the 'net is that it's essentially countryless. I love the fact that it confuses lawmakers/lawenforcers/taxtakers to no end when a business is registered in Jamaica, is served off a server in Chicago and has customers in the Netherlands.
I would assume that since Linux is not stored centrally anywhere, contains contributions from people around the globe, who may or may not be known/credited, etc. that it's countryless.
Now I imagine the commercial distributions can be tagged as "belonging" to the country in which that business is incorporated... but who knows.
the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction
If the miniature images on that page were seen in their original full-size form they might qualify as pornography. At a size that small, they simply don't. How could anyone would find any 27x27 pixel image as "depicting erotic behaviour intended to cause sexual excitement"?? The only reason that we humans are able to recognize that the images in that mosaic depict women in erotic positions is that our brains are amazing at filling in missing information. If you don't believe me try blowing up some of those images to 5 times their original size.
But the real issue isn't the 27x27 pixel tiles, it's the image itself, which is undeniably art. It may be art that nobody finds interesting, it may even offend some, but it is art, and while it might be considered erotic art, it's not pornographic.
Was Rob wrong to post this? Well it isn't news for nerds and it surely isn't stuff that matters but I'm sure I'm not the only one who found it interesting and, yes, I admit it, cool. I'm glad Rob chose to share it with us. I don't even think there's any reason he should have to warn people about the image.
As we all know, visions of the future have always shown everybody wearing sparkly metal clothing -- finally we now know why! To prevent muggings by phaser! It was never for fashion afterall!
It's very obvious that the current "Linus personality cult" has to go.
I've always been puzzled about the whole cult surrounding this guy. Sure he started the ball rolling and is the guy at the top, but so what? That doesn't necessarily make him a saint, does it?
Nope, all accredited engineering disciplines. I happen to have mine from an Engineering Physics program. All engineers at my school get them: Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, Geological, Mining, Chemical, Eng. Chem, Physics, even Applied Math.
Here in Canada engineers who pass through an accredited engineering program receive an Iron Ring just before they graduate. This ring is given in a somewhat secret ceremony and represents the responsibility of being an engineer. Unlike many other professions, engineers often build things which, if they fail, can kill many people. This is the origin of the Iron Ring and the ceremony surrounding it -- and to a lesser extent the requirement to be certified as an engineer.
In the very early 1900s engineers had been building a bridge near Quebec city. While workers were finishing up the bridge it buckled and collapsed, killing around 90 people. 10 years later the second bridge was almost finished, when it too collapsed and killed 11 people.
After an investigation it was determined that both of these disasters were due to faulty engineering. The engineers had not properly calculated the loads and stresses the structure would have to bear and because of this the structures had failed.
The iron from these bridges had been stored in a huge warehouse, and until it was all used up, iron rings were made from its metal. For the past 75 years or so these rings have been given out to graduating engineers to remind them that in practicing their profession they are taking responsibility for people's lives.
I don't know how it works in other places, but here in Canada you have to be a professional engineer to sign off on blueprints to a bridge, or other technical engineering documents. This is just like how you have to be an MD to offer your services as a surgeon, etc.
Whether this sort of certification makes sense for people writing code really depends on what they're doing. Someone who's making a javascript popup on a web page isn't taking people's lives into their hands. Certification for them makes no sense. But what about someone writing a control system for a nuclear power plant, or for an air-traffic control system?
I think certification has its place, and while most programmers can safely say it's unnecessary for their job, other times I think there should be accountability. Who knows, maybe this Y2K stuff is as serious as some people say, and it will be the Quebec Bridge for programmers.
Actually, last I heard the MIT Quantum Computer was a *long* way from Prime Time. I don't remember the details, but the techniques that work for a two qubit quantum computer will not work for anything much larger -- and the two qubit version was difficult enough.
There's no real rush yet. I think we have a number of years to go before Quantum Computing treatens cryptography.
Just a quick comment -- the layout isn't quite optimized. The space and backspace are great, but I seem to recall 's' being one of the most used characters in english, but its position here is "secondary" (not just an in-out stroke).
Also, the position of the zero is secondary. I'd assume that's the most used number.
Any other thoughts about the optimality of the placements?
I did what I could, only it wasn't that easy. First of all in Engineering we were told what classes to take, and had about 5 optional courses over the 4 year program. Secondly I often had to work with students from my classes, so it helped to be on their good side so I could actually find people to work with me.
Ack, this is dangerous territory. I think it's important to learn to live with people who are different.
I was in the "gifted" program throughout high school, and it was great. I could learn at the fast pace I loved without being slowed down by the kids who just didn't get it.
But it was the gifted program in a normal school. Although it was often unpleasant dealing with others in high school, I think it would have been very dangerous if I hadn't learned how to deal with them.
It's the same if you shelter the rich from the poor, or the black from the white. The best way to counteract bad stereotypes and to get along is to be exposed to other people.
I think my gifted program was great because it let me learn at my own rate with other students who were actually interested. But I wouldn't want to be segregated.
My university was even more diverse. We had arts students, science students, law, business, medicine, nursing, engineering, music...
But the engineering faculty didn't interact much with the other ones. What I experienced wasn't intolerance for geeks. (Although it still wasn't cool to like computers) What I experienced was more looking down on people who didn't like to "party" -- get completely drunk, or who didn't like doing sports or school politics. It wasn't as severe as high school, but it was still hard to be your own person.
Strange, see I went to what is generally recognized as one of the best, if not the best, universities in Canada (Queen's). It's an old school with a mixed program, lots of arts students, lots of science students, lots of business students, lots of engineers. We even had law students and meds students.
I can't imagine a place that *should* have been more open. However the engineering faculty in particular was very conservative and "cliquey". And again, it was student government, sports and partying that made you cool.
A company can afford to pay people to do very complete testing -- black box, glass box, etc. This type of testing is something nobody would want to do unless they're being paid, but to make sure something is rock solid, it really has to be done.
Linux has hundreds of thousands of people using and testing, and of those probably thousands, at least hundreds, are trying to fix any bugs they find. *But*, they are not actively looking for bugs, trying out every possible configuration, stress-testing the system, giving it worst-case scenarios. These people are just using the systems and if a bug happens to pop up during their use, they'll report or fix it.
The recent Mindcraft study helps illustrate this point. The machine they were using to do the test was wierd. It had 4 gig! of memory! In a formal test, a configuration like this might have been covered, but in informal testing, you'd just have to hope some guy was lucky enough to also have a machine with 4 gig on hand and had run it through its paces.
But in the end, the benefits of going with Linux beats the benefits of formalized testing most of the time.
With the huge Linux user base there's a pretty good chance every established piece of code has been pretty thoroughly tested. Also, if a bug pops up the source is available so you can try to fix it yourself. If what you're working on is interesting enough, you might even be able to get people help you track down the bug. Good luck getting that with SCO Unix
I think you have to think about longer term. Right now most people aren't connected to the 'net when they're doing their word processing -- but I'd bet in 10 years it will be rare to find someone without a permanent connection. Look at how many people are getting DSL, cable modems, and other forms of permanent connections. Since you can't really go beyond 56K with a normal modem, and nearly all alternatives offer permanent connections, I can't see how everyone wouldn't have a permanent connection in 10 years.
As for the issue of "you open a word processor to do work"... true, but I'm sure there are a lot of people like me. I *hate* writing essays, and it doesn't take much to distract me when I'm doing that. If some ad popped up in the corner of my word processor when I'm struggling through my essay, if it was interesting enough (at least more interesting than my exceedingly boring essay), I just might click on it.
But I think the idea will fail. It's exceedingly easy to find cracks on the web that enable you to bypass copy protection or other unpleasant things about software. I'd bet cracks for these programs would pop up in a short while -- even faster than with shareware.
My dad is no computer genius, but he's slightly more informed than the average user. He managed to bypass the forced banner ads for Pointcast without problems.
The main issue here is that ads in software are vastly different than ads in newspapers, billboards, or TV ads, because *I control the medium*.
I currently use software that controls the cookies my browser uses, as well as software which blocks 99% of all banner ads so I never see them.
There's a small chance this strategy might work for the technically illiterate masses, but no way it would work at all for hackers who didn't want to put up with the ads.
Either they've changed English since I was in school or you're wrong.
An abbreviation is a short form of a word, like "auto" for automobile, "ref" for referee, etc. An acronym is what you get when you use the first letters in a phrase: "NSA" for National Security Agency, "NASA" for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Either they've changed English since I was in school or you're wrong.
An abbreviation is a short form of a word, like "auto" for automobile, "ref" for referee, etc. An acronym is what you get when you use the first letters in a phrase: "NSA" for National Security Agency, "NASA" for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
I had a pretty unpleasant high-school experience, luckily I had enough close friends to help me get by. They were all extremely intelligent, but a few had other characteristics that made them less likely to be picked on -- one played Volleyball for the school team, another was a very good looking and socially adept female.
But I have to say that for me University (College for you US types) was not so much better. I ended up in the "nerdiest" of the Engineering groups (Engineering Physics) and still had to deal with the same cliques and stuff as high school.
Engineering, at my school and others I heard about, doesn't tend to tolerate people who are different. There was a standard dress code, and if you looked too strange.... that was a no-no. If you were too fat, didn't like the right music, or liked classes too much -- you were a freak. I can't imagine how unpleasant it must have been to be a gay engineer. And, for people like me who didn't drink... that was a guaranteed way to be an outcast.
Granted, all of this was better than high school, but it was still pretty bad.
I once again managed to find some good friends and escape a lot of the stupidity, but that didn't mean I didn't feel like an outcast a lot of the time.
Am I in the minority, or did other people find college / university unpleasant as well?
One interesting note about the reaction to the shootings is how few among the media seem able to understand how anybody could hate high school.
If you think about it, the reasons are pretty obvious. Your average TV reporter is likely the type of person who was popular in high school.
Many studies have been done that show that when people are applying for jobs, better looking candidates are more likely to be hired than technically superior, but not as good looking competitors. This applies to jobs where appearance is not relevant to the job in any way (back-office, techs, etc.). It applies more when customer interaction and charisma plays a part of the job (sales, reception). And of course it plays a very big role when appearance is central to the job (acting, modelling, and of course TV reporting).
So should be no big surprise if your average TV anchorperson loved high school.
It has often been the case that the popular people in high school become the leaders of society. This is not through any particular skill, other than people skills, but rather from charisma, contacts, and good looks.
An interesting supporting statistic is the average height of US presidents. On average they are giants. It isn't the only reason they're hired, but this imposing presence is something people find attractive when choosing someone to lead them.
The interesting thing is that this power structure seems to be shifting. Since the early 1990s there has been a shortage of skilled computer professionals. This is one field where looks matter less than competence. There has always been a need for technically competent people. But that hasn't always translated into power. Now, the combination of omnipresent technology, an extremely fast-moving technological environment and a communications medium to tie these people into a sense of community has started to give "geeks" true power.
It used to be that successful chief executives didn't need to really understand technology as long as someone beneath them did. These days things are changing. The CEO of IBM can't run the company like it sells typewriters anymore.
Since the very things that make someone an outcast in high school are the very things that tend to make a good geek, how long will it be before high-school changes to accomodate this new world?
I agree the reporting is pretty sad, but think the reporter can be forgiven for saying WINE is an emulator. Afterall, the newsgroup for WINE is comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine, and from what I understand originally came from WINdows Emulator.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree, it's a matter of ethics. If you have no ethical problems stealing the candy, then steal it. If you have no ethical problems copying the book, copy it.
I personally would have an ethical issue with stealing the candy, because if I have the candy the previous owner of the candy no longer has it. If I copy the book, the previous owner of the book still has everything he/she did beforehand.
The issue of being forced to buy the book is a red herring and has nothing to do with the argument. It's about being forced to do something, or not to do something you don't agree with.
The crux of the disagreement I have with this whole issue is in your comment If one does not believe in IP rights, then one should, ethically, not purchase or use any copyrighted material! I don't believe ethics should force you to adhere to laws you don't believe in.
Taking things to extremes, say there was a law that said you were not allowed to travel more than 1km from the place you were born. Or that required you to keep at least one slave. If you do not believe in these laws, do ethics dictate that you should follow them as well?
I say if you don't believe in a law, break it, but be prepared to face the consequences.
You can only sue him if he violated the terms he agreed to. If I stole the book from him, or copied it without his consent or knowledge you couldn't sue him.
And yes, I am forced to accept copyright laws, that's why you can force me to get a copy of your book only on your terms. If I declare I do not accept copyright laws then go and copy your book, you can nail me. Therefore I am forced to accept copyright laws.
Saying I don't have to accept the laws is like this: say there's a line on the ground that it's illegal to cross. You're saying that I don't have to accept that law -- that I can choose not to cross the line. Those aren't the same things. I want to be able to cross the line without facing a penalty. That's the only way in which I would not be forced to accept that law.
The article does contain some arguments which are not that strong, but it is not a "stupid" article.
I believe it does but I may be wrong. From what I understand patent law gives the owner the ability to exclude others from making, using or selling the invention. I don't think it makes any mention of a requirement that the use be for commerce.
Say someone patents a means of mixing chemicals to produce heat over a few hours (like those boot warmer packs for skiing).
If a huge multinational ski company like K2 starts selling those with skis then it's clearly a violation of patent laws.
What if it's some local guy at a ski hill who is giving them out with the ski passes he sells? Or what if it's a member of the volunteer ski patrol who is giving them out so people don't get frostbite? It's easy to reduce this situation to one where a guy uses the idea to keep himself from losing a foot to frostbite.
Admittedly this is reducing the situation to a point of absurdidty where nobody is likely to refuse the right to use the patent. But that's not the point. Legally they could say "no, you must not use my patented means to heat your foot" in any one of those situations.
Say I see a cool logo on Joe Blow's web page. If I decide to put it on my web page, I can be nailed for copyright violation.
But if copyright law didn't exist it would be different. I could not be nailed for taking the image because I never signed a contract or in any other way promised I wouldn't take the image.
To make this analogy closer to the book metaphor, imagine Joe Blow bought the book and signed the contract saying he wouldn't distribute the book. Then say without his permission I photocopy the book. He didn't distribute the book and I now have a copy. I never signed any contract so the author can't legally do anything to punish/stop me. But if copyrights existed I could be nailed.
The difference between copyrights and contracts is that you have no choice to "accept a copyright", but you have a choice to accept or reject a contract. If you have never signed a contract saying you won't do something then you can't be nailed for doing that thing.
To me that's the one of the real important issues with copyrights (and many other things), they're rules you're forced to obey without ever having agreed to obey them.
Personally, I abhor the concept of countries. Because I happened to be born north of an imaginary line in North America I happen to be Canadian.
To me one of the great things about the 'net is that it's essentially countryless. I love the fact that it confuses lawmakers/lawenforcers/taxtakers to no end when a business is registered in Jamaica, is served off a server in Chicago and has customers in the Netherlands.
I would assume that since Linux is not stored centrally anywhere, contains contributions from people around the globe, who may or may not be known/credited, etc. that it's countryless.
Now I imagine the commercial distributions can be tagged as "belonging" to the country in which that business is incorporated... but who knows.
Oh, puleeeeez! Calling that porn is laughable.
WWWebster defines pornography as:
If the miniature images on that page were seen in their original full-size form they might qualify as pornography. At a size that small, they simply don't. How could anyone would find any 27x27 pixel image as "depicting erotic behaviour intended to cause sexual excitement"?? The only reason that we humans are able to recognize that the images in that mosaic depict women in erotic positions is that our brains are amazing at filling in missing information. If you don't believe me try blowing up some of those images to 5 times their original size.
But the real issue isn't the 27x27 pixel tiles, it's the image itself, which is undeniably art. It may be art that nobody finds interesting, it may even offend some, but it is art, and while it might be considered erotic art, it's not pornographic.
Was Rob wrong to post this? Well it isn't news for nerds and it surely isn't stuff that matters but I'm sure I'm not the only one who found it interesting and, yes, I admit it, cool. I'm glad Rob chose to share it with us. I don't even think there's any reason he should have to warn people about the image.
As we all know, visions of the future have always shown everybody wearing sparkly metal clothing -- finally we now know why! To prevent muggings by phaser! It was never for fashion afterall!
I've always been puzzled about the whole cult surrounding this guy. Sure he started the ball rolling and is the guy at the top, but so what? That doesn't necessarily make him a saint, does it?
Nope, all accredited engineering disciplines. I happen to have mine from an Engineering Physics program. All engineers at my school get them: Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, Geological, Mining, Chemical, Eng. Chem, Physics, even Applied Math.
Here in Canada engineers who pass through an accredited engineering program receive an Iron Ring just before they graduate. This ring is given in a somewhat secret ceremony and represents the responsibility of being an engineer. Unlike many other professions, engineers often build things which, if they fail, can kill many people. This is the origin of the Iron Ring and the ceremony surrounding it -- and to a lesser extent the requirement to be certified as an engineer.
In the very early 1900s engineers had been building a bridge near Quebec city. While workers were finishing up the bridge it buckled and collapsed, killing around 90 people. 10 years later the second bridge was almost finished, when it too collapsed and killed 11 people.
After an investigation it was determined that both of these disasters were due to faulty engineering. The engineers had not properly calculated the loads and stresses the structure would have to bear and because of this the structures had failed.
The iron from these bridges had been stored in a huge warehouse, and until it was all used up, iron rings were made from its metal. For the past 75 years or so these rings have been given out to graduating engineers to remind them that in practicing their profession they are taking responsibility for people's lives.
I don't know how it works in other places, but here in Canada you have to be a professional engineer to sign off on blueprints to a bridge, or other technical engineering documents. This is just like how you have to be an MD to offer your services as a surgeon, etc.
Whether this sort of certification makes sense for people writing code really depends on what they're doing. Someone who's making a javascript popup on a web page isn't taking people's lives into their hands. Certification for them makes no sense. But what about someone writing a control system for a nuclear power plant, or for an air-traffic control system?
I think certification has its place, and while most programmers can safely say it's unnecessary for their job, other times I think there should be accountability. Who knows, maybe this Y2K stuff is as serious as some people say, and it will be the Quebec Bridge for programmers.
Actually, last I heard the MIT Quantum Computer was a *long* way from Prime Time. I don't remember the details, but the techniques that work for a two qubit quantum computer will not work for anything much larger -- and the two qubit version was difficult enough.
There's no real rush yet. I think we have a number of years to go before Quantum Computing treatens cryptography.
Just a quick comment -- the layout isn't quite optimized. The space and backspace are great, but I seem to recall 's' being one of the most used characters in english, but its position here is "secondary" (not just an in-out stroke).
Also, the position of the zero is secondary. I'd assume that's the most used number.
Any other thoughts about the optimality of the placements?
I did what I could, only it wasn't that easy. First of all in Engineering we were told what classes to take, and had about 5 optional courses over the 4 year program. Secondly I often had to work with students from my classes, so it helped to be on their good side so I could actually find people to work with me.
Ack, this is dangerous territory. I think it's important to learn to live with people who are different.
I was in the "gifted" program throughout high school, and it was great. I could learn at the fast pace I loved without being slowed down by the kids who just didn't get it.
But it was the gifted program in a normal school. Although it was often unpleasant dealing with others in high school, I think it would have been very dangerous if I hadn't learned how to deal with them.
It's the same if you shelter the rich from the poor, or the black from the white. The best way to counteract bad stereotypes and to get along is to be exposed to other people.
I think my gifted program was great because it let me learn at my own rate with other students who were actually interested. But I wouldn't want to be segregated.
My university was even more diverse. We had arts students, science students, law, business, medicine, nursing, engineering, music...
But the engineering faculty didn't interact much with the other ones. What I experienced wasn't intolerance for geeks. (Although it still wasn't cool to like computers) What I experienced was more looking down on people who didn't like to "party" -- get completely drunk, or who didn't like doing sports or school politics. It wasn't as severe as high school, but it was still hard to be your own person.
Strange, see I went to what is generally recognized as one of the best, if not the best, universities in Canada (Queen's). It's an old school with a mixed program, lots of arts students, lots of science students, lots of business students, lots of engineers. We even had law students and meds students.
I can't imagine a place that *should* have been more open. However the engineering faculty in particular was very conservative and "cliquey". And again, it was student government, sports and partying that made you cool.
Testing
A company can afford to pay people to do very complete testing -- black box, glass box, etc. This type of testing is something nobody would want to do unless they're being paid, but to make sure something is rock solid, it really has to be done.
Linux has hundreds of thousands of people using and testing, and of those probably thousands, at least hundreds, are trying to fix any bugs they find. *But*, they are not actively looking for bugs, trying out every possible configuration, stress-testing the system, giving it worst-case scenarios. These people are just using the systems and if a bug happens to pop up during their use, they'll report or fix it.
The recent Mindcraft study helps illustrate this point. The machine they were using to do the test was wierd. It had 4 gig! of memory! In a formal test, a configuration like this might have been covered, but in informal testing, you'd just have to hope some guy was lucky enough to also have a machine with 4 gig on hand and had run it through its paces.
But in the end, the benefits of going with Linux beats the benefits of formalized testing most of the time.
With the huge Linux user base there's a pretty good chance every established piece of code has been pretty thoroughly tested. Also, if a bug pops up the source is available so you can try to fix it yourself. If what you're working on is interesting enough, you might even be able to get people help you track down the bug. Good luck getting that with SCO Unix
I think you have to think about longer term. Right now most people aren't connected to the 'net when they're doing their word processing -- but I'd bet in 10 years it will be rare to find someone without a permanent connection. Look at how many people are getting DSL, cable modems, and other forms of permanent connections. Since you can't really go beyond 56K with a normal modem, and nearly all alternatives offer permanent connections, I can't see how everyone wouldn't have a permanent connection in 10 years.
As for the issue of "you open a word processor to do work"... true, but I'm sure there are a lot of people like me. I *hate* writing essays, and it doesn't take much to distract me when I'm doing that. If some ad popped up in the corner of my word processor when I'm struggling through my essay, if it was interesting enough (at least more interesting than my exceedingly boring essay), I just might click on it.
But I think the idea will fail. It's exceedingly easy to find cracks on the web that enable you to bypass copy protection or other unpleasant things about software. I'd bet cracks for these programs would pop up in a short while -- even faster than with shareware.
My dad is no computer genius, but he's slightly more informed than the average user. He managed to bypass the forced banner ads for Pointcast without problems.
The main issue here is that ads in software are vastly different than ads in newspapers, billboards, or TV ads, because *I control the medium*.
I currently use software that controls the cookies my browser uses, as well as software which blocks 99% of all banner ads so I never see them.
There's a small chance this strategy might work for the technically illiterate masses, but no way it would work at all for hackers who didn't want to put up with the ads.
Either they've changed English since I was in school or you're wrong.
An abbreviation is a short form of a word, like "auto" for automobile, "ref" for referee, etc. An acronym is what you get when you use the first letters in a phrase: "NSA" for National Security Agency, "NASA" for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Either they've changed English since I was in school or you're wrong.
An abbreviation is a short form of a word, like "auto" for automobile, "ref" for referee, etc. An acronym is what you get when you use the first letters in a phrase: "NSA" for National Security Agency, "NASA" for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.I had a pretty unpleasant high-school experience, luckily I had enough close friends to help me get by. They were all extremely intelligent, but a few had other characteristics that made them less likely to be picked on -- one played Volleyball for the school team, another was a very good looking and socially adept female.
But I have to say that for me University (College for you US types) was not so much better. I ended up in the "nerdiest" of the Engineering groups (Engineering Physics) and still had to deal with the same cliques and stuff as high school.
Engineering, at my school and others I heard about, doesn't tend to tolerate people who are different. There was a standard dress code, and if you looked too strange.... that was a no-no. If you were too fat, didn't like the right music, or liked classes too much -- you were a freak. I can't imagine how unpleasant it must have been to be a gay engineer. And, for people like me who didn't drink... that was a guaranteed way to be an outcast.
Granted, all of this was better than high school, but it was still pretty bad.
I once again managed to find some good friends and escape a lot of the stupidity, but that didn't mean I didn't feel like an outcast a lot of the time.
Am I in the minority, or did other people find college / university unpleasant as well?
One interesting note about the reaction to the shootings is how few among the media seem able to understand how anybody could hate high school.
If you think about it, the reasons are pretty obvious. Your average TV reporter is likely the type of person who was popular in high school.
Many studies have been done that show that when people are applying for jobs, better looking candidates are more likely to be hired than technically superior, but not as good looking competitors. This applies to jobs where appearance is not relevant to the job in any way (back-office, techs, etc.). It applies more when customer interaction and charisma plays a part of the job (sales, reception). And of course it plays a very big role when appearance is central to the job (acting, modelling, and of course TV reporting).
So should be no big surprise if your average TV anchorperson loved high school.
It has often been the case that the popular people in high school become the leaders of society. This is not through any particular skill, other than people skills, but rather from charisma, contacts, and good looks.
An interesting supporting statistic is the average height of US presidents. On average they are giants. It isn't the only reason they're hired, but this imposing presence is something people find attractive when choosing someone to lead them.
The interesting thing is that this power structure seems to be shifting. Since the early 1990s there has been a shortage of skilled computer professionals. This is one field where looks matter less than competence. There has always been a need for technically competent people. But that hasn't always translated into power. Now, the combination of omnipresent technology, an extremely fast-moving technological environment and a communications medium to tie these people into a sense of community has started to give "geeks" true power.
It used to be that successful chief executives didn't need to really understand technology as long as someone beneath them did. These days things are changing. The CEO of IBM can't run the company like it sells typewriters anymore.
Since the very things that make someone an outcast in high school are the very things that tend to make a good geek, how long will it be before high-school changes to accomodate this new world?
*Bzzzzt*, incorrect: ftp = file transfer protocol. PPP = point to point protocol
You also used the following abbrevations:
I have *way* too much time on my hands.
I agree the reporting is pretty sad, but think the reporter can be forgiven for saying WINE is an emulator. Afterall, the newsgroup for WINE is comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine, and from what I understand originally came from WINdows Emulator.