The problem is of course going to be people who lie, cheat, and steal other people's resources. Not to mention the issues people may have with some company profitting from their personal electricity and bandwidth usage.
IMHO or WAG(wild assed guess), whichever... I see the future of massive internet distributed computing as having too much potential to be ignored. But I honestly see something less revolutionary than the paper suggests. More likely the next generation of programs like Seti@home will start becoming more widespread and efficient. Unless users can pick and choose what kind of work their distributed usage goes towards(if they want any at all) the idea just doesn't fly.
"If Sun would have been willing to allow Java to be used this way, then Microsoft would probably have stuck with Visual J++ and the Windows Java framework they were already working on, and we wouldn't have C# or.NET."
Exactly the problem we wouldn't have Java anymore, we'd have J++. J++ code was not complying to the JAVA VM standards and yet they marketed it as Java, hence the lawsuit.
If you would read through Miguel's reply you would see that he doesn't trust that mono will be able to keep up with api changes. He says he believes the api's can all be recreated in mono, but that it is also possible that not all of them will be.
You are missing the bigger picture of what Miguel is using the CIL/C# concepts for. He very clearly states the intent is to use the MONO CIL to allow for his own development to be sped up. For anyone who's coded a medium to large scale project Miguel's remarks about 'implementing linked lists a few too many times' gets to the heart of what Mono is for. Regardless of what MS does with their API's, the Mono CIL libraries will allow for better, more reusable code to be developed.
I for one see the concept here as a good idea. Filtering email so that only messages from specific senders/domains/whatever are accepted may become required. It's a big step forward from the currently popular method of accepting all emails and then blocking 'spammer' senders/domains. It's the same with firewalls, block everything and only allow trusted traffic, or allow all trafic and only block untrusted traffic.
"It has long been our very public policy that when a service unleashes software that hacks into our system, and endangers the security of our system, we stop it," AOL spokeswoman Kathy McKiernan said.
Sometimes you have to just sit back and admire the pr spins people can put on an issue. Since Sept.11 the security issue is a no brainer. However, the system hacking aspect is just above and beyond. Kathy recognizes that one can use enough half-truths to defend her statements that trillian is hacking into AIM servers. It's absolutely amazing how such blatant blocking of a service can spun so effectively. AOL gets some kudos from me on reminding us here on just how evil they can be. It's completely deceptive and underhanded, and yet completely unprovable to any but the technically literate.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist. -Verbal Kint
From their site
"As with all computer software there may be incompatibilities with some computer systems. The CD is designed to play on PCs. The current version of the copy-protection technology does not allow you to copy files from the CD into MP3 format. UMG is currently making every effort possible to upgrade our available technology to add new features and increase playability."
Here they seem to claim that they are trying to allow mp3 copies to be made from the cd. Wasn't the prevention of mp3 copying the entire reason they introduced copy protection? I smell a bold faced lie somewhere...
Corporations hold more power over political decisions than individuals in American politics. The average american from what I've seen(I'm Canadian and the exact same attitude is everywhere here too) doesn't write a letter to their representatives because they believe it will do no good.
This brings a new question to my mind. Just how long is the average american going to tolerate being 'ignored' by their own government? What kind of actions would the government need to take before the public will do anything about it? And by do something I don't just mean writing letters. I mean if their complaints are ignored, how far will the average american go to protect the freedoms of countries like the Ukraine? I'm not sure what is more sad. That people will propable do little more than complain about this action. Or that even if it were their own freedoms at stake, the same complacency might still prevail.
Something needs to change people, I just honestly have no idea what it is.
Before I offend anyone I just want to make clear that this truly is meant as a question and not an accusation.
Disclaimer stated, are the citizens of a country considered responsable for the country's actions?
Specifically should these sanctions be considered the fault of the average american who chooses not to prevent their own government from taking such actions?
I see lots of people complaining about America no longer being for the people, instead for corporations. Does anyone else out there wonder if these same people have done even so much as to write a letter to their representatives making these decisions?
Just some questions. Any one else have any thoughts?
-Potential Spoiler Warning-
Is anyone else out there dissapointed to see Glorfindel's role of chasing the riders into the river being replaced by Liv Tyler? I know, I'm a bit biased myself, but it just seemed to make more sense to send Glorfindel out to meet them than Arwen.
"IE is the best browser out there. Check ANY review. " Maybe it's just my opnion, but I the opera http://www.opera.com is better. It's faster and in my experience far more stable on NT and in 2000. Most reviews to date ignore or are unaware of opera's existence. Give it a try. I do however agree with your overall point, people to need be a little less biased on slashdot. Just dont step too far pointing it out with dubious statements like the above as it will only result in the people your talking to ignoring you as ignorant. Though I'm not sure they won't simply because they disagree. The line between troll and zealot is kind blurry.
First off, I agree in many ways that the site's intentions are right. How many parents would really let their five your old just learning to read play with games like Doom or Mortal Kombat? I know we all pretty well grew up with them so we'd try and point out to our kids that those games are out of date and far better ones are available:). But additionally, and seriously, we'd also make them wait till they were a bit older and understood the world around them better. We'd wait till their older to let them play violent games as well. For the same reasons we don't show our kids gory horror flicks at that age, we'd wait till they were mature enough to deal with what they were wathcing/playing as nothing more than make believe.
The site also lists off a large number of studies linking violent game playing with increased aggression in children. Here is where I start to get my back up. I wish that people running sites like this would remain content without citing every study under the sun. As I said above I agree with them on informing parents about the dangers of letting young impressionable children from playing with violent games,toys,etc. But if you take a look at the "mothers story" and "research" sections the bias goes up against violence in media for kids of non specific age. Basically stating the same old reteric about playing violent games makes people violent. This is a perversion of the results of the studies that are quoted.(Though I do believe the studies to have had a certain amount of bias towards expected outcomes, but that's another matter) The studies simply link watching violent media with increased aggressive behaviour. I feel that a very important control variable is missing from all of these studies. How many studies do similar research on fans and players at sporting events? Are there more fights in kids walking out of a movie theater or kids leaving the high school football game they just lost?
"The 4 most important things on this planet are:-
Air
Water
Topsoil
Biodiversity"
Why? Do you have any explanation for why these particular items are THE most important?
"The fact is that we are causing extinctions a 1000 times faster than these species could evolve naturally to adapt to us (evolution is a very slow process)" Isn't the most important part of the process of evolution considered to be natural selection? Who are you to say that slowly adapting organisms need to stay in the gene pool? Do you realize that what your statement here comes down to is your own subjective moral view of the world?
"You know there's only less than 20 Sumatran Tigers left, which means if I had the choice of saving one Sumatran Tiger & saving all the Americans on the planet, I pick the Tiger without hesitation, because 250M/6B is 1/24, so really then 1 Sumatran Tiger is worth more than 250m Americans (1/20 is bigger than 1/24)" Again, I ask why are tigers considered as important as human beings? What reason beyond your own opinion is there for why anyone else should care if the 20 remaining Sumatran Tigers die off?
I hate to repeat what everyone else has been throwing at you already but... If you really be following through and doing your part. What reasons do you have not to kill yourself to save these rare species? You claim that you'd choose to drop human lives before those of a rare species. Given the chance would you honestly be willing to sacrifice yourself to let a tiger live longer, or only the lives of other anonymous strangers?
Not to start another science vs. religion flame war but just and interesting note. 6000 years BC is pretty close to the time that creationist's place noah's flood isn't it?
"Modern USia has quite simply lost any semblance of morality and ideology other than the dollar and a kind of rabid Christianity." Considering the extreme steps the chinese government takes to prevent the growth of christianity in it's own country I don't see how this point relates to a softened american stance towards China as opposed to the Soviet Union.
I'd guess the sheer population advantage china has over both America and the old Soviet Union is as much a factor as anything else.
Before you bash the Chinese government for suppressing free speech remember the DMCA, and the potentially upcoming SSSCA. The land of the free is quickly following suit, if it in fact isn't already there in many ways. Wanna try and reverse engineer the.pdf format anyone?
Technical support staff could is a big reason many companies aren't switching over to linux or other OSS alternatives. Companies with IT departments trained in MS software but unfamiliar with linux leave the company needing to retrain or replace their IT dept. to perform the switch over.
I don't see why people can blame Zimmerman in even a round about way for what happened. Yes something horrific has happened. This doesn't however make what was a good decision before(releasing the PGP) into a bad decision. Simply because somebody took something someone made and used it for evil does not make the tool or the tool's creator evil. In fact it has NO reflection on the creator at all. The hijackers are suspected to have used carpenter's knives as well. Are the manufacturer's of carpet knives somehow responsible as well? What about the flight schools that trained the terrorists? Blaming this people is irrational and should not be tolerated by people. We need to stand together here folks.
Wonder where they find individuals to sign those letters for them? The article mentions a number of people who recieved replies to the letters they had sent and then apologized for the initial letter and some even stated they were mislead. I'll bet alot of them signed on to MS's freedom to Innovate campaign and then were placed on the mailing lists.
Charges of spying are rather different in regards to international relations. On both sides of the border people are frequently charged and/or convicted of spying, sometimes even wrongly accused people. What makes this more unpalatable is that Dmitry is being charged for something he didn't do in America but back in Russia. Cases like this are more than just someone being held under wrongly conviction. In this case, even if he were justly accused, he should not be subject to American laws in this instance as he 'committed' the wrongfull acts in his home country.
For actions taken within the country, I agree. If he came into America and wrote the offending code in America he should be responsible to American laws. But to be held for a program he wrote while living in Russia is reprehensible. I must admit though I am not sure if the case against him is purely based on the speech he gave or his code as well. Perhaps I am making a bit too large an assumption that it is not solely the speech he gave which has landed him in trouble.
I can't imagine the kind of outrage the American Congress would be expressing if an American programmer was being held in jail inside of Russia for a law which does not exist in America. I would think that the American politicians would at least recognize the horribly arrogant nature of something like this going on. Worse, what would Bush do if it were an American held by China? The DMCA pushing the agendas of Big Business is a small issue in my eyes when compared to the dangers this case presents on a more global level. America already has a bad enough rep. in most foreign nations, this only pushes it even further.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is of course going to be people who lie, cheat, and steal other people's resources. Not to mention the issues people may have with some company profitting from their personal electricity and bandwidth usage.
IMHO or WAG(wild assed guess), whichever... I see the future of massive internet distributed computing as having too much potential to be ignored. But I honestly see something less revolutionary than the paper suggests. More likely the next generation of programs like Seti@home will start becoming more widespread and efficient. Unless users can pick and choose what kind of work their distributed usage goes towards(if they want any at all) the idea just doesn't fly.
Are they going to sue me now?
"If Sun would have been willing to allow Java to be used this way, then Microsoft would probably have stuck with Visual J++ and the Windows Java framework they were already working on, and we wouldn't have C# or .NET."
Exactly the problem we wouldn't have Java anymore, we'd have J++. J++ code was not complying to the JAVA VM standards and yet they marketed it as Java, hence the lawsuit.
If you would read through Miguel's reply you would see that he doesn't trust that mono will be able to keep up with api changes. He says he believes the api's can all be recreated in mono, but that it is also possible that not all of them will be.
You are missing the bigger picture of what Miguel is using the CIL/C# concepts for. He very clearly states the intent is to use the MONO CIL to allow for his own development to be sped up. For anyone who's coded a medium to large scale project Miguel's remarks about 'implementing linked lists a few too many times' gets to the heart of what Mono is for. Regardless of what MS does with their API's, the Mono CIL libraries will allow for better, more reusable code to be developed.
I for one see the concept here as a good idea. Filtering email so that only messages from specific senders/domains/whatever are accepted may become required. It's a big step forward from the currently popular method of accepting all emails and then blocking 'spammer' senders/domains. It's the same with firewalls, block everything and only allow trusted traffic, or allow all trafic and only block untrusted traffic.
"It has long been our very public policy that when a service unleashes software that hacks into our system, and endangers the security of our system, we stop it," AOL spokeswoman Kathy McKiernan said.
Sometimes you have to just sit back and admire the pr spins people can put on an issue. Since Sept.11 the security issue is a no brainer. However, the system hacking aspect is just above and beyond. Kathy recognizes that one can use enough half-truths to defend her statements that trillian is hacking into AIM servers. It's absolutely amazing how such blatant blocking of a service can spun so effectively. AOL gets some kudos from me on reminding us here on just how evil they can be. It's completely deceptive and underhanded, and yet completely unprovable to any but the technically literate.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist. -Verbal Kint
From their site
"As with all computer software there may be incompatibilities with some computer systems. The CD is designed to play on PCs. The current version of the copy-protection technology does not allow you to copy files from the CD into MP3 format. UMG is currently making every effort possible to upgrade our available technology to add new features and increase playability."
Here they seem to claim that they are trying to allow mp3 copies to be made from the cd. Wasn't the prevention of mp3 copying the entire reason they introduced copy protection? I smell a bold faced lie somewhere...
Exactly.
Corporations hold more power over political decisions than individuals in American politics. The average american from what I've seen(I'm Canadian and the exact same attitude is everywhere here too) doesn't write a letter to their representatives because they believe it will do no good.
This brings a new question to my mind. Just how long is the average american going to tolerate being 'ignored' by their own government? What kind of actions would the government need to take before the public will do anything about it? And by do something I don't just mean writing letters. I mean if their complaints are ignored, how far will the average american go to protect the freedoms of countries like the Ukraine? I'm not sure what is more sad. That people will propable do little more than complain about this action. Or that even if it were their own freedoms at stake, the same complacency might still prevail.
Something needs to change people, I just honestly have no idea what it is.
Before I offend anyone I just want to make clear that this truly is meant as a question and not an accusation.
Disclaimer stated, are the citizens of a country considered responsable for the country's actions?
Specifically should these sanctions be considered the fault of the average american who chooses not to prevent their own government from taking such actions?
I see lots of people complaining about America no longer being for the people, instead for corporations. Does anyone else out there wonder if these same people have done even so much as to write a letter to their representatives making these decisions?
Just some questions. Any one else have any thoughts?
-Potential Spoiler Warning-
Is anyone else out there dissapointed to see Glorfindel's role of chasing the riders into the river being replaced by Liv Tyler? I know, I'm a bit biased myself, but it just seemed to make more sense to send Glorfindel out to meet them than Arwen.
"IE is the best browser out there. Check ANY review. " Maybe it's just my opnion, but I the opera http://www.opera.com is better. It's faster and in my experience far more stable on NT and in 2000. Most reviews to date ignore or are unaware of opera's existence. Give it a try. I do however agree with your overall point, people to need be a little less biased on slashdot. Just dont step too far pointing it out with dubious statements like the above as it will only result in the people your talking to ignoring you as ignorant. Though I'm not sure they won't simply because they disagree. The line between troll and zealot is kind blurry.
First off, I agree in many ways that the site's intentions are right. How many parents would really let their five your old just learning to read play with games like Doom or Mortal Kombat? I know we all pretty well grew up with them so we'd try and point out to our kids that those games are out of date and far better ones are available :). But additionally, and seriously, we'd also make them wait till they were a bit older and understood the world around them better. We'd wait till their older to let them play violent games as well. For the same reasons we don't show our kids gory horror flicks at that age, we'd wait till they were mature enough to deal with what they were wathcing/playing as nothing more than make believe.
The site also lists off a large number of studies linking violent game playing with increased aggression in children. Here is where I start to get my back up. I wish that people running sites like this would remain content without citing every study under the sun. As I said above I agree with them on informing parents about the dangers of letting young impressionable children from playing with violent games,toys,etc. But if you take a look at the "mothers story" and "research" sections the bias goes up against violence in media for kids of non specific age. Basically stating the same old reteric about playing violent games makes people violent. This is a perversion of the results of the studies that are quoted.(Though I do believe the studies to have had a certain amount of bias towards expected outcomes, but that's another matter) The studies simply link watching violent media with increased aggressive behaviour. I feel that a very important control variable is missing from all of these studies. How many studies do similar research on fans and players at sporting events? Are there more fights in kids walking out of a movie theater or kids leaving the high school football game they just lost?
"The 4 most important things on this planet are:-
Air
Water
Topsoil
Biodiversity"
Why? Do you have any explanation for why these particular items are THE most important?
"The fact is that we are causing extinctions a 1000 times faster than these species could evolve naturally to adapt to us (evolution is a very slow process)" Isn't the most important part of the process of evolution considered to be natural selection? Who are you to say that slowly adapting organisms need to stay in the gene pool? Do you realize that what your statement here comes down to is your own subjective moral view of the world?
"You know there's only less than 20 Sumatran Tigers left, which means if I had the choice of saving one Sumatran Tiger & saving all the Americans on the planet, I pick the Tiger without hesitation, because 250M/6B is 1/24, so really then 1 Sumatran Tiger is worth more than 250m Americans (1/20 is bigger than 1/24)" Again, I ask why are tigers considered as important as human beings? What reason beyond your own opinion is there for why anyone else should care if the 20 remaining Sumatran Tigers die off?
I hate to repeat what everyone else has been throwing at you already but... If you really be following through and doing your part. What reasons do you have not to kill yourself to save these rare species? You claim that you'd choose to drop human lives before those of a rare species. Given the chance would you honestly be willing to sacrifice yourself to let a tiger live longer, or only the lives of other anonymous strangers?
Not to start another science vs. religion flame war but just and interesting note. 6000 years BC is pretty close to the time that creationist's place noah's flood isn't it?
"Modern USia has quite simply lost any semblance of morality and ideology other than the dollar and a kind of rabid Christianity." Considering the extreme steps the chinese government takes to prevent the growth of christianity in it's own country I don't see how this point relates to a softened american stance towards China as opposed to the Soviet Union.
I'd guess the sheer population advantage china has over both America and the old Soviet Union is as much a factor as anything else.
Check out GLUT, it does a pretty decent job of covering the cross patform graphics and input handling that directx does.
Maybe welcoming a site back /.'ing it isn't all roses. Welcome back to the 'net by DOS ;), anyone have mirror links yet?
Before you bash the Chinese government for suppressing free speech remember the DMCA, and the potentially upcoming SSSCA. The land of the free is quickly following suit, if it in fact isn't already there in many ways. Wanna try and reverse engineer the .pdf format anyone?
Technical support staff could is a big reason many companies aren't switching over to linux or other OSS alternatives. Companies with IT departments trained in MS software but unfamiliar with linux leave the company needing to retrain or replace their IT dept. to perform the switch over.
I don't see why people can blame Zimmerman in even a round about way for what happened. Yes something horrific has happened. This doesn't however make what was a good decision before(releasing the PGP) into a bad decision. Simply because somebody took something someone made and used it for evil does not make the tool or the tool's creator evil. In fact it has NO reflection on the creator at all. The hijackers are suspected to have used carpenter's knives as well. Are the manufacturer's of carpet knives somehow responsible as well? What about the flight schools that trained the terrorists? Blaming this people is irrational and should not be tolerated by people. We need to stand together here folks.
http://www.freetoinnovate.com/
Wonder where they find individuals to sign those letters for them? The article mentions a number of people who recieved replies to the letters they had sent and then apologized for the initial letter and some even stated they were mislead. I'll bet alot of them signed on to MS's freedom to Innovate campaign and then were placed on the mailing lists.
Charges of spying are rather different in regards to international relations. On both sides of the border people are frequently charged and/or convicted of spying, sometimes even wrongly accused people. What makes this more unpalatable is that Dmitry is being charged for something he didn't do in America but back in Russia. Cases like this are more than just someone being held under wrongly conviction. In this case, even if he were justly accused, he should not be subject to American laws in this instance as he 'committed' the wrongfull acts in his home country.
For actions taken within the country, I agree. If he came into America and wrote the offending code in America he should be responsible to American laws. But to be held for a program he wrote while living in Russia is reprehensible. I must admit though I am not sure if the case against him is purely based on the speech he gave or his code as well. Perhaps I am making a bit too large an assumption that it is not solely the speech he gave which has landed him in trouble.
I can't imagine the kind of outrage the American Congress would be expressing if an American programmer was being held in jail inside of Russia for a law which does not exist in America. I would think that the American politicians would at least recognize the horribly arrogant nature of something like this going on. Worse, what would Bush do if it were an American held by China? The DMCA pushing the agendas of Big Business is a small issue in my eyes when compared to the dangers this case presents on a more global level. America already has a bad enough rep. in most foreign nations, this only pushes it even further.