You have to be careful about DiHydrogen Monoxide
on
Coffee is Addictive
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· Score: 1
This important site will make this issue clear for you. If we would stop worrying about substances of proven minimal danger like caffeine, and deal with a vastly more dangerous substance, like dihydrogen monoxide, we'd all be healthier.
Of course, if one of the government's jobs is to ensure that the rights of one don't override the rights of another, then in theory a global libertarian government would be somewhat obligated to intervene. Though it might do so by inviting groups to form a militia of volunteers and "licensing" them to go and do this.
Frankly, since I'm not a hard-core libertarian I haven't throught this through, but the question itself makes me want to look at how the LP's policies might be applied globally.
... since laws were passed that exempted directors of corporations from full liability limitation. In other words, if the company on which you sit as a director owes back-wages, and you run the company to ruin so you can't even pay your employees, you are jointly and severally liable (along with the corporation itself) for those wages. There are a few such categories of limited-limited-liability.
Of course, shareholders' liability is still limited to their investment.
Sorry, in the above example code, please substitute the class name "Currency" with "CurrencyValue" or something like it. I didn't mean java.util.Currency as it currently stands. Possibly "Money" or "MonetaryValue" could also be reasonable names for such a value holder object.
I can't access the site (darn airport wireless servers don't properly do domain lookups of simple sites...) for the JSR, but I believe that part of the problem domain IS useful in Core Java, that is the specification of amounts with a currency. The basic infrastructure is every bit as necessary in core as time/date or locale. Currency is a very common value type, as are the other two I've mentioned.
Actual currency exchange systems are a more business oriented issue, but the ability to say new Currency("USD",30).add(new Currency("CAD",20)) is very useful in core. The core code needn't do the actual conversion - in fact Currency should probably NOT have that role - it should be a carrier of state that can be interpreted by an exchange engine, in my view.
The actual resolution of the amount could be done with an interface, such as in the following.
Currency usd = new Currency("USD",30); Currency cad = new Currency("CAD",20); Currency mixed = usd.add(cad); CurrencyExchange exch = new SomeCorporateExchangeServiceImplementation(); Cur rency eu = mixed.convertTo("EU",exch);// recursively traverses the Currency objects at this point.
CurrencyExchange is an interface that can be back-ended with any number of exchanges, including a dummy table for unit testing, networked or database driven exchanges, and the raw Currency objects will have very few guts, and are quite generic and reusable.
The whole thing would take up maybe three or four classes/interfaces. I've written enough apps with currency in them to think that this would not be clutter, but a very useful element. It would also be a great place for various J2EE after-market components to provide the service through the CurrencyExchange interface.
Solid judgement based on experience, and an evaluation of the circumstances of the project at hand?
Wow... coooooool. It only that weren't such a bloody revolutionary idea. Mindless applications of processes and methodologies is bad. Clue? Mindlessness. Creating a quality artifact requires judgement, experience, thoughtfullness, analysis, consultation, colaboration, and estimation. All of these are the products of experience.
I propose a new methodology, which I shall designate the SANE-M. It requires that you start learning, fail a lot, learn from your mistakes, find mentors, learn from them, go off and be extreme and youthful, fail some more, learn some hard practical lessons, then, after about five to ten years, start doing projects with a flexible mind, having exposed yourself to a wide variety of project types, styles, personalities, funding levels, timescales, etc. You are likely to evolve your own project-specific method in colaboration with other experienced participants, and such a project is likely to succeed (if it has all the required ingredients to succeed). A baker who has never made pumpernickle will probably screw it up even if he has a recipe.
Wait! Method re-name. The new name should be "Life" or maybe "Professionalism".
One of my favourite books is "Pitfalls of Object-Oriented Programming" which was similarly slammed in its day for being anti-object, etc. In truth, it was very much in favour of Object-Oriented programming, and presented ways you can make your life difficult, and how to avoid those ways.
It's always good to have a thoughtful re-examination even of one's most dear religious views. We often don't see the rat-traps into which our minds wander as we enthusiastically accept a doctrine. I haven't read the book, but plan to, and hopefully it will show me ways to improve what is good about XP, and reduce what is not so good about it.
I remember, to provide a historical note again, this same stupid argument happening with the Various modeling gurus. The arguments were mostly religious and stylistic/aesthetic in nature. What always made sense is to take the recipies, practice them, and adjust to your local ingredients.
Er... by definition, that is a coercive act. It is a violation of free speech, but it most such rights refer to one's relationship with one's government.
Hmm... wirelessly tighten tourniquets on an opposing force? Harden their cast-o-costumes on them? Or hack the IFF system, so joey shoots johnny since he's obviously now a "foe"... after all, his visor said so.
I'm all for making people more effective, but given what I see out there in terms of applied security, it seems like a risky business.
That, and the fact that as we depend more on technology, we often become less capable of dealing with a circumstance where the technology has failed.
Man... the opportunities for speculative fiction are limitless.... attention all HaX0rs, Uncle oSAMa's hiring...
Everyone talks about tethers, looking at the space-elevator notion. However, there's a reasonable (with simulations in applets) site promoting the notion of a rotating, orbiting tether that could be used either as a fuel-saving "last mile" (well, last 300 mile) trip to space, or alternately as an sling-shot that grabs the exiting craft in mid-flight and launches it balistically, like a trebuchet. Interesting, and they make a reasonable case, at least to one without the physics background to criticize.;)
i.
Um... the point of a good plug-in architecture is specifically so that good functionality can not necessarily reside in the product's base configuration.
technology. I bet some "personally anonymous, but publicly known" groups of file-rippers will come into being, much like the current video-game cracking crews. These folks will publicly distribute PKI Signing Key fingerprints, and sign and envelope the music upon ripping.
That'd break any files that are not as they were when they were ripped, and you'ld get the same sort of "brand recognition" in the ripper space that you get among the cracker space.
It's tempting... I'd just move that laptop to linux and do it, if it weren't for my working on Java for OpenBSD, and thus needing an accessible OpenBSD machine (as in, not my server...)
Pretty much. I just re-loaded win32 to dual boot with OpenBSD on my laptop so I can feed my addiction to Civ3. (No FreeCiv is not as fun in my view...)
Anyway, where it counts (on servers) I push open solutions where they make sense, which is in most places in an enterprise config - at least as far as my previous work-places have gone.
If it were a Canadian or Mexican company making the claim, then it would fall under NAFTA, but I don't think that a US Company can make a claim against the US Gov't under NAFTA. It holds jurisdiction on cross-border disputes, if I'm not mistaken.
look, the bottom line is that money is driving this whole thing. money is enough to take away our consitutional rights little by little. if we don't put a stop to this in the beginning, then we will all me telling our grandsons how much freedom we had in the 'golden days'.
No we won't. That would require circumvention of the chip put into their brains to regulate their visual cortext based on their content purchasing profile.
"...now now, Johnny... no baywatch for little boys. You haven't earned the credits to afford it yet..."
While Goodwin's Law is usually true, allowance must be made for reasonable (and academically supportable) comparisons. Calling someone a Nazi ad-hominem, is a good way to prove your inadequacy as an proponent of your view. It does not relate one way or another to the validity of the view itself.
In this case, it would be more interesting to look at Palladium as it relates to Fascism, rather than Nazism, as NAZI was a bizarre co-mingling of Nationalism, Lightweight State-Socialism, and Fascist dictatorship. In the case of DCMA, TCMA, and Palladium specifically, the parallel is better drawn to Fascism itself, where small central and absolute control is managed (trustees of DRM) over the body of constituent parts (users).
What's frightening, is that most totalitarian states capitalist states have wonderful business climates, since it is easier to preserve order and power if you have buy-in from the rich and powerful. I see the West's increasing decline into totalitarian "constitutional dictatorship" as an interesting helix-spiral between business and corporate interest on one hand married to increasingly powerful government on the other.
I suggest that Government is more powerful in this context, because while many modern liberal democracies are moving towards "small government" neo-conservative politics, they are simultaneously acquiring increasing ability to invade the individual's person, property, adn affairs in the interests of security. Therefore, a "conservative" power-base is actually creating a big-brother "big government" structure. the only difference is that the "big" is military, not welface, and that much of government service and responsibility has been divested to corporate interests, which have become partners in the power structure. There is still great centralization, no less so than Communist regimes that America has criticized (rightly) for decades. In otherwords, we increasingly are growing a "totalitarian corporate-welfare state", which is an odd mirror image of the old soviet "totalitarian workers-welfare state". The only difference is of who benefits.
To paraphrase a favorite author of mine, neo-conservatives are really neo-bolsheviks. They believe in destiny (history/market), they believe in a class struggle, the only difference between them is who they think should and will win that struggle.:)
All of the above, precludes an informed democratic state where citizens consult, elect delegates, inform themselves and are informed, and work hard to perceive more than two dimensions of any issue. The fact that we no longer have issues, nor are sought by politicials for consultation, but rather have debates and are measured by polls is rather telling. I shall not even delve into the role of the media in all this.
Back to the original point, these laws and movements (DCMA, TCMA, etc.) are quite un-surprising when viewed in the wider context of the change in our social fabric, but are disturbing in the way that they both confirm the trend, and push it forward.
Personally, I'm going to have a hard time in the future, as I have no intention of working with DRM without a careful audit of who's in control, etc. DRM makes sense to me in a situation where the DR Manager is also the owner of all property involved. But if I own the property (computer) and Microsoft owns the other property (software), then who's property rights are primary.
One commonly lobbed around libertarian slogan is "I have the right to do what I want, so long as I don't infringe upon the rights of others." While I find this formulation unworkable, it is not an uncommon view. Since many neo-liberal economists and organizations (WTO, WorldBank, etc.) espouse quasi-libertarian principles to justify the policies, I wonder in this case how my above mentioned dilemma would be resolved. Who's rights are more sacrosanct.
My personal view is that such things are human rights, and that as such they do not extend to all "legal persons", but only human persons. Namely, they do not extend to corporate aggregate bodies, in such a way as to always overthrow the individual's rights. Sadly, many of those estimed and learned Justices do not interpret such principles the way I do, and they obviously don't consult me.;)
This is a bit long, and meandering, I'm sorry, but I truly see such things as Palladium as symptom of a much wider set of issues. In many ways the libertarian views that many slashdotters hold are being thrown back in their faces, because neo-libralism is actually favouring the big-guy. Many of the techno-fetishism that we geeks have brought into the market-place is also being thrown in our face, as we have made high-tech cool, and have become "gurus" and the modern common person hasn't a clue what is going on, and therefore is insufficiently educated to critically examine the issues presented. Single-dimensional media coverage doesn't help.
The course was from claremont consulting, out of LA, (though Sun paid for it for a group of us engineer types), and the book was used as a textbook to the class. It's called "Everything an Engineer should know about Project Management". It's not specific to the Software industry, but definately approaches PM in a way that's compatible with software engineers' mindsets.
Also consider joining the Project Management Institute. They have special interest groups around many professional categories, including Software Engineering.
It's called Project Builder and Interface Builder. And (though it's not used because only PPC is available), the MACH_O binary format used by MacOS_X supports "fat" binaries which include common data segments, then code segments for each architecture. On Rhapsody/MacOSX-Server, and it's predecessors, I could click on check-boxes to tell Project Builder what cpu's to build for, and it would build binaries that would run on any of the listed CPUs.
Magic... no, just good engineering from Avie and crew.
NeXT (and now Apple) have Project Builder and Interface Builder, which were language neutral, and PB supports Java, C, C++, Objective-C, and people can make plugins to support various other languages.
It's the magic of O-O when applied properly. And those tools existed at least as far back as 1989!
Slashdot Mirror
This important site will make this issue clear for you. If we would stop worrying about substances of proven minimal danger like caffeine, and deal with a vastly more dangerous substance, like dihydrogen monoxide, we'd all be healthier.
Of course, if one of the government's jobs is to ensure that the rights of one don't override the rights of another, then in theory a global libertarian government would be somewhat obligated to intervene. Though it might do so by inviting groups to form a militia of volunteers and "licensing" them to go and do this.
Frankly, since I'm not a hard-core libertarian I haven't throught this through, but the question itself makes me want to look at how the LP's policies might be applied globally.
... since laws were passed that exempted directors of corporations from full liability limitation. In other words, if the company on which you sit as a director owes back-wages, and you run the company to ruin so you can't even pay your employees, you are jointly and severally liable (along with the corporation itself) for those wages. There are a few such categories of limited-limited-liability.
Of course, shareholders' liability is still limited to their investment.
Sorry, in the above example code, please substitute the class name "Currency" with "CurrencyValue" or something like it. I didn't mean java.util.Currency as it currently stands. Possibly "Money" or "MonetaryValue" could also be reasonable names for such a value holder object.
I can't access the site (darn airport wireless servers don't properly do domain lookups of simple sites...) for the JSR, but I believe that part of the problem domain IS useful in Core Java, that is the specification of amounts with a currency. The basic infrastructure is every bit as necessary in core as time/date or locale. Currency is a very common value type, as are the other two I've mentioned.
r rency eu = mixed.convertTo("EU",exch); // recursively traverses the Currency objects at this point.
Actual currency exchange systems are a more business oriented issue, but the ability to say new Currency("USD",30).add(new Currency("CAD",20)) is very useful in core. The core code needn't do the actual conversion - in fact Currency should probably NOT have that role - it should be a carrier of state that can be interpreted by an exchange engine, in my view.
The actual resolution of the amount could be done with an interface, such as in the following.
Currency usd = new Currency("USD",30);
Currency cad = new Currency("CAD",20);
Currency mixed = usd.add(cad);
CurrencyExchange exch = new SomeCorporateExchangeServiceImplementation();
Cu
CurrencyExchange is an interface that can be back-ended with any number of exchanges, including a dummy table for unit testing, networked or database driven exchanges, and the raw Currency objects will have very few guts, and are quite generic and reusable.
The whole thing would take up maybe three or four classes/interfaces. I've written enough apps with currency in them to think that this would not be clutter, but a very useful element. It would also be a great place for various J2EE after-market components to provide the service through the CurrencyExchange interface.
There's that darned rim-shot feature-request again...
i.
So what you're saying is that the bottom line is:
(wait for it)
Solid judgement based on experience, and an evaluation of the circumstances of the project at hand?
Wow... coooooool. It only that weren't such a bloody revolutionary idea. Mindless applications of processes and methodologies is bad. Clue? Mindlessness. Creating a quality artifact requires judgement, experience, thoughtfullness, analysis, consultation, colaboration, and estimation. All of these are the products of experience.
I propose a new methodology, which I shall designate the SANE-M. It requires that you start learning, fail a lot, learn from your mistakes, find mentors, learn from them, go off and be extreme and youthful, fail some more, learn some hard practical lessons, then, after about five to ten years, start doing projects with a flexible mind, having exposed yourself to a wide variety of project types, styles, personalities, funding levels, timescales, etc. You are likely to evolve your own project-specific method in colaboration with other experienced participants, and such a project is likely to succeed (if it has all the required ingredients to succeed). A baker who has never made pumpernickle will probably screw it up even if he has a recipe.
Wait! Method re-name. The new name should be "Life" or maybe "Professionalism".
i.
One of my favourite books is "Pitfalls of Object-Oriented Programming" which was similarly slammed in its day for being anti-object, etc. In truth, it was very much in favour of Object-Oriented programming, and presented ways you can make your life difficult, and how to avoid those ways.
It's always good to have a thoughtful re-examination even of one's most dear religious views. We often don't see the rat-traps into which our minds wander as we enthusiastically accept a doctrine. I haven't read the book, but plan to, and hopefully it will show me ways to improve what is good about XP, and reduce what is not so good about it.
I remember, to provide a historical note again, this same stupid argument happening with the Various modeling gurus. The arguments were mostly religious and stylistic/aesthetic in nature. What always made sense is to take the recipies, practice them, and adjust to your local ingredients.
i.
Er... by definition, that is a coercive act. It is a violation of free speech, but it most such rights refer to one's relationship with one's government.
... only they called it "copy-on-write" since the early nineties - possibly the late eighties?
Besides, MicroBSD had this feature in an early version circa. 1306AD.
i.
Hmm... wirelessly tighten tourniquets on an opposing force? Harden their cast-o-costumes on them? Or hack the IFF system, so joey shoots johnny since he's obviously now a "foe"... after all, his visor said so.
... attention all HaX0rs, Uncle oSAMa's hiring...
I'm all for making people more effective, but given what I see out there in terms of applied security, it seems like a risky business.
That, and the fact that as we depend more on technology, we often become less capable of dealing with a circumstance where the technology has failed.
Man... the opportunities for speculative fiction are limitless.
i.
... had this feature in their -3.6 release of 1925.
i.
Everyone talks about tethers, looking at the space-elevator notion. However, there's a reasonable (with simulations in applets) site promoting the notion of a rotating, orbiting tether that could be used either as a fuel-saving "last mile" (well, last 300 mile) trip to space, or alternately as an sling-shot that grabs the exiting craft in mid-flight and launches it balistically, like a trebuchet. Interesting, and they make a reasonable case, at least to one without the physics background to criticize. ;)
i.
fair enough. It should integrate with a proper UI metaphor.
i
Um... the point of a good plug-in architecture is specifically so that good functionality can not necessarily reside in the product's base configuration.
i
technology. I bet some "personally anonymous, but publicly known" groups of file-rippers will come into being, much like the current video-game cracking crews. These folks will publicly distribute PKI Signing Key fingerprints, and sign and envelope the music upon ripping.
That'd break any files that are not as they were when they were ripped, and you'ld get the same sort of "brand recognition" in the ripper space that you get among the cracker space.
-i.
It's tempting... I'd just move that laptop to linux and do it, if it weren't for my working on Java for OpenBSD, and thus needing an accessible OpenBSD machine (as in, not my server...)
i
Pretty much. I just re-loaded win32 to dual boot with OpenBSD on my laptop so I can feed my addiction to Civ3. (No FreeCiv is not as fun in my view...)
Anyway, where it counts (on servers) I push open solutions where they make sense, which is in most places in an enterprise config - at least as far as my previous work-places have gone.
If it were a Canadian or Mexican company making the claim, then it would fall under NAFTA, but I don't think that a US Company can make a claim against the US Gov't under NAFTA. It holds jurisdiction on cross-border disputes, if I'm not mistaken.
No we won't. That would require circumvention of the chip put into their brains to regulate their visual cortext based on their content purchasing profile.
"...now now, Johnny... no baywatch for little boys. You haven't earned the credits to afford it yet..."
Angelicus Architekt
Mi ne parolas Esperanton!
While Goodwin's Law is usually true, allowance must be made for reasonable (and academically supportable) comparisons. Calling someone a Nazi ad-hominem, is a good way to prove your inadequacy as an proponent of your view. It does not relate one way or another to the validity of the view itself.
:)
;)
In this case, it would be more interesting to look at Palladium as it relates to Fascism, rather than Nazism, as NAZI was a bizarre co-mingling of Nationalism, Lightweight State-Socialism, and Fascist dictatorship. In the case of DCMA, TCMA, and Palladium specifically, the parallel is better drawn to Fascism itself, where small central and absolute control is managed (trustees of DRM) over the body of constituent parts (users).
What's frightening, is that most totalitarian states capitalist states have wonderful business climates, since it is easier to preserve order and power if you have buy-in from the rich and powerful. I see the West's increasing decline into totalitarian "constitutional dictatorship" as an interesting helix-spiral between business and corporate interest on one hand married to increasingly powerful government on the other.
I suggest that Government is more powerful in this context, because while many modern liberal democracies are moving towards "small government" neo-conservative politics, they are simultaneously acquiring increasing ability to invade the individual's person, property, adn affairs in the interests of security. Therefore, a "conservative" power-base is actually creating a big-brother "big government" structure. the only difference is that the "big" is military, not welface, and that much of government service and responsibility has been divested to corporate interests, which have become partners in the power structure. There is still great centralization, no less so than Communist regimes that America has criticized (rightly) for decades. In otherwords, we increasingly are growing a "totalitarian corporate-welfare state", which is an odd mirror image of the old soviet "totalitarian workers-welfare state". The only difference is of who benefits.
To paraphrase a favorite author of mine, neo-conservatives are really neo-bolsheviks. They believe in destiny (history/market), they believe in a class struggle, the only difference between them is who they think should and will win that struggle.
All of the above, precludes an informed democratic state where citizens consult, elect delegates, inform themselves and are informed, and work hard to perceive more than two dimensions of any issue. The fact that we no longer have issues, nor are sought by politicials for consultation, but rather have debates and are measured by polls is rather telling. I shall not even delve into the role of the media in all this.
Back to the original point, these laws and movements (DCMA, TCMA, etc.) are quite un-surprising when viewed in the wider context of the change in our social fabric, but are disturbing in the way that they both confirm the trend, and push it forward.
Personally, I'm going to have a hard time in the future, as I have no intention of working with DRM without a careful audit of who's in control, etc. DRM makes sense to me in a situation where the DR Manager is also the owner of all property involved. But if I own the property (computer) and Microsoft owns the other property (software), then who's property rights are primary.
One commonly lobbed around libertarian slogan is "I have the right to do what I want, so long as I don't infringe upon the rights of others." While I find this formulation unworkable, it is not an uncommon view. Since many neo-liberal economists and organizations (WTO, WorldBank, etc.) espouse quasi-libertarian principles to justify the policies, I wonder in this case how my above mentioned dilemma would be resolved. Who's rights are more sacrosanct.
My personal view is that such things are human rights, and that as such they do not extend to all "legal persons", but only human persons. Namely, they do not extend to corporate aggregate bodies, in such a way as to always overthrow the individual's rights. Sadly, many of those estimed and learned Justices do not interpret such principles the way I do, and they obviously don't consult me.
This is a bit long, and meandering, I'm sorry, but I truly see such things as Palladium as symptom of a much wider set of issues. In many ways the libertarian views that many slashdotters hold are being thrown back in their faces, because neo-libralism is actually favouring the big-guy. Many of the techno-fetishism that we geeks have brought into the market-place is also being thrown in our face, as we have made high-tech cool, and have become "gurus" and the modern common person hasn't a clue what is going on, and therefore is insufficiently educated to critically examine the issues presented. Single-dimensional media coverage doesn't help.
Christian Gruber
The course was from claremont consulting, out of LA, (though Sun paid for it for a group of us engineer types), and the book was used as a textbook to the class. It's called "Everything an Engineer should know about Project Management". It's not specific to the Software industry, but definately approaches PM in a way that's compatible with software engineers' mindsets.
Also consider joining the Project Management Institute. They have special interest groups around many professional categories, including Software Engineering.
Nope... the Toronto Maple Leafs haven't won the Stanley Cup yet.
It's called Project Builder and Interface Builder. And (though it's not used because only PPC is available), the MACH_O binary format used by MacOS_X supports "fat" binaries which include common data segments, then code segments for each architecture. On Rhapsody/MacOSX-Server, and it's predecessors, I could click on check-boxes to tell Project Builder what cpu's to build for, and it would build binaries that would run on any of the listed CPUs.
Magic... no, just good engineering from Avie and crew.
NeXT (and now Apple) have Project Builder and Interface Builder, which were language neutral, and PB supports Java, C, C++, Objective-C, and people can make plugins to support various other languages.
It's the magic of O-O when applied properly. And those tools existed at least as far back as 1989!