Hi. I don't understand the American legal system when it comes to suing people and companies. It seems like you can sue for any amount of money that you like!
Why, here 5 employees are suing for $5 Billion - Isn't this completely over the top? $50,000 each would be more like it. Doesn't it mean that big companies are in total fear of the very slightest slip up, and are unlikely to take risks and innovate when it could mean that they are likely to lose Billions if it even goes slightly wrong.
Also, I really really find it hard to believe that a company in this day and age would be racist. They are driven by money, and finding the best employee for the job is the absolute bottom line in any company these days.
It'll be very interesting to see more details of this case and see just what happens!;)
Hi. Can I just cut in among all the beowulf cluster comments and ask a question please? I once read an interview with Linus Torvalds in which he said that running Linux on massive supercomputers was 'just plain silly' (the article may have been a bit old;). What I would like to know is, how does the free software community work on making Linux work on big expensive machines like this? I mean, its mostly a network of volunteers, and presumably they can't all have a supercomputer each to work on, so how do they do it? Is most of the work on Linux at this level done by big companies that can afford it like IBM, or is there a place for the smaller Linux developer and enthusiast?
I would be really interested in knowing. Thank you!
Hi! I was actually reading an interesting article about this very issue just the other day. Anyhoo, everybody thinks that the big expense with going to space is buying all the fuel - if you sit and watch an awesome space launch, you could be forgiven for thinking so!
But it turns out that the big problem with going to space is the economy of scale - they only build one rocket that gets used once, and each shuttle only gets used twice a year. This means that it is inordinately expensive. But studies have shown (no links, I'm very sorry;) that if the space industry were scaled up, then fuel would become the main operating cost - as it is for airlines. Just now it cost $3000 per kilogram that we send into space, and only $30 of that is fuel costs. So if we scaled it up a lot, then costs would massively decrease! We would enter a virtuous circle.
It seems to me that the space revolution won't begin until the big corps get really interested - there is a wealth of resources out there to be harnessed, after all.
I'm glad that this small step to commercialism has been taken, because it helps to legitemise the space industry on Wall Street, which can only be good for the future. Do you agree?
I would guess (and its only a guess) that it would be feasible. Employing teen hackers would allow them to stay in touch with the 'zeitgeist' (coo, I knew an Austrian once;)
Also, teenagers in India aren't really like teenagers over here. People grow up fast in India - by aged fourteen they are often married while our teens are still fumbling behind the bike shed! And when it comes to discipline, countries like India don't muck about. American children I have met tend to be very undisciplined (though creative) while their counterparts in India have to grow up fast indeed. Its a different culture!
Hi. I'm not really against guns on principle, I'm just not used to them I suppose. Its difficult if you come from a gun free country to America, because you have to change your attitudes. It is just a question of naturalisation, I suppose.
Okay, I wasn't trying to single out your country in particular, the problem regarding the democratic deficit is with the EU. I chose Holland in particular because it is often picked as a bastion of freedom, and yet it is in the undemocratic EU.
The undemocratic elements of the EU are that its most powerful structures are unelected and it is a powerful beurocracy with an agenda of its own. I am very glad indeed to be out of the EU, as an institution it makes me very nervous indeed.
Hi. I'm from Scotland, but I chose to come to America to live, which is the country you are planning to leave. If you have decided to base your decision to leave this country on what is reported on/., then I would say that that is a little foolhardy of you, wouldn't you agree? Slashdot, like all news vendors, is a biased site, and the only type of news for sites like this is bad news. So things may appear biased from that regard.
Also, I can't see how things would be better in other countries. Things always seem rosy from far away, but it doesn't seem like that when you get there! For example, people always talk of Holland and the EU as being free places to live these days, while ignoring the huge democratic deficit at the heart of the EU that Holland and other European countries have to confirm to.
The simple fact is that most Countries around the world have their own problems regarding freedom, and I don't see how the USA is uniquely better or worse in any area.
Speaking for myself, the things I like about America are its Constitution which safeguards certains rights. But as a European, and a Scot at that, I am a wee bit uncomfortable at the lack of a National Health Service that is government funded and the Gun laws make me nervous too, but that is only to be expected.
That is the question that must be answered before patents are abolished. If you abolish the patent system, then you must prove at least one of two things:
1)The patent system is so incerdibally bad, we would be better without one at all.
2)Here is a patent system that is better than the one we have currently. Lets use it.
Until either of these points is proved, then it is wrong to abolish the patent system we have currently. Considering the advances we have made this century, and that are being made every day, it doesn't seem to be doing to badly, does it?;)
But for most companies, necessity=money. And if they (or individual inventors) cannot patent their inventions, then they won't make any money from it. If they do invent something, it would have to be for altruistic reasons.
Also, the GPL model works well for software, where there is an abundance of people who are willing to be altruistic, so I have no problems there. But what about the Pharmaceuticals industry or the Auotomobile industry or the Computer Hardware industry? The same thing does not exist in these fields, and it is not likely to in the near future. It is the safety net of the patent system that allows these industries to innovate. So I think saying that the Patent system is totally evil is just plain wrong, I'm afraid.
How are patents evil? Surely only some badly implemented patents are evil? If there was not a patent system, then companies and inventors would have no motive to innovate, because they would be unnable to exploit their inventions.
It seems to me that only stupid, ill-thought patents are evil, like Amazons one click nonsense. And I am not a patent lawyer!
Hi, I have a Mac and a PC, so I am interested in Linuc for the PowerPC.
With OSX, with its Unix-like core, coming out for the Mac soon, will this make things easier for the Linux PowerPC project when it comes to Hardware drivers and generally fitting the OS to the machine? After all, in the future new models of the Mac will be optomised for a *nix-like OS, and I would have thought that this would make things better and easier for you.
As a matter of interest, what happens if the company has a monopoly? It may be that I have to accept a said companies TOS or EULA, for my own livelihood and because there is no company offering an alternative service.
Do I have legal recourse then, if the TOS is draconian, considering that I don't have an alternative?
That makes sense. As long as they aren't examining my every e-mail, its fine by me. Are you saying that they aren't really bothered by violations of their TOS, but they like to have it because it lets them kick off anyone they don't like? That seems fairly sensible to me.
Yuk! The installation guy sounds like quite a deterrent.
I wonder how they can possibly know that you have been breaking their TOS without massive surveilance of everything that you do. I suppose that is what really really frightens me about the whole shebang.
Hi. The thing I don't understand about TOS policies like this is: How exactly are they enforced? It seems to me that they can have the most Draconian TOS that they like, but there is no real way for them to enforce it without breaking the law! I am assuming that its againt the law for them to eavesdrop on your e-mail's and whatnot.
Whats the matter with you? What is wrong with saying 'If'? I don't understand what you are talking about or trying to say, I'm afraid. Are you saying that it is a certainty that big business will take over the internet? I would beg to differ. And please don't insult me.
I think you are being very unfair indeed. I am not from America, but I do live here, and as far as I can make out they are not anything like as bad as you make them out to be!
I think the rest of the world has a choice of whether to buy American films and TV shows or not. Its not their fault that foreign countries are always avid audiences for American films. Also, AFAIK, these days when Hollywood makes films it does so with the rest of the world in mind. So they are not 'Imperialists' at all! You have a choice, and they cater to your needs.
And to say that they are backward is terrible rubbish (I'm really sorry, but it is). They are actually quite advanced.
American films are the best that sre made in the world, IMO. The same isn't true for their TV programs perhaps, but it certainly is for their films. Otherwise, why would everyone all over the whole wide world choose to watch them? Because they like them, thats why!
Well, I would say that people can only increase their needs so far. Once you have the ability to manufacture anything, anywhere for almost no cost, then I don't see how things can really change thereafter. We haven't got that far yet, but the interesting thing about the article was that it points out that lifestyles really haven't changed in the last 50 years. I don't see them changing all that much in the future either (lifestyles, not technology) because we are absurdly wealthey on a historical scale. I have a better lifestyle than a medieval King, i'm sure. Just how gluttonous can people become? There has to be some limit.
Hi there. I don't understand what you mean at all! I am trying to learn Java, and I am doing so on Linux, and I haven't had any great difficulties with getting things to work on it.
Java fits in well to the Unix tradition that goes back to 1969 - I bet people were saying the same thing as you in the mid 1970's regarding programs written in C.
Anyhoo, the Freenet project seems like a very good idea. It is a sort of counterculture movement, and hopefully, if the internet becomes dominated by big business, there will always be Freenet for the likes of us.
Don't be so defeatist! Have some optimism, it is the only way in a grim world:-)
Hello again. Please don't get so emotional! It is just an interesting argument;)
Firstly, I must stress that I am not denying that technology will advance. I am saying that, for the next couple of hundred years at least, it will not affect our lives in any radical way. In one hundred years the lifestyles that people have will be much the same as what they have now. They will still drive cars about, eat normal meals made in cookers and kept in fridges, work doing much the same sort of jobs (although on a macroscopic scale there may be some new industries), go and watch films, sporting events, etc etc. This is the way that people like to live, and this is not going to change beyond getting easier and cheaper - but again, we have the diminishing law of returns.
But wtf is with equating that with the end of history?
History is about events and advances in society. I would say that the increasing comfort around the world has meant that there really is less history going on. What will a history book in 100 years say about the 1990's? A few minor brush fire civil wars by 20th Century standards, improvements in communication (but nothing as radical as the telephone - diminishing returns again) and that is about it. The end of history is a social phenomenon, and we can actually watch it happening. Everything is becoming more and more homogenous all the time, and this means that there is less conflict (not just in the physical sense, but also the conflict of ideas and ideaologies) and so less things happen.
Did scotts really live that much differently than canadians 100 or 200 years ago? I don't think so.
Here I am not talking about technological differences, but social ones. 100 years ago Scots were very different to what they are now. If I were to speak to a Scot of 100 years ago, I would find it difficult to understand him, due to the amount of local dialect and slang at that time, which is now being replaced globalised English. Scotland is rapidly, in the cultural sense, becoming a place just like any other. And don't forget the demise of religion, old superstitons, modes of thought and so forth, which are also being replaced by the global consensus.
Hello. I am certainly not denying that technology will continue to advance. I am saying that it will not affect me to nearly the same degree.
The invention of the wheel revolutionised the world a lot more than the invention of the transistor ever will.
And when I say revolutionise, I mean revolutionise peoples lifes. I mean it in the social sense. And your last comments are, it would seem to me, supportive of my view! Yes, you are quite right that the Chinaman and the Canadian interact - and after they have done so, they are a little more similar. We can see globalisation all around us! I'm Scottish, and live in Maine, but I don't have any trouble understanding the locals nor they me. I bet the same would not have been true, or as true, 100 years ago. And as everything becomes more similar, there is less reason for dispute - The End of History.
Also, I don't think that this is a permanent state of affairs. In the very deep future, things will probably change radically. But for the next two or three hundred years I don't see our society and Culture changing much at all, really.
Hello. What you are saying is true for high end applications and the like. But how will it affect me? Not at all, I'll wager. The thing is, we have now solved all the major problems that we face as a species - food, shelter, warmth, health, we are supplied them all, and most of them really can't improve that much anymore. What I mean is, things may continue to improve technically, but these improvements won't impact our lives to nearly the same degree as advances in the past have.
If you read "The End of History" by Francis Fukuyama, you will see that he posits that the history of the world is coming to an end, in the sense that modern capitalist democracies are so comfortable that, well, nothing really happens. One of the fields in which this is occurring is technology.
Consider that the reason we develop technology is to support our preferred lifestyle. We have been inching ever closer to that lifestyle for seven thousand years, and the rate (in terms of ground covered) that we get closer is decreasing. So it seems to me (and good lord, I know very little) that things just aren't going to change all *that* much over the next few hundred years. In the *long* term, my opinion is quite different.
I'm very sorry if I appear a little short with my words, but I'm in a very bad mood just now and have a headache:-(
We are all familiar with the essay by the respected futurist Vernor Vinge called "The Singularity". In it he predicts that technology will increase in complexity at an everincreasing rate, and will reach a point in the next hundred years where that rate becomes infinite thanks to intelligent computers designing their replacements.
Well, that is the most utter hogwash. Instead the opposite is happening. The law of diminishing returns is gripping us - the jump from 500MHz computers to 1GHz computers will affect me much less than the jump from.5MHz computers to 1Mhz computers ever did. We see this effect in every area of our lives.
Technology is approaching its end game. The End of History Socially, Culturally and technologically is upon us gentlemen.
Yes, it is certainly true that you don't need high tech to teach. I'm just saying that you need high tech teaching methods to teach people to be good at high tech things, and to help spawn a high tech industry.
Slashdot Mirror
Why, here 5 employees are suing for $5 Billion - Isn't this completely over the top? $50,000 each would be more like it. Doesn't it mean that big companies are in total fear of the very slightest slip up, and are unlikely to take risks and innovate when it could mean that they are likely to lose Billions if it even goes slightly wrong.
Also, I really really find it hard to believe that a company in this day and age would be racist. They are driven by money, and finding the best employee for the job is the absolute bottom line in any company these days.
It'll be very interesting to see more details of this case and see just what happens! ;)
I would be really interested in knowing. Thank you!
Thanks, thats very interesting. Just the sort of thing I should have linked to in my post, for proof.
But it turns out that the big problem with going to space is the economy of scale - they only build one rocket that gets used once, and each shuttle only gets used twice a year. This means that it is inordinately expensive. But studies have shown (no links, I'm very sorry;) that if the space industry were scaled up, then fuel would become the main operating cost - as it is for airlines. Just now it cost $3000 per kilogram that we send into space, and only $30 of that is fuel costs. So if we scaled it up a lot, then costs would massively decrease! We would enter a virtuous circle.
It seems to me that the space revolution won't begin until the big corps get really interested - there is a wealth of resources out there to be harnessed, after all.
I'm glad that this small step to commercialism has been taken, because it helps to legitemise the space industry on Wall Street, which can only be good for the future. Do you agree?
Also, teenagers in India aren't really like teenagers over here. People grow up fast in India - by aged fourteen they are often married while our teens are still fumbling behind the bike shed! And when it comes to discipline, countries like India don't muck about. American children I have met tend to be very undisciplined (though creative) while their counterparts in India have to grow up fast indeed. Its a different culture!
Hi. I'm not really against guns on principle, I'm just not used to them I suppose. Its difficult if you come from a gun free country to America, because you have to change your attitudes. It is just a question of naturalisation, I suppose.
The undemocratic elements of the EU are that its most powerful structures are unelected and it is a powerful beurocracy with an agenda of its own. I am very glad indeed to be out of the EU, as an institution it makes me very nervous indeed.
Also, I can't see how things would be better in other countries. Things always seem rosy from far away, but it doesn't seem like that when you get there! For example, people always talk of Holland and the EU as being free places to live these days, while ignoring the huge democratic deficit at the heart of the EU that Holland and other European countries have to confirm to.
The simple fact is that most Countries around the world have their own problems regarding freedom, and I don't see how the USA is uniquely better or worse in any area.
Speaking for myself, the things I like about America are its Constitution which safeguards certains rights. But as a European, and a Scot at that, I am a wee bit uncomfortable at the lack of a National Health Service that is government funded and the Gun laws make me nervous too, but that is only to be expected.
There are always trades and balances! :o)
1)The patent system is so incerdibally bad, we would be better without one at all.
2)Here is a patent system that is better than the one we have currently. Lets use it.
Until either of these points is proved, then it is wrong to abolish the patent system we have currently. Considering the advances we have made this century, and that are being made every day, it doesn't seem to be doing to badly, does it? ;)
But for most companies, necessity=money. And if they (or individual inventors) cannot patent their inventions, then they won't make any money from it. If they do invent something, it would have to be for altruistic reasons.
Also, the GPL model works well for software, where there is an abundance of people who are willing to be altruistic, so I have no problems there. But what about the Pharmaceuticals industry or the Auotomobile industry or the Computer Hardware industry? The same thing does not exist in these fields, and it is not likely to in the near future. It is the safety net of the patent system that allows these industries to innovate. So I think saying that the Patent system is totally evil is just plain wrong, I'm afraid.
Sorry ;)
It seems to me that only stupid, ill-thought patents are evil, like Amazons one click nonsense. And I am not a patent lawyer!
With OSX, with its Unix-like core, coming out for the Mac soon, will this make things easier for the Linux PowerPC project when it comes to Hardware drivers and generally fitting the OS to the machine? After all, in the future new models of the Mac will be optomised for a *nix-like OS, and I would have thought that this would make things better and easier for you.
(I am only guessing;)
As a matter of interest, what happens if the company has a monopoly? It may be that I have to accept a said companies TOS or EULA, for my own livelihood and because there is no company offering an alternative service.
Do I have legal recourse then, if the TOS is draconian, considering that I don't have an alternative?
Its still not very nice though.
I wonder how they can possibly know that you have been breaking their TOS without massive surveilance of everything that you do. I suppose that is what really really frightens me about the whole shebang.
Although, knowing me, I'm probably wrong :-)
Whats the matter with you? What is wrong with saying 'If'? I don't understand what you are talking about or trying to say, I'm afraid. Are you saying that it is a certainty that big business will take over the internet? I would beg to differ. And please don't insult me.
I think the rest of the world has a choice of whether to buy American films and TV shows or not. Its not their fault that foreign countries are always avid audiences for American films. Also, AFAIK, these days when Hollywood makes films it does so with the rest of the world in mind. So they are not 'Imperialists' at all! You have a choice, and they cater to your needs.
And to say that they are backward is terrible rubbish (I'm really sorry, but it is). They are actually quite advanced.
American films are the best that sre made in the world, IMO. The same isn't true for their TV programs perhaps, but it certainly is for their films. Otherwise, why would everyone all over the whole wide world choose to watch them? Because they like them, thats why!
Well, I would say that people can only increase their needs so far. Once you have the ability to manufacture anything, anywhere for almost no cost, then I don't see how things can really change thereafter. We haven't got that far yet, but the interesting thing about the article was that it points out that lifestyles really haven't changed in the last 50 years. I don't see them changing all that much in the future either (lifestyles, not technology) because we are absurdly wealthey on a historical scale. I have a better lifestyle than a medieval King, i'm sure. Just how gluttonous can people become? There has to be some limit.
Java fits in well to the Unix tradition that goes back to 1969 - I bet people were saying the same thing as you in the mid 1970's regarding programs written in C.
Anyhoo, the Freenet project seems like a very good idea. It is a sort of counterculture movement, and hopefully, if the internet becomes dominated by big business, there will always be Freenet for the likes of us.
Don't be so defeatist! Have some optimism, it is the only way in a grim world :-)
Firstly, I must stress that I am not denying that technology will advance. I am saying that, for the next couple of hundred years at least, it will not affect our lives in any radical way. In one hundred years the lifestyles that people have will be much the same as what they have now. They will still drive cars about, eat normal meals made in cookers and kept in fridges, work doing much the same sort of jobs (although on a macroscopic scale there may be some new industries), go and watch films, sporting events, etc etc. This is the way that people like to live, and this is not going to change beyond getting easier and cheaper - but again, we have the diminishing law of returns.
But wtf is with equating that with the end of history?
History is about events and advances in society. I would say that the increasing comfort around the world has meant that there really is less history going on. What will a history book in 100 years say about the 1990's? A few minor brush fire civil wars by 20th Century standards, improvements in communication (but nothing as radical as the telephone - diminishing returns again) and that is about it. The end of history is a social phenomenon, and we can actually watch it happening. Everything is becoming more and more homogenous all the time, and this means that there is less conflict (not just in the physical sense, but also the conflict of ideas and ideaologies) and so less things happen.
Did scotts really live that much differently than canadians 100 or 200 years ago? I don't think so.
Here I am not talking about technological differences, but social ones. 100 years ago Scots were very different to what they are now. If I were to speak to a Scot of 100 years ago, I would find it difficult to understand him, due to the amount of local dialect and slang at that time, which is now being replaced globalised English. Scotland is rapidly, in the cultural sense, becoming a place just like any other. And don't forget the demise of religion, old superstitons, modes of thought and so forth, which are also being replaced by the global consensus.
Very interesting this argument, anyway.
The invention of the wheel revolutionised the world a lot more than the invention of the transistor ever will.
And when I say revolutionise, I mean revolutionise peoples lifes. I mean it in the social sense. And your last comments are, it would seem to me, supportive of my view! Yes, you are quite right that the Chinaman and the Canadian interact - and after they have done so, they are a little more similar. We can see globalisation all around us! I'm Scottish, and live in Maine, but I don't have any trouble understanding the locals nor they me. I bet the same would not have been true, or as true, 100 years ago. And as everything becomes more similar, there is less reason for dispute - The End of History.
Also, I don't think that this is a permanent state of affairs. In the very deep future, things will probably change radically. But for the next two or three hundred years I don't see our society and Culture changing much at all, really.
But then, I really am talking in the dark, hehe.
If you read "The End of History" by Francis Fukuyama, you will see that he posits that the history of the world is coming to an end, in the sense that modern capitalist democracies are so comfortable that, well, nothing really happens. One of the fields in which this is occurring is technology.
Consider that the reason we develop technology is to support our preferred lifestyle. We have been inching ever closer to that lifestyle for seven thousand years, and the rate (in terms of ground covered) that we get closer is decreasing. So it seems to me (and good lord, I know very little) that things just aren't going to change all *that* much over the next few hundred years. In the *long* term, my opinion is quite different.
I'm very sorry if I appear a little short with my words, but I'm in a very bad mood just now and have a headache :-(
Well, that is the most utter hogwash. Instead the opposite is happening. The law of diminishing returns is gripping us - the jump from 500MHz computers to 1GHz computers will affect me much less than the jump from .5MHz computers to 1Mhz computers ever did. We see this effect in every area of our lives.
Technology is approaching its end game. The End of History Socially, Culturally and technologically is upon us gentlemen.
Yes, it is certainly true that you don't need high tech to teach. I'm just saying that you need high tech teaching methods to teach people to be good at high tech things, and to help spawn a high tech industry.