It's funny that keyboards are getting more and more keys, but people use them less and less. While it used to be mandatory to know control keys to use a word processor, not it is not.
Any Emacs user can attest to the speed that can be achieved by spending the time to learn key-bindings up front. Sadly, that knowledge has been lost in the Windows community, where most users don't advance beyond cut, copy, and paste. In effect, users remain novices, limited by the speed that they can repetitively navigate through menus.
I spent the last two years unemployed and never accepted any temp job that I felt was immoral. I don't know why I should be sympathetic to those who have no morals.
Many people who are prosititues, have fallen into that to survive as well. So why is telemarketing more legitimate? Because their pimps are corporate fat-cats who make political contributions?
The problem is that the boxes of most boxes are covered with pictures of people oohing and ahhing but don't have much information about what is actually inside the box. Even manuals (if you are lucky enough to get one) are very light on specs.
I see this as one of the more unfortunate side-effects of the mass adoption of computers. Most people will never realize their hardware is crappier than they thought, and the rest of us are told to shut up and be good little consumers. I get my revenge by buying multiple models off the shelf, and returning all but the one that makes the cut.
Great, I live in Alameda County, CA where I remember Diebold machines being used in the last election. Now we have the recall coming up, so I guess we will just have to have some kind of blind faith that our votes are counting. I suppose if the results are other than to be expected from this more liberal area, it will raise some eyebrows.
The horrible thing is, that this is really far below the general public's radar. I find it extremely amusing that we had a court battle over how reliable punch cards are, when electronic voting may be far worse.
The problem is that the general public is very computer illiterate, and have been pretty much been conditioned to accept bugs and viruses as normal. At the same time, strangely, computers seem to be viewed as infallible.
It is very importaint for Democracy that people are able to be able to see and verify that their votes are counted.
My previous experience with the Diebold machines left me more puzzled than anything. Where was my vote counted, on the card that I put in the machine, in the machine itself, or both? Were the votes transmitted via phone, wireless, or physically transported to a centeral location? I don't know for sure, and I'm sure regular people off the street were more puzzled. Then again, maybe the thought never crossed their mind.
The problem is that DRM will not be just like the (probably easily crackable) password feature on Winzip. Like you said, this feature only needs to be used when trying to access a password protected zip file. But the contents of that zip file are not tied forever to Winzip or other "approved" programs, you cant take the contents and do what you like with them. With DRM, you cannot do whatever you want with the rights restricted data.
You are correct, right now it is not mandatory to use DRM...at least right now. But as more people with a lax attitude about their rights install this patch because it would be "nice to have" that will slowly change. You will see more and more content providers requiring that you use DRM.
Think about how many people send HTML email. Most don't even have a clue how to turn it off and probably have never even heard of it. Wait till that happens with DRM. When the DRM features become the default setting, the receiver will have to be using DRM to read the mail.
It is similar to the situation we have now with viruses. The uneducated masses install insecure software and allow their computers to become infected with viruses. Then I have to deal with their stupidity when my mailbox gets filled up with the virus.
Think about how many people send HTML email. Most don't even have a clue how to turn it off and probably have never even heard of it. Wait till that happens with DRM. When the DRM features become the default setting, the receiver will have to be using DRM to read their email.
Maybe we can subvert.Net by offering our own.Net implementation. We could attract IT managers by adding the extra eye-candy that they desire over the Microsoft product.
We could get into a battle with us going tit-for-tat with Microsoft over which implementation had the the most masturbatory features. This would totally distract Microsoft from the real issues and force them to add all kinds of useless cruft to their product. Then eventually the whole.Net thing would collapse under its own weight.
I think what the author forgets is that the problem of scarcity of resources remains. There really is no such thing as a free lunch. If robots are seen as a way to replace more expensive human labor, the demand for robots will go up. Companies would outbid each other for robot related products and services, and what they would end up paying would be equal to the value of the labor they receive.
I would expect that in the end the overall cost of replacing all humans with robots would only be marginally cheaper than keeping the humans around. Cheaper, because the supply of labor would increase, much the same way as if there was a population boom.
The author assumes that there will be an unlimited number of robots in the future. Sure technology allows us to make better use of our resources, but the scarcity issue remains. There are a limited amount of raw materials that are economical to get (price will have to rise to make them viable). Also what will power these robots? The more robots, the more power required, what would happen to energy prices?
When I heard Thursday night that they were going to be arresting the author of Blaster on Friday, I pretty much assumed it was some kind of ploy. These kinds of announcments are not made until the suspect is in custody.
My guess is that they want to trip up the author in some way by making this announcement in advance.
Speaking of names, it seems like it would be a good time for the XFree86 project to rechristen itself. The name hasn't made sense for a long time, tying itself to the x86 platform. Also, even when the name did make sense it always struck me as being a bit tacky. It seems pretty clear that the "free" they were refering to when they named it had more to do with price. The name seems to suggest limited and cheap, which i dont think the XFree86 project is.
The claim about formaldehyde sounds suspiciously like the urban legend about aspartame...
Anyway I wouldn't get all worked up about what is good and what is bad for you. My great-grandfather god blacklung from the coal mines and smoked cigars till he died, living past his 100th birthday. I think the funniest people are those who deny themselves all their lives and then die anyway.
Just face it, there isn't much agreement about what is and isn't healthy. Probably the best advice is to take the middle road.
I think the Unix philosophy is real. The ability to slap together tools to create a prototype or first iteration is something lacking in other operating systems.
When monolithic applications are created (except most GUI ones), most are at least keeping with the spirit of Unix so that they can be used to some extent in scripts and pipelines.
A previous poster wondered why Emacs does not follow the Unix design philosophy. Remember that Emacs has its roots in the culture previous operating systems.
TV can be used to get people all riled up and politicians pay attention to that. Remember how Bill O'Riley basically forced the president of the Red Cross to resign. Maybe this medium can be used for good rather than evil.
A well reasoned letter to a show like Kudlow & Cramer might be helpful. Don't get bogged down too much on technical details that will go over their heads. Zero in on the fraud and insider trading chrages and they will be interested. A bunch of random letters to politicans wont hurt, but they will likely be viewed as eminating from fringe elements and not likely to get legs. I
t seems like using media to gain some momentum might be a better option. The avarage nitwit investor is probably hasn't really heard the whole story. If this issue ended up being picked appart on CNBC as often as it is on Slashdot, you bet the powers that be will start paying attention. As soon as they see that this is a sensational story that people are interested in, they will be all over it
Companies should wise up and stop trying to blow people off. All it takes is one angry customer to write something in their blog, get linked from Slashdot, and its all over. Bad first impressions are the hardest to get over.
Usually you have to get the more savvy early adopter type onboard before you start screwing people over. It is the masses who are rather blase when their personal information will be sold and are ripped off.
I find that I have been more successful at getting in shape when I made the commitment to go somewhere to work out, rather than trying to do it at home. If I go out, then I am focused on doing what I have to do. At home, or the office, you will find that your workout time will gradually be dominated by the phone, comptuer, etc... and you will eventually quit.
A gym membership can be a good investment if you are serious about this. Most people at the gym are regular people, like yourself. Don't sign up for any type of long term agreement, at first. I tried a 90 days for $90 deal at 24hr fitness that I found on the Internet at first, and then got a real memership when I saw that it worked out for me. It was good not to have to deal with any salesmen.
Make a commitment, say three days for 30-60 minutes, to some physical activity. The gym, running, basketball, etc... Its good not to make unreasonable plans initially, even though you might be gung-ho, later, if you get into it, increase your commitment.
Think of working out as a recreational activity, not as a chore you must do. It can be a good time for personal reflection, or to hang out with your friends.
Physical activity really can reduce stress and improve your outlook. It might seem like there is not enough time in a day for all of this, but working out can really improve the quality of your life.
The most importaint points are to make reasonable goals, but be compulsive enough to not slack off.
At least this is a licence fee that Microsoft will not be able to funnel money to SCO.
Imagine if they did, they would implicitly legitimize Linux. At least with Services for Unix they can say it is just for "legacy" support, in the pejorative sense
As an independent consultant if I don't have the ability to patent my work then I lose my ability to compete in the workplace. There is no way for me to go up against all these major corporations unless I can patent my innovations and leverage that patent in a court of law.
Yeah, but wouldn't it suck not to be able to work as an independent consultant because a few large corporations owned a bunch of patents covering methods required to complete the job. Maybe some company patents the method for interacting with their hardware/software. Then, I guess, only people who work for the company, or granted licence by the company would be able to do consulting work for those products.
Instead of being free market, laisez-faire capitalists, we (by which I mean you, I don't subscribe to this) have turned into whiny littly communists.
Patents are a a right granted by the government. In a laisez-faire market, it seems that the government would not be able to grant/restrict businesses from using certain ideas. In a purly free market, if one business saw another's idea, and wanted to compete, they would be free to do so.
Patents give inventors an insentive to spend the effort and investment to work on new ideas, because they will have a period of time where they can profit, without having to worry about competing with copy-cats.
If you took an economics class, your professor would shade in an area on his supply and demand curve and note that it represents a loss to the economy, he would also say that such a loss is tolerated because it creates innovations that might not take place otherwise.
So no, it is not inconsistant for free market types to believe that it is not fair that some limitations be placed on the government granted patent rights.
I'm sure everyone here can relate. Rather than actually doing anything, it is often more fun to read about doing something.
will i still have to shit sitting down?
on
Does Google = God?
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· Score: 1
I detect a little frothing at the mouth in this article. Nontechnical people, those late getting on the bandwagon, seem to be the most clueless and blow it all out of perportion. Like maybe tomarrow, because wireless + google == god, we won't have to put our pants on one leg at a time. oh, what a brave new world this is!
I wonder how the Times determines what that I.B.M. has periods, and SCO does not... I for one, have never seen IBM written as I.B.M. so it really jumps off the page as looking rather odd.
Let me tell you about age discrimination
on
Ageism in IT?
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· Score: 1
It seems that having graduated from college and not having any "experience" is a worse crime than being older. I've been looking for a job as some kind of programmer or something even mildly related for the last 2 years and haven't been able to seal the deal, because I haven't had any "real word" experience. They can always find someone with way too much experience willing to work these low level jobs, so I can't even get my foot in the door.
Meanwhile, I have to work meaningless secretarial and accounting jobs that are getting me nowhere. It just seems to me as an outsider, that it is impossible to get a job unless you have several years of experience, which is something new grads do not have, since what you did in school, apparently, didn't mean a thing.
i was working hard, doing good in school. I had a lot of momentum at the time of graduation, but hit a brick wall, and it has been nothing but frustration since.
Slashdot Mirror
It's funny that keyboards are getting more and more keys, but people use them less and less. While it used to be mandatory to know control keys to use a word processor, not it is not.
Any Emacs user can attest to the speed that can be achieved by spending the time to learn key-bindings up front. Sadly, that knowledge has been lost in the Windows community, where most users don't advance beyond cut, copy, and paste. In effect, users remain novices, limited by the speed that they can repetitively navigate through menus.
I spent the last two years unemployed and never accepted any temp job that I felt was immoral. I don't know why I should be sympathetic to those who have no morals.
Many people who are prosititues, have fallen into that to survive as well. So why is telemarketing more legitimate? Because their pimps are corporate fat-cats who make political contributions?
The problem is that the boxes of most boxes are covered with pictures of people oohing and ahhing but don't have much information about what is actually inside the box. Even manuals (if you are lucky enough to get one) are very light on specs.
I see this as one of the more unfortunate side-effects of the mass adoption of computers. Most people will never realize their hardware is crappier than they thought, and the rest of us are told to shut up and be good little consumers. I get my revenge by buying multiple models off the shelf, and returning all but the one that makes the cut.
Great, I live in Alameda County, CA where I remember Diebold machines being used in the last election. Now we have the recall coming up, so I guess we will just have to have some kind of blind faith that our votes are counting. I suppose if the results are other than to be expected from this more liberal area, it will raise some eyebrows.
The horrible thing is, that this is really far below the general public's radar. I find it extremely amusing that we had a court battle over how reliable punch cards are, when electronic voting may be far worse.
The problem is that the general public is very computer illiterate, and have been pretty much been conditioned to accept bugs and viruses as normal. At the same time, strangely, computers seem to be viewed as infallible.
It is very importaint for Democracy that people are able to be able to see and verify that their votes are counted.
My previous experience with the Diebold machines left me more puzzled than anything. Where was my vote counted, on the card that I put in the machine, in the machine itself, or both? Were the votes transmitted via phone, wireless, or physically transported to a centeral location? I don't know for sure, and I'm sure regular people off the street were more puzzled. Then again, maybe the thought never crossed their mind.
The problem is that DRM will not be just like the (probably easily crackable) password feature on Winzip. Like you said, this feature only needs to be used when trying to access a password protected zip file. But the contents of that zip file are not tied forever to Winzip or other "approved" programs, you cant take the contents and do what you like with them. With DRM, you cannot do whatever you want with the rights restricted data.
You are correct, right now it is not mandatory to use DRM...at least right now. But as more people with a lax attitude about their rights install this patch because it would be "nice to have" that will slowly change. You will see more and more content providers requiring that you use DRM.
Think about how many people send HTML email. Most don't even have a clue how to turn it off and probably have never even heard of it. Wait till that happens with DRM. When the DRM features become the default setting, the receiver will have to be using DRM to read the mail.
It is similar to the situation we have now with viruses. The uneducated masses install insecure software and allow their computers to become infected with viruses. Then I have to deal with their stupidity when my mailbox gets filled up with the virus.
Think about how many people send HTML email. Most don't even have a clue how to turn it off and probably have never even heard of it. Wait till that happens with DRM. When the DRM features become the default setting, the receiver will have to be using DRM to read their email.
Maybe we can subvert .Net by offering our own .Net implementation. We could attract IT managers by adding the extra eye-candy that they desire over the Microsoft product.
.Net thing would collapse under its own weight.
We could get into a battle with us going tit-for-tat with Microsoft over which implementation had the the most masturbatory features. This would totally distract Microsoft from the real issues and force them to add all kinds of useless cruft to their product. Then eventually the whole
I think what the author forgets is that the problem of scarcity of resources remains. There really is no such thing as a free lunch. If robots are seen as a way to replace more expensive human labor, the demand for robots will go up. Companies would outbid each other for robot related products and services, and what they would end up paying would be equal to the value of the labor they receive.
I would expect that in the end the overall cost of replacing all humans with robots would only be marginally cheaper than keeping the humans around. Cheaper, because the supply of labor would increase, much the same way as if there was a population boom.
The author assumes that there will be an unlimited number of robots in the future. Sure technology allows us to make better use of our resources, but the scarcity issue remains. There are a limited amount of raw materials that are economical to get (price will have to rise to make them viable). Also what will power these robots? The more robots, the more power required, what would happen to energy prices?
When I heard Thursday night that they were going to be arresting the author of Blaster on Friday, I pretty much assumed it was some kind of ploy. These kinds of announcments are not made until the suspect is in custody.
My guess is that they want to trip up the author in some way by making this announcement in advance.
Why am I feeling less than impressed. Don't people end up rejecting the branded crippled versions of free software?
Take Netscape/Mozilla for instance.
Yes...That is how they always talk before they send the men in the white coats!
Speaking of names, it seems like it would be a good time for the XFree86 project to rechristen itself. The name hasn't made sense for a long time, tying itself to the x86 platform. Also, even when the name did make sense it always struck me as being a bit tacky. It seems pretty clear that the "free" they were refering to when they named it had more to do with price. The name seems to suggest limited and cheap, which i dont think the XFree86 project is.
The claim about formaldehyde sounds suspiciously like the urban legend about aspartame...
Anyway I wouldn't get all worked up about what is good and what is bad for you. My great-grandfather god blacklung from the coal mines and smoked cigars till he died, living past his 100th birthday. I think the funniest people are those who deny themselves all their lives and then die anyway.
Just face it, there isn't much agreement about what is and isn't healthy. Probably the best advice is to take the middle road.
I think the Unix philosophy is real. The ability to slap together tools to create a prototype or first iteration is something lacking in other operating systems.
When monolithic applications are created (except most GUI ones), most are at least keeping with the spirit of Unix so that they can be used to some extent in scripts and pipelines.
A previous poster wondered why Emacs does not follow the Unix design philosophy. Remember that Emacs has its roots in the culture previous operating systems.
TV can be used to get people all riled up and politicians pay attention to that. Remember how Bill O'Riley basically forced the president of the Red Cross to resign. Maybe this medium can be used for good rather than evil.
A well reasoned letter to a show like Kudlow & Cramer might be helpful. Don't get bogged down too much on technical details that will go over their heads. Zero in on the fraud and insider trading chrages and they will be interested. A bunch of random letters to politicans wont hurt, but they will likely be viewed as eminating from fringe elements and not likely to get legs. I
t seems like using media to gain some momentum might be a better option. The avarage nitwit investor is probably hasn't really heard the whole story. If this issue ended up being picked appart on CNBC as often as it is on Slashdot, you bet the powers that be will start paying attention. As soon as they see that this is a sensational story that people are interested in, they will be all over it
Well, you could always follow the link to the study...
Ok, its in German, but it is 4Mb, hardly short. Its not like anyone on Slashdot would actually read it anyway. ha
don't usually take this kind of bs laying down.
Companies should wise up and stop trying to blow people off. All it takes is one angry customer to write something in their blog, get linked from Slashdot, and its all over. Bad first impressions are the hardest to get over.
Usually you have to get the more savvy early adopter type onboard before you start screwing people over. It is the masses who are rather blase when their personal information will be sold and are ripped off.
I find that I have been more successful at getting in shape when I made the commitment to go somewhere to work out, rather than trying to do it at home. If I go out, then I am focused on doing what I have to do. At home, or the office, you will find that your workout time will gradually be dominated by the phone, comptuer, etc... and you will eventually quit.
A gym membership can be a good investment if you are serious about this. Most people at the gym are regular people, like yourself. Don't sign up for any type of long term agreement, at first. I tried a 90 days for $90 deal at 24hr fitness that I found on the Internet at first, and then got a real memership when I saw that it worked out for me. It was good not to have to deal with any salesmen.
Make a commitment, say three days for 30-60 minutes, to some physical activity. The gym, running, basketball, etc... Its good not to make unreasonable plans initially, even though you might be gung-ho, later, if you get into it, increase your commitment.
Think of working out as a recreational activity, not as a chore you must do. It can be a good time for personal reflection, or to hang out with your friends.
Physical activity really can reduce stress and improve your outlook. It might seem like there is not enough time in a day for all of this, but working out can really improve the quality of your life.
The most importaint points are to make reasonable goals, but be compulsive enough to not slack off.
At least this is a licence fee that Microsoft will not be able to funnel money to SCO.
Imagine if they did, they would implicitly legitimize Linux. At least with Services for Unix they can say it is just for "legacy" support, in the pejorative sense
More info on copyright traps in maps here
Yeah, but wouldn't it suck not to be able to work as an independent consultant because a few large corporations owned a bunch of patents covering methods required to complete the job. Maybe some company patents the method for interacting with their hardware/software. Then, I guess, only people who work for the company, or granted licence by the company would be able to do consulting work for those products.
Patents are a a right granted by the government. In a laisez-faire market, it seems that the government would not be able to grant/restrict businesses from using certain ideas. In a purly free market, if one business saw another's idea, and wanted to compete, they would be free to do so.
Patents give inventors an insentive to spend the effort and investment to work on new ideas, because they will have a period of time where they can profit, without having to worry about competing with copy-cats.
If you took an economics class, your professor would shade in an area on his supply and demand curve and note that it represents a loss to the economy, he would also say that such a loss is tolerated because it creates innovations that might not take place otherwise.
So no, it is not inconsistant for free market types to believe that it is not fair that some limitations be placed on the government granted patent rights.
Procrastination.
I'm sure everyone here can relate. Rather than actually doing anything, it is often more fun to read about doing something.
I detect a little frothing at the mouth in this article. Nontechnical people, those late getting on the bandwagon, seem to be the most clueless and blow it all out of perportion. Like maybe tomarrow, because wireless + google == god, we won't have to put our pants on one leg at a time. oh, what a brave new world this is!
I wonder how the Times determines what that I.B.M. has periods, and SCO does not... I for one, have never seen IBM written as I.B.M. so it really jumps off the page as looking rather odd.
It seems that having graduated from college and not having any "experience" is a worse crime than being older. I've been looking for a job as some kind of programmer or something even mildly related for the last 2 years and haven't been able to seal the deal, because I haven't had any "real word" experience. They can always find someone with way too much experience willing to work these low level jobs, so I can't even get my foot in the door.
Meanwhile, I have to work meaningless secretarial and accounting jobs that are getting me nowhere. It just seems to me as an outsider, that it is impossible to get a job unless you have several years of experience, which is something new grads do not have, since what you did in school, apparently, didn't mean a thing.
i was working hard, doing good in school. I had a lot of momentum at the time of graduation, but hit a brick wall, and it has been nothing but frustration since.