Yeah, i guess OS/2 had a system fairly close to what i was describing. The rexx scripting language that OS/2 used was actually used by the Amiga as well. I'm not sure who had it first. It hardly matters.
I agree. Below are more thoughts on these issues as they have come to me:
Yeah, I also have to do battle with my desire to overgeneralize. In a way i want to make a framework of basic system calls that will be available to applications/components/etc... written for this scheme, and then implement that on top of X and posix, on top of WIN32, etc... The other part of me says ARRGH! INDIRECTION, BLOAT! Now i need to think about how to make this system portable but not bloated. My target application is purely desktop client users. Servers shouldn't even have local consoles. I'd be more interrested in allowing a slightly narrow and simplified API that could be easily created everywhere than providing everybody's favorite non-essential system call. Among things that i would consider a must to provide:
A single, sane time interface.
Threading, messageing, IPC.
Tools for seperation of application and UI.
The last is the only one that i see as particularly novel. The trick is that although programming models like microsoft's pay lip service to that idea (seperate classes for object and view), they also make sure that they tie you to one specific UI: THEIR UI. What i really want to do is make it so that every GUI and CLI command translate into some primitive in a basic communication model. This will scale from the basic primitives all the way to the largest scale apps, and there would be no hidden internals. A user (or more likely script) could pass a message into a program and it would be valid, normal behavior...
One thing i've been turning around in my head for a while is a system that is UI neutral. A system where there is a command line from which EVERYTHING can be done with NO exceptions, but there is also one (and optionally many) GUI's from which you can also do EVERTHING. I'm thinking of everything from file conversions, viewing, and management to redreding, compiling, and editing. The think i'm thinking is going to be needed is a very lightweight and pervasive object model (NOTE: This does not mean C++ necesarily, but does not exclude it...) By lightweight i mean that there aren't many levels of unnescesary and painful inheritance and bulling-around. By pervasive i mean that in at least it's most minimal definition, it is a common element to all parts of the system, from widgets to programs to whatever. Also a simple but powerful embedded language (NOT for performing major tasks. Infact it should not have loops or other structures that would encourage such EVIL!) but for acting as the glue for connecting parts together. This would have a lot of the advantages that M$ claims that OLE/VBSCRIPT have, but we can learn form their mistakes, avoid their pitfalls, and not have to work around ajenda item 1 being "produce code that is incompatable with the rest of the world to flex our monopoly". One of these days i'm going to start this project. I'm one of those people who is ever-annoyed by slow GUI's (infact i've been called a Text-Nazi by my friends for my continued use of JOE, PINE, LYNX, and because i categorically reject all HTML e-mails...) so my first priority is to provide and efficient and practical interface with equal access to both text and GUI users. I figure i'll think about this more over the next while (seeing as i don't have much time for non-work programming these days anyway...) So in any case if you have any input (i'm not ready to start this yet, but i would like more input for my brain to stew in) feel free to email. Just to get a guideline, of all the GUI models that i've seen, the best (conceptually, the implementation could have used a little help) was on the Amiga.
Sorry about the flame. Fair enough, i was not aware (maybe i was being a zombie, or maybe the article wasn't clear) that the bundling is not universal (i.e. only to north africa). Somehow i guess i just don't feel it's worth getting _that_ worked up about myself, but i respect your ideals, and your right to do so.
Re:Schedulers (6 queues can be good)
on
Multics Scheduler
·
· Score: 1
The idea of having the 6 queues is a clever way to make minimize time wasted in context switches by giving long-running non-interactive processes large but less frequent time slices... Sounds cool to me...
Maybe i'm missing a link in this chain... Does Moammar Quaddafi only buy Linksys cards? (preffered by 4 out of 5 dictators with ridiculous moustaches...) On a more serious note, part of the point of the freedom of free software is that it's blind to political differences. The GPL says anybody can use, modify, and otherwise enjoy the software. It does not say that only [white upper-middle class moderate capitalist mildly-christian intellectuals with big mouths]. Nobody's politics should keep them from running Linux. If their politics are as evil as you propose (i'm not saying i support these guys, i'm just saying that even if they are flaming assholes, they still have a right to run whatever OS they want...), then it is the responsibility of their people to overthrow them and start over, not yours or not mine.
I will sometimes compromise and use a straw with beer (although generally not with guiness), so i can put a bunch of it in a plastic convenience store soda cup and drink it in public (usually while sitting in the public square or in collegetown watching the girls go by... =:-)
I have noticed a trend. The same people who don't like guiness don't like spicy food, and tend to eat nothing but bland mush and drink "lite" beer. I say fuck'em.
I read our local paper (The Ithaca Journal) every day, and i read The New York Times on tuesday and sunday. (tuesday primarily for the science tuesday section, sunday primarily for the week in review and the magazine). There is a certain appeal to dead-tree-ware that is difficult to attain with electronic information. For one, in the days of the web, most really good stuff goes away, and short of doing a tedious recursive wget (which dynamic content, smart client side scripts that phone home, and stuff like that seems to serve no other purpose than to deliberately prevent effective mirroring) there is no way for me to take a clipping and add it to my scrapbook folder. Also paper media don't have that transience that the internet does. Think about the DeCSS thing. When the shit hit the fan, the MPAA knew who to talk to when it needed to censor it, and they made it a little harder to get at. Now, think about when some telephone lineman's technical journal didn't think before publishing all the control tones for Ma Bell's analog switches that enabled all the phone phreaks to have their fun, make their red and blue boxes, etc... Bell was out of luck, because the printed media got taken home by many students, people, etc... and it was too late.
This raises some good issues. In a time where now a local band (even a band made up of poor working class punkrockers) can put together a recording and afford to produce CD's and sell them through the internet and by mail order, it is harder for media companies to retain their monopoly on content. If they win this one we'll go back to the dark ages of analog bootlegs and censorship. I think that big government is no longer a threat, because big business has long ago taken the power, and is now carrying the torch of repression and control, but with even more sinister goals. Big government wants self-preservation. Big business wants your money, all of it. We'll all be shopping at the "company store" soon. I agree that we should be more worried about content control than anything else...
Wow, this whole fiasco is getting sillier and sillier by the minute... I think it's vaguely amusing that microsoft is going to yell how UNIX machines are insecure after all their recent glitches...
I'm afriad you misunderstood. I guess i was trying to make two seperate points, and i didn't differentiate them clearly enough.
Point one, i am not saying that everybody has to go and learn to program, i'm just saying that those who do are the only source of growth for an open source platform.
Point two, i am not saying that we should not have a GUI, i'm just saying that as far as i'm concerned a GUI should always be a secondary concern to functionality. Some applications however, a GUI is legitimately part of the functionality (like Paint/draw/cad/3d modeling apps) where the task at hand is graphical). Also, i don't have any problem with a GUI that has _NO NEGATIVE IMPACT_ on efficiency or flexibility. I refuse to sacrifice functionality so your mother (no disrespect to the lady (actually, it was my mother who taught _me_ BASIC) can use the same apps. This can be achieved in several ways, one is to make the GUI optional (like you can compile two versions of EMACS, one with X and one without, but the app is the same either way), and another way is to make apps that can be started with a command-line telling them what to do, but if you start them without any flags, they will bring up a GUI to ask the user what they want done (like Aladdin Expander for windows).
To sum up once again, GUI's are fine so long as they suppliment rather than detract from funcitonality. The Amiga is a great example of a system where the GUI was well integrated but not necesary for users who prefered not to use it. I do not mean to say that everybody must learn to program, but i am saying that everybody who is inclined to should be helped along, because they are the real, original, and final target of open source software.
I think he definitely has a point. I think that most average users would never think to find a programmer on the project, and say what's on their minds, because they are used to years of large companies who let all suggestions sit in a box somewhere and never act on them. I also think that it may be hard because some programmers have very little tolerance for end users, while some are very open to input. One thing that made me bristle while reading this was the idea that a graphical user interface should be part of the program. I love all my command line linux tools, because they are small, powerful, and configurable. I can put everything i need to rescue a system on one floppy. I can script stuff. The main thing that makes Linux worth it for me is the tools, and the fact that the GUI is _ENTIRELY_ optional. (this is starting to change... Ever tried installing a distro from CD _without_ the X libraries? <DOH>) I do think that providing support for desktop users who don't want to know what's under the hood may be a good idea in terms of a quick way to increase the user-base, but i grew up when everybody had to be at least comfortable with a command line (my first comp. was an apple II clone (Franklin Ace 1000)), and most were programmer-users. I think that one thing that is missing is an intermediate step for new users to head towards programmer-users without having to be dropped right into a confuding environment of uncommented C code. I think that it might be more useful to make a nice integrated BASIC (<shudder>) interpreter that is ultra-user friendly to get the new users that have the drive to become programmer-users, but need some sort of a stepping-stone to become comfortable with the system. That's what got me (and a whole generation) of new computer users into the whole thing. Having a starting place that is easily self taught, soon you'll want to do more, and then you'll look for a more powerful language, find C, and if people did a little more commenting, there would be plenty of example code for new programmers to learn from. To sum up, i think that for short term concerns, it may make sense to lure in desktop users by pampering them, but it would be nice not to damage any of the flexibility in the process. However, i think that for long term growth, what we need to do is create a less intimidating environment for more programmer-users to learn and be nurtured in, because they will ultimately be the main source of growth, reguardless of corporate support, etc...
I choked when i read that =:-) I was like AAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHH! He's illuminati, plus the things that a telecom guy could do on the side with a large orbiting lab in terms of signal intelligence, pirate broadcasting, etc... is virtually limitless.
<FLAME> I'm very sick of hearing about that. It's one of those things that all the whiny technophobe pissants say whenever they feel threatened. It's them puffung up their feathers whilst nerveously looking behind them for the backing of their mob of average upstanding citizens, only to see they they've all gone home to play videogames and drink beer. Sorry, somebody's gonna get his head kicked in. Better run to mommy 'cuz you're afraid of the big bad boogey man.
</FLAME>
Seriously though. I think that people who do make these claims are getting things a little out of porportion. Most breakins are never noticed, because the person who was entering the system was polite and just needed a jumping off place to go to another network. As for the crimes against property argument, that may be so, but i see two problems with this.
One, i think the amounts that get thrown around in these cases are usually overstated by a factor of about 100 to 1000 in the media, and espescially by law enforcement. Why? To get up a good lynch mob. If they used the real values, nobody would give a damn.
Two, i think that crimes against property are overpunished, and crimes against people are underpunished. You're likely to serve more time for stealing a car than for beating your wife. Do you suppose a couple of password crackers really belong in with hardened criminals?
Seriously though, this is a bummer. Although i'm not a particularly big fan of the codewarrior interface, i think that the more choices for development environments we can get, the better off we are.
I think if i ever have a kid i'll get him/her a simple computer that can be taken apart, put together, programmed, and expermemented with as easily as my old franklin. Maybe i'll be that one and same old franklin (i still have it, and it still works...) I'll design and build a machine to spec if needed...
A lot of people i know went off right after high school and took out thousands of dollars in loans to go off to college, and now they are back flipping burgers, or driving cabs, or whatever else. On the other hand some of them went of to school and got good interresting jobs, doing what they are good at and making decent money. I stayed in town, didn't go to college, and got a decent job programming, working with a small team of people i like, and i have a much higher quality of life than i have ever had before. I think the real wisdom is to set kids free. I grew up with minimal supervision, and i explored what i was interrested in all by myself. My parents didn't try to stop me from spending 10+hours a day programming/tinkering, so now i made a marketable skill out of what was just a hobby then. My parents also didn't stop me from running around with the wrong crowd, being a punk, or any of that. They said that if i needed help from them i should ask, but they trusted my judgement. I think that the more people pamper their kids, and the more they push them, the less they learn to think for themselves, and therefore the less fit they are to be anything but preprogrammed mindless consumers once they leave the nest.
I had a Franklin Ace 1000 when i was growing up. It was an apple IIe clone, which my grandfather replaced with an IBM XT so he gave it to us. It had a command line, and a basic interpreter and not much else. I learned how to use the command line to launch my videogames, then how to manage files, use the word processor and spreadsheet and database. Then i learned how to program in BASIC so i could write an adventure game, then 6502 machine language so i could put sounds and fast animation into my programs. The point is that children, if they are curious and determined, can overcome a command line in just a week or so. GUI's primary function is to provide support for legacy wetware (stpuid adults...) I remember my Franklin Ace 1000 fondly, and infact i still keep it running. I remember the day i took it apart and using the schematic and some knowledge of the console device, wired "open apple" and "closed apple" keys onto it so i could boot and use UCSD P-System and run my old Pascal compiler. I think it would do kids a service if there were an operating system and computer available today to provide a simple, efficient, open, and functional platform, with an optional GUI (for the old people and the mindless television-degraded children).
Hey, you know, some people are more concerned about the information being presented than the "professionalism". Does it really mean that much to you that everything look prim and proper, and if so, who exactly are you trying to impress with this professionalism? Who do you need to prove this to?
This site is for geeks and by geeks, and anybody who feels so strongly about grammar and spelling might as well go hang out in alt.prissy.poser.nag
Seriously though, does it really matter? Personally i don't feel i've got to impress anybody, and i don't think slashdot should need to prove it's professionalism to anybody.
I personally think these rebates from dialup providers (MSN, Compuserve, etc...)when you sign up for a 3 year contract are immoral. They are designed to take advantage of short-sigted or uninformed users. Here's what I see happening. Within a year, broadband will be almost universal, and web pages will start getting more bloated. These people stuck in these contracts have three choices: Keep using dialup (may become impossible soon due to bloat), pay back the money (they may not be able to afford that upfront, because the people who buy a computer because they can get $400 off for signing up are the people who can't afford one otherwise). The third choice is they keep paying for the dialup but don't use it. In all three scenarios the dialup provider wins. If the customer keeps paying, but uses the service less or not at all, they can keep fewer modems up, and still take the same gross income. If they use the service for the contract, it extends a dying business for another 3 years, which is plenty of time to take profits and get out for the big companies. If the customer pays back the sum and cancels, for whatever duration the customer had the service, they were paying something above prime rate on the "rebate" and the company still makes out like a bandit. These rebates, no matter how they are handled, cost the customer far more than they gain. If a big company does something, it is done for just one reason, to make money. Sometimes directly, and sometimes not, but all the same, the bottom line is the motivator.
Lately we've been seeing more features and interviews and other forms of Direct Reporting (hint! This is good!). Now that SlashDot has more resources at it's disposal, is this content generation likely to keep increasing? I still enjoy lots of linked stories, but sometimes it's nice to have a geek point of view alongside the normal media...
The thing is this is just another incremental step in the takeover of big brother under the seemingly noble cause of saving the masses from their own stupidity. I say let the bastards crash and burn and keep the big brother out.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, i guess OS/2 had a system fairly close to what i was describing. The rexx scripting language that OS/2 used was actually used by the Amiga as well. I'm not sure who had it first. It hardly matters.
I agree. Below are more thoughts on these issues as they have come to me:
Yeah, I also have to do battle with my desire to overgeneralize. In a way i want to make a framework of basic system calls that will be available to applications/components/etc... written for this scheme, and then implement that on top of X and posix, on top of WIN32, etc...
The other part of me says ARRGH! INDIRECTION, BLOAT! Now i need to think about how to make this system portable but not bloated. My target application is purely desktop client users. Servers shouldn't even have local consoles. I'd be more interrested in allowing a slightly narrow and simplified API that could be easily created everywhere than providing everybody's favorite non-essential system call. Among things that i would consider a must to provide:
A single, sane time interface.
Threading, messageing, IPC.
Tools for seperation of application and UI.
The last is the only one that i see as particularly novel. The trick is that although programming models like microsoft's pay lip service to that idea (seperate classes for object and view), they also make sure that they tie you to one specific UI: THEIR UI.
What i really want to do is make it so that every GUI and CLI command translate into some primitive in a basic communication model. This will scale from the basic primitives all the way to the largest scale apps, and there would be no hidden internals. A user (or more likely script) could pass a message into a program and it would be valid, normal behavior...
Hmm. Much thought required.
One thing i've been turning around in my head for a while is a system that is UI neutral. A system where there is a command line from which EVERYTHING can be done with NO exceptions, but there is also one (and optionally many) GUI's from which you can also do EVERTHING. I'm thinking of everything from file conversions, viewing, and management to redreding, compiling, and editing.
The think i'm thinking is going to be needed is a very lightweight and pervasive object model (NOTE: This does not mean C++ necesarily, but does not exclude it...) By lightweight i mean that there aren't many levels of unnescesary and painful inheritance and bulling-around. By pervasive i mean that in at least it's most minimal definition, it is a common element to all parts of the system, from widgets to programs to whatever.
Also a simple but powerful embedded language (NOT for performing major tasks. Infact it should not have loops or other structures that would encourage such EVIL!) but for acting as the glue for connecting parts together.
This would have a lot of the advantages that M$ claims that OLE/VBSCRIPT have, but we can learn form their mistakes, avoid their pitfalls, and not have to work around ajenda item 1 being "produce code that is incompatable with the rest of the world to flex our monopoly".
One of these days i'm going to start this project. I'm one of those people who is ever-annoyed by slow GUI's (infact i've been called a Text-Nazi by my friends for my continued use of JOE, PINE, LYNX, and because i categorically reject all HTML e-mails...) so my first priority is to provide and efficient and practical interface with equal access to both text and GUI users.
I figure i'll think about this more over the next while (seeing as i don't have much time for non-work programming these days anyway...) So in any case if you have any input (i'm not ready to start this yet, but i would like more input for my brain to stew in) feel free to email. Just to get a guideline, of all the GUI models that i've seen, the best (conceptually, the implementation could have used a little help) was on the Amiga.
Sorry about the flame. Fair enough, i was not aware (maybe i was being a zombie, or maybe the article wasn't clear) that the bundling is not universal (i.e. only to north africa). Somehow i guess i just don't feel it's worth getting _that_ worked up about myself, but i respect your ideals, and your right to do so.
The idea of having the 6 queues is a clever way to make minimize time wasted in context switches by giving long-running non-interactive processes large but less frequent time slices... Sounds cool to me...
Maybe i'm missing a link in this chain... Does Moammar Quaddafi only buy Linksys cards? (preffered by 4 out of 5 dictators with ridiculous moustaches...)
On a more serious note, part of the point of the freedom of free software is that it's blind to political differences. The GPL says anybody can use, modify, and otherwise enjoy the software. It does not say that only [white upper-middle class moderate capitalist mildly-christian intellectuals with big mouths].
Nobody's politics should keep them from running Linux. If their politics are as evil as you propose (i'm not saying i support these guys, i'm just saying that even if they are flaming assholes, they still have a right to run whatever OS they want...), then it is the responsibility of their people to overthrow them and start over, not yours or not mine.
I will sometimes compromise and use a straw with beer (although generally not with guiness), so i can put a bunch of it in a plastic convenience store soda cup and drink it in public (usually while sitting in the public square or in collegetown watching the girls go by... =:-)
I have noticed a trend. The same people who don't like guiness don't like spicy food, and tend to eat nothing but bland mush and drink "lite" beer. I say fuck'em.
I read our local paper (The Ithaca Journal) every day, and i read The New York Times on tuesday and sunday. (tuesday primarily for the science tuesday section, sunday primarily for the week in review and the magazine).
There is a certain appeal to dead-tree-ware that is difficult to attain with electronic information. For one, in the days of the web, most really good stuff goes away, and short of doing a tedious recursive wget (which dynamic content, smart client side scripts that phone home, and stuff like that seems to serve no other purpose than to deliberately prevent effective mirroring) there is no way for me to take a clipping and add it to my scrapbook folder.
Also paper media don't have that transience that the internet does. Think about the DeCSS thing. When the shit hit the fan, the MPAA knew who to talk to when it needed to censor it, and they made it a little harder to get at.
Now, think about when some telephone lineman's technical journal didn't think before publishing all the control tones for Ma Bell's analog switches that enabled all the phone phreaks to have their fun, make their red and blue boxes, etc... Bell was out of luck, because the printed media got taken home by many students, people, etc... and it was too late.
For a more eloquent discussion of this difference between printed and electronic media, look at this link http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/ users/rja14/eternity/eternity.html
This raises some good issues. In a time where now a local band (even a band made up of poor working class punkrockers) can put together a recording and afford to produce CD's and sell them through the internet and by mail order, it is harder for media companies to retain their monopoly on content.
If they win this one we'll go back to the dark ages of analog bootlegs and censorship. I think that big government is no longer a threat, because big business has long ago taken the power, and is now carrying the torch of repression and control, but with even more sinister goals. Big government wants self-preservation. Big business wants your money, all of it. We'll all be shopping at the "company store" soon.
I agree that we should be more worried about content control than anything else...
Wow, this whole fiasco is getting sillier and sillier by the minute... I think it's vaguely amusing that microsoft is going to yell how UNIX machines are insecure after all their recent glitches...
Neat!
How has your father handled being sucked into this situation? Does he understand and support your goal with this technology?
I'm afriad you misunderstood. I guess i was trying to make two seperate points, and i didn't differentiate them clearly enough.
Point one, i am not saying that everybody has to go and learn to program, i'm just saying that those who do are the only source of growth for an open source platform.
Point two, i am not saying that we should not have a GUI, i'm just saying that as far as i'm concerned a GUI should always be a secondary concern to functionality. Some applications however, a GUI is legitimately part of the functionality (like Paint/draw/cad/3d modeling apps) where the task at hand is graphical).
Also, i don't have any problem with a GUI that has _NO NEGATIVE IMPACT_ on efficiency or flexibility. I refuse to sacrifice functionality so your mother (no disrespect to the lady (actually, it was my mother who taught _me_ BASIC) can use the same apps. This can be achieved in several ways, one is to make the GUI optional (like you can compile two versions of EMACS, one with X and one without, but the app is the same either way), and another way is to make apps that can be started with a command-line telling them what to do, but if you start them without any flags, they will bring up a GUI to ask the user what they want done (like Aladdin Expander for windows).
To sum up once again, GUI's are fine so long as they suppliment rather than detract from funcitonality. The Amiga is a great example of a system where the GUI was well integrated but not necesary for users who prefered not to use it.
I do not mean to say that everybody must learn to program, but i am saying that everybody who is inclined to should be helped along, because they are the real, original, and final target of open source software.
I can't help but think it'd run a bit faster without all the windows crap bogging it down...
I think he definitely has a point. I think that most average users would never think to find a programmer on the project, and say what's on their minds, because they are used to years of large companies who let all suggestions sit in a box somewhere and never act on them. I also think that it may be hard because some programmers have very little tolerance for end users, while some are very open to input.
One thing that made me bristle while reading this was the idea that a graphical user interface should be part of the program. I love all my command line linux tools, because they are small, powerful, and configurable. I can put everything i need to rescue a system on one floppy. I can script stuff. The main thing that makes Linux worth it for me is the tools, and the fact that the GUI is _ENTIRELY_ optional. (this is starting to change... Ever tried installing a distro from CD _without_ the X libraries? <DOH>)
I do think that providing support for desktop users who don't want to know what's under the hood may be a good idea in terms of a quick way to increase the user-base, but i grew up when everybody had to be at least comfortable with a command line (my first comp. was an apple II clone (Franklin Ace 1000)), and most were programmer-users. I think that one thing that is missing is an intermediate step for new users to head towards programmer-users without having to be dropped right into a confuding environment of uncommented C code. I think that it might be more useful to make a nice integrated BASIC (<shudder>) interpreter that is ultra-user friendly to get the new users that have the drive to become programmer-users, but need some sort of a stepping-stone to become comfortable with the system. That's what got me (and a whole generation) of new computer users into the whole thing. Having a starting place that is easily self taught, soon you'll want to do more, and then you'll look for a more powerful language, find C, and if people did a little more commenting, there would be plenty of example code for new programmers to learn from.
To sum up, i think that for short term concerns, it may make sense to lure in desktop users by pampering them, but it would be nice not to damage any of the flexibility in the process. However, i think that for long term growth, what we need to do is create a less intimidating environment for more programmer-users to learn and be nurtured in, because they will ultimately be the main source of growth, reguardless of corporate support, etc...
I choked when i read that =:-) I was like AAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHH! He's illuminati, plus the things that a telecom guy could do on the side with a large orbiting lab in terms of signal intelligence, pirate broadcasting, etc... is virtually limitless.
<FLAME>
I'm very sick of hearing about that. It's one of those things that all the whiny technophobe pissants say whenever they feel threatened. It's them puffung up their feathers whilst nerveously looking behind them for the backing of their mob of average upstanding citizens, only to see they they've all gone home to play videogames and drink beer. Sorry, somebody's gonna get his head kicked in. Better run to mommy 'cuz you're afraid of the big bad boogey man.
</FLAME>
Seriously though. I think that people who do make these claims are getting things a little out of porportion. Most breakins are never noticed, because the person who was entering the system was polite and just needed a jumping off place to go to another network. As for the crimes against property argument, that may be so, but i see two problems with this.
One, i think the amounts that get thrown around in these cases are usually overstated by a factor of about 100 to 1000 in the media, and espescially by law enforcement. Why? To get up a good lynch mob. If they used the real values, nobody would give a damn.
Two, i think that crimes against property are overpunished, and crimes against people are underpunished. You're likely to serve more time for stealing a car than for beating your wife. Do you suppose a couple of password crackers really belong in with hardened criminals?
Those Bastards! They killed Codewarrior...
Seriously though, this is a bummer. Although i'm not a particularly big fan of the codewarrior interface, i think that the more choices for development environments we can get, the better off we are.
I think if i ever have a kid i'll get him/her a simple computer that can be taken apart, put together, programmed, and expermemented with as easily as my old franklin. Maybe i'll be that one and same old franklin (i still have it, and it still works...)
I'll design and build a machine to spec if needed...
A lot of people i know went off right after high school and took out thousands of dollars in loans to go off to college, and now they are back flipping burgers, or driving cabs, or whatever else. On the other hand some of them went of to school and got good interresting jobs, doing what they are good at and making decent money.
I stayed in town, didn't go to college, and got a decent job programming, working with a small team of people i like, and i have a much higher quality of life than i have ever had before. I think the real wisdom is to set kids free. I grew up with minimal supervision, and i explored what i was interrested in all by myself. My parents didn't try to stop me from spending 10+hours a day programming/tinkering, so now i made a marketable skill out of what was just a hobby then. My parents also didn't stop me from running around with the wrong crowd, being a punk, or any of that. They said that if i needed help from them i should ask, but they trusted my judgement. I think that the more people pamper their kids, and the more they push them, the less they learn to think for themselves, and therefore the less fit they are to be anything but preprogrammed mindless consumers once they leave the nest.
I had a Franklin Ace 1000 when i was growing up. It was an apple IIe clone, which my grandfather replaced with an IBM XT so he gave it to us. It had a command line, and a basic interpreter and not much else. I learned how to use the command line to launch my videogames, then how to manage files, use the word processor and spreadsheet and database. Then i learned how to program in BASIC so i could write an adventure game, then 6502 machine language so i could put sounds and fast animation into my programs.
The point is that children, if they are curious and determined, can overcome a command line in just a week or so. GUI's primary function is to provide support for legacy wetware (stpuid adults...) I remember my Franklin Ace 1000 fondly, and infact i still keep it running. I remember the day i took it apart and using the schematic and some knowledge of the console device, wired "open apple" and "closed apple" keys onto it so i could boot and use UCSD P-System and run my old Pascal compiler.
I think it would do kids a service if there were an operating system and computer available today to provide a simple, efficient, open, and functional platform, with an optional GUI (for the old people and the mindless television-degraded children).
Hey, you know, some people are more concerned about the information being presented than the "professionalism". Does it really mean that much to you that everything look prim and proper, and if so, who exactly are you trying to impress with this professionalism? Who do you need to prove this to?
This site is for geeks and by geeks, and anybody who feels so strongly about grammar and spelling might as well go hang out in alt.prissy.poser.nag
Seriously though, does it really matter? Personally i don't feel i've got to impress anybody, and i don't think slashdot should need to prove it's professionalism to anybody.
I personally think these rebates from dialup providers (MSN, Compuserve, etc...)when you sign up for a 3 year contract are immoral. They are designed to take advantage of short-sigted or uninformed users.
Here's what I see happening. Within a year, broadband will be almost universal, and web pages will start getting more bloated. These people stuck in these contracts have three choices: Keep using dialup (may become impossible soon due to bloat), pay back the money (they may not be able to afford that upfront, because the people who buy a computer because they can get $400 off for signing up are the people who can't afford one otherwise). The third choice is they keep paying for the dialup but don't use it.
In all three scenarios the dialup provider wins. If the customer keeps paying, but uses the service less or not at all, they can keep fewer modems up, and still take the same gross income. If they use the service for the contract, it extends a dying business for another 3 years, which is plenty of time to take profits and get out for the big companies. If the customer pays back the sum and cancels, for whatever duration the customer had the service, they were paying something above prime rate on the "rebate" and the company still makes out like a bandit.
These rebates, no matter how they are handled, cost the customer far more than they gain. If a big company does something, it is done for just one reason, to make money. Sometimes directly, and sometimes not, but all the same, the bottom line is the motivator.
Lately we've been seeing more features and interviews and other forms of Direct Reporting (hint! This is good!). Now that SlashDot has more resources at it's disposal, is this content generation likely to keep increasing? I still enjoy lots of linked stories, but sometimes it's nice to have a geek point of view alongside the normal media...
The thing is this is just another incremental step in the takeover of big brother under the seemingly noble cause of saving the masses from their own stupidity. I say let the bastards crash and burn and keep the big brother out.