>He used player pianos as programmable music >machines, because human beings were not >physically capable of playing the music in his >head
Of course piano geeks the world over took this as a challenge - a "crack this box" kind of thing. I've actually heard a few interesting human performances of the player piano music.
I recall an interview from 10-15 years ago where he said he did see the connection between his work and electronic music. He said that if he had been 20-30 years younger he would have certainly been drawn to computer music. It didn't exist so he started chopping up player pianos (his player piano music requires heavily modified pianos or they tent to self destruct.
that you quoted from at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass. html
it's 56 pages long. Took me 3 days to read. Until I read it I didn't know that subarine cable was interesting. Really good and worth reading the entire thing. The guy that wrote it (Neal Stephenson) may just turn out to be a good writer:-)
which is probably the downtime cost for this cable -- someone is going to be sued for a number with a lot of zeros in it.
Anyone know whose cable this was? Just from the "who got whacked" it looks like it belonged to Cable & Wireless, but I haven't heard anything for sure.
sort of. when I've done this we had tiered tech support and you are right. They move up the food chain and become the senior techs that can solve the problems that the guys that are better with (l)users can't solve. They train the new techs. They learn to code (if they didn't already) and by the time they can't take it anymore you often have a developer.
This seems to be going on a tech suport tanget, not terribly on topic but in my experience very few people can take doing tech support at the entry level for more than 18 months without going stark staring mad. (yeah, that's my excuse...)
It's exactly what I would do if I were them and it has nothing to do with FUD. Indeed: "a clueless newbie is the typical Microsoft customer". From MICROS~1's point of view that's just a fact. Their $$ spends just as well as that of a "guru" customer. What do you think they are going to do?
In this one example they seem to be looking at games. A game that can't be installed easily by a 10 year old with 6 months experience pointing and clicking on things is not a market threat to them. That's all they care about. The fact that it's "obvious" to you or me or anyone else how to install it does not matter. That's not the target market.
Put it this way: Have you ever been asked to do QA on or write docs for code that you've written? For real end users I mean here, not man pages or READMEs or comments in the Makefile. I have and I've seen the results of these attempts many times. IT DOES NOT WORK. you are too close to it. You don't know to explain the parts that the end user will find confusing because it's not confusing to you. You don't know to test a part of the program in a way you didn't think of because... well you didn't think of it.
Same goes for usability. You bring in the intelligent but ignorant. If they can't make it work it doesn't work - because they are the customers. After your ignorant pawn has done this for a while they lose their usefullness because they also know it too well and are too close to it. And LO! a tech support rep is created! Been there, done that. Eventually the smart ones understand it too well and become terrible tech support reps because they can't explain it to the end user in tiny words that they understand.
MICROS~1, and any other company that actually delivers products to "normal people", understands this early on or they go out of business. This is often a blind spot for OSS advocates but ICROS~1 has always understood it quite well. Technology, Quality, Stability - these may be their blind spot but this isn't.
garyr
possibly my favorite novel, period
on
The Diamond Age
·
· Score: 1
If I could option the movie rights to only one book, this would be the one.
I don't even think the ending bad, though it is a bit.. abrupt. another 50 pages to flesh out the "seed" concept would have been well spent.
US05905855 05/18/1999 Method and apparatus for correcting errors in computer systems
US05832205 11/03/1998 Memory controller for a microprocessor for detecting a failure of speculation on the physical nature of a component being addressed
Don't know about the first one, but these two could be very useful in massively parallel systems with a high precentage of defective processors.
Anyone know any connections between Zyvex and transmeta?
Re:Is this suitable reading for children/teenagers
on
Ender's Shadow
·
· Score: 1
sounds like many of us have the same/similar kids. pokemon/star wars "young adult" series.
I hadn't really thought about Ender's Game for a 10 year old before. The sequels he wouldn't get, even EG he would get all of it but he'd probably get enough to enjoy it.
It's a long read for a little guy - the Hobbit took him a month. I gave him an old Lester Del Rey juvenile of mine found in my sister's garage sale the other day. EG is certainly a better book.
My SO has also read EG and may have opinions of her own along the lines of "a book where the hero kills another child in cold blood in the first 20 pages is approprite for children?" - but I'll give it a shot.
I have a felling though that I may be bypassing a sub-genre that worth reading. Once a kid starts reading "real books" can they still go back and enjoy the Heinlein/Norton/Nourse/Del Rey juveniles or will they become too jaded?
So if this bustling economy is such a great solution, then why do 25% of children live at or below poverty, and 20% of all Americans overall?
Maybe because we define "poverty" as "the poorest 25%"? Most of these people are living much better than a fairly wealthy person 100 years ago. Why? Investements that society made (one way or the other) in progress
Oh, by the way, don't confuse "poor" and "poverty"... "poor" is having trouble making ends meet; "poverty" is legally defined as a family of four surviving on less than $16,000 per year.
Spending or not spending $$ on creating a better future world has nothing to do with this. Maybe if we build a better world (a key ingredient to which is getting off this one limited planet) we can do better for these people's kids/grandkids. Face it, the fact is that there is no longer enough appropriate work for the 25% least intelligent/motivated/educated/responsible fraction of the population. There are not enough floors that need sweeping or fries that need selling to keep them all employed.
I think this poster is probably a pseudonym for Dr. Laura. Or at least a luddite, vegan, peta, Dr. Laura lover. There's goes a few points of karma,but these people really annoy me.
>>There is no way that Newton's theory will ever be falsified. Not even Einstein's theory did that!
>According to Newton's theories (he did have more >than one theory, you know), as long as you apply >a constant force to an object, its velocity will >increase according to the simple equation F=ma, >indefinately. Einstein's theories show that to be >patently false. Newton's theories of mechanics are >known to be incorrect, but are still taught >because they are an excellent approximation of >what will happen during most student's experiences, they are easier to calculate, and >they are easier to comprehend. A good science >teacher will make sure students know that they >are just approximations.
In the first of his famous Cal Tech undergrad lectures his gives the example (paraphrasing)
"It was once believed that winged angels pushed the planets across the skies. This theory has since been MODIFIED. [general laughing] It turns out the angels must push inwards and do not have wings."
A theory that is correct 99% of the time is typically incomplete, not incorrect. You add a little squiggle at the end of the calculation (special relativity) and you make it more complete.
apt still gives 3.3.4 as someone else said. Are we expecting it in a day or so? If so, I'll wait for the.deb rather than compile from source. Work computer has a Trio 3D card that's practically worthless 'til I get this installed
Gotcha. I've not had to deal with that one. Seems like a pretty dumb ass way of doing things from FDA's point of view (yes.. I know). The assumtion should be the other way around -- Everything is experimental unless explicitly labeled as OK for clinical use and signed off by someone that can give the user a "get out of jail" card.
Someone can bring a freakin' bicycle into an operating room and use it because it wasn't explicly labeled as experimental and not for clinical use?
Great post. I do similar work and was thinking I'd have to post this same info myself. Thanks for saving me the time.
I don't follow you on "Open Source's explicit refusal to permit change control". What refusal? Say (for the sake of the argument) that you wanted you burn a modified linux kernel into the ROM of your device. You've changed the kernel and you've redistruted it so you will also release the source of your mods. Where does change control become an issue?
If I later come along and make further changes to the software...fine. My changes are not under your control, it's true. So? If I were crazy enough to crack the case on your device and put my new "improved" firmware in it I have shifted the entire validation burden onto my shoulders. If someone dies I am to blame, not you.
FDA requires *you* to have adequate change control. You would have to be sure that the device that you are shipping does not have my unvalidated mods in it. you would need to take reasonable steps to make sure that your customers can't apply mods without understanding the consequences (encase ROM and seat in plastic like cable tv boxes or at least a big nasty seal on the box). If it were a plain old piece of software that you were selling, something as simple as an MD5 checksum would do the job (this is not the software we sold you, we are not responsible for it).
too far from the switch. Phone company intends to remedy this when Hell freeezes over. Time Warner/Roadrunner could put in cable modem tomorrow if they felt like it, but since they have monopoly access to that wire that are in no rush over it. Looking a Roadrunner's rollout the only thing I can say for sure is it won't be before the end of 2000.
practically speaking I don't care who provides me with better access - as long as someone can. 56 dialup with terrible quality phone lines is driving me crazy. If open access will put the fear of god into roadrunner and make them try to get my business first - I'm all for it.
I'm not sure what "poor minority" you were including yourself in above but I know the kids in my neighborhood.
A lot of the people I live around are 1st generation immigrants from Central America and Mexico. In the world the parents grew up in there was no attitude towards education at all. It was so far out of the possible that it never entered their minds. The economies in many of these countries is pretty close to Medieval Feudalism.
They take great risks and expenses to move to L.A and work their butts off to keep a roof over their heads and fed. They *all* want a better life for their kids. They want a good education for their kids, but its not easy. Many have no education at all. Most have no education beyond ~3rd grade. The kids learn english and go to school The parents can often encourage them, but can't help with the homework. Dad is out of the house working (maybe a couple of jobs). Mom is there, but very often she is the one with no education at all and zero english (and has also been raised to be what we would consider pathologically shy).
Plugging in a computer is going to add what exectly? They are in many ways jumping directly from the 14th century to the 20th. There's a lot of "bootstrapping" that goes on. Spanish language TV, bad as it seems to us, is darn educational. It's exposure to things that may be totally new - in a not threatening way. In a larger family the oldest child is the first to learn english well and teaches the younger ones. Even of he/she is considered a D student by the school by 4th grade he/she can help the 1st grade kid with homework. The 1st grader typically will achive much better grades. Fast forward a few years (or to now in the case of those starting the process 10 years ago) and computers and the net become possible and useful things. Too early in the process and the computer becomes a doorstop that may be used to play Doom - maybe not even that. The above is in may ways an "ideal" situation. Throw in a few monky wrenches (Dad gets sent to Mexico by the Feds and looses his job before he can get back, etc) and it gets even more difficult.
The computer is just a tool. It's a great tool, but not the answer to all problems. Same with the net. In some cases it's a power tool and we are wondering why people without electricity don't find it useful....
but it's "can" cause more harm than grafitti. A DOS attack is maybe like putting grafitti over the windshield of a bus. Doesn't really break the bus, but takes it out of commission until someone scrapes off the paint. It's arguably a more serious "bad thing" and it has really pissed me off when I've had to respond to DOS attacks at 3am (ringgg...rinng click "WE'VE BEEN HACKED!!), but usually no big deal to get the bus back on the road.
"Break"ing a functioning site like an online brokerage is a whole 'nother class of crime. That's vandalism. The kiddies that do this stuff should be punished the way kids that vandalize a high school or otherwise destroy property are punished. Still, you don't lock them up and throw away the key the way they are doing with Mitnick.
I'm not saying that any of these things are OK or that people should go do them, just that we should get some perspective. The fact that a computer ws used instead of a can of spray paint or an MAD flushed down the toilet does not change the nature of hte crime committed.
Really. Most of the hacks he's talking about (and you are with your grocery example) are just high tech graffiti. As such it needs to be judged accordingly.
Nobody likes the plastering of gang signs over every surface that we see so often. If they go to jail for a few weeks for it - fine by me.
There is also the whimsical graffiti ("Frodo Lives!" in the NY subways many years ago).
There's also "political" graffiti. If someone paints "Saddam, Feed your People!" in 4 foot letters on a Iraqui gov't center, I can't call him a criminal. Maybe you can, I'm sure the Iraqis would.
At worst it's "misc. mischief" - a misdemeanor in the US. It's not "vandalism". The graffiti gang member has to get access to the busyards to do his tagging (all right, add breaking and entering) and could just as easily have broken out all the windows and destroyed the busses. They don't, and niether do the script kiddies that put stupid messages on web sites. They deface, but don't destroy. Often (like the Seti hack of last week) they have even backed up previous content themselves - but anyone that doesn't have a good recent backup of a commercial site is a total moron.
Get over it. This is not car theft, murder, a threat to national security or any other silly BS. It's the trivial stuff kids do an have always done, just with new tools (spray paint was also a new tool). These kids should be grounded, their allowance taken away and have to clean up trash on the hiyway on the weekeds. And then we ---- MOVE ON.
In one of my previous jobs we regularly paid out the big $$ for this type research from IDG, Gartner and others. They always generated data that seemed to me to be clueless. They didn't properly qualify the data (i.e. this data is characteristic of InfoWorld readers that take the time to return questionaires) and would just characterize it as "our surveys of leading IT managers", discounting the known fact that most of the things people tell trade magazines is pure puffery (you have to say you are the descision maker for >$100,000 in computer purchases or they dont' send you the trade mag).
I can't think of any "prediction" that these groups made that turned out to be both correct and valuable. The PHBs allocated money according to those predictions, which is part of why that company no longer exists.
I mean really; does anyone think Netware's market is actually growing?
It seems reasonable to me that the judge must first find that the statements made are very likely to meet the legal definition of defamation before a subpeona could be issued.
Even then the poster's anonymity should be protected (judge knows who it is, Xircom does not) until it is actually proven and can mount a defense under the guise of anonymity (as it sounds like this guy is doing).
I'm not a lawyer, but I have been sued for defamation and libel (Hi Dave, if your were less ignorand and could use a computer without hurting yourself maybe you could read this!) . Based on the way that that case was laughed out of court I would say: Saying "Xircom SUCKS!" does not count. Lying about being an employee when you are not isn't libelous in any way. you have to say something that is harmful and that is provably false. I haven't seen anything here that can be proven to be either true or false, so it becomes opinion and is free speach.
Slashdot Mirror
>He used player pianos as programmable music
>machines, because human beings were not
>physically capable of playing the music in his
>head
Of course piano geeks the world over took this
as a challenge - a "crack this box" kind of thing.
I've actually heard a few interesting human
performances of the player piano music.
I recall an interview from 10-15 years ago
where he said he did see the connection between
his work and electronic music. He said that
if he had been 20-30 years younger he would have
certainly been drawn to computer music. It didn't
exist so he started chopping up player pianos (his
player piano music requires heavily modified
pianos or they tent to self destruct.
garyr
So, I guess fair is fair. #2 links takes you
an old askslashdot on, of all things, banner ads.
garyr
that you quoted from at. html
:-)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass
it's 56 pages long. Took me 3 days to read.
Until I read it I didn't know that subarine
cable was interesting. Really good and worth
reading the entire thing. The guy that wrote
it (Neal Stephenson) may just turn out to be
a good writer
garyr
which is probably the downtime cost for this
cable -- someone is going to be sued for
a number with a lot of zeros in it.
Anyone know whose cable this was? Just
from the "who got whacked" it looks like
it belonged to Cable & Wireless, but I haven't
heard anything for sure.
garyr
sort of. when I've done this we had
tiered tech support and you are right.
They move up the food chain and become
the senior techs that can solve the problems
that the guys that are better with (l)users
can't solve. They train the new techs. They
learn to code (if they didn't already) and by
the time they can't take it anymore you often
have a developer.
This seems to be going on a tech suport tanget,
not terribly on topic but in my experience very
few people can take doing tech support at the
entry level for more than 18 months without
going stark staring mad. (yeah, that's my excuse...)
garyr
It's exactly what I would do if I were them and it has nothing to do with FUD. Indeed: "a clueless newbie is the typical Microsoft customer". From MICROS~1's point of view that's just a fact. Their $$ spends just as well as that of a "guru" customer. What do you think they are going to do?
In this one example they seem to be looking at
games. A game that can't be installed easily by a 10 year old with 6 months experience pointing and clicking on things is not a market threat to them. That's all they care about. The fact that it's "obvious" to you or me or anyone else how to install it does not matter. That's not the target market.
Put it this way: Have you ever been asked to do QA on or write docs for code that you've written? For real end users I mean here, not man pages or READMEs or comments in the Makefile. I have and I've seen the results of these attempts many times. IT DOES NOT WORK. you are too close to it. You don't know to explain the parts that the end user will find confusing because it's not confusing to you. You don't know to test a part of the program in a way you didn't think of because... well you didn't think of it.
Same goes for usability. You bring in the intelligent but ignorant. If they can't make it work it doesn't work - because they are the customers. After your ignorant pawn has done this
for a while they lose their usefullness because they also know it too well and are too close to it. And LO! a tech support rep is created! Been there, done that. Eventually the smart ones understand it too well and become terrible tech support reps because they can't explain it to the end user in tiny words that they understand.
MICROS~1, and any other company that actually delivers products to "normal people", understands this early on or they go out of business. This is often a blind spot for OSS advocates but ICROS~1 has always understood it quite well. Technology, Quality, Stability - these may be their blind spot but this isn't.
garyr
If I could option the movie rights
to only one book, this would be the one.
I don't even think the ending bad, though
it is a bit.. abrupt. another 50 pages
to flesh out the "seed" concept would
have been well spent.
US05905855 05/18/1999 Method and apparatus for correcting errors in computer systems
US05832205 11/03/1998 Memory controller for a microprocessor for detecting a failure of speculation on the physical nature of a
component being addressed
Don't know about the first one, but these two
could be very useful in massively parallel
systems with a high precentage of defective
processors.
Anyone know any connections between Zyvex
and transmeta?
sounds like many of us have the same/similar kids.
pokemon/star wars "young adult" series.
I hadn't really thought about Ender's Game
for a 10 year old before. The sequels he
wouldn't get, even EG he would get all of it
but he'd probably get enough to enjoy it.
It's a long read for a little guy - the Hobbit
took him a month. I gave him an old Lester
Del Rey juvenile of mine found in my sister's
garage sale the other day. EG is certainly a
better book.
My SO has also read EG and may have opinions of
her own along the lines of "a book where the
hero kills another child in cold blood in the
first 20 pages is approprite for children?" -
but I'll give it a shot.
I have a felling though that I may be bypassing
a sub-genre that worth reading. Once a kid
starts reading "real books" can they still
go back and enjoy the Heinlein/Norton/Nourse/Del Rey
juveniles or will they become too jaded?
So if this bustling economy is such a great solution, then why do 25% of children live at or below poverty, and 20% of all Americans
overall?
Maybe because we define "poverty" as "the poorest 25%"? Most of these people are living much better than a fairly wealthy person 100 years ago. Why? Investements that society made (one way or the other) in progress
Oh, by the way, don't confuse "poor" and "poverty"... "poor" is having trouble making ends meet; "poverty" is legally defined as a family of four surviving on less than $16,000 per year.
Spending or not spending $$ on creating a better future world has nothing to do with this. Maybe if we build a better world (a key ingredient to which is getting off this one limited planet) we can do better for these people's kids/grandkids. Face it, the fact is that there is no longer enough appropriate work for the 25% least intelligent/motivated/educated/responsible fraction of the population. There are not enough floors that need sweeping or fries that need selling to keep them all employed.
I think this poster is probably a pseudonym for Dr. Laura. Or at least a luddite, vegan, peta, Dr. Laura lover. There's goes a few points of karma,but these people really annoy me.
garyr
a well known one
>>There is no way that Newton's theory will ever be falsified. Not even Einstein's theory did that!
>According to Newton's theories (he did have more
>than one theory, you know), as long as you apply
>a constant force to an object, its velocity will
>increase according to the simple equation F=ma,
>indefinately. Einstein's theories show that to be
>patently false. Newton's theories of mechanics are
>known to be incorrect, but are still taught
>because they are an excellent approximation of
>what will happen during most student's
experiences, they are easier to calculate, and
>they are easier to comprehend. A good science
>teacher will make sure students know that they
>are just approximations.
In the first of his famous Cal Tech undergrad
lectures his gives the example (paraphrasing)
"It was once believed that winged angels
pushed the planets across the skies. This
theory has since been MODIFIED. [general laughing]
It turns out the angels must push inwards
and do not have wings."
A theory that is correct 99% of the time is
typically incomplete, not incorrect. You add
a little squiggle at the end of the calculation
(special relativity) and you make it more complete.
apt still gives 3.3.4 as someone else said. .deb rather than compile from source.
Are we expecting it in a day or so? If so, I'll
wait for the
Work computer has a Trio 3D card that's practically
worthless 'til I get this installed
Category " sex" is blocked
[huge faceless corporation] logs and audits all Internet usage
They got that one too. Now some suit has me on their list...
Gotcha. I've not had to deal with that one. Seems like a pretty dumb ass way of doing things from FDA's point of view (yes.. I know). The assumtion should be the other way around -- Everything is experimental unless explicitly labeled as OK for clinical use and signed off by someone that can give the user a "get out of jail" card.
Someone can bring a freakin' bicycle into an operating room and use it because it wasn't explicly labeled as experimental and not for clinical use?
garyr
Great post. I do similar work and was thinking I'd have to post this same info myself. Thanks for saving me the time.
...fine. My changes are not under your control, it's true. So? If I were crazy enough to crack the case on your device and put my new "improved" firmware in it I have shifted the entire validation burden onto my shoulders. If someone dies I am to blame, not you.
I don't follow you on "Open Source's explicit refusal to permit change control". What refusal? Say (for the sake of the argument) that you wanted you burn a modified linux kernel into the ROM of your device. You've changed the kernel and you've redistruted it so you will also release the source of your mods. Where does change control become an issue?
If I later come along and make further changes to the software
FDA requires *you* to have adequate change control. You would have to be sure that the
device that you are shipping does not have my unvalidated mods in it. you would need to take reasonable steps to make sure that your customers can't apply mods without understanding the consequences (encase ROM and seat in plastic like cable tv boxes or at least a big nasty seal on the box). If it were a plain old piece of software that you were selling, something as simple as an MD5 checksum would do the job (this is not the software we sold you, we are not responsible for it).
I don't see the issue you are raising here.
gayr
too far from the switch. Phone company
intends to remedy this when Hell freeezes
over. Time Warner/Roadrunner could put in
cable modem tomorrow if they felt like it,
but since they have monopoly access to that
wire that are in no rush over it. Looking
a Roadrunner's rollout the only thing I
can say for sure is it won't be before
the end of 2000.
practically speaking I don't care who
provides me with better access - as long
as someone can. 56 dialup with terrible
quality phone lines is driving me crazy.
If open access will put the fear of god
into roadrunner and make them try to get my
business first - I'm all for it.
garyr
I'm not sure what "poor minority" you were including yourself in above but I know the kids in my neighborhood.
A lot of the people I live around are 1st generation immigrants from Central America and Mexico. In the world the parents grew up in there was no attitude towards education at all. It was so far out of the possible that it never entered their minds. The economies in many of these countries is pretty close to Medieval Feudalism.
They take great risks and expenses to move to L.A and work their butts off to keep a roof over their heads and fed. They *all* want a better life for their kids. They want a good education for their kids, but its not easy. Many have no education at all. Most have no education beyond ~3rd grade. The kids learn english and go to school The parents can often encourage them, but can't help with the homework. Dad is out of the house working (maybe a couple of jobs). Mom is there, but very often she is the one with no education at all and zero english (and has also been raised to be what we would consider pathologically shy).
Plugging in a computer is going to add what exectly? They are in many ways jumping directly from the 14th century to the 20th. There's a lot of "bootstrapping" that goes on. Spanish language TV, bad as it seems to us, is darn educational. It's exposure to things that may be totally new - in a not threatening way. In a larger family the oldest child is the first to learn english well and teaches the younger ones. Even of he/she is considered a D student by the school by 4th grade he/she can help the 1st grade kid with homework. The 1st grader typically will achive much better grades. Fast forward a few years (or to now in the case of those starting the process 10 years ago) and computers and the net become possible and useful things. Too early in the process and the computer becomes a doorstop that may be used to play Doom - maybe not even that. The above is in may ways an "ideal" situation. Throw in a few monky wrenches (Dad gets sent to Mexico by the Feds and looses his job before he can get back, etc) and it gets even more difficult.
The computer is just a tool. It's a great tool, but not the answer to all problems. Same with the net. In some cases it's a power tool and we are wondering why people without electricity don't find it useful....
garyr
but it's "can" cause more harm than grafitti. A DOS attack is maybe like putting grafitti over the windshield of a bus. Doesn't really break the bus, but takes it out of commission until someone scrapes off the paint. It's arguably a more serious "bad thing" and it has really pissed me off when I've had to respond to DOS attacks at 3am (ringgg...rinng click "WE'VE BEEN HACKED!!), but usually no big deal to get the bus back on the road.
"Break"ing a functioning site like an online brokerage is a whole 'nother class of crime. That's vandalism. The kiddies that do this stuff should be punished the way kids that vandalize a high school or otherwise destroy property are punished. Still, you don't lock them up and throw away the key the way they are doing with Mitnick.
I'm not saying that any of these things are OK or that people should go do them, just that we should get some perspective. The fact that a computer ws used instead of a can of spray paint or an MAD flushed down the toilet does not change the nature of hte crime committed.
garyr
Really. Most of the hacks he's talking about (and you are with your grocery example) are just high tech graffiti. As such it needs to be judged accordingly.
Nobody likes the plastering of gang signs over every surface that we see so often. If they go to jail for a few weeks for it - fine by me.
There is also the whimsical graffiti ("Frodo Lives!" in the NY subways many years ago).
There's also "political" graffiti. If someone paints "Saddam, Feed your People!" in 4 foot letters on a Iraqui gov't center, I can't call him a criminal. Maybe you can, I'm sure the Iraqis would.
At worst it's "misc. mischief" - a misdemeanor in
the US. It's not "vandalism". The graffiti gang member has to get access to the busyards to do his tagging (all right, add breaking and entering) and could just as easily have broken out all the windows and destroyed the busses. They don't, and niether do the script kiddies that put stupid messages on web sites. They deface, but don't destroy. Often (like the Seti hack of last week) they have even backed up previous content themselves - but anyone that doesn't have a good recent backup of a commercial site is a total moron.
Get over it. This is not car theft, murder, a threat to national security or any other silly BS. It's the trivial stuff kids do an have always done, just with new tools (spray paint was also a new tool). These kids should be grounded, their allowance taken away and have to clean up trash on the hiyway on the weekeds. And then we ---- MOVE ON.
garyr
from the Globe
"But what apparently did in Nandor was a certain amount of laziness uncharacteristic of his hero, Garciaparra."
Clearly, They understand niether "Laziness"
or his "Hero". Hunger is a different thing though. Next they'll accuse him of Hubris...
garyr
open source it and we'll make it perfect.
In one of my previous jobs we regularly paid out the big $$ for this type research from IDG, Gartner and others. They always generated data that seemed to me to be clueless. They didn't properly qualify the data (i.e. this data is characteristic of InfoWorld readers that take the time to return questionaires) and would just characterize it as "our surveys of leading IT managers", discounting the known fact that most of the things people tell trade magazines is pure puffery (you have to say you are the descision maker for >$100,000 in computer purchases or they dont' send you the trade mag).
I can't think of any "prediction" that these
groups made that turned out to be both correct and valuable. The PHBs allocated money according to those predictions, which is part of why that company no longer exists.
I mean really; does anyone think Netware's market is actually growing?
garyr
This guys apt. is now flashing
like a Christmas tree.
garyr
That's it, I'm sending a resume to Micorsoft.
It seems reasonable to me that the
judge must first find that the statements
made are very likely to meet the legal
definition of defamation before a subpeona
could be issued.
Even then the poster's anonymity should
be protected (judge knows who it is, Xircom
does not) until it is actually proven and
can mount a defense under the guise of
anonymity (as it sounds like this guy is
doing).
I'm not a lawyer, but I have been sued for
defamation and libel (Hi Dave, if your were
less ignorand and could use a computer without
hurting yourself maybe you could read this!)
. Based on the way that that
case was laughed out of court I would say:
Saying "Xircom SUCKS!" does not count. Lying
about being an employee when you are not isn't
libelous in any way. you have to say something
that is harmful and that is provably false. I
haven't seen anything here that can be proven to
be either true or false, so it becomes opinion
and is free speach.
garyr