All of this sounds like good advice, and I will be following it today. However, with my two senators I don't feel real optimistic on a positive outcome.
Here's the situation I'm not sure how to handle: what if the Senator and his staff simply plain-out disagree? I frankly don't expect that right-wing Senator George Allen is going to
care much about civil-rights (after all, civil rights are a liberal thing) and John Warner, while a little more sane, was still willing enough to vote for the anti-flag-desecration amendment.
I suspect the staffer I talk to will pay lip service to maintaining our freedoms, but what can be done to convince a right-winger that our freedom is our strength?
I find it shameful that so many interesting machines are conscripted into doing nothing but boring tasks.
The world is built on boring tasks. Simple person-to-person communication is a huge part of what people need to do. It makes no sense at all to try to find more complicated tasks just to suit the coolness of the tool.
While Soegaard provides some interesting ideas for tools that may be useful, his analysis of What Users Want is sadly off target. He seems to assume that users want lots of nifty features and inter-functionality. My experience providing tech support and teaching computers indicates something quite different: users mostly want a few basic functionalities, and they want them Right Now.
I call it the I Just Want to Type a Damn Letter test: can the user turn on the computer for the first time, understand the basics of how to operate in a few minutes, then get to work on things they want to do? If not, we'll meet with resistance at every step.
Soegaard provides some nice ideas on how to structure the back-end, but the front-end needs to Give the People What They Want: an interface to do word processing, another to do email, another for web browsing, and a few others for other less-common tasks. That is what is going to help open source win the battle of the desktop.
Fuel dump on hijack?
on
More WTC News
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Would it make sense to make a standard operating procedure that if a hijacking seems immenent, even highly possible, the crew should dump almost all the fuel... leave just enough for getting the nearest landable airport. This procedure might inhibit the ability of terrorists to obtain flying bombs.
An international tragedy
on
More WTC News
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
An
article at CNN is pointing out that this was really an international tragedy, not just an American tragedy. The World Trade Center had people from all over the world and many, many of them are victims. Early estimates suggest these numbers:
100 Britons
78 Australians
100 Japanese
27 South Koreans
100 - 150 Mexicans
6 Irish
Those are the numbers given by CNN, but there have just got to be more from other nations. No Saudis, Isrealis, Chinese, or Indians are mentioned in the article, but it would seem likely that there were plenty of people around from those nations.
It was only a matter of time (a very short time) before somebody started using this tragedy to their own irrelevent needs. I just receieved the following email. Note sections about how opponents of spam are on the side of Bin-Laden.
As with everything else where judgement is tempted, keep in mind that this email itself may be fake (i.e. not really from someone who wants to defend spam).
Subject: How you can help WTC victims. (BTW: Anti-spammers Support Bin Laden!)
During this incredible time of need we need to support the American dream and not lose our spirit of Freedom and the American way. Our condolences go out to the victims and families.
..a public service message from StealthLaunch/PopLaunch
Red Cross credit card donation form. [previous sentence was a link to what appears to be a real red cross donation form] PLEASE do NOT click on this link if you do not intend to help!!! Their servers will be under extremely heavy volume and possibly anti-spammer attacks.
American Red Cross Donation Link
Or call 1-800-HELP NOW!!! Or donate blood at your nearest Red Cross Location a list of Chapters can be found here: Red Cross ChaptersOr call 1-800 GIVE LIFE Please call ahead to schedule because of the overwhelming response by the american public to help in this time of need.
During this attack on American Freedom "anti-spammers" express their condolences to Bin Laden! Anti-spammers are terrorists at heart and attack websites and email accounts of companies wishing to bring their products and services to the general public via email, an enviromentally sound, REMARKABLE medium! They launch Denial of Service attacks against websites (including ours) on a daily basis because they are ANTI-AMERICAN. All in the name of some ANTI-AMERICAN "moral" cause they beleive everyone should have as well. Sound familiar? All groups that DEMAND that everyone do or not do what they believe is the correct "moral" action almost ALWAYS rely on terrorist violence. Here is a post from an Anti-spammer that expresses his condolences to Bin Laden, a terrorist group known for killing 1,000's of innocent people.Message Group Link
American marketers Are under Attack! For apparently using enviromentally sound bulk email to deliver products, services and public service messages. Do your part to help Freedom and the American way by simply asking the marketer to be removed from a list. Not by harassing his vendors, dial-up providers or website companies. Remember we don't wish to send mail to someone who does not want it! It's simply ludicrous to think otherwise. When you make yourself known to be an "anti-bulkemailer", you align yourself with Hackers, Terrorists and Un-American groups.
A lot of us couldn't help but notice that it was a beautifully clear, sunshiny day yesterday, so counter to the deeply sad feelings we all had. As I was pondering this and the question of "why today", I realized the two issues are tied: the terrorists picked yesterday because of bright clear weather so they could see their targets and line up their approches from a long distance.
It's great that there's a memorial to Turing, but why is he sitting on a park bench like a loafer? Among his other talents, Turing was an
excellent long distance runner. Something a little more active looking would be more appropriate.
For five years I've done my work sitting on a
wooden box and I have no desire to change. The box puts me at just the right height for my desk and my back feels comfortable. The box is one of the few desk chairs I've ever worked at that doesn't give me back problems.
For $750 I'll be happy to build you a wooden box just like mine.
As have I... in fact, I've been trying to get an appointment with him (BTW, my congressman is
Rick Boucher).
I'd really like to see more political activity in the open-source community. We need to realize that the powers-that-be aren't going to listen unless we organize.
<PETTY-RANT>It would have been nice if Slashdot had not rejected my ask-slashdot submission asking if people would like an open-source rally in DC. I think a lot of readers here would have wanted to talk about that concept.</PETTY-RANT>
Let's not abuse the phrase by definition. Humans may always be subjective, but that's now the definition of the word human... unless you can show a dictionary entry that says otherwise.
It's time for an organized rally in Washington, DC. That would stand a good chance of waking the media up. Logic and well-written position papers usually aren't as persuasive as a bunch of people with signs.
If you had at least three months notice, would you attend a march on Washington to protest the DMCA, alert the world to Microsoft FUD attempts, and generally make the world aware of open-source-ish issues?
does anybody in 2001 really need convincing of slavery's evil?
Sadly, yes, Probably very few people (probably not even myself) really appreciate how horrible slavery was and is. Imagine the worst most nasty bosses you ever had, then imagine that they have complete control over your entire life from birth to death, every day 24 hours a day, and there was nothing you can do about it. Imagine they can take out whatever shit they had in their lives on you, regardless of what you do, in any physical or emotional way they want. Imagine they also have control over the people you love the most. That image gives you a vague idea of slavery.
While we've made significant strides, I think many Americans regard slavery as a sort of necessary evil that just sort of happenned and somehow was OK for that day and age. Contrary to popular opinion, many people throughout American history hated slavery and regarded as was it is: a terrible thing and an abomination against God.
Just be sure you don't slip in the aisle. If you try to sue them, they'll say you're an alchoholic and use your records to "prove" it... as one grocery store has already done.
On the contrary, most grocery stores now actually do require you to give all kinds of personal information if you want to get any sale prices. When my wife and I went did our grocery trip yesterday it would have cost us $25 to maintain privacy in the transaction.
-miko
I can provide a data point on tipping for content. I've had a tip jar on my web (The Idocs Guide to HTML) for about seven months now and so far I've been tipped a whopping $78.35. Every page in the site links to the tip jar.
The frustrating thing is that I get several emails every day telling me how useful my site is to people, but tips don't accompany the emails. About 90% of the time a request for help accompanies the compliment. I'm glad that I help these people, and I really do develop the site as an act of love, not profit-seeking, but I have to admit it's getting old being told that my site is more helpful than the stack of books they bought... but of course they probably spent well over $100 for a stack of books but don't send me $5 for the help I provided.
I started the tip jar as a "what-the-hell" thing. Now I'm considering taking it down because I'm worried that it's building more resentment in me than when I just didn't have it at all.
<IRONY>On the other hand, O'Reilly paid me $16,000 to write a book for them (including the final payment approving the final draft), then decided to
cancel the book. So I'm not getting paid for content I do publish and I did get paid for content that wasn't published.</IRONY>
I was concerned about this exact issue myself, so I wrote to the FSF about the GPL. Here's the response I got from Bradley Kuhn, VP at FSF. (The italics are stuff that I wrote in my original email.)
There may be one point in which the license has an issue needing correcting. (Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.) Summary: the license can be divided into two categories: your rights to using the software,
Copyright licenses cannot cover rights to use software directly, and the GPL does not try to cover use.
A copyright license, like the GPL, covers rights to copy, modify and redistribute. This is what the GPL covers.
The license allows someone to use the software w/o agreeing to the
license, and therefore sections of the license which concern only rights
to use are not enforceable.
The license doesn't cover use, and cannot.
Nothing in the license states that the user accepts the license by the
act of *using* the software,
There is no way to do this in a copyright license.
and therefore THE CLAUSES ABOUT DISCLAIMING WARRANTY NEVER COME INTO PLAY.
Likely, they copied the program from somewhere to be able to use it, so the clause surely comes into play in that case.
I still don't quite understand the response... why are there clauses abot no warranty if the user doesn't have to agree to the license?
However, it does seem that FSF has thought about these things and hopefully they know what they're doing.
Users may not like popups, but web designers keep wanting to use them. The
Popup Tutorial is the most popular section of my
web site, and it's by far the topic I get the most questions on.
I'm not fond of popup ads either, but popups do have their place. I find them handy for help links that provide extra help on something in a form without having to leave the form.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's a floor wax! No, it's a dessert topping!
Here's the situation I'm not sure how to handle: what if the Senator and his staff simply plain-out disagree? I frankly don't expect that right-wing Senator George Allen is going to care much about civil-rights (after all, civil rights are a liberal thing) and John Warner, while a little more sane, was still willing enough to vote for the anti-flag-desecration amendment.
I suspect the staffer I talk to will pay lip service to maintaining our freedoms, but what can be done to convince a right-winger that our freedom is our strength?
The world is built on boring tasks. Simple person-to-person communication is a huge part of what people need to do. It makes no sense at all to try to find more complicated tasks just to suit the coolness of the tool.
I call it the I Just Want to Type a Damn Letter test: can the user turn on the computer for the first time, understand the basics of how to operate in a few minutes, then get to work on things they want to do? If not, we'll meet with resistance at every step.
Soegaard provides some nice ideas on how to structure the back-end, but the front-end needs to Give the People What They Want: an interface to do word processing, another to do email, another for web browsing, and a few others for other less-common tasks. That is what is going to help open source win the battle of the desktop.
Would it make sense to make a standard operating procedure that if a hijacking seems immenent, even highly possible, the crew should dump almost all the fuel... leave just enough for getting the nearest landable airport. This procedure might inhibit the ability of terrorists to obtain flying bombs.
- 100 Britons
- 78 Australians
- 100 Japanese
- 27 South Koreans
- 100 - 150 Mexicans
- 6 Irish
Those are the numbers given by CNN, but there have just got to be more from other nations. No Saudis, Isrealis, Chinese, or Indians are mentioned in the article, but it would seem likely that there were plenty of people around from those nations.As with everything else where judgement is tempted, keep in mind that this email itself may be fake (i.e. not really from someone who wants to defend spam).
A lot of us couldn't help but notice that it was a beautifully clear, sunshiny day yesterday, so counter to the deeply sad feelings we all had. As I was pondering this and the question of "why today", I realized the two issues are tied: the terrorists picked yesterday because of bright clear weather so they could see their targets and line up their approches from a long distance.
It's great that there's a memorial to Turing, but why is he sitting on a park bench like a loafer? Among his other talents, Turing was an excellent long distance runner. Something a little more active looking would be more appropriate.
For $750 I'll be happy to build you a wooden box just like mine.
OTOH, I might just be geeky enough to count as two or three geeks. :-)
Miko O'Sullivan
As have I... in fact, I've been trying to get an appointment with him (BTW, my congressman is Rick Boucher).
I'd really like to see more political activity in the open-source community. We need to realize that the powers-that-be aren't going to listen unless we organize.
<PETTY-RANT>It would have been nice if Slashdot had not rejected my ask-slashdot submission asking if people would like an open-source rally in DC. I think a lot of readers here would have wanted to talk about that concept.</PETTY-RANT>
Miko O'Sullivan
Let's not abuse the phrase by definition. Humans may always be subjective, but that's now the definition of the word human... unless you can show a dictionary entry that says otherwise.
Miko O'Sullivan
If you had at least three months notice, would you attend a march on Washington to protest the DMCA, alert the world to Microsoft FUD attempts, and generally make the world aware of open-source-ish issues?
Miko O'Sullivan
Sadly, yes, Probably very few people (probably not even myself) really appreciate how horrible slavery was and is. Imagine the worst most nasty bosses you ever had, then imagine that they have complete control over your entire life from birth to death, every day 24 hours a day, and there was nothing you can do about it. Imagine they can take out whatever shit they had in their lives on you, regardless of what you do, in any physical or emotional way they want. Imagine they also have control over the people you love the most. That image gives you a vague idea of slavery.
While we've made significant strides, I think many Americans regard slavery as a sort of necessary evil that just sort of happenned and somehow was OK for that day and age. Contrary to popular opinion, many people throughout American history hated slavery and regarded as was it is: a terrible thing and an abomination against God.
Miko O'Sullivan
Damn, you mean aliens have to go through grant procedures too?
Miko O'Sullivan
Miko O'Sullivan
Miko O'Sullivan
Just be sure you don't slip in the aisle. If you try to sue them, they'll say you're an alchoholic and use your records to "prove" it... as one grocery store has already done.
Miko O'Sullivan
Miko O'Sullivan
The frustrating thing is that I get several emails every day telling me how useful my site is to people, but tips don't accompany the emails. About 90% of the time a request for help accompanies the compliment. I'm glad that I help these people, and I really do develop the site as an act of love, not profit-seeking, but I have to admit it's getting old being told that my site is more helpful than the stack of books they bought ... but of course they probably spent well over $100 for a stack of books but don't send me $5 for the help I provided.
I started the tip jar as a "what-the-hell" thing. Now I'm considering taking it down because I'm worried that it's building more resentment in me than when I just didn't have it at all.
<IRONY> On the other hand, O'Reilly paid me $16,000 to write a book for them (including the final payment approving the final draft), then decided to cancel the book. So I'm not getting paid for content I do publish and I did get paid for content that wasn't published. </IRONY>
Miko O'Sullivan
Miko O'Sullivan
Does it know that you don't count your money when you're sittin' at the table? (There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.)
Miko O'Sullivan
However, it does seem that FSF has thought about these things and hopefully they know what they're doing.
Miko O'Sullivan
I'm not fond of popup ads either, but popups do have their place. I find them handy for help links that provide extra help on something in a form without having to leave the form.
Miko O'Sullivan