Obviously, so if some software house releases a bit of software, I must do it for the public good and should not expect to be rewarded from it. Not even from those who make millions. I should have none, because it's the public good right?
Likewise, if I make some music, it is now a public good. I should not be allowed to make money. After all, I like doing it right?
I've used a Psion series 5 for quite a while, and have just upgraded to a Casio E115 Pocket PC. Overall, I'd say I prefer the PocketPC. It all depends how you work. I miss some stuff from the Psion, but the Casio makes up for it with other stuff, and it's a bit smaller. And it's color. And it can play my MP3's, etc.
I don't think that guns are needed for people for self defence from guys walking around on the street, they are needed to keep us from being trampled by the US Government!
The point is, if the government wanted to trample over you, it would. If you had a gun, then OK. But it doesn't matter. If the government doesn't like you, it will just deal with you. If you have a gun, it will deal with you more harshly. Do you really think that if the government suddenly wanted to do something terrible to the american people, you could stop it with your gun?
To many people, 'Open Source' software and 'Free' software synonymous.
The real difference, it would appear, is that many companies are moving in the direction of opening their source, as opposed to setting the software 'free'.
Do you feel that the GNU public license, in all its purity, has been overlooked by many, in favour of simply opening the source? (This of course giving the software vendor more freedom than taking on the whole GNU public license)
If so, is it a priority for you to cater for a greater 'width' of market? Can this be reconciled with the purity of the license, in your opinion?
And that's another comment I'd like to make. Almost every LISP bigot I've heard of talks about how "beautiful" LISP is. My reaction is, So what if it's beautiful? Computer languages are written to be useful, not just beautiful. Is anyone actually developing anything useful in LISP? I think it's pretty obvious that Perl is very useful.
IMO, your reaction is valid to an extent. Surely you can see however, that a CS degree is not about learning a language (that you can then apply in a job or in a project). It is about educating you about how to solve problems using computation. Unfortunately, that's a wide remit that also includes hacking up a guestbook CGI script.
A lot of people fall into the trap of talking of 'ivory towers' in disparaging terms and suchlike. The techniques and knowledge you gain by applying yourself to a CS degree (if it was good) are not 'one trick ponies'. Sure, Perl is useful. But surely, more useful, is the mindset that can pick up and run with whatever language is going, because of the familiarity and experience of the type of language it is. That mindset will probably design a solution that is better. Sure, you don't need a CS degree and millions code really well without one. But a CS degree is not a lesson in coding. That's not what the point is.
The point is, that ArsDigita uses Tcl because it suits their requirements. Lisp might have, if their requirements were different. It could well be that no set of requirements nowadays results in the adopting of Lisp. That doesn't matter. Lisp will still suffice to illustrate points. Lisp may not be useful in production environments, but the job of a CS lecturer is not to prepare you for the workplace. That's your job.
If you want to be prepared for the workplace, then get experience in using the languages you want to work with. Of course, a CS degree will give you the background to run with these languages much faster. There's theory and implementation.
Netbooting is important why? I doubt there is any need to do anything like that because hardware dosn't cost your firstborn anymore
Even if hardware was free, netbooting would still be important. It turns out that if you run a lab of say, 50 computers of the same spec, Netbooting is great. The reason being you can change/alter the OS and all computers will change. You have just saved some serious time.
So Katz is right, the MS World has been falling apart for years now. I think that the ruling is simply another victory against MS in a long string of victories over the past few years.
(he withdraws his beady eye from the end of his softly glowing crack pipe)
Sorry, no offense intended, but can you back that up with a list of these victories? I find it difficult to believe when 99.9% of desktops where I work run Windows. Where I work is not atypical.
I also certainly don't hope that the world ever becomes TOTALLY void of MS
The chance of this happening is so small. Think of how many copies of windows are being used. Think of how much investment has been put into buying all these, and supporting them. What is going to happen? The entire basis of corporations, changed over to something different? Unlikely.
The Naked & Petrified Microsoft Age (after being wrecked by Jackson) The Grit Microsoft Age The Meept Microsoft Age (I hate to think what this would mean)
I couldn't resist. I'm sorry. It's true - we haven't been in one before, and we might be in new post Microsoft ages, perhaps.
I was discussing this with a friend last night. If they are forced to open their source, with a license that is not crippling, then that means the likes of us get to have a go. We can make Windows do what we want.
So, like it or not, if MS open their source code, then Windows could become even more powerful. Think - their installed base, thousands working on their source code. The MCSE's could have to learn how to hack Windows itself. It could be that what is good for the goose is good for the gander, and Windows would become even more prevalent. Some would say this mattered, some would say it doesn't. There is the chance that it would actually get better. We can hope...
Was this headline made by the Katzbot? It is priceless. All I want now is the columbine slant on the whole thing. Remember, kids - everything is an 'age'!
I agree with you wholeheartedly with your opinions regarding stylesheets. I do however take task with your comments on frames =)
Another thing that really bugs me is the now-popular trend to make web pages look like printed pages; for example, with columns down the left and right of EVERY page of a web site with the standard menu of links. (Slashdot does this.) These should be in frames, so the body is a page in the middle frame with nothing but the body text in that HTML file. Again, accessibility is sacrificed for appearance, and in a portable, small-screen text-based device, it will be unreadable. A text-to-speech reader will not work on the page without reading the entire left menu column on every page.
It turns out frames as they are used now would not actually be that good for a small windowed browser - here's why. With a framed site on a small screen, either
1) The person designing the site will have assigned a percentage to the navigation part, and a percentage to the content part - in which case, if they use graphics in the navigation part at all, they are liable to have scrollbars inserted there (because if they didn't the whole thing couldn't be viewed) thus rendering the site horrible (requiring to scroll to see design graphics) or
2) The person designing the site will have assigned a fixed value to the navigation part, and what's left over (or some arbitrary value) to the content part - in which case one part of your screen renders OK, and what little there is left of the rest you have to navigate painfully due to the size of your screen.
In addition frames are a bad idea due to the inability to say to someone 'hey, check out this URL' when referring to a framed site. If I want to email you a URL of a site that uses frames, I can't. I can either email you the URL of the original frameset, and say 'navigate to page X', or I can email you the URL of X, whereupon you will miss the navigational aids.
However, most of your post I'll agree with. Accessibility is good, and it seems there's a lot of work that disregards it. I guess it's easier not to know how to do something and get on with it anyway.
There are plenty of ISP's that will give you normal access for nothing, and you don't need windows software if you don't want - a good starting point is www.freeserve.co.uk
> Do hotels have phone jacks?
It depends on the sort of hotels you are going for; the dodgy ones may not. The better ones probably will. =)
> What is the electrical power standard in the UK?
230 volts, AC, ~50Hz.
> Do I need a wacky adapter for my laptop?
Probably. The chances are your laptop has a transformer that automatically copes with the power supply of any country you plug it into (but check this). Then all you need to do is change your US plug into a UK one. You can do this with a kit from Radio Shack that doesn't even cost $20, if I remember rightly from when I was last in there. You're looking for a setup with lots of strange 'grey' bits. You may need a grounding adaptor, depending on what you buy.
> Are phone jacks the same?
Sadly not, I can't remember the name of the standard of our phone plugs, but one can easily obtain adaptors that mean you can plug an RJ11 into our phone socket without messing around. A standard UK shop like PC World would get you one of these adaptors.
> Do modems use the same dialtone, ringing, etc... as they do in the states?
I bought a laptop in the states, brought it back to the UK, and once I'd got the adaptors so that it was connected to power and phone, it was just like being in the US. Worked fine.
> What size area do ISPs cover in the country?
Most ISPs in the UK have one number throughout the entire country, but still charge you local rates instead of national rates. These numbers typically begin with '0345'.
> Can I get one that will work in France as well? > Is any of the above different in France?
If I'm right, plugs are different too (but your Radio Shack adaptor will sort that out right?). I have no experience with the French phone or internet setup, so I can't tell you about ISP's or phone plugs. One thing you *can* do, is buy a 'travellers' kit for your laptop's modem that gives you every adaptor and tool you need to connect to the phone system of every country in the place.
They do ask for my real name and other info, but I didn't give it to them. You can call this unethical, but since I have no idea what they use this info for, why should I supply it?
I read this and thought 'it would be the stupidest thing in the world for, of all people, Hotmail, not to have a privacy statement'. So, I checked Hotmail. And, fair enough, it does have a privacy statement here. It might be controversial to give TRUSTe any benefit of the doubt, but I've looked into TRUSTe certification for personal projects and one of the things you have to do is tell people what you are going to use the data for.
Obviously, if you are not a member of TRUSTe you don't have to do anything like this, and you can gather anything you want without telling anybody.
thenerd (hoping the link won't break). The camels are coming.
I can see it now... Geek Kids Under-Represented In The Post-Corel Era
from the Geek exclusion department
After the Columbine disaster... (blah)
Now a new age has dawned - we are now in the post-Corel civilisation. This is an age in which Geek kids worldwide have been discriminated against. One report from a Geek kid who did not want to be named said: "I am really nervous about the situation. I don't know where to turn. I feel excluded. I feel repressed." Many wired kids have found... (blah) post-(blah) age, geek kids, (blah).
But, seriously... It is inevitable that in the 'clashing' of two completely different cultures - one of NDA's, complex licensing, 'enterprise class solutions', and the other of hard graft, freedom, and just making it work, that there is going to be problems. Sadly for poor Bruce, this may not be the first as other companies start to adopt a solution that neither cripples them financially or technically. thenerd. The camels are coming.
I'm looking into co-location, and think it's great. The one thing that worries me a little is network security, and I'm unsure how much I'd need to worry. With one box that handled a database, and server, am I going to need to keep up to the cutting edge of patches to stop being hacked?
However, I don't want companies looking around at my web browsing patterns... why? It's none of their god damned bussiness how, when, why or where I browse the web.
My comment about pr0n was not so indicative, my bad. When I talked of pr0n, it was as an example - I'm with you with your point. It's difficult though isn't it - you go into a shop - is it the business of that shop to find out what you buy? Is it their business which route you take around it? Is it their business if they can change their shop by looking at how people go around shops in general?
Maybe you'd like their shop more if they did look and acted upon it.
I'm with you though. I'd like to be able to look at sites without doubleclick knowing about them. I'd like legislation to make it impossible for them to join these usage databases with user registration details. Why? I'm not entirely sure. I'm not sure whether I care so much about what is 'my business', I just don't like it, and that should be enough. It looks like it will be, with possible legislation. But from the companies' point of view, they want to see how they can gear their site towards you more, so they can get more money from you. They don't see that as so bad. But it looks like we might win to an extent. Hopefully!
I've just come away from giving a presentation about web tracking.
It's difficult to weigh up the benefits and disadvantages for the companies and the users - on the one hand companies can really improve their site (layout, usability, quality of information) based on that information. Being able to track people across multiple sites will be enable companies to really cater for those that are coming to their site.
However, users, understandably, don't want every move of theirs tracked - presumably with the worry that they will in the end, be held accountable for that time they typed in www.pr0n4u.com.
Balancing the wants of the company and of the individual is always difficult. In the end, is the individual willing to pay the price of less privacy for a 'better' (i.e. targetted to get the most visits/$$'s from you) browsing experience? Without these measures are unscrupulous people going to join your browsing records with your browsing information?
This area is going to get very complex, legislative-wise, with products such as Novell's DigitalMe campaign to store user profiles 'for your convenience'. This is put forward as a great enabler, but in fact mostly, it is an enabler for companies to get information about you, or aggregate information about you and others, and helps you very little.
With the introduction of the W3C's P3P platform, it will be easier for users to keep track of where their personal details are going, but this kind of collaborative tracking really is a bit difficult. Obviously, DoubleClick will have a privacy policy. When they change it in the case of legislation, will they chuck away your data?
One rant I have about naming conventions is that for some reason, in my experience, everybody has got to have *one* server called 'hermes'. I'm sure there's some clever reason why, but it does sound like a sexually transmitted disease. (There's an idea - name each server after a sexually transmitted disease).
As for naming conventions, perhaps biblical characters will have the necessary gravitas to sway the powers that be? I've seen types of cheeses but that was just strange. Whether you consider the bible your first port of call for guidance or whether you consider it a story (this debate has been played out in comments about Katz's articles), the names were fantastic and they all had roles. Funky graphics could be a problem, I concede.
It's funny how in business things have to be 'official' and 'professional'. It strikes me that it is this hankering after legitimacy that leads people to think it is Good to call a server 'S_ENT_450_0002_324923349' when they could just call it 'guanaco' and make everybodies day better. (Camelid names, while a good theme, run out after about 6 or so). This is probably the same tiresome hankering after legitimacy that means we spend more time auditing our work than doing it.
thenerd
Hi to Dave Hughes and Ed the Lech. When hell freezes over I'll ski there too.
Yesterday, debugging somebody elses Java code, Mobb Deep set the note for the entire day. Gave me that kind of vengeful, murderous, relentless power necessary to pull together an application written by somebody who didn't quite know what they were doing, into a position where I could *start* to get it ready to be shipped by November.
I know people who go to public high schools that have teachers that play favorites with the students from religious families and treat the atheist students like crap.
And if the teachers are religious in a Christian way, their religion, if they are obeying the spirit of it, tells them not to do this.
The ethnic makeup is an accident of history -- the issue is property and the law. So, it is OK to kill someone over an item worth less than $125,000 (the amount that a human life is worth, according the the Texas Department of Transportation in making spending decisions for crossings and lights and so on)? $75,000? $7500? $7.50? I would say that even if the item is free, you are still justified in killing a man over it because it is yours, and property rights are the basis of civilized society.
Property is more important than human life? Hello?
I'm sorry, but much as you have the right to your property... your life is rather like property, no? What 'right' do you have to steal that? I'm afraid human rights (like the right not to get shot apart) should come a bit above property rights.
Who knows why that person is stealing. I don't want to get in personal attacks with you but I find your opinion that it is better to kill someone than deal with what they do absolutely disgusting.
I agree, in some ways, that you may not owe anybody anything but... come on. Someone does something bad to you. Forgive them. I'm not religious but killing someone because they are going to try to take your property strikes me as a crazy thing. Send them to jail. Don't kill them. They don't deserve to die. Maybe they are callous, hard, stupid individuals. Maybe the person that steals from your house doesn't care about you. Well, there's enough murder and pain in this world as it is. Don't pass it on. Is it so wrong to care?
As for abortion... it is difficult to balance the rights of the mother and child, and the problem grows when one of those is more vulnerable. As for a solution...! Yikes.
On one level, mail as a way of passing information from a to b. Here e-mail could well win, ultimately, in terms of security, speed, and convenience. It works! You can send and receive text and graphics.
But on another level, you cannot hold an e-mail in your hand. You can't have somebody elses creation, as they had it, on your mantelpiece. Sure, you can print it out. But you can't lift that printout up to your nose to smell your girlfriend's perfume. You can't receive an e-mail you can run your hands over because somebody has chosen special paper for you. You can't receive an e-mail that's been handpainted. Perhaps you can digitize it. But then its just not the same object.
While we're receiving information, the value of snail mail will become less, with electronic mail becoming more commonplace. While we're receiving emotion, the value of snail mail will grow, as simply something more special.
Slashdot Mirror
I was under the impression that the one downside of quantum entanglement was that it turned out to be useless for communication.
I thought that you can find out the value of one, then you know the value of the other. You can't set one, thus setting the other.
Am I right?
thenerd
Liberty is not impunity.
Obviously, so if some software house releases a bit of software, I must do it for the public good and should not expect to be rewarded from it. Not even from those who make millions. I should have none, because it's the public good right?
Likewise, if I make some music, it is now a public good. I should not be allowed to make money. After all, I like doing it right?
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
thenerd.
I've used a Psion series 5 for quite a while, and have just upgraded to a Casio E115 Pocket PC. Overall, I'd say I prefer the PocketPC. It all depends how you work. I miss some stuff from the Psion, but the Casio makes up for it with other stuff, and it's a bit smaller. And it's color. And it can play my MP3's, etc.
thenerd.
I don't think that guns are needed for people for self defence from guys walking around on the street, they are needed to keep us from being trampled by the US Government!
The point is, if the government wanted to trample over you, it would. If you had a gun, then OK. But it doesn't matter. If the government doesn't like you, it will just deal with you. If you have a gun, it will deal with you more harshly. Do you really think that if the government suddenly wanted to do something terrible to the american people, you could stop it with your gun?
thenerd.
Things have been fairly cool here (r&d for telecoms). They reckon it came from the Phillipines, for some reason.
I got it without an attachment, and emailed the woman back 'I'm mortified that you didn't include the letter'.
I'm not sure whether I feel like an idiot or what!
thenerd.
To many people, 'Open Source' software and 'Free' software synonymous.
The real difference, it would appear, is that many companies are moving in the direction of opening their source, as opposed to setting the software 'free'.
Do you feel that the GNU public license, in all its purity, has been overlooked by many, in favour of simply opening the source? (This of course giving the software vendor more freedom than taking on the whole GNU public license)
If so, is it a priority for you to cater for a greater 'width' of market? Can this be reconciled with the purity of the license, in your opinion?
thenerd.
And that's another comment I'd like to make. Almost every LISP bigot I've heard of talks about how "beautiful" LISP is. My reaction is, So what if it's beautiful? Computer languages are written to be useful, not just beautiful. Is anyone actually developing anything useful in LISP? I think it's pretty obvious that Perl is very useful.
IMO, your reaction is valid to an extent. Surely you can see however, that a CS degree is not about learning a language (that you can then apply in a job or in a project). It is about educating you about how to solve problems using computation. Unfortunately, that's a wide remit that also includes hacking up a guestbook CGI script.
A lot of people fall into the trap of talking of 'ivory towers' in disparaging terms and suchlike. The techniques and knowledge you gain by applying yourself to a CS degree (if it was good) are not 'one trick ponies'. Sure, Perl is useful. But surely, more useful, is the mindset that can pick up and run with whatever language is going, because of the familiarity and experience of the type of language it is. That mindset will probably design a solution that is better. Sure, you don't need a CS degree and millions code really well without one. But a CS degree is not a lesson in coding. That's not what the point is.
The point is, that ArsDigita uses Tcl because it suits their requirements. Lisp might have, if their requirements were different. It could well be that no set of requirements nowadays results in the adopting of Lisp. That doesn't matter. Lisp will still suffice to illustrate points. Lisp may not be useful in production environments, but the job of a CS lecturer is not to prepare you for the workplace. That's your job.
If you want to be prepared for the workplace, then get experience in using the languages you want to work with. Of course, a CS degree will give you the background to run with these languages much faster. There's theory and implementation.
thenerd.
Netbooting is important why? I doubt there is any need to do anything like that because hardware dosn't cost your firstborn anymore
Even if hardware was free, netbooting would still be important. It turns out that if you run a lab of say, 50 computers of the same spec, Netbooting is great. The reason being you can change/alter the OS and all computers will change. You have just saved some serious time.
thenerd.
So Katz is right, the MS World has been falling apart for years now. I think that the ruling is simply another victory against MS in a long string of victories over the past few years.
(he withdraws his beady eye from the end of his softly glowing crack pipe)
Sorry, no offense intended, but can you back that up with a list of these victories? I find it difficult to believe when 99.9% of desktops where I work run Windows. Where I work is not atypical.
I also certainly don't hope that the world ever becomes TOTALLY void of MS
The chance of this happening is so small. Think of how many copies of windows are being used. Think of how much investment has been put into buying all these, and supporting them. What is going to happen? The entire basis of corporations, changed over to something different? Unlikely.
thenerd.
We're in a First-post Microsoft Age!
We've just got to wait for the inevitable:
The Naked & Petrified Microsoft Age (after being wrecked by Jackson)
The Grit Microsoft Age
The Meept Microsoft Age (I hate to think what this would mean)
I couldn't resist. I'm sorry. It's true - we haven't been in one before, and we might be in new post Microsoft ages, perhaps.
thenerd.
I was discussing this with a friend last night. If they are forced to open their source, with a license that is not crippling, then that means the likes of us get to have a go. We can make Windows do what we want.
So, like it or not, if MS open their source code, then Windows could become even more powerful. Think - their installed base, thousands working on their source code. The MCSE's could have to learn how to hack Windows itself. It could be that what is good for the goose is good for the gander, and Windows would become even more prevalent. Some would say this mattered, some would say it doesn't. There is the chance that it would actually get better. We can hope...
Was this headline made by the Katzbot? It is priceless. All I want now is the columbine slant on the whole thing. Remember, kids - everything is an 'age'!
thenerd.
I remember Pimp Wars. I ran that on my BBS in early '92. Started off with WWIV 4.12, then upgraded to 4.20, then to 4.21. Pimp Wars was great.
Still got that BBS on the notebook I ran it on, a 386sx/20 with 120 MB HD, and 2400 bps modem.
Those were the days!
thenerd.
I agree with you wholeheartedly with your opinions regarding stylesheets. I do however take task with your comments on frames =)
Another thing that really bugs me is the now-popular trend to make web pages look like printed pages; for example, with columns down the left and right of EVERY page of a web site with the standard menu of links. (Slashdot does this.) These should be in frames, so the body is a page in the middle frame with nothing but the body text in that HTML file. Again, accessibility is sacrificed for appearance, and in a portable, small-screen text-based device, it will be unreadable. A text-to-speech reader will not work on the page without reading the entire left menu column on every page.
It turns out frames as they are used now would not actually be that good for a small windowed browser - here's why. With a framed site on a small screen, either
1) The person designing the site will have assigned a percentage to the navigation part, and a percentage to the content part - in which case, if they use graphics in the navigation part at all, they are liable to have scrollbars inserted there (because if they didn't the whole thing couldn't be viewed) thus rendering the site horrible (requiring to scroll to see design graphics) or
2) The person designing the site will have assigned a fixed value to the navigation part, and what's left over (or some arbitrary value) to the content part - in which case one part of your screen renders OK, and what little there is left of the rest you have to navigate painfully due to the size of your screen.
In addition frames are a bad idea due to the inability to say to someone 'hey, check out this URL' when referring to a framed site. If I want to email you a URL of a site that uses frames, I can't. I can either email you the URL of the original frameset, and say 'navigate to page X', or I can email you the URL of X, whereupon you will miss the navigational aids.
However, most of your post I'll agree with. Accessibility is good, and it seems there's a lot of work that disregards it. I guess it's easier not to know how to do something and get on with it anyway.
thenerd.
Liberty is not equal to impunity.
> What ISPs should I look at?
There are plenty of ISP's that will give you normal access for nothing, and you don't need windows software if you don't want - a good starting point is www.freeserve.co.uk
> Do hotels have phone jacks?
It depends on the sort of hotels you are going for; the dodgy ones may not. The better ones probably will. =)
> What is the electrical power standard in the UK?
230 volts, AC, ~50Hz.
> Do I need a wacky adapter for my laptop?
Probably. The chances are your laptop has a transformer that automatically copes with the power supply of any country you plug it into (but check this). Then all you need to do is change your US plug into a UK one. You can do this with a kit from Radio Shack that doesn't even cost $20, if I remember rightly from when I was last in there. You're looking for a setup with lots of strange 'grey' bits. You may need a grounding adaptor, depending on what you buy.
> Are phone jacks the same?
Sadly not, I can't remember the name of the standard of our phone plugs, but one can easily obtain adaptors that mean you can plug an RJ11 into our phone socket without messing around. A standard UK shop like PC World would get you one of these adaptors.
> Do modems use the same dialtone, ringing, etc... as they do in the states?
I bought a laptop in the states, brought it back to the UK, and once I'd got the adaptors so that it was connected to power and phone, it was just like being in the US. Worked fine.
> What size area do ISPs cover in the country?
Most ISPs in the UK have one number throughout the entire country, but still charge you local rates instead of national rates. These numbers typically begin with '0345'.
> Can I get one that will work in France as well?
> Is any of the above different in France?
If I'm right, plugs are different too (but your Radio Shack adaptor will sort that out right?). I have no experience with the French phone or internet setup, so I can't tell you about ISP's or phone plugs. One thing you *can* do, is buy a 'travellers' kit for your laptop's modem that gives you every adaptor and tool you need to connect to the phone system of every country in the place.
thenerd.
The camels are coming. I'm in love.
They do ask for my real name and other info, but I didn't give it to them. You can call this unethical, but since I have no idea what they use this info for, why should I supply it?
I read this and thought 'it would be the stupidest thing in the world for, of all people, Hotmail, not to have a privacy statement'. So, I checked Hotmail. And, fair enough, it does have a privacy statement here. It might be controversial to give TRUSTe any benefit of the doubt, but I've looked into TRUSTe certification for personal projects and one of the things you have to do is tell people what you are going to use the data for.
Obviously, if you are not a member of TRUSTe you don't have to do anything like this, and you can gather anything you want without telling anybody.
thenerd (hoping the link won't break).
The camels are coming.
from the Geek exclusion department
After the Columbine disaster... (blah)
Now a new age has dawned - we are now in the post-Corel civilisation. This is an age in which Geek kids worldwide have been discriminated against. One report from a Geek kid who did not want to be named said: "I am really nervous about the situation. I don't know where to turn. I feel excluded. I feel repressed." Many wired kids have found... (blah) post-(blah) age, geek kids, (blah).
But, seriously... It is inevitable that in the 'clashing' of two completely different cultures - one of NDA's, complex licensing, 'enterprise class solutions', and the other of hard graft, freedom, and just making it work, that there is going to be problems. Sadly for poor Bruce, this may not be the first as other companies start to adopt a solution that neither cripples them financially or technically. thenerd. The camels are coming.
I'm looking into co-location, and think it's great. The one thing that worries me a little is network security, and I'm unsure how much I'd need to worry. With one box that handled a database, and server, am I going to need to keep up to the cutting edge of patches to stop being hacked?
thenerd.
The camels are coming.
However, I don't want companies looking around at my web browsing patterns... why? It's none of their god damned bussiness how, when, why or where I browse the web.
My comment about pr0n was not so indicative, my bad. When I talked of pr0n, it was as an example - I'm with you with your point. It's difficult though isn't it - you go into a shop - is it the business of that shop to find out what you buy? Is it their business which route you take around it? Is it their business if they can change their shop by looking at how people go around shops in general?
Maybe you'd like their shop more if they did look and acted upon it.
I'm with you though. I'd like to be able to look at sites without doubleclick knowing about them. I'd like legislation to make it impossible for them to join these usage databases with user registration details. Why? I'm not entirely sure. I'm not sure whether I care so much about what is 'my business', I just don't like it, and that should be enough. It looks like it will be, with possible legislation. But from the companies' point of view, they want to see how they can gear their site towards you more, so they can get more money from you. They don't see that as so bad. But it looks like we might win to an extent. Hopefully!
thenerd.
The camels are coming.
I've just come away from giving a presentation about web tracking.
It's difficult to weigh up the benefits and disadvantages for the companies and the users - on the one hand companies can really improve their site (layout, usability, quality of information) based on that information. Being able to track people across multiple sites will be enable companies to really cater for those that are coming to their site.
However, users, understandably, don't want every move of theirs tracked - presumably with the worry that they will in the end, be held accountable for that time they typed in www.pr0n4u.com.
Balancing the wants of the company and of the individual is always difficult. In the end, is the individual willing to pay the price of less privacy for a 'better' (i.e. targetted to get the most visits/$$'s from you) browsing experience? Without these measures are unscrupulous people going to join your browsing records with your browsing information?
This area is going to get very complex, legislative-wise, with products such as Novell's DigitalMe campaign to store user profiles 'for your convenience'. This is put forward as a great enabler, but in fact mostly, it is an enabler for companies to get information about you, or aggregate information about you and others, and helps you very little.
With the introduction of the W3C's P3P platform, it will be easier for users to keep track of where their personal details are going, but this kind of collaborative tracking really is a bit difficult. Obviously, DoubleClick will have a privacy policy. When they change it in the case of legislation, will they chuck away your data?
thenerd
The camels are coming.
One rant I have about naming conventions is that for some reason, in my experience, everybody has got to have *one* server called 'hermes'. I'm sure there's some clever reason why, but it does sound like a sexually transmitted disease. (There's an idea - name each server after a sexually transmitted disease).
As for naming conventions, perhaps biblical characters will have the necessary gravitas to sway the powers that be? I've seen types of cheeses but that was just strange. Whether you consider the bible your first port of call for guidance or whether you consider it a story (this debate has been played out in comments about Katz's articles), the names were fantastic and they all had roles. Funky graphics could be a problem, I concede.
It's funny how in business things have to be 'official' and 'professional'. It strikes me that it is this hankering after legitimacy that leads people to think it is Good to call a server 'S_ENT_450_0002_324923349' when they could just call it 'guanaco' and make everybodies day better. (Camelid names, while a good theme, run out after about 6 or so). This is probably the same tiresome hankering after legitimacy that means we spend more time auditing our work than doing it.
thenerd
Hi to Dave Hughes and Ed the Lech. When hell freezes over I'll ski there too.
Yesterday, debugging somebody elses Java code, Mobb Deep set the note for the entire day. Gave me that kind of vengeful, murderous, relentless power necessary to pull together an application written by somebody who didn't quite know what they were doing, into a position where I could *start* to get it ready to be shipped by November.
Argh.
I know people who go to public high schools that
have teachers that play favorites with the students from
religious families and treat the atheist students like crap.
And if the teachers are religious in a Christian way, their religion, if they are obeying the spirit of it, tells them not to do this.
How strange.
The ethnic makeup is an accident of history -- the issue is property and the law. So, it is OK to kill someone over an item worth less than $125,000 (the amount that a human life is worth, according the the Texas Department of Transportation in making spending decisions for crossings and lights and so on)? $75,000? $7500? $7.50? I would say that even if the item is free, you are still justified in killing a man over it because it is yours, and property rights are the basis of civilized society.
Property is more important than human life? Hello?
I'm sorry, but much as you have the right to your property... your life is rather like property, no? What 'right' do you have to steal that? I'm afraid human rights (like the right not to get shot apart) should come a bit above property rights.
Who knows why that person is stealing. I don't want to get in personal attacks with you but I find your opinion that it is better to kill someone than deal with what they do absolutely disgusting.
I agree, in some ways, that you may not owe anybody anything but... come on. Someone does something bad to you. Forgive them. I'm not religious but killing someone because they are going to try to take your property strikes me as a crazy thing. Send them to jail. Don't kill them. They don't deserve to die. Maybe they are callous, hard, stupid individuals. Maybe the person that steals from your house doesn't care about you. Well, there's enough murder and pain in this world as it is. Don't pass it on. Is it so wrong to care?
As for abortion... it is difficult to balance the rights of the mother and child, and the problem grows when one of those is more vulnerable. As for a solution...! Yikes.
There are two ways we can look at this.
On one level, mail as a way of passing information from a to b. Here e-mail could well win, ultimately, in terms of security, speed, and convenience. It works! You can send and receive text and graphics.
But on another level, you cannot hold an e-mail in your hand. You can't have somebody elses creation, as they had it, on your mantelpiece.
Sure, you can print it out. But you can't lift that printout up to your nose to smell your girlfriend's perfume. You can't receive an e-mail you can run your hands over because somebody has chosen special paper for you. You can't receive an e-mail that's been handpainted. Perhaps you can digitize it. But then its just not the same object.
While we're receiving information, the value of snail mail will become less, with electronic mail becoming more commonplace. While we're receiving emotion, the value of snail mail will grow, as simply something more special.
Comments? Anybody disagree?