He has created and curated an amazing thing. Kudos to him. Few people have the dedication he shows. I respect his achievements immensely. He's in the top 5 contributors to modern computing in my books.
That doesn't make it respectable to be an asshole though. The world has enough assholes. Being the smartest asshole still makes you an asshole.
Maybe he couldn't have done it any other way. Maybe he could have. Don't think we'll ever know. I still wouldn't hire him, and there's no risk he would have ever been looking to work for me anyways.
I've worked with people like Linus many times; brilliant, know it, and abuse those who suggest ideas that don't align with their world view. They are usually correct when they shoot down an idea. However, I avoid them at all costs, both from a hiring and from peer perspective, because they are a cancer in most organizations, and the long term cost of dealing with their anti-social behaviour greatly outweighs the benefit they bring.
Abuse does not solve problems. Belittling others does not benefit anyone. It's fine to be blunt and explain why the idea proposed will not work, it saves time and energy. It is sign of a deeply flawed personality to attack the person who proposed the idea that won't work.
In seriousness, there are many ways of improving estimates (reviewing past similar projects - you kept metrics right?), appropriate granularity of features and estimates of these features, confidence factors appropriate to the complexity/unknowns of the task (write a CRUD GUI screen? high confidence. Write a new algorithm to combine multiple videos into a 3-d pannable single video? Low confidence), etc. You need to be refining and grooming these estimates weekly as data changes, so at least you fail early.
Mad because a government official cannot wield undue influence over the global, borderless Internet?
Facebook treats all their users like shit, no reason this guy should be special. I agree it sucks for him, but it sucks just as much for the 13 year old whose classmates put up pages mocking him. I don't think you want it to be otherwise. Ideally they would always "do the right thing" but at least they are consistent in ignoring their users and don't play favourites.
How does this translate to real-world user-visible improvements?
Does it scroll more fluidly? Do apps run noticeably faster? (Were they slow to start with?) Is there any software out there that takes advantage of it to do more?
Can't see anyone caring about this at all in the mainstream market (you know, the one where people buy 50M+ units).
Also, comparing against iPhone5 is misleading as Android code runs via a JVM and iPhone runs native.
I didn't bother to read the article obviously, but to compare opening weekend results directly with CAM downloads ignores many aspects. The most obvious to me is the people who did NOT go out to the theatre and who WILL NOT download the CAM, but who WILL wait two months for a high-quality free Blu-Ray rip to appear online. These are potentially lost sales for the theatres.
(Having said that, after going back to a theatre for the first time in a couple years specifically to see Avengers, I still believe the root of their problem does not lie with piracy, it lies with the appalling rudeness found in your average public gathering. For the same price, two months later, my living room is infinitely more comfortable and better equipped to show ME the movie in a manner I will enjoy and not be distracted by phones, screaming children, and poor sound).
Not likely. You read that NTP thinks it's easy for RIM to keep just the gov't customers turned on. This is a potentially fallacious assumption, not to mention RIM have no real financial incentive to do so, and strategically are better off shutting down the whole country. If BB service is shut down in the US, the government service will go with it, trust me.
Course you also look at another movie readily available online. "It's All Gone, Pete Tong."
The movie is actually called "It's All Gone Pete Tong" (no comma) which is an instance of the Cockney slang tendency to use words that rhyme in bizarre contexts. (ie It's All Gone Wrong would be the "proper" title)
I had a justice of the peace threaten me with that fighting one of my tickets. At the time I wasn't as aware of my rights, so I took the plea. However, I then appealed and the conviction was overturned due the the JPs comments, plainly visible in the transcript.
There is no duty on products manufactured in North America. Canadians purchasing from the US pay only GST and sometimes the applicable province's PST (not sure the exact conditions that trigger PST).
However, the real prohibitive border expense is generally brokerage fees, which can be up to $50 on $5 purchases depending on shipping method (hint: never use UPS ground). This, combined with our pathetic artificially weak dollar, makes shopping in the US prohibitive.
If we can spin this to Joe Citizen as
"Congress is looking at a new bill that will make it illegal to tape TV shows",
we could create enough of an uproar that at least Joe C will be aware of this bill.
Even if your mom hears "The bill doesn't make it illegal to tape TV shows, it will just make it more difficult", Mom's not gonna be happy to see it pass.
No need for the media companies to be the only capable PR flacks; I'll let the end justify the means here:)
In the movie Heat, there's a point where someone's reading off a seven-digit number to Robert Deniro. Listen carefully to the number. This may be the only movie I've ever seen where they don't use "555" to start a phone number. Instead, they use something like "140-2407" as the local number.
A very clever touch, in my opinion, since 140-2407 is of course an invalid local number.
I think you missed the point that people are complaining about (not that I blame you...I KNEW what the problem was (from my dad, who works in the industry), and I had to read the article three times to find it).
Read it again. You still missed the point.
Only exchanges are affected, not area codes. The beginning of your seven-digit local number (sans area-code) may now begin with 1 or 0. Your area code may not. When you push 1 at a dial-tone, you will still be making a long-distance call. When you push 0, you will still get the operator (eventually).
When you push 2-9, you will be entering the first digit of a 10-digit local call. Or 911 or something else, but the telco equipment(and you) will still be able to differentiate on local/long distance calls based on if you pushed 1 first.
I think they would like to use 0 and 1 in the exchange positions.
Since you're always dialing the area code first (which will not start with 0 or 1), the exchange digits (the x's in xxx-yyyy) may begin with 1 or 0 with no confusion. You will always dial 212-101-1234, not 101-1234. I'm probably explaining this poorly.
You still won't dial a 0 or 1 to start a ten-digit number; 0 and 1 will retain their special meanings. 1 will still mean long-distance, and 0 will still be operator(assist) calls.
1) According the cracker himself, he did NOT use the July 17 exploit. This indicates that another problem exists with IIS. It also makes him a non-white hat since he still has the power to crack other servers.
I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he's not releasing it before a patch is finished, to prevent all the kiddiez from going to town with their new 'leet trick before people can plug the holes.
What IS at issue is exactly how the artists will be recompensed for their time and effort. Well produced albums take time and money to produce. Freeloading (those that don't buy the CD) mp3 addicts use the product without paying anything back to the artist.
Why not treat Napster like a radio station?
I'm sure this has been proposed already, but what about a tariff paid to RIAA from Napster, a certain percentage of their revenue. Sort of like how radio stations work (or used to work). Back in the 30's radio stations paid 5% of their revenue to ASCAP. I'm sure there is still a similar system in place, but don't know the specifics.
Now, 5% is pretty low, especially for a company like Napster which could quite likely never show any significant revenue, but the theory is sound. The problem is that the RIAA would not accept 5%, they'll want 100%, so they'll just squash Napster and (eventually) do it themselves.
It would certainly be nice if the RIAA or the individual labels would start a distribution system like this (after all, the 'net is supposed to eliminate the need for a middleman) but that isn't gonna happen for a while with the recording industry's Polish duke decision process. Maybe this would be a sufficient solution in the interim.
Re:How About The Hackers Who Got The Letter?
on
Tech Stocks Tumble
·
· Score: 1
Welcome to the real world. Did you really think the market, and your precious RHAT were going to keep going up indefinitely, that they'd really be worth what they were trading at forever?
First year economics tells you that these sort of valuations are unsustainable. If you didn't do your research, and you didn't understand how the market works, then it's your own stupidity that cost you money. I don't want to gloat about it, but I don't want to hear people whining about their own ignorance either. Greed has a flip side, welcome to it. If you borrowed money to invest in a company with an unproven business model, you should not be surprised when it appears to be failing.
Note: I'm not saying that the Linux stocks deserve to be zero-valued, but rather that there's no justification for the prices they were previously achieving.
The fact that this post was moderated up to even 3 worries me. I guess there's a lot of the greater fools reading slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
He has created and curated an amazing thing. Kudos to him. Few people have the dedication he shows. I respect his achievements immensely. He's in the top 5 contributors to modern computing in my books.
That doesn't make it respectable to be an asshole though. The world has enough assholes. Being the smartest asshole still makes you an asshole.
Maybe he couldn't have done it any other way. Maybe he could have. Don't think we'll ever know. I still wouldn't hire him, and there's no risk he would have ever been looking to work for me anyways.
I've worked with people like Linus many times; brilliant, know it, and abuse those who suggest ideas that don't align with their world view. They are usually correct when they shoot down an idea. However, I avoid them at all costs, both from a hiring and from peer perspective, because they are a cancer in most organizations, and the long term cost of dealing with their anti-social behaviour greatly outweighs the benefit they bring.
Abuse does not solve problems. Belittling others does not benefit anyone. It's fine to be blunt and explain why the idea proposed will not work, it saves time and energy. It is sign of a deeply flawed personality to attack the person who proposed the idea that won't work.
They accidentally the whole BlackBerry
http://coding.abel.nu/2012/06/programmer-time-translation-table/
4 hours is about the sweet spot.
In seriousness, there are many ways of improving estimates (reviewing past similar projects - you kept metrics right?), appropriate granularity of features and estimates of these features, confidence factors appropriate to the complexity/unknowns of the task (write a CRUD GUI screen? high confidence. Write a new algorithm to combine multiple videos into a 3-d pannable single video? Low confidence), etc. You need to be refining and grooming these estimates weekly as data changes, so at least you fail early.
Mad because a government official cannot wield undue influence over the global, borderless Internet?
Facebook treats all their users like shit, no reason this guy should be special. I agree it sucks for him, but it sucks just as much for the 13 year old whose classmates put up pages mocking him. I don't think you want it to be otherwise. Ideally they would always "do the right thing" but at least they are consistent in ignoring their users and don't play favourites.
How does this translate to real-world user-visible improvements?
Does it scroll more fluidly?
Do apps run noticeably faster? (Were they slow to start with?)
Is there any software out there that takes advantage of it to do more?
Can't see anyone caring about this at all in the mainstream market (you know, the one where people buy 50M+ units).
Also, comparing against iPhone5 is misleading as Android code runs via a JVM and iPhone runs native.
(Not a fan of either, aiming for objectivity)
I didn't bother to read the article obviously, but to compare opening weekend results directly with CAM downloads ignores many aspects. The most obvious to me is the people who did NOT go out to the theatre and who WILL NOT download the CAM, but who WILL wait two months for a high-quality free Blu-Ray rip to appear online. These are potentially lost sales for the theatres.
(Having said that, after going back to a theatre for the first time in a couple years specifically to see Avengers, I still believe the root of their problem does not lie with piracy, it lies with the appalling rudeness found in your average public gathering. For the same price, two months later, my living room is infinitely more comfortable and better equipped to show ME the movie in a manner I will enjoy and not be distracted by phones, screaming children, and poor sound).
Thanks, just ordered a starter kit!
I love the law of unintended consequences.
nLite is your friend. Slipstream drivers, service packs, hotfixes, plus configure/disable many of XP's annoying defaults
http://www.nliteos.com/
Not likely. You read that NTP thinks it's easy for RIM to keep just the gov't customers turned on. This is a potentially fallacious assumption, not to mention RIM have no real financial incentive to do so, and strategically are better off shutting down the whole country. If BB service is shut down in the US, the government service will go with it, trust me.
Course you also look at another movie readily available online. "It's All Gone, Pete Tong."
The movie is actually called "It's All Gone Pete Tong" (no comma) which is an instance of the Cockney slang tendency to use words that rhyme in bizarre contexts. (ie It's All Gone Wrong would be the "proper" title)
I had a justice of the peace threaten me with that fighting one of my tickets. At the time I wasn't as aware of my rights, so I took the plea. However, I then appealed and the conviction was overturned due the the JPs comments, plainly visible in the transcript.
I'd argue if they aren't late, they aren't really padding their plans, they are just being realistic. Why would this be a bad thing?
Battery life is 4hr talk and 8 DAYS standby. Reviewer claimed he got 4 days out of it with moderate use.
There is no duty on products manufactured in North America. Canadians purchasing from the US pay only GST and sometimes the applicable province's PST (not sure the exact conditions that trigger PST).
However, the real prohibitive border expense is generally brokerage fees, which can be up to $50 on $5 purchases depending on shipping method (hint: never use UPS ground). This, combined with our pathetic artificially weak dollar, makes shopping in the US prohibitive.
Nobody submits real information on the web anyways.
You can read a good essay by NS in Wired's archive.
Gee, that's almost as funny as it was last week
If we can spin this to Joe Citizen as
:)
"Congress is looking at a new bill that will make it illegal to tape TV shows",
we could create enough of an uproar that at least Joe C will be aware of this bill.
Even if your mom hears "The bill doesn't make it illegal to tape TV shows, it will just make it more difficult", Mom's not gonna be happy to see it pass.
No need for the media companies to be the only capable PR flacks; I'll let the end justify the means here
In the movie Heat, there's a point where someone's reading off a seven-digit number to Robert Deniro. Listen carefully to the number. This may be the only movie I've ever seen where they don't use "555" to start a phone number. Instead, they use something like "140-2407" as the local number.
A very clever touch, in my opinion, since 140-2407 is of course an invalid local number.
I think you missed the point that people are complaining about (not that I blame you...I KNEW what the problem was (from my dad, who works in the industry), and I had to read the article three times to find it).
Read it again. You still missed the point.
Only exchanges are affected, not area codes. The beginning of your seven-digit local number (sans area-code) may now begin with 1 or 0. Your area code may not. When you push 1 at a dial-tone, you will still be making a long-distance call. When you push 0, you will still get the operator (eventually).
When you push 2-9, you will be entering the first digit of a 10-digit local call. Or 911 or something else, but the telco equipment(and you) will still be able to differentiate on local/long distance calls based on if you pushed 1 first.
I think they would like to use 0 and 1 in the exchange positions.
Since you're always dialing the area code first (which will not start with 0 or 1), the exchange digits (the x's in xxx-yyyy) may begin with 1 or 0 with no confusion. You will always dial 212-101-1234, not 101-1234. I'm probably explaining this poorly.
You still won't dial a 0 or 1 to start a ten-digit number; 0 and 1 will retain their special meanings. 1 will still mean long-distance, and 0 will still be operator(assist) calls.
Think it through.
1) According the cracker himself, he did NOT use the July 17 exploit. This indicates that another problem exists with IIS. It also makes him a non-white hat since he still has the power to crack other servers.
I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he's not releasing it before a patch is finished, to prevent all the kiddiez from going to town with their new 'leet trick before people can plug the holes.
What IS at issue is exactly how the artists will be recompensed for their time and effort. Well produced albums take time and money to produce. Freeloading (those that don't buy the CD) mp3 addicts use the product without paying anything back to the artist.
Why not treat Napster like a radio station?
I'm sure this has been proposed already, but what about a tariff paid to RIAA from Napster, a certain percentage of their revenue. Sort of like how radio stations work (or used to work). Back in the 30's radio stations paid 5% of their revenue to ASCAP. I'm sure there is still a similar system in place, but don't know the specifics.
Now, 5% is pretty low, especially for a company like Napster which could quite likely never show any significant revenue, but the theory is sound. The problem is that the RIAA would not accept 5%, they'll want 100%, so they'll just squash Napster and (eventually) do it themselves.
It would certainly be nice if the RIAA or the individual labels would start a distribution system like this (after all, the 'net is supposed to eliminate the need for a middleman) but that isn't gonna happen for a while with the recording industry's Polish duke decision process. Maybe this would be a sufficient solution in the interim.
Welcome to the real world. Did you really think the market, and your precious RHAT were going to keep going up indefinitely, that they'd really be worth what they were trading at forever?
First year economics tells you that these sort of valuations are unsustainable. If you didn't do your research, and you didn't understand how the market works, then it's your own stupidity that cost you money. I don't want to gloat about it, but I don't want to hear people whining about their own ignorance either. Greed has a flip side, welcome to it. If you borrowed money to invest in a company with an unproven business model, you should not be surprised when it appears to be failing.
Note: I'm not saying that the Linux stocks deserve to be zero-valued, but rather that there's no justification for the prices they were previously achieving.
The fact that this post was moderated up to even 3 worries me. I guess there's a lot of the greater fools reading slashdot.