TANSTAFFL applies equally to energy use: We don't get to spit out carbon emissions 24 hours/day for ~70 years without an associated cost. The question is which costs more: cutting emissions now, or cleaning up later. (Or, for some, whether anything needs to be done whatsoever; I personally reject this viewpoint as being Pollyanna-ish.)
I am sure that everyone here has met an MCSE (or other certified) bonehead who passed the tests but couldn't do system administration in a real world setting to save his life.
Now admittedly Sun's requirements for J2EE certification are a bit more stringent than those required for becoming an MCSE. But certification can only get you so much. The proof is ultimately in your product. JBoss has received so much attention lately because it is a solid, robust product. The attention paid to its lack of certification quite simply distracts from this.
Certification is a way for Sun to revamp costs. I don't have a problem with that at all. Lack of certification for JBoss probably means that it won't be used on many enterprise systems for the time being, but that will (and is) changing as it continues to evolve. In the meantime, JBoss will succeed or fail in the marketplace on its own merits. And if and when it does reach "critical mass", it will be all the sweeter because this will have been an uphill battle for the entire JBoss team.
You make a valid point. The question that I continually ask myself in regards to the pirating of content is: If it can't be stopped, what do we do? There seems to be the possibility that all these new technologies have for all practical purposes rendered copyright useless, especially since the people who trade these items do so for free.
I don't have a good answer to it this problem. I don't mind seeing the production companies, etc. make money on their products. But the fact remains that there are untold thousands of people who rip & trade these things, and their numbers only increase over time. Do we punish them? Or do we recognize a new reality and change the system of reimbursement accordingly?
I lean towards the latter. But that's just my opinion.
And fluffy toilet lid seat covers! My GOD you can't PISS with those things on the lid, because you have to hold the lid with one hand to keep it from falling down. Thank Socrates my wife thinks those are as annoying as I do.
Well Rob, life is starting to get real now. Well wishes and advice have been heaped upon you to the sum of over 1500 messages now; most of what can be said has been said, so I will keep it brief.
There will be some majorly hairy fights the first year. Just remember that you love her, and that it's forever, and that no matter how mad you get you've got this person for the rest of your life.
It'll be good, it'll be bad, but mostly you'll get laid regularly.
Y'know, this guy is a preeminent capitalist. He made his billions (mostly without any moral ambiguities) and has gone on to change the world in positive ways. His generosity and nobility are prime examples of why the "society benefits from selfishness" is such a load of crapola. Soros did it for himself, now he's doing it for others. *That* is a capitalist, my friends.
Dunno about Win98, but on Win2K you need to right click on My Computer, Properties, then the Advanced tab. Set your CLASSPATH in the Environment Variables in here and all should be hunky dory.
You know, between the War on Terrorism and the decades-old War on Drugs, I am deeply concerned about the direction we are going in respect to our civil liberties. There have always been those who fervently believe that increased power for law enforcement officials are necessary to achieve their goals, whether it is abolishing marijuana or killing bin Laden. In the process, though, they tend to propose things that interfere with the freedoms of the general population.
I don't think the curtailing of freedoms is done on purpose, it is just a side-effect. But that hardly makes it any less egregious. I strenuously hope that bin Laden is dead, dead, DEAD and that we can begin to move forward again.
I am beginning to believe that the DEA and the ONDCP should simply be abolished. Leave the war on drugs up to the states; the federal government has NEVER been successful in fighting the drug war, and the means needed to make it successful are unacceptable to those who cherish liberty.
The "checks and balances" are actually designed to prevent the public from having a say in the law.
Partially. The Founders did set up a representative form of government because they did not believe pure democracy to be the best solution. But they also wanted to prevent sudden, drastic changes in policy. The tripartate system we have is an effort to achieve this.
In any case, the public has as much a say in the process as they choose to have. I can assure you that every decision made by the Bush administration is weighed against the political realities. In other words, they check to see what the public thinks.
I love this country. It's fucked up, but I love it.
They? Who's "they"? When? I've *never* heard of something like that, and my sister-in-law (who I see far more often than I would like) works in a neonatal intensive care unit. She sees freaky kids every single day. That kind of decision is left up to the parents, for the most part, and even then they can't choose to just lop off digits. You seem to be implying that there are Evil Liberal Forces Out There (or something) who are making sure all our children fit government mandated physical specifications. If you are, that's a load of hooey. If not, then my apologies.
I just don't quite understand who Apple is going after with this. One would think that they need to expand more into the desktop arena since they have no chance in the server or production world.
It has been my experience that there are two kinds of people in the world.* Those who shop at Wal-Mart for everything in order to save money. The other kind is those who shop at Wal-Mart for stuff they don't care about, and go elsewhere for quality items.
Apple is targeting the latter. I bought a Mac because it is a high quality machine. I use it to work on. Whereas a few years ago I considered Mac to be almost exclusively used by designers, I can emphatically say this is no longer the case. I can use Emacs, Vi/Vim, Netbeans, Ant or just about whatever dev/build tool I used to use on Linux.
I will not speculate as to the future success of Macs as a development machine. But I can at least give you anecdotal evidence that it is quite possible (and even pleasant.) I am ecstatic to no longer have to fight with Gnome or KDE, however infrequently those problems arose.
Anyway, I have gushed enough. Moral of the story is that Macs make quite a nice development box.
- Rev.
Re:Sugar coating. *Mini-spoiler*
on
A Beautiful Mind
·
· Score: 2
I for one am getting tired of the "Surprise Ending" theme thats been going on since the sixth sense (or fight club, whichever was first). It was good the first few times.. It's getting old now.
I've noticed the same trend. The first time I can recall seeing it was in "Usual Suspects" with the whole Kaiser Soze ending. As you said, it was certainly interesting the first few times, but now I have almost come to expect it.
Having said that, I have to defend "Beautiful Mind" in this context. [Spoiler ahead.] His schizophrenia was unearthed around half-way through the movie, and was such an important part of his character that Howard couldn't have presented it successfully other than to make the audience believe it, too. So while I agree with you that this "gotcha" trend has become common, I don't think the same applies to this movie.
What gets me is the "directed to children" bit. Um, what? Where does it say that the parody is directed to children? On the Star Ballz website, where there's a clear "this website contains material unsuitable for those under 18" disclaimer? By watching the thing? (Oh, wait, no, they didn't, did they?)
To be fair, I think that the statement was referring to Lucasfilm's IP, not to the cartoon. It was a poorly written sentence, not to mention the fact that IP isn't "directed" towards any demographic. That's just doublespeak.
More and more people are ousted from their jobs by smart technologies.
Although I am no longer the fan of Robert Anton Wilson that I once was (despite the fact that I killed him), he spoke about this phenomenon in (IIRC) "Prometheus Rising". He felt that the increased automization of menial tasks would lead to a more educated society. Since all the "dumb jobs" would be taken over by computers, robots, etc., in order to survive people would have to educate themselves on tasks that cannot be performed by automatons.
This seems to be happening, at least to a degree, although there is another factor at work as well: cheap (nonunionized) international labor. There seems to be a point at which exploiting overseas workers is about as cheap as building a robot, sometimes cheaper.
THG's complaint about Samsung sure is interesting. From the letter Samsung sent to Tom's:
Tom's Hardware is just a website, not a magazine. The testing monitors are reserved for the press."
Umm, hello? I'd be willing to bet that THG has a higher readership than most hardware oriented print publications. Tom's is damn-near the definitive source for these things, is respected, and well-read. I can't believe Samsung screwed up like this.
Oh well. I've never cared for Samsung much anyway.
This letter is a plea for you to give up your insane obsession with rights management. YOU. JUST. CAIN'T. DO. IT. As the daily march of new technologies makes it easier and easier to transmit and transport data in various forms, it becomes obvious that attempts to stop this from happening are doomed to failure. Despite the successful destruction of the free-wheeling Napster, the trading of "illegal" materials continues, largely unabated.
The only way this will be stopped is with the propogation of police powers not seen out side of "1984" by George Orwell. There are simply too many channels available -- both on and off the Internet -- for transmitting this data. Stopping it will require buy-in from the community in toto, and the chances of that happening are slim to none.
Plus you guys have really come across as assholes recently, y'know?
It is unfortunate that there are opportunists in Congress who present a greater "threat to freedom" than Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden presented them with the opportunity to seize power, and they grabbed it.
If I didn't know any better I'd say you're talking about either Tom DeLay. Or maybe that's just me.
The biggest power grab has come from the Administration though, not from Congress. What with Ridge, Ashcroft, and the other right-wing crazies doing their best to toss out every Amendment that isn't the 2nd, it seems that they are trying to raise Bush up to the level of a Napoleon (without the brilliant military mind, of course.).
Probably just me, though. Anyone who has that much money is trustworthy. Free market, HOOOO!
There has been some speculation that Sun is uncomfortable with certifying JBoss as a J2EE-compliant container. Mark Fleury, president of the JBoss team, has said "Sun quoted a price for that certification suite that is beyond the current financial resources of the JBoss team." Is there any possibility that Sun will relax these certification fee requirements for open-source initiatives such as JBoss, especially when they meet the technical requirements as specified by Sun?
Ahhh the typical eloquence of Bush supporters. "Here, listen to my hyperbole and ignore my poor grammar an atrochiouz spellynge." Can you tie your shoes yet?
Missile defense is a waste of fucking money. Yes, it WOULD be more worthwhile to "subsidize like subsidize pregnant 15 years old junkies and drunken bumbs" because if by some means we could get them off the streets and into a nice, steady job they would be paying taxes otherwise helping contribute to the health of the economy. Not to mention the fact that it'd just be the right thing to do.
This is a pretty banal bitch, but I feel it's worth mentioning, so bear with me.
From one Tolkien nerd to another.;-)
I am no longer embarrased to admit that I have read the Silmarillion multiple times. I do know the difference between the Maiar and the Valar, and I know how Feanor died. I can tell you who Luthien's parents were, and why Earendil was important.
Therefore, I personally have stopped debasing myself whenever this comes up in conversation. Tolkien has presented a rich mythology, one that Joseph Campbell would have wholeheartedly approved of. (Someone correct me if I am wrong, please.) Tolkien appeals to me more than Christianity does (although make no mistake, it is not my religion).
My point? That I am not, goddammit, going to be embarrassed any longer about my extensive knowledge of Tolkien. I don't CARE if Julia Roberts or Tyler Durden would make fun of me. They can go fuck themselves.
Man, they could expand that initial battle scene where Sauron comes tromping out, taking out 4 & 5 people at a swing, and expand THAT to about an hour and a half. Oh man, that was so freakin sweet.
But whatever they put back in can only be good. Jackson did such an incredible job with the entire movie that I still can hardly believe our good luck. Someone did the movie who was not only intelligent about it, but genuinely seems to love the trilogy the way some of the geeks 'round these parts do.
A similar argument was once used in regards to lie detectors: Since there is a failsafe mechanism (a human) involved, the chance of abuse is lessened considerably. However, history has shown this not to be the case, and law enforcement frequently trusts the machine over the man. I doubt that this technology will be much different, at least in this respect. It is much easier to trust the machine and haul someone in for questioning.
Further, the use of these machines at airports means that people who potentially don't even have a high school diploma will be operating them. From me, at least, that fails to inspire much confidence.
Isn't it about time scientists and those who report their findings wake up to the fact that what we know today is only what we know today, and that things might be diferent tomorrow?
Wow! Really? You mean that what we know might change tomorrow? When did you come up with this AMAZING insight into the workings of human knowledge? Let me share this with my scientist friends, because I am quite certain they have never considered this possibility!
Look, doofus, this point has been argued ad nauseum. The only people I have ever met who believe in absolute and eternal truths are the religious types, not scientists. You wanna be a member of the language police, you just go right ahead. Just expect to lose a few acquaintances, cuz people like you generally annoy those around them.
Slashdot Mirror
TANSTAFFL applies equally to energy use: We don't get to spit out carbon emissions 24 hours/day for ~70 years without an associated cost. The question is which costs more: cutting emissions now, or cleaning up later. (Or, for some, whether anything needs to be done whatsoever; I personally reject this viewpoint as being Pollyanna-ish.)
I am sure that everyone here has met an MCSE (or other certified) bonehead who passed the tests but couldn't do system administration in a real world setting to save his life.
Now admittedly Sun's requirements for J2EE certification are a bit more stringent than those required for becoming an MCSE. But certification can only get you so much. The proof is ultimately in your product. JBoss has received so much attention lately because it is a solid, robust product. The attention paid to its lack of certification quite simply distracts from this.
Certification is a way for Sun to revamp costs. I don't have a problem with that at all. Lack of certification for JBoss probably means that it won't be used on many enterprise systems for the time being, but that will (and is) changing as it continues to evolve. In the meantime, JBoss will succeed or fail in the marketplace on its own merits. And if and when it does reach "critical mass", it will be all the sweeter because this will have been an uphill battle for the entire JBoss team.
- Rev.You make a valid point. The question that I continually ask myself in regards to the pirating of content is: If it can't be stopped, what do we do? There seems to be the possibility that all these new technologies have for all practical purposes rendered copyright useless, especially since the people who trade these items do so for free.
I don't have a good answer to it this problem. I don't mind seeing the production companies, etc. make money on their products. But the fact remains that there are untold thousands of people who rip & trade these things, and their numbers only increase over time. Do we punish them? Or do we recognize a new reality and change the system of reimbursement accordingly?
I lean towards the latter. But that's just my opinion.
- Rev.And fluffy toilet lid seat covers! My GOD you can't PISS with those things on the lid, because you have to hold the lid with one hand to keep it from falling down. Thank Socrates my wife thinks those are as annoying as I do.
/., dammit!
No fluffy toilet lid seat covers on
- Rev.
Well Rob, life is starting to get real now. Well wishes and advice have been heaped upon you to the sum of over 1500 messages now; most of what can be said has been said, so I will keep it brief.
There will be some majorly hairy fights the first year. Just remember that you love her, and that it's forever, and that no matter how mad you get you've got this person for the rest of your life.
It'll be good, it'll be bad, but mostly you'll get laid regularly.
- Rev.Y'know, this guy is a preeminent capitalist. He made his billions (mostly without any moral ambiguities) and has gone on to change the world in positive ways. His generosity and nobility are prime examples of why the "society benefits from selfishness" is such a load of crapola. Soros did it for himself, now he's doing it for others. *That* is a capitalist, my friends.
Obviously I am not the Ayn Rand fan I once was.
Dunno about Win98, but on Win2K you need to right click on My Computer, Properties, then the Advanced tab. Set your CLASSPATH in the Environment Variables in here and all should be hunky dory.
You know, between the War on Terrorism and the decades-old War on Drugs, I am deeply concerned about the direction we are going in respect to our civil liberties. There have always been those who fervently believe that increased power for law enforcement officials are necessary to achieve their goals, whether it is abolishing marijuana or killing bin Laden. In the process, though, they tend to propose things that interfere with the freedoms of the general population.
I don't think the curtailing of freedoms is done on purpose, it is just a side-effect. But that hardly makes it any less egregious. I strenuously hope that bin Laden is dead, dead, DEAD and that we can begin to move forward again.
I am beginning to believe that the DEA and the ONDCP should simply be abolished. Leave the war on drugs up to the states; the federal government has NEVER been successful in fighting the drug war, and the means needed to make it successful are unacceptable to those who cherish liberty.
- Rev.The "checks and balances" are actually designed to prevent the public from having a say in the law.
Partially. The Founders did set up a representative form of government because they did not believe pure democracy to be the best solution. But they also wanted to prevent sudden, drastic changes in policy. The tripartate system we have is an effort to achieve this.
In any case, the public has as much a say in the process as they choose to have. I can assure you that every decision made by the Bush administration is weighed against the political realities. In other words, they check to see what the public thinks.
I love this country. It's fucked up, but I love it.
- Rev.They? Who's "they"? When? I've *never* heard of something like that, and my sister-in-law (who I see far more often than I would like) works in a neonatal intensive care unit. She sees freaky kids every single day. That kind of decision is left up to the parents, for the most part, and even then they can't choose to just lop off digits. You seem to be implying that there are Evil Liberal Forces Out There (or something) who are making sure all our children fit government mandated physical specifications. If you are, that's a load of hooey. If not, then my apologies.
- Rev.I just don't quite understand who Apple is going after with this. One would think that they need to expand more into the desktop arena since they have no chance in the server or production world.
It has been my experience that there are two kinds of people in the world.* Those who shop at Wal-Mart for everything in order to save money. The other kind is those who shop at Wal-Mart for stuff they don't care about, and go elsewhere for quality items.
Apple is targeting the latter. I bought a Mac because it is a high quality machine. I use it to work on. Whereas a few years ago I considered Mac to be almost exclusively used by designers, I can emphatically say this is no longer the case. I can use Emacs, Vi/Vim, Netbeans, Ant or just about whatever dev/build tool I used to use on Linux.
I will not speculate as to the future success of Macs as a development machine. But I can at least give you anecdotal evidence that it is quite possible (and even pleasant.) I am ecstatic to no longer have to fight with Gnome or KDE, however infrequently those problems arose.
Anyway, I have gushed enough. Moral of the story is that Macs make quite a nice development box.
- Rev.I for one am getting tired of the "Surprise Ending" theme thats been going on since the sixth sense (or fight club, whichever was first). It was good the first few times.. It's getting old now.
I've noticed the same trend. The first time I can recall seeing it was in "Usual Suspects" with the whole Kaiser Soze ending. As you said, it was certainly interesting the first few times, but now I have almost come to expect it.
Having said that, I have to defend "Beautiful Mind" in this context. [Spoiler ahead.] His schizophrenia was unearthed around half-way through the movie, and was such an important part of his character that Howard couldn't have presented it successfully other than to make the audience believe it, too. So while I agree with you that this "gotcha" trend has become common, I don't think the same applies to this movie.
- Rev.What gets me is the "directed to children" bit. Um, what? Where does it say that the parody is directed to children? On the Star Ballz website, where there's a clear "this website contains material unsuitable for those under 18" disclaimer? By watching the thing? (Oh, wait, no, they didn't, did they?)
To be fair, I think that the statement was referring to Lucasfilm's IP, not to the cartoon. It was a poorly written sentence, not to mention the fact that IP isn't "directed" towards any demographic. That's just doublespeak.
- Rev.Umm, is there a point to your message?
More and more people are ousted from their jobs by smart technologies.
Although I am no longer the fan of Robert Anton Wilson that I once was (despite the fact that I killed him), he spoke about this phenomenon in (IIRC) "Prometheus Rising". He felt that the increased automization of menial tasks would lead to a more educated society. Since all the "dumb jobs" would be taken over by computers, robots, etc., in order to survive people would have to educate themselves on tasks that cannot be performed by automatons.
This seems to be happening, at least to a degree, although there is another factor at work as well: cheap (nonunionized) international labor. There seems to be a point at which exploiting overseas workers is about as cheap as building a robot, sometimes cheaper.
THG's complaint about Samsung sure is interesting. From the letter Samsung sent to Tom's:
Tom's Hardware is just a website, not a magazine. The testing monitors are reserved for the press."
Umm, hello? I'd be willing to bet that THG has a higher readership than most hardware oriented print publications. Tom's is damn-near the definitive source for these things, is respected, and well-read. I can't believe Samsung screwed up like this.
Oh well. I've never cared for Samsung much anyway.
- Rev.Dear executive bigwig,
This letter is a plea for you to give up your insane obsession with rights management. YOU. JUST. CAIN'T. DO. IT. As the daily march of new technologies makes it easier and easier to transmit and transport data in various forms, it becomes obvious that attempts to stop this from happening are doomed to failure. Despite the successful destruction of the free-wheeling Napster, the trading of "illegal" materials continues, largely unabated.
The only way this will be stopped is with the propogation of police powers not seen out side of "1984" by George Orwell. There are simply too many channels available -- both on and off the Internet -- for transmitting this data. Stopping it will require buy-in from the community in toto, and the chances of that happening are slim to none.
Plus you guys have really come across as assholes recently, y'know?
- Rev.It is unfortunate that there are opportunists in Congress who present a greater "threat to freedom" than Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden presented them with the opportunity to seize power, and they grabbed it.
If I didn't know any better I'd say you're talking about either Tom DeLay. Or maybe that's just me.
The biggest power grab has come from the Administration though, not from Congress. What with Ridge, Ashcroft, and the other right-wing crazies doing their best to toss out every Amendment that isn't the 2nd, it seems that they are trying to raise Bush up to the level of a Napoleon (without the brilliant military mind, of course.).
Probably just me, though. Anyone who has that much money is trustworthy. Free market, HOOOO!
Ummm, I don't know about JBoss, but isn't Tomcat the reference implementation of Sun's specs?
Yes, it is.
- Rev.There has been some speculation that Sun is uncomfortable with certifying JBoss as a J2EE-compliant container. Mark Fleury, president of the JBoss team, has said "Sun quoted a price for that certification suite that is beyond the current financial resources of the JBoss team." Is there any possibility that Sun will relax these certification fee requirements for open-source initiatives such as JBoss, especially when they meet the technical requirements as specified by Sun?
- Rev.Ahhh the typical eloquence of Bush supporters. "Here, listen to my hyperbole and ignore my poor grammar an atrochiouz spellynge." Can you tie your shoes yet?
Missile defense is a waste of fucking money. Yes, it WOULD be more worthwhile to "subsidize like subsidize pregnant 15 years old junkies and drunken bumbs" because if by some means we could get them off the streets and into a nice, steady job they would be paying taxes otherwise helping contribute to the health of the economy. Not to mention the fact that it'd just be the right thing to do.
This is a pretty banal bitch, but I feel it's worth mentioning, so bear with me.
From one Tolkien nerd to another. ;-)
I am no longer embarrased to admit that I have read the Silmarillion multiple times. I do know the difference between the Maiar and the Valar, and I know how Feanor died. I can tell you who Luthien's parents were, and why Earendil was important.
Therefore, I personally have stopped debasing myself whenever this comes up in conversation. Tolkien has presented a rich mythology, one that Joseph Campbell would have wholeheartedly approved of. (Someone correct me if I am wrong, please.) Tolkien appeals to me more than Christianity does (although make no mistake, it is not my religion).
My point? That I am not, goddammit, going to be embarrassed any longer about my extensive knowledge of Tolkien. I don't CARE if Julia Roberts or Tyler Durden would make fun of me. They can go fuck themselves.
Man, they could expand that initial battle scene where Sauron comes tromping out, taking out 4 & 5 people at a swing, and expand THAT to about an hour and a half. Oh man, that was so freakin sweet.
But whatever they put back in can only be good. Jackson did such an incredible job with the entire movie that I still can hardly believe our good luck. Someone did the movie who was not only intelligent about it, but genuinely seems to love the trilogy the way some of the geeks 'round these parts do.
Lucas suxors. Jackson rulez.
A similar argument was once used in regards to lie detectors: Since there is a failsafe mechanism (a human) involved, the chance of abuse is lessened considerably. However, history has shown this not to be the case, and law enforcement frequently trusts the machine over the man. I doubt that this technology will be much different, at least in this respect. It is much easier to trust the machine and haul someone in for questioning.
Further, the use of these machines at airports means that people who potentially don't even have a high school diploma will be operating them. From me, at least, that fails to inspire much confidence.
Isn't it about time scientists and those who report their findings wake up to the fact that what we know today is only what we know today, and that things might be diferent tomorrow?
Wow! Really? You mean that what we know might change tomorrow? When did you come up with this AMAZING insight into the workings of human knowledge? Let me share this with my scientist friends, because I am quite certain they have never considered this possibility!
Look, doofus, this point has been argued ad nauseum. The only people I have ever met who believe in absolute and eternal truths are the religious types, not scientists. You wanna be a member of the language police, you just go right ahead. Just expect to lose a few acquaintances, cuz people like you generally annoy those around them.
- Rev.