"So who're the morons in the Marketing Depts at the car manufacturers?"
They're busy selling the Prius. Four doors, four cylinder, regenerative braking, and continuously variable transmission. $5K more you say? Well it turns out that they cost about $5K more than an Accord (~$20K).
Okay, it only gets fifty miles to the gallon. It's a start. And it's been selling in the US since summer of last year.
And no, I don't work for Toyota. But I've owned my Prius since November and it's great... Except for a lack of cruise control. That's on the 2002 models.:(
As I said, this was four years ago and one of my first experiences with my own UNIX-like installation. Yes, I am aware of uptime and ps (and top) now. I wasn't then.
Starting X on a system is CPU and disk intensive. Doing it in addition to a file process over a parallel port is aptly referred to as a "rudimentary extra load." I wasn't looking for exact timing. I was checking the oh-so-subjective "does it act slower" benchmark; I was eyeballing it with a wristwatch.
The fact remains, unlike DOS/Win or OS/2, Linux did not stutter, wince, or otherwise bog the system down when making a large file transfer with an Iomega parallel port Zip drive.
I know how you feel about the lameness filter. I triggered the lameness filter while posting a C++ code sample. What is slashdot coming to indeed.
Note: It's generally a good idea to benchmark items on working samples -- how long it takes you to get done what you would normally want to do. uptime, ps and top would not necessarily be a better indicator in this case.
And on a completely different note, I had a drive that clicked, but after a while, the clicking stopped and the drive functions fine to this day. Go figure.
The 95% CPU utilization is due to Windows parallel port driver not being written properly. I saw the same thing on OS/2 years ago.
Then as a test -- one of the first things that I did when examining Linux four years ago -- I set up Linux with my parallel port Zip drive. I used X as a rudamentary "extra load" while copying to and from the Zip drive. I saw no visible slowdown.
Granted, Iomega wrote the Zip PPA driver, but there may have been only so much they could do with what they had to work with (Windows parallel port driver)
NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work". Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.
Linus Torvalds
Programs are linked to the kernel, but are not bound by the GPL. This is due to the above paragraph, not through some loophole or oversight in the GPL. RMS is still right.
What if Microsoft/Oracle/Sun/Whomever said, "And we're giving credit where credit is due. For efficient routines in the upcoming Windows kernel, special thanks go to the work of Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, and many other accomplished developers. We would also like to thank Richard Stallman for the excellent command-line utilities to be bundled with the new OS."
And what if the community response was, "So are you releasing the affected code under GPL as well?"
And what if the response back from the company was, "Why? We've acknowledged that it is GPLed and given credit. That should be enough."
No. It's not enough.
I seriously doubt they are bad people. I wouldn't be surprised if they operate under the best of intentions. This, however, is not the point. If someone takes my wallet, thinking it belongs to them, this is not malice. If they do not agree to give it back, then we have a problem. They have acknowledged that it isn't their wallet, but they still want the money in it. Yes! I have a problem with that!
On their main page, they state the abilities of the program. Now, after all of the hubbub, they have an asterix next to a prominent feature which references a footnote stating that the feature requires GPL code.
It isn't that much of a stretch to state that they wrote their program with the intent that a key feature (isn't it? it's mentioned on their main page to intice potential customers) of their program would *require* GPL code. If you were working with motion video clips, wouldn't the "advanced, automated post-processing" be core to your product.
They are trying to take advantage of the codebase (good) without giving anything of substance back (bad). This is precisely what the GPL is meant to prevent. If they just wanted to swap libraries, they should've found something with a different license (LGPL, BSD, W3C) or written it themselves.
What they did instead was write a less-than-minimum implementation so they had something to point to when someone came snooping around.
I agree with the author of VirtualDub. I have no problems with individuals at the company, but the company has definitely done something wrong.
They wrapped (thinly) to make the DLL code. The author of VirtualDub noted that the DLL just had a couple of new entry points and function name changes, but the headers from VirtualDub most certainly didn't make it into the main code from Vidomi.
Thus the loophole that they are trying to exploit.
I posted elsewhere why this should not be seen as a simple interface vs. implementation issue however. They clearly violate the license. They violate arguably in the letter and definitely in the spirit.
They either need to own up to it, or get the spanking they so richly deserve.
On the contrary, Vidomi's product page advertises the abilities of their software according to the abilities of the GPLed library, not their scaled down, proprietary library.
This is another reason the author is so upset. It's fairly obvious that they made a bare-bones, barely functional implementation of the library for the sole purpose of defrauding the original author's licensing terms (GPL).
This is not the same as a clear cut interface vs. implementation argument. Let's say that someone writes a piece of software that implements a filesystem according to a particular API and this filesystem is under the GPL. We'll call this hypothetical filesystem, XFS.;) Someone else writes an OS that implements this API. The OS author is not yet in violation as they technically haven't touched any of the GPLed code.
Now let's imagine that the author of the OS writes a barely functional filesystem (like FAT) and offers this as a "default" implementation for the OS. And let's say that the OS author advertises their OS as having journaling, high speed, great reliability, etc. which of course it only has when linked against the XFS code.
That company should not be allowed to simply throw up its hands and say, "Well it really is just an option," when it describes a key piece of functionality for which they advertise. It is quite obvious from their actions that it is not simply an option, it is a fundamental portion of their products abilities.
Back to Vidomi, take away the GPLed code, it does less. THAT makes it a intrinsic part of the overall codebase.
It is NOT the same as interface vs. implementation unless you have an object which only implements half of the interface. If the interface is legit, the half-baked implementation breaks the code! the only way to avoid having the program dump core is to *expect* certain functionality to be missing. This is functionally equivalent to them expecting the GPLed code to be linked, not a coincidence that they happen to implement the same interface.
If Vidomi wrote a fully functional client (a full implementation of the interface) and the GPLed code really was a pluggable option, I might have a little more sympathy for them. Then again, if they had their own library, they wouldn't need the GPLed library, right? The only reason for them to co-op the GPLed code is to get around having to write the complete code within the company. THAT is a violation of the GPL and should be pursued with all vigor.
Not an issue. The 32bit version of XP uses MBR. The Linux-Itanium port supports GPT. Dual booting is still possible for those who are inclined (and have an Itanium).
I wouldn't be too surprised to see a Linux patch (updated utilities) for GPT on ia32 in the future. As long as it's a Linux-only box, you could get rid of the limitations to MBR without having to get an Itanium processor.
The MICROS~1 problem is a filesystem of FAT and FAT32. They already "solved" the problem with NTFS. Note that ext2 doesn't have the MICROS~1 problem, so how can it be a partition table limitation?
According to the article, some of the things that GPT will allow are better partition names and Unicode support. Now why we actually need Unicode for partition names is anyone's guess, but if you're gonna do it, do it all the way.
Considering the Holocaust, would you seriously entertain the possibility of going to court in the country that intentionally put millions to death or would you try to go to a more objective court?
But that aside, let's look at your other arguments.
- Web pages and links never trick? What about goatse.cx links on Slashdot? What about incessant popup windows on porn sites? Everything on the web is factual? No on ever got taken for a ride because of a web page?
- Unsolicited advertisements are a type of content, just like porn or the daily paper. It can come on paper, leaflets, email or a newsgroup.
- This is the difference between changing the channel and putting in a new filter rule. Changing the channel (assuming you have a remote handy) takes a couple of seconds to find another, more worthwhile program every time you come across something you don't like. A few seconds here and a few seconds there... An email filter takes a minute to setup once and it continues to work without further intervention in the future unless you wish to add further restrictions. This is like watching TV, seeing another stupid Budweiser commercial, and programming your remote to block all Budweiser commercials from then on.
You state that the worldwide bill is $10-billion. Have you seen the worldwide economy lately? $10-billion is a drop in the bucket. In addition, the lion's share of that bill comes from the EU et al who still have per-minute or per-byte charges. If you look at the cost adjusted for just the US, the numbers get much smaller. So again, why are we pushing for US legislation for something that doesn't affect Americans? I am all for the global village, but limiting spam coming from the US means that people will jump over to Mexico, Canada, or any of the myriad locations in the world that have no spam laws. And legislating spam coming from outside the US is not going to happen.
While we're on the topic of money, do you think that any effort on the part of the US government (and other allied governments) that even hopes to staunch the flow of spam will come with a lower price tag than $10-billion? Do you remember all that hubbub about Big Tobacco? Remember how they got stiffed with a massive fine? Would it surprise you to learn that the tobacco companies paid very little of that money actually made it back to the people? After all was said and done, the lawyers involved made a killing, big tobacco is still jumping, and the average citizen doesn't have much to show for it. Cigarettes are still heavily used across the US. What guarantees can someone give me that anti-spam legislation will be fundamentally different? The fact that there are more potential defendants? The fact that individually they have less money? Be still my beating heart!
And please don't bring up the bandwidth issue again as I would rather not restate that porn takes up far more bandwidth than spam today at your local ISP. And of course spam is growing exponentially. Internet use is growing exponentially. What would expect of spam? To remain static or linear?
With regards to your comparison of spam with me and a megaphone outside your house at 3am, are you serious? When has spam awakened you in the middle of the night similar to a person standing outside your house with a megaphone? Do you have your PC speakers turned up too high at night or something? When it comes down to it, spam is a minor inconvenience in much the same way as the asshole who cut you off in traffic on the way to work except that no one ever died from spam.
And with regards to this massive effort, spam filters thus far are not used on a massive scale and enough people buy the products and services that it contributes to continued spam tactics. A war on spam would be like the war on drugs; Right or wrong, legal or illegal, while people are buying, it will persist.
If you can produce a magic wand that instantly makes spammers see the error of their ways AND makes them discontinue their activites, I'd love to see it. The proposed legislation is NOT that magic wand. Let's llok at real solutions and avoid knee-jerk reactions that may in fact cause more harm than good.
How about a spam filter checkbox on new email package installs so that even grandma can easily say no to spam? Or a call-to-arms to all of the script kiddies out there to stop harassing Uncle Sam and start mail bombing spammers. Hey, they've obviously got plenty of spare time on their hands. I'm all for solutions as long as they look like they will make a positive difference, but I'm not so sure about the bill(s) going through Congress at the moment.
One point, which I did not miss, was that many people differentiate spam from snail-mail mass-mailings in who picks up the tab on the transport of the message. Here, they make it a bandwidth issue.
The Holocaust trials held after WWII were extraordinary circumstances. Germany had just lost a war and had no respectable legal infrastructure. This is by no means the norm.
Another point (and yes, IANAL) is that if you receive a piece of spam from a Taiwanese company selling products/services in Taiwan (and these are more and more common in reality), you have no legal recourse. After all, what are you gonna do? Have Taiwanese courts hold them responsible? What do they care? The company hasn't broken any Taiwanese laws. Have US courts intervene? This sets a bad precedent. Does this then mean that China can sue US citizens and companies over web pages that criticize Chinese policies? After all, in China, they would surely be illegal.
Yes a web page is different from an email, but both are made readily available on the Net for all to see. In the case of the individual receiving some Taiwanese spam, that individual can either (a) hit the delete button (or press 'D' in pine or whatever) or (b) set up a filter so that they, most likely, will never see it. In the case of the web page, China sets up the Great Firewall of China to block the offending site. Where is the difference?
Many people respond to spam. Many people give spammers a livelihood by buying their products. Many people apparently feel that it is performing a useful service. What happened to freedom of choice and personal responsibility? Properly set up filters get rid of 90% (or more) of spam.
Personally, again, I hate spam. I hate it vehemently. However, simply because I don't like it is NOT a valid reason for banning it. Porn makes a great deal of money in this country. It is also one of the most villified segments of the Net. Disagreeing with and villifying are perfectly reasonable actions to take in a free society. Deciding for others that it should go away when there is no significant detriment to your life (mail filters, changing the channel, choice of patronization, etc.) is NOT. With all of the issues involved with the Net, while spam may be one of the most annoying, it is not something that infringes greatly on our lives.
You and I may agree that Americans should make all purchases with wisdom and foresight, but we have no right to force this behavior on others. It is the right of every American to be stupid no matter how annoying we may find it. Hell! It's my right to write a post that you may find ignorant. This is not murder. This is not theft. This is a minor inconvenience. It is important to recognize the difference.
...but the bandwidth issue is a red herring. If you want to put a dent in bandwidth usage, shut down the porn newsgroups on USENET. When you ask ISPs where their bandwidth goes, it is not email (spam). Spam is a nuisance, but not a bandwidth killer. The mail server may choke, but that's not a network bandwidth issue; it is a server upgrade issue. The bandwidth is getting sucked up by alt.binaries.pictures.*, alt.binaries.movies.*, and live nude streaming web sites.
I used to be in the "legislate spam" camp until a very important point was brought up. What happens if the spam comes from Taiwan? U.S. spam laws will mean precisely dick! What if someone jumps over the border to Canada or Mexico to send spam? U.S. spam laws will mean precisely dick!
Any spam legislation will only affect U.S. entities physically located in the U.S. sending to U.S. recipients. If any of those prerequisites is missing, any U.S. legislation means precisely dick!
The only way to stop spam is to stop the source, close all open gateways, close access to all open gateways, or (most effective, but most difficult) get Americans to stop patronizing businesses that spam.
In my CS classes, we turned in the source to our programs, not just a binary. Are you saying that the CS professors and TAs couldn't immediately recognize a program where only the variable names changed?
You should have gone to a different college -- one where the teachers actually paid attention.
But doing this teaches a great lesson for the working world! By being put in groups with folks who need some extra help, universities around the world are preparing scientists and engineers for day-to-day dealings with marketing and sales departments.
Don't have time to explain it to them? Then be prepared to be held accountable for an unrealistic release date.
This post was intending to be funny until I looked around at my office...:/
"...I've found it much easier to do in a real job because everyone (me included) is prepared to tolerate other people's ideas when it won't mean the plummetting of a good grade"
And here we see why a lot of commercial software sucks. With school, it's the grade that suffers. In the real job, it's the product.
The difference is that a grade is on a permanent record. A goofy product gets sold anyway with comparatively little accountability.
If you cannot teach someone else concepts presented in an undergraduate (or high school) environment, chances are (a) they had a bad teacher and/or (b) they do not have the proper prerequisites for the class. If a person appears to have the knowledge required to be admitted to a particular course, the fact that they cannot be taught a concept invariably points to the instructor.
Never attribute to stupidity what can be explained by an elephantine ego and an unwillingness to find an appropriate metaphor.
Most of the time I find a frustration in teaching others to be a symptom of what I like to call "lifelong geek syndrome." This means that some poeple have know something for so long, they have forgotten what it was like to first learn it. I have a hard time remembering what it was like not knowing immediately what a for-loop or a while-loop look like, how they work, and what they are for. This does not absolve me of the responsibility of showing compassion when someone new to the topic ends up working with me on a project (which happens a lot in a web development environment).
Compassion does not mean passing off the busy work or mundane tasks. This helps no one. If they do substandard work because of lack of skills, the mundane tasks will show this and reflect on others. If the person really can't hack it, you need to check the prereqs. If they haven't got the prereqs, YOU ARE NOT DOING THEM OR ANYONE ELSE A FAVOR BY CARRYING THEM. If they have got the prereqs, a little extra care can go a long way. If they have the prereqs and no amount of effort on their part is taking them anywhere, the prereqs probably need to be checked.
Sometimes people have to fail in order to shift gears. If they don't shift gears, I don't want them coding my software.
Re:Half the RAM: almost there
on
Mozilla 0.9 Out
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Windows NT's system monitor lies. That much memory isn't being reclaimed and reallocated that quickly.
IIS 5.0 serves.asp files at approximately flat file speeds (compiling the script files on the first use and watching for changes). The ISAPI filter for XML/XSLT processing is very fast and allows more direct database data publishing with hooks to MS SQL. MS still has the best XML parser on the planet. It also allows better delivery of ActiveX controls to IE than a standard HTTP server.
Reasons not to use it? Once you start using Microsoft, it is VERY hard to stop and retool for something else. Also, if you use one Microsoft product, chances are that it will work best when used with a variety of other Microsoft products so mix-and-match environments are unlikely.
Short answer, if you are a completely Microsoft shop and have no problem being such, there are many advantages to using IIS. If you even THINK you might want to use non-MS components now or in the future, then you probably don't want to use IIS in favor of Apache.
NT 4 w/ journaling hunh? I've heard the same rumor, but I've also waited quite a while while waiting for the filesystem check after a BSOD (and yes, they were NTFS partitions).
And has anyone ever had a boot partition go south on NT 4? I have a few times. Once by my fault and twice by some weird NT voodoo after a blue screen of death.
Win2000 is definitely an improvement, but you have way too much love for NT 4.
Slashdot Mirror
"So who're the morons in the Marketing Depts at the car manufacturers?"
:(
They're busy selling the Prius. Four doors, four cylinder, regenerative braking, and continuously variable transmission. $5K more you say? Well it turns out that they cost about $5K more than an Accord (~$20K).
Okay, it only gets fifty miles to the gallon. It's a start. And it's been selling in the US since summer of last year.
And no, I don't work for Toyota. But I've owned my Prius since November and it's great... Except for a lack of cruise control. That's on the 2002 models.
Heh heh... Ain't that somethin'? I get modded down as Offtopic while two people who agree with my points are marked Interesting and Informative.
Not that I'm complaining. It's just karma after all. Just funny...
As I said, this was four years ago and one of my first experiences with my own UNIX-like installation. Yes, I am aware of uptime and ps (and top) now. I wasn't then.
Starting X on a system is CPU and disk intensive. Doing it in addition to a file process over a parallel port is aptly referred to as a "rudimentary extra load." I wasn't looking for exact timing. I was checking the oh-so-subjective "does it act slower" benchmark; I was eyeballing it with a wristwatch.
The fact remains, unlike DOS/Win or OS/2, Linux did not stutter, wince, or otherwise bog the system down when making a large file transfer with an Iomega parallel port Zip drive.
I know how you feel about the lameness filter. I triggered the lameness filter while posting a C++ code sample. What is slashdot coming to indeed.
Note: It's generally a good idea to benchmark items on working samples -- how long it takes you to get done what you would normally want to do. uptime, ps and top would not necessarily be a better indicator in this case.
And on a completely different note, I had a drive that clicked, but after a while, the clicking stopped and the drive functions fine to this day. Go figure.
The 95% CPU utilization is due to Windows parallel port driver not being written properly. I saw the same thing on OS/2 years ago.
Then as a test -- one of the first things that I did when examining Linux four years ago -- I set up Linux with my parallel port Zip drive. I used X as a rudamentary "extra load" while copying to and from the Zip drive. I saw no visible slowdown.
Granted, Iomega wrote the Zip PPA driver, but there may have been only so much they could do with what they had to work with (Windows parallel port driver)
Programs are linked to the kernel, but are not bound by the GPL. This is due to the above paragraph, not through some loophole or oversight in the GPL. RMS is still right.
What if Microsoft/Oracle/Sun/Whomever said, "And we're giving credit where credit is due. For efficient routines in the upcoming Windows kernel, special thanks go to the work of Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, and many other accomplished developers. We would also like to thank Richard Stallman for the excellent command-line utilities to be bundled with the new OS."
And what if the community response was, "So are you releasing the affected code under GPL as well?"
And what if the response back from the company was, "Why? We've acknowledged that it is GPLed and given credit. That should be enough."
No. It's not enough.
I seriously doubt they are bad people. I wouldn't be surprised if they operate under the best of intentions. This, however, is not the point. If someone takes my wallet, thinking it belongs to them, this is not malice. If they do not agree to give it back, then we have a problem. They have acknowledged that it isn't their wallet, but they still want the money in it. Yes! I have a problem with that!
On their main page, they state the abilities of the program. Now, after all of the hubbub, they have an asterix next to a prominent feature which references a footnote stating that the feature requires GPL code.
It isn't that much of a stretch to state that they wrote their program with the intent that a key feature (isn't it? it's mentioned on their main page to intice potential customers) of their program would *require* GPL code. If you were working with motion video clips, wouldn't the "advanced, automated post-processing" be core to your product.
They are trying to take advantage of the codebase (good) without giving anything of substance back (bad). This is precisely what the GPL is meant to prevent. If they just wanted to swap libraries, they should've found something with a different license (LGPL, BSD, W3C) or written it themselves.
What they did instead was write a less-than-minimum implementation so they had something to point to when someone came snooping around.
I agree with the author of VirtualDub. I have no problems with individuals at the company, but the company has definitely done something wrong.
They wrapped (thinly) to make the DLL code. The author of VirtualDub noted that the DLL just had a couple of new entry points and function name changes, but the headers from VirtualDub most certainly didn't make it into the main code from Vidomi.
Thus the loophole that they are trying to exploit.
I posted elsewhere why this should not be seen as a simple interface vs. implementation issue however. They clearly violate the license. They violate arguably in the letter and definitely in the spirit.
They either need to own up to it, or get the spanking they so richly deserve.
On the contrary, Vidomi's product page advertises the abilities of their software according to the abilities of the GPLed library, not their scaled down, proprietary library.
;) Someone else writes an OS that implements this API. The OS author is not yet in violation as they technically haven't touched any of the GPLed code.
This is another reason the author is so upset. It's fairly obvious that they made a bare-bones, barely functional implementation of the library for the sole purpose of defrauding the original author's licensing terms (GPL).
This is not the same as a clear cut interface vs. implementation argument. Let's say that someone writes a piece of software that implements a filesystem according to a particular API and this filesystem is under the GPL. We'll call this hypothetical filesystem, XFS.
Now let's imagine that the author of the OS writes a barely functional filesystem (like FAT) and offers this as a "default" implementation for the OS. And let's say that the OS author advertises their OS as having journaling, high speed, great reliability, etc. which of course it only has when linked against the XFS code.
That company should not be allowed to simply throw up its hands and say, "Well it really is just an option," when it describes a key piece of functionality for which they advertise. It is quite obvious from their actions that it is not simply an option, it is a fundamental portion of their products abilities.
Back to Vidomi, take away the GPLed code, it does less. THAT makes it a intrinsic part of the overall codebase.
It is NOT the same as interface vs. implementation unless you have an object which only implements half of the interface. If the interface is legit, the half-baked implementation breaks the code! the only way to avoid having the program dump core is to *expect* certain functionality to be missing. This is functionally equivalent to them expecting the GPLed code to be linked, not a coincidence that they happen to implement the same interface.
If Vidomi wrote a fully functional client (a full implementation of the interface) and the GPLed code really was a pluggable option, I might have a little more sympathy for them. Then again, if they had their own library, they wouldn't need the GPLed library, right? The only reason for them to co-op the GPLed code is to get around having to write the complete code within the company. THAT is a violation of the GPL and should be pursued with all vigor.
Not an issue. The 32bit version of XP uses MBR. The Linux-Itanium port supports GPT. Dual booting is still possible for those who are inclined (and have an Itanium).
I wouldn't be too surprised to see a Linux patch (updated utilities) for GPT on ia32 in the future. As long as it's a Linux-only box, you could get rid of the limitations to MBR without having to get an Itanium processor.
The MICROS~1 problem is a filesystem of FAT and FAT32. They already "solved" the problem with NTFS. Note that ext2 doesn't have the MICROS~1 problem, so how can it be a partition table limitation?
According to the article, some of the things that GPT will allow are better partition names and Unicode support. Now why we actually need Unicode for partition names is anyone's guess, but if you're gonna do it, do it all the way.
*cough*
It's an Intel proposal for their ia64 architecture (Itanium) for which the Linux port already has patches to handle.
This does not affect the 32-bit version of XP (which still uses MBR).
*cough*
It's an Intel proposal for their ia64 architecture (Itanium) for which the Linux port already has patches to handle.
I would like to thank you raju1kabir. I have no problem with being wrong as long as someone has made an intelligent rebuttal.
I stand corrected.
*sigh* OK, one last go...
Considering the Holocaust, would you seriously entertain the possibility of going to court in the country that intentionally put millions to death or would you try to go to a more objective court?
But that aside, let's look at your other arguments.
- Web pages and links never trick? What about goatse.cx links on Slashdot? What about incessant popup windows on porn sites? Everything on the web is factual? No on ever got taken for a ride because of a web page?
- Unsolicited advertisements are a type of content, just like porn or the daily paper. It can come on paper, leaflets, email or a newsgroup.
- This is the difference between changing the channel and putting in a new filter rule. Changing the channel (assuming you have a remote handy) takes a couple of seconds to find another, more worthwhile program every time you come across something you don't like. A few seconds here and a few seconds there... An email filter takes a minute to setup once and it continues to work without further intervention in the future unless you wish to add further restrictions. This is like watching TV, seeing another stupid Budweiser commercial, and programming your remote to block all Budweiser commercials from then on.
You state that the worldwide bill is $10-billion. Have you seen the worldwide economy lately? $10-billion is a drop in the bucket. In addition, the lion's share of that bill comes from the EU et al who still have per-minute or per-byte charges. If you look at the cost adjusted for just the US, the numbers get much smaller. So again, why are we pushing for US legislation for something that doesn't affect Americans? I am all for the global village, but limiting spam coming from the US means that people will jump over to Mexico, Canada, or any of the myriad locations in the world that have no spam laws. And legislating spam coming from outside the US is not going to happen.
While we're on the topic of money, do you think that any effort on the part of the US government (and other allied governments) that even hopes to staunch the flow of spam will come with a lower price tag than $10-billion? Do you remember all that hubbub about Big Tobacco? Remember how they got stiffed with a massive fine? Would it surprise you to learn that the tobacco companies paid very little of that money actually made it back to the people? After all was said and done, the lawyers involved made a killing, big tobacco is still jumping, and the average citizen doesn't have much to show for it. Cigarettes are still heavily used across the US. What guarantees can someone give me that anti-spam legislation will be fundamentally different? The fact that there are more potential defendants? The fact that individually they have less money? Be still my beating heart!
And please don't bring up the bandwidth issue again as I would rather not restate that porn takes up far more bandwidth than spam today at your local ISP. And of course spam is growing exponentially. Internet use is growing exponentially. What would expect of spam? To remain static or linear?
With regards to your comparison of spam with me and a megaphone outside your house at 3am, are you serious? When has spam awakened you in the middle of the night similar to a person standing outside your house with a megaphone? Do you have your PC speakers turned up too high at night or something? When it comes down to it, spam is a minor inconvenience in much the same way as the asshole who cut you off in traffic on the way to work except that no one ever died from spam.
And with regards to this massive effort, spam filters thus far are not used on a massive scale and enough people buy the products and services that it contributes to continued spam tactics. A war on spam would be like the war on drugs; Right or wrong, legal or illegal, while people are buying, it will persist.
If you can produce a magic wand that instantly makes spammers see the error of their ways AND makes them discontinue their activites, I'd love to see it. The proposed legislation is NOT that magic wand. Let's llok at real solutions and avoid knee-jerk reactions that may in fact cause more harm than good.
How about a spam filter checkbox on new email package installs so that even grandma can easily say no to spam? Or a call-to-arms to all of the script kiddies out there to stop harassing Uncle Sam and start mail bombing spammers. Hey, they've obviously got plenty of spare time on their hands. I'm all for solutions as long as they look like they will make a positive difference, but I'm not so sure about the bill(s) going through Congress at the moment.
One point, which I did not miss, was that many people differentiate spam from snail-mail mass-mailings in who picks up the tab on the transport of the message. Here, they make it a bandwidth issue.
The Holocaust trials held after WWII were extraordinary circumstances. Germany had just lost a war and had no respectable legal infrastructure. This is by no means the norm.
Another point (and yes, IANAL) is that if you receive a piece of spam from a Taiwanese company selling products/services in Taiwan (and these are more and more common in reality), you have no legal recourse. After all, what are you gonna do? Have Taiwanese courts hold them responsible? What do they care? The company hasn't broken any Taiwanese laws. Have US courts intervene? This sets a bad precedent. Does this then mean that China can sue US citizens and companies over web pages that criticize Chinese policies? After all, in China, they would surely be illegal.
Yes a web page is different from an email, but both are made readily available on the Net for all to see. In the case of the individual receiving some Taiwanese spam, that individual can either (a) hit the delete button (or press 'D' in pine or whatever) or (b) set up a filter so that they, most likely, will never see it. In the case of the web page, China sets up the Great Firewall of China to block the offending site. Where is the difference?
Many people respond to spam. Many people give spammers a livelihood by buying their products. Many people apparently feel that it is performing a useful service. What happened to freedom of choice and personal responsibility? Properly set up filters get rid of 90% (or more) of spam.
Personally, again, I hate spam. I hate it vehemently. However, simply because I don't like it is NOT a valid reason for banning it. Porn makes a great deal of money in this country. It is also one of the most villified segments of the Net. Disagreeing with and villifying are perfectly reasonable actions to take in a free society. Deciding for others that it should go away when there is no significant detriment to your life (mail filters, changing the channel, choice of patronization, etc.) is NOT. With all of the issues involved with the Net, while spam may be one of the most annoying, it is not something that infringes greatly on our lives.
You and I may agree that Americans should make all purchases with wisdom and foresight, but we have no right to force this behavior on others. It is the right of every American to be stupid no matter how annoying we may find it. Hell! It's my right to write a post that you may find ignorant. This is not murder. This is not theft. This is a minor inconvenience. It is important to recognize the difference.
...but the bandwidth issue is a red herring. If you want to put a dent in bandwidth usage, shut down the porn newsgroups on USENET. When you ask ISPs where their bandwidth goes, it is not email (spam). Spam is a nuisance, but not a bandwidth killer. The mail server may choke, but that's not a network bandwidth issue; it is a server upgrade issue. The bandwidth is getting sucked up by alt.binaries.pictures.*, alt.binaries.movies.*, and live nude streaming web sites.
I used to be in the "legislate spam" camp until a very important point was brought up. What happens if the spam comes from Taiwan? U.S. spam laws will mean precisely dick! What if someone jumps over the border to Canada or Mexico to send spam? U.S. spam laws will mean precisely dick!
Any spam legislation will only affect U.S. entities physically located in the U.S. sending to U.S. recipients. If any of those prerequisites is missing, any U.S. legislation means precisely dick!
The only way to stop spam is to stop the source, close all open gateways, close access to all open gateways, or (most effective, but most difficult) get Americans to stop patronizing businesses that spam.
Unfortunately, unlike the sun, Detroit could legitimately be seen as cruel or unusual punishment.
cheating != learning
If your school informally requires cheating, maybe you should formally transfer to a different school.
A school's good name matters for getting a good first job, but your actual knowledge will carry you further.
In my CS classes, we turned in the source to our programs, not just a binary. Are you saying that the CS professors and TAs couldn't immediately recognize a program where only the variable names changed?
You should have gone to a different college -- one where the teachers actually paid attention.
But doing this teaches a great lesson for the working world! By being put in groups with folks who need some extra help, universities around the world are preparing scientists and engineers for day-to-day dealings with marketing and sales departments.
:/
Don't have time to explain it to them? Then be prepared to be held accountable for an unrealistic release date.
This post was intending to be funny until I looked around at my office...
"...I've found it much easier to do in a real job because everyone (me included) is prepared to tolerate other people's ideas when it won't mean the plummetting of a good grade"
And here we see why a lot of commercial software sucks. With school, it's the grade that suffers. In the real job, it's the product.
The difference is that a grade is on a permanent record. A goofy product gets sold anyway with comparatively little accountability.
If you cannot teach someone else concepts presented in an undergraduate (or high school) environment, chances are (a) they had a bad teacher and/or (b) they do not have the proper prerequisites for the class. If a person appears to have the knowledge required to be admitted to a particular course, the fact that they cannot be taught a concept invariably points to the instructor.
Never attribute to stupidity what can be explained by an elephantine ego and an unwillingness to find an appropriate metaphor.
Most of the time I find a frustration in teaching others to be a symptom of what I like to call "lifelong geek syndrome." This means that some poeple have know something for so long, they have forgotten what it was like to first learn it. I have a hard time remembering what it was like not knowing immediately what a for-loop or a while-loop look like, how they work, and what they are for. This does not absolve me of the responsibility of showing compassion when someone new to the topic ends up working with me on a project (which happens a lot in a web development environment).
Compassion does not mean passing off the busy work or mundane tasks. This helps no one. If they do substandard work because of lack of skills, the mundane tasks will show this and reflect on others. If the person really can't hack it, you need to check the prereqs. If they haven't got the prereqs, YOU ARE NOT DOING THEM OR ANYONE ELSE A FAVOR BY CARRYING THEM. If they have got the prereqs, a little extra care can go a long way. If they have the prereqs and no amount of effort on their part is taking them anywhere, the prereqs probably need to be checked.
Sometimes people have to fail in order to shift gears. If they don't shift gears, I don't want them coding my software.
Windows NT's system monitor lies. That much memory isn't being reclaimed and reallocated that quickly.
IIS 5.0 serves .asp files at approximately flat file speeds (compiling the script files on the first use and watching for changes). The ISAPI filter for XML/XSLT processing is very fast and allows more direct database data publishing with hooks to MS SQL. MS still has the best XML parser on the planet. It also allows better delivery of ActiveX controls to IE than a standard HTTP server.
Reasons not to use it? Once you start using Microsoft, it is VERY hard to stop and retool for something else. Also, if you use one Microsoft product, chances are that it will work best when used with a variety of other Microsoft products so mix-and-match environments are unlikely.
Short answer, if you are a completely Microsoft shop and have no problem being such, there are many advantages to using IIS. If you even THINK you might want to use non-MS components now or in the future, then you probably don't want to use IIS in favor of Apache.
NT 4 w/ journaling hunh? I've heard the same rumor, but I've also waited quite a while while waiting for the filesystem check after a BSOD (and yes, they were NTFS partitions).
And has anyone ever had a boot partition go south on NT 4? I have a few times. Once by my fault and twice by some weird NT voodoo after a blue screen of death.
Win2000 is definitely an improvement, but you have way too much love for NT 4.