I think we can all think of examples in which we would want the ISP to be able to identify users who did "bad things", such as attacking our own computers regularly or repeatedly threatening us or our website users, warez, child porn, etc. A responsible ISP cannot simply and completely wash their hands of whatever their users want to do by deleting all traces of users' activity, or they will become a magnet for illegal and genuinely "bad" activity.
Since they must maintain this information for the worst-case scenarios, the will also have it for those gray area scenarios, so they are left in the very difficult position of having to choose whether or not to release this information when it is requested/demanded of them.
As with all P2P issues, I'm torn on this one, but I respect SBC for putting it all on the line and risking their future for the protection of their users' privacy.
Let me just say again how glad I am that there are people keeping track of this stuff. It's nice to know we won't get blindsided one of these days because nobody was paying attention.
I've often said that there were definite technology solutions to the problem of highway safety, but it depends on the goals of the citizenry and the government.
Take speeding, for example. If your goal is to make sure nobody goes over the posted speed limit, then what we have now is not a very effective solution -- wherein people drive however they want to until they see a cop. Most times you can see him in enough time to slow down, but even if you're still going to fast, so is everyone else, and he's obviously looking for the REALLY fast drivers. Oh, and the most important part... once everybody passes the cop, they speed up again.
So, are the roads safer in this situation? I don't think so. You have a quarter mile stretch where people drive the speed limit, and they drive faster than the limit elsewhere on the road.
But maybe the goal isn't highway safety. Maybe it's revenue from tickets. Nothing wrong with that... it's a pefectly legitimate form of revenue for a local government. If you have an automated system in place that tracks all speeders and gives them tickets every single time they speed, speeding will come to an end. Eventually the government's safety program is so effective that nobody speeds and the highways become dramatically safer (most accidents are a result of excessive speed). Then ticket revenue slows to a crawl. Like I said, it depends on your goals.
It's very much like the additional money that is added to the price of a pack of cigarettes in the US, due to the lawsuits against the tobacco companies by various state governments. This money is given to the states, and the states are growing accustomed to having this money for their various programs. But this revenue is based on sales of cigarettes. So does the government have a vested interest in helping people quit? Probably not.
I drive fast... to be sure. The faster you go, the sooner you get there. I feel like I'm a "safe driver". Incidentally, have you heard that most people feel like they're better drivers than most people? The idea of actually having to drive 55 or 65 mph, or slower in many cases, isn't a great thrill to me... but it has become obvious in recent years that we're approaching the problem of speeding in the wrong way. If your objective is REALLY to keep traffic under the speed limit, technology is the way to do it.
Well, I can understand this, even though I've never been quite the academic. I'm sure he doesn't need it for employment, but rather because he wants the education itself. And that's admirable.
Yes, they actually link you to an "infoporn" graphic with a straight face. Apparently, InfoPorn is a division of BMEdia and provides absolutely no explanation on their website for what's GOT to be the most frequentely asked question: "Info PORN?!?!?"
OK, maybe this is offtopic, but not much more than your shameless plug:)
Speaking of shameless (now to the point of my post), it took me just a minute to figure out where you were going with it, but I finally realized that the reason behind your backwards treble clef symbol is a desperate attempt at making an "e". Good God, man. I highly recommend you ditch that idea. This site is partially for students of music, who might thing that backwards treble clefs actually exist.
Just a little feedback. Best of luck to you and your site.
I think there's more to books than "need". I don't need technical books in most cases, because of the extensive information available online. This is especially true of perl, whose documentation is unbelievably vast. But I *like* books (as opposed to need). They're nice to have on the shelf and in a comfortable chair. It gets me the heck of the computer from time to time to read some thoughtful insight from somebody more experienced than me, and to read text that didn't have to be antialiased:)
Document, document, document... and I'm not referring to the code. Make it clear to the weasels that THEY have a choice to make. Quick and dirty will get it out the door, and you'll have to come back and work on it again for the final version. Or if it's processes and technique, make sure they know that's the reason why it can't get done in time. Make the choice clear and let them make it.
I've heard a lot of tales about people who aren't allowed to speak up about these things. BS. Screw 'em. If you're not allowed to speak your mind about these things and tell people the truth, the job isn't worth it.
I didn't have to look far to see the usual "postal service sucks" stuff. Heck, even the poster (as opposed to the submitter) couldn't resist offering a little jab.
These people obviously don't know what it's like outside the United States. yes, I live in the US and I was born here, but I have been around enough to know that the US is where I belong. And the USPS is a great example of why it's so great to live in America. As big as the country is, 2-3 days is usually enough to get mail from anywhere to anwhere (Continental US, of course). I mail things with absolutely no fear of anything getting lost, and I have never known of any situation where something was legitimately lost in the mail.
It's always been an excuse, and a useful one for certain people, since it's impossible to disprove (can't that a letter than can't be found and that wasn't tracked was ever sent). Anyway, I'm sure some people have had trouble with the postal service, and we've all had run-ins with specific postal workers who don't care about their jobs (just like at McDonald's and Kmart and every government office).
The only negative experience I ever had with the actual service was a long time ago... like 15 years or so. A letter had been accidentally "mutilated" on the way to my mailbox. That was their word, not mine. It had obviously gotten caught in some sort of machine and it was useable and readable. But it came sealed in a special plastic covering with an amazingly-apologetic statement, just going on and on about how much of a disappointment and an inconvenience they had been to me. I couldn't believe it.
Ok, I'm done ranting. Continue slamming the postal service all you want. Oh, and by the way, I think this is a good idea. This is an organization that has a high degree of trust and is available for everybody in the US to easily to the in-person visit. Brilliant.
Nothing against the kids themselves, but for crying out loud. Hard to learn to program in 2003? Too bad there's not a free unix-like operating system (actually a few of them) that you can put on any old box that happens to be lying around. Too bad there's no Free Software Foundation to provide a high-quality C compiler. Too bad there's no Perl. To bad there's no Java. Too bad all those things would be so expensive if they existed.
No wait... they DO exist, and they're FREE. Now if only we could come up with an easy and affordable software delivery method to get these poor bastards the code. If only we could connect all the computers in the world together. Dare to dream.
Imagine that. If all the computers in the world could talk to each other, it would revolutionize research. Kids learning to code today wouldn't have to buy all those BOOKS... they could just go look up what they need. They could learn to program from the best programmers in world and collaborate in realtime.
Too bad that doesn't exist. If it did, it would definitely be easier to learn to program than in the 1980s.
Oh, by the way... don't have an old machine lying around and all you have is Windows? Download Cygwin. How much? Yep... free.
You wrote: that's alot of work just to duplicate your favorite film and it's not like they'll make anything from the effort other than the satisfaction of having done it.
Uh, they're making headlines and they have the world premier this weekend. Speilberg loves it. I really want to see it, and I assume I'm not alone. It probably won't go into wide circulation, but it might get some limited theater release, or be shown on TV, or be sold on DVD or something. They're buond to make some money from it.
Does anybody else feel unbelievably comforted that the biggest asteroid concern scientists have is 800 years from now? I guess that pretty much rules out the possibility of getting hit by an asterioid by surprise.
I think there's a big misunderstanding here about what the patent is. It's not just taking "po" and putting that into an SQL "like" statement, oh no. Much more than that. They say "during the query entry process", which means that they'll be using JavaScript or some other client-side code to autocomplete the search term for the user.
Something like this.... if somebody goes to the DVD page, they could load the Top 50 DVDs into a JavaScript Array. And every time the user adds a character to the search field, it would look to that array and see how many titles match what the user has typed so far. When they're down to only one match, they pop the rest of the title into the search box and, in a perfect world, they would auto-select the autocompleted portion so that, if the user continues typing, it will erase the autocompleted portion.
For example, let's say (as a really lame, quick example) that you have two titles in the array:
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
The Hand That Rolls the Dice
The user enters...
"The Hand That Ro"...
and nothing shows up yet, because the "system" (ha!) doesn't know what title you're going to enter. But as soon as you enter the "c" in the word "Rocks", it only has one left and it autocompletes "ks the Cradle".
It's a reasonably good idea (not a great idea, but decent), and it DEFINITELY shouldn't be patentable, because it will become the SECOND thing (that I know of) that I, as a web developer, am prohibited from doing for my customers by law (the first is One-Click, Amazon's first silly little software patent).
Almost all of my open source software interoperates. It's the interoperation we call "unix", and which is so graceful and transparent we don't even realize they're different programs using the same rules to pass information around.
My favorite movie that nobody else seems to know about is Scorchers, starting James Earl Jones, Faye Dunaway, Jennifer Tilly, Denholm Elliot and Emily Lloyd.
The funniest thing about it is that I rented it because I thought it was softcore porn (look at the cover in the link and you'll see what I mean). I took it back to my dorm and fast forwarded through the whole thing looking for action and there wasn't any (except for a preacher's bare ass at the very beginning while having sex with the town whore, but I digress).
But something made me sit and actually watch it, and it it just an amazing movie. If I met any of the starring actors, the first movie I would ask them about is this one, to see how THEY feel about it. It's very funny and very touching, and just so completely different than anything else I've ever seen. And it features Mahler's Adagietto, which is an absolutely marvelous piece of music.
Unfortunately, it will probably never be released on DVD, but you can pick up a VHS of it CHEAP online.
As an occasional website designer, I would like to avoid having to delve into the DOM to maintain a consistent appearance and functionality across platforms/browsers.
Then delve into barebones HTML. But if you want to do anything fancy and make it look/work THE SAME across platforms and browsers, the DOM is what we have, and thank goodness for it. If you don't like the DOM, write something else and get browser support for it. That should only take 3 or 4 years fulltime.
Slashdot Mirror
I think we can all think of examples in which we would want the ISP to be able to identify users who did "bad things", such as attacking our own computers regularly or repeatedly threatening us or our website users, warez, child porn, etc. A responsible ISP cannot simply and completely wash their hands of whatever their users want to do by deleting all traces of users' activity, or they will become a magnet for illegal and genuinely "bad" activity.
Since they must maintain this information for the worst-case scenarios, the will also have it for those gray area scenarios, so they are left in the very difficult position of having to choose whether or not to release this information when it is requested/demanded of them.
As with all P2P issues, I'm torn on this one, but I respect SBC for putting it all on the line and risking their future for the protection of their users' privacy.
RP
He said "penetration"... hehe
Let me just say again how glad I am that there are people keeping track of this stuff. It's nice to know we won't get blindsided one of these days because nobody was paying attention.
RP
I've often said that there were definite technology solutions to the problem of highway safety, but it depends on the goals of the citizenry and the government.
Take speeding, for example. If your goal is to make sure nobody goes over the posted speed limit, then what we have now is not a very effective solution -- wherein people drive however they want to until they see a cop. Most times you can see him in enough time to slow down, but even if you're still going to fast, so is everyone else, and he's obviously looking for the REALLY fast drivers. Oh, and the most important part... once everybody passes the cop, they speed up again.
So, are the roads safer in this situation? I don't think so. You have a quarter mile stretch where people drive the speed limit, and they drive faster than the limit elsewhere on the road.
But maybe the goal isn't highway safety. Maybe it's revenue from tickets. Nothing wrong with that... it's a pefectly legitimate form of revenue for a local government. If you have an automated system in place that tracks all speeders and gives them tickets every single time they speed, speeding will come to an end. Eventually the government's safety program is so effective that nobody speeds and the highways become dramatically safer (most accidents are a result of excessive speed). Then ticket revenue slows to a crawl. Like I said, it depends on your goals.
It's very much like the additional money that is added to the price of a pack of cigarettes in the US, due to the lawsuits against the tobacco companies by various state governments. This money is given to the states, and the states are growing accustomed to having this money for their various programs. But this revenue is based on sales of cigarettes. So does the government have a vested interest in helping people quit? Probably not.
I drive fast... to be sure. The faster you go, the sooner you get there. I feel like I'm a "safe driver". Incidentally, have you heard that most people feel like they're better drivers than most people? The idea of actually having to drive 55 or 65 mph, or slower in many cases, isn't a great thrill to me... but it has become obvious in recent years that we're approaching the problem of speeding in the wrong way. If your objective is REALLY to keep traffic under the speed limit, technology is the way to do it.
RP
Well, I can understand this, even though I've never been quite the academic. I'm sure he doesn't need it for employment, but rather because he wants the education itself. And that's admirable.
RP
Yes, they actually link you to an "infoporn" graphic with a straight face. Apparently, InfoPorn is a division of BMEdia and provides absolutely no explanation on their website for what's GOT to be the most frequentely asked question: "Info PORN?!?!?"
Weird.
RP
OK, maybe this is offtopic, but not much more than your shameless plug :)
Speaking of shameless (now to the point of my post), it took me just a minute to figure out where you were going with it, but I finally realized that the reason behind your backwards treble clef symbol is a desperate attempt at making an "e". Good God, man. I highly recommend you ditch that idea. This site is partially for students of music, who might thing that backwards treble clefs actually exist.
Just a little feedback. Best of luck to you and your site.
Thanks,
RP
If you had RTF message, you would have seen that the FSF used the exact same argument to NOT break GCC on SCO Unix.
I think there's more to books than "need". I don't need technical books in most cases, because of the extensive information available online. This is especially true of perl, whose documentation is unbelievably vast. But I *like* books (as opposed to need). They're nice to have on the shelf and in a comfortable chair. It gets me the heck of the computer from time to time to read some thoughtful insight from somebody more experienced than me, and to read text that didn't have to be antialiased :)
With innovation like that, they should go back to their old name.
iPod... the second-sexiest thing you can hold in the palm of your hand (I shamelessly ripped that off from a sig somewhere along the way)
RP
Document, document, document... and I'm not referring to the code. Make it clear to the weasels that THEY have a choice to make. Quick and dirty will get it out the door, and you'll have to come back and work on it again for the final version. Or if it's processes and technique, make sure they know that's the reason why it can't get done in time. Make the choice clear and let them make it.
I've heard a lot of tales about people who aren't allowed to speak up about these things. BS. Screw 'em. If you're not allowed to speak your mind about these things and tell people the truth, the job isn't worth it.
RP
I didn't have to look far to see the usual "postal service sucks" stuff. Heck, even the poster (as opposed to the submitter) couldn't resist offering a little jab.
These people obviously don't know what it's like outside the United States. yes, I live in the US and I was born here, but I have been around enough to know that the US is where I belong. And the USPS is a great example of why it's so great to live in America. As big as the country is, 2-3 days is usually enough to get mail from anywhere to anwhere (Continental US, of course). I mail things with absolutely no fear of anything getting lost, and I have never known of any situation where something was legitimately lost in the mail.
It's always been an excuse, and a useful one for certain people, since it's impossible to disprove (can't that a letter than can't be found and that wasn't tracked was ever sent). Anyway, I'm sure some people have had trouble with the postal service, and we've all had run-ins with specific postal workers who don't care about their jobs (just like at McDonald's and Kmart and every government office).
The only negative experience I ever had with the actual service was a long time ago... like 15 years or so. A letter had been accidentally "mutilated" on the way to my mailbox. That was their word, not mine. It had obviously gotten caught in some sort of machine and it was useable and readable. But it came sealed in a special plastic covering with an amazingly-apologetic statement, just going on and on about how much of a disappointment and an inconvenience they had been to me. I couldn't believe it.
Ok, I'm done ranting. Continue slamming the postal service all you want. Oh, and by the way, I think this is a good idea. This is an organization that has a high degree of trust and is available for everybody in the US to easily to the in-person visit. Brilliant.
RP
Nothing against the kids themselves, but for crying out loud. Hard to learn to program in 2003? Too bad there's not a free unix-like operating system (actually a few of them) that you can put on any old box that happens to be lying around. Too bad there's no Free Software Foundation to provide a high-quality C compiler. Too bad there's no Perl. To bad there's no Java. Too bad all those things would be so expensive if they existed.
No wait... they DO exist, and they're FREE. Now if only we could come up with an easy and affordable software delivery method to get these poor bastards the code. If only we could connect all the computers in the world together. Dare to dream.
Imagine that. If all the computers in the world could talk to each other, it would revolutionize research. Kids learning to code today wouldn't have to buy all those BOOKS... they could just go look up what they need. They could learn to program from the best programmers in world and collaborate in realtime.
Too bad that doesn't exist. If it did, it would definitely be easier to learn to program than in the 1980s.
Oh, by the way... don't have an old machine lying around and all you have is Windows? Download Cygwin. How much? Yep... free.
RP
You wrote: that's alot of work just to duplicate your favorite film and it's not like they'll make anything from the effort other than the satisfaction of having done it.
Uh, they're making headlines and they have the world premier this weekend. Speilberg loves it. I really want to see it, and I assume I'm not alone. It probably won't go into wide circulation, but it might get some limited theater release, or be shown on TV, or be sold on DVD or something. They're buond to make some money from it.
Wouldn't you love to see THAT lawsuit. It might even make national mainstream press. Everybody would come to the table on that one to support Linus.
Does anybody else feel unbelievably comforted that the biggest asteroid concern scientists have is 800 years from now? I guess that pretty much rules out the possibility of getting hit by an asterioid by surprise.
Something like this.... if somebody goes to the DVD page, they could load the Top 50 DVDs into a JavaScript Array. And every time the user adds a character to the search field, it would look to that array and see how many titles match what the user has typed so far. When they're down to only one match, they pop the rest of the title into the search box and, in a perfect world, they would auto-select the autocompleted portion so that, if the user continues typing, it will erase the autocompleted portion.
For example, let's say (as a really lame, quick example) that you have two titles in the array:
The user enters...
"The Hand That Ro"...
and nothing shows up yet, because the "system" (ha!) doesn't know what title you're going to enter. But as soon as you enter the "c" in the word "Rocks", it only has one left and it autocompletes "ks the Cradle".
It's a reasonably good idea (not a great idea, but decent), and it DEFINITELY shouldn't be patentable, because it will become the SECOND thing (that I know of) that I, as a web developer, am prohibited from doing for my customers by law (the first is One-Click, Amazon's first silly little software patent).
Just my USD 0.02
First of all, I had never heard of the Firebird database, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Now I have, and I'm sure the publicity is working out for them.
Secondly, why don't that just change their name to MozillaSQL or something? Good for the goose, right?
"...and I am in charge of setting it up and resetting the global UNIX standard"
Holy crap, what a lot of pressure. Seems like I would have seen a press release or something... "Celltech to reset global UNIX standard".
Almost all of my open source software interoperates. It's the interoperation we call "unix", and which is so graceful and transparent we don't even realize they're different programs using the same rules to pass information around.
I would moderate you up if you could go past a five. That is so hilarious and well-written... I'm very pleased to read it.
That's an urban legend.
My favorite movie that nobody else seems to know about is Scorchers,
starting James Earl Jones, Faye Dunaway, Jennifer Tilly, Denholm Elliot and Emily Lloyd.
The funniest thing about it is that I rented it because I thought it was softcore porn (look at the cover in the link and you'll see what I mean). I took it back to my dorm and fast forwarded through the whole thing looking for action and there wasn't any (except for a preacher's bare ass at the very beginning while having sex with the town whore, but I digress).
But something made me sit and actually watch it, and it it just an amazing movie. If I met any of the starring actors, the first movie I would ask them about is this one, to see how THEY feel about it. It's very funny and very touching, and just so completely different than anything else I've ever seen. And it features Mahler's Adagietto, which is an absolutely marvelous piece of music.
Unfortunately, it will probably never be released on DVD, but you can pick up a VHS of it CHEAP online.
RP
As an occasional website designer, I would like to avoid having to delve into the DOM to maintain a consistent appearance and functionality across platforms/browsers.
Then delve into barebones HTML. But if you want to do anything fancy and make it look/work THE SAME across platforms and browsers, the DOM is what we have, and thank goodness for it. If you don't like the DOM, write something else and get browser support for it. That should only take 3 or 4 years fulltime.
RP
As patents get sillier, the jokes almost write themselves. I withdraw my joke on the grounds that it's just too easy.