I stand corrected as to the attribution. The poster is a greater idiot than Hemos.
But Hemos deserves some blame for posting such a ridiculous commentary without further editorial comment. We must assume his silence means assent.
Nevertheless, I admit my mistake in attributing full culpability for such a stupid news story commentary. But the sentiment and facts behind my original post remain unaltered and unredacted.
We would hate to use an innovative idea to fight this scurge. Better for people to basically die of insomnia than Hemo's hippy-dippy sensibilities to be offended by the use of,*horror*, radiation in a completely safe way.
"This is essentially a case where it (the ID) doesn't serve any purpose and it isn't used," [Microsoft's] Caulton said.
Which begs the obvious question of why put it in there in the first place.
The end of the article takes an interesting twist:
In a recent memo, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates ordered his company to check for privacy and security concerns before adding new features.
"Users should be in control of how their data is used," Gates wrote. "Policies for information use should be clear to the user. Users should be in control of when and if they receive information to make best use of their time."
[...]
He said the feature seems to conflict with Gates' directive.
"You can really see the Microsoft culture coming through that Gates wants to change. These guys are digging in their heels," he said.
Bill Gates is not a stupid person. Let us suppose for a few moments that he really has seen the writing on the wall and is sincere about this new direction for the company.
Gates bred this culture that he is now trying to change. And the paradigm shift for his company is much sharper philosophically than the previous one of desktop- to network-centric computing.
And then there is the very real argument that Microsoft's proprietary, closed-source code policy is antithetical, or at the very least sub-prime for dealing with privacy and security concerns.
I would be in much better shape if I was forced to power my computer with muscle-generated electricity.
Think of the health benefits if all of our electonic devices had to be muscle-powered. Couch potatoes would become musclebound, or would get lazy and read more, which is also good.
Internet addicts like myself could get some aerobic activity on a treadmill to power up our 'net surfing.
In a way, this hurdle could prove a boon, by forcing the SETI@home developers to make their system more efficient.
Necessity is, after all, the mother of invention.
As their own statement points out, two of the short-term solutions include making the data sent out more efficient (binary instead of text) and letting each node do more computation.
SETI@home was originally developed to male up for the shortcomings of processing power of any single computer. To solve the problem, they took a bit of a free ride on networking bandwidth to distribute the problem.
Now their success is also forcing them to be more efficient when it comes to network bandwidth, as well as processor, utilization.
So this forced economy will hopefully make the system more efficient through improvement of the system.
Pie-in-the-sky and we have all the computing power and bandwidth we need, but then who would have an incentive to innovate?
Ultimately, SETI@home's legacy will probably have less to do with discoveries of extraterrestrial intelligence and more to do with the evolution of better computing techniques!
While I sort of prefer the straightforwardness and the simplicity of the BSD license, I have to give credit to the GPL on at least one important, perhaps supreme, area: it seems to give better results.
Now really there is more correlation than causation involved here, but Linux is GPL'ed and BSD is, well, BSD'ed, and Linux seems to be winning the race at this point.
Now, there are other factors involoved, other than the way these unices are licensed, but couldn't this be a very important factor?
Again, the BSD license has always been more appealing to me, but GPL'ed
software seems to get better proliferation.
I'd love to hear some other thoughts or examples along these lines.
What is even more amazing, I have found a secret government program that aids and abets this cursed addiction. Because so few people will be reading this (this is a discussion about reading, after all.), I will pass on to you the name of this institution in special Roman Swine code:
Gee, "All entries become the property of the FreeBSD Foundation." That sure sounds like a sweet open-source kind of deal. You send them a picture, for their product, and they get to own it whether they use it or not!
Excessive legalisms are a bane of existence, but so are stupid ones. I don't know the enforceability of this joke of a contest rule, since generally a contract is only valid if both parties get something of value in the deal.
Would programmers put up with such a noxious clause regarding their software submissions to FreeBSD?
I have the same experience. The web site is slow but the streaming video is maxing out my broadband at 1050 Kbs.
This is pretty interesting. I guess they did a good job scaling their video servers but not a good job on the web server. Kudos to them for devoting the most resources to the most important application.
Gotta get a bitchin' domain name : )
on
VeriSign Buys .tv
·
· Score: 2
Dammit! slashdot.tv is already snagged, but thank G-D that slash.tv is still available for a paltry $400/year! What a bargain!
Seriously though,.tv corporation's sliding scale pricing policy is pretty scary, as it charges more for "more desireable", but unregistered, names. I don't doubt that Verisign will continue such a nasty practice. I just hope they don't try to apply it to other TLD's. I know that they shouldn't be able too, but when has that ever stopped them. Maybe that is why they are hoarding expired domain names.
The "Premium Discount Search" actually looks like a pretty good deal. Since Northern Light charges $1-$4/document normally, this discount rate could be very economical.
There is one *free* source of premium online info that is often not well known: Your local library.
So what should I do, as a new user? Go with bleeding edge 2.4.whatever, or go with 2.2.whatever and do without things like !USB!? I'm looking to build a box to play around with as a desktop workstation but mostly experiment with setting it up as a server.
I guess I more understand why Debian stable is still at 2.2. And I'll probably go with Debian as I can't trust Mandrake, it screwed with my machine too much on an install, and was completely unstable; Slackware seems to be dying a long slow death, not even maintaining a support forum; and Redhat just seems too corporate/business-oriented for a lil' guy like me.
Looking forward to suggestions on how to proceed and inevitable flames on not being h4CK3R 31it3 enough.
I've been looking at a few domain names held by network solutions for almost three months now. They expired three months ago and are still not available.
Oddly enough, the owner of the *expired* name is willing to sell it. Net. Sol. is the most expensive registrar out there, with the worst agreement contract. The system is seriously broke. The only solution I can think of is government action, but I can't see the current Bush administration doing anything. I hold out some hope that maybe some technocrats in Europe will pick up and run with this travesty.
Numbers? Yeah, OK. $200,000,000 is a more accurate figure. But that's still a big figure, and is likely to be a minimum of a quarter the cost of the hardware.
And the ~$1,000,000,000 for the hardware is pretty expensive as well. Whatever OS is used, the cost is prohibitive.
The government would save loads of cash because it would cut down on the resources needed for filing, archiving, form-checking etc.; hence reducing taxes which I somehow have the impression you'd be in favour of:)
Whether these projects would be feasible, secure, cost-effective, or even desireable are certainly not established. In the short-term, they would certainly be expensive undertakings.
People are already forced pay tax and conduct other governmental correspondence through vast amounts of paperwork.[...]And what about education? If you accept that parents are forced to provide education for their kids then it's not much of a step to make sure their kids have access to a computer, and accept a free one if they don't own one.
Most people who would benefit from this plan either don't pay taxes because of a low income, or don't have a computer because they don't want one. Certainly the state does coerce and force its citizens to do certain things, but this does not lessen the imperative that government coersion and control of its constituents' lives should be kept to a minimum. And in the case of children having a computer at home, or even at school, there is really no direct correlation between educational success and computer use.
But if the government is providing computers, then they might as well install an OS that doesn't require them to buy a license
And I counter that it would be an even cheaper proposition to do without the computer in the first place.
Certainly there are worse things that money could be spent on than on computers in people's houses, but there are better things as well. This proposition is self evident when we again consider that computers are almost universally affordable in Belgium. People generally don't have computers because they don't want them, not because they can't afford them. I think we should have faith that people know what's good for them better than a government commissar.
Er, $100 is a lot of cash when you're trying to get a license for everyone in the country.
Population of Belgium ~ 10,000,000
10,000,000 * $100 =
$1,000,000,000
Let's assume that a new computer will not be purchased for every person, but rather for every household that does not have one. So let's assume average household size of 2.5 people, and half don't have a computer.
((10,000,000/2.5)*0.5)*100=
$200,000,000
a much lower, but much more accurate figure. Would using Linux be cheaper? Probably, but when bandying numbers about it is important to maintain some semblance of accuracy and realism. And why shouldn't people have a choice? The cost of hardware, support and installation is the main cost anyway. Or don't you think that users should have the right to choose their operating system?
But the heart of the matter is still that the whole scheme is misplaced, whichever OS would be used. Belgium is a prosperous country. Computers are cheap. Just about anyone who wants a computer can afford one. Education is free to all citizens at the highest levels.
Good government should not dictate to people how they should live their lives and what goods and services they should use. Good government merely allows people the opportunity to prosper.
With the money and education available to just about everyone who wants it in Belgium, so are computers available to just about everyone who wants them as well. But in a free society, the individual person ultimately decides, not some central-planning commissar.
And despite your assertion of the great good work that all these newbies will be putting their computers to, let us not suppose that they will be more virtuous than current computer users, who are playing Quake and looking for nipple shots of Britney Spears far more often than they use their computers to research issues of civic concern (let alone vote!) or file their taxes online.
There is a fundamental difference in our positions. It cannot be argued that nearly all Belgian households have the means to acquire a computer if they so wished.
Your argument says that those that don't get a computer don't because they are foolish and they must be forced to take one.
My argument is that those that don't have a computer have that right, and should spend their, or the government's money on whatever they want, whether it be a M$ OS box, a Linux box, a weekend in the country or just a few less days that they need to work (to pay for all these great social programs, like free computers)
I believe individual choice and freedom trumps the tyranny of central planning, no matter how enlightened or well-meaning the purpose.
I hate paying money for software myself, but let's get the price of the software accurately placed. At a volume, and this one is a huge volume, the MS OS would probably cost less than $50 a platform, as even an OEM version of XP in the States cost just $149 at a retailer.
And if they just have a basic suite like Works, it would probably cost another $50, at the very most.
I'm not necessarily for MS in this case, but you have to get the numbers right. To a certain degree, the added configuration cost of Linux would be greatly reduced as you have to assume that the platform chosen and the installation done would be carefully thought out in regards to compatibility and other issues.
I'm sorry to say it, but I just think that this Belgian project is a bad idea whichever platform they use. Computers and Internet access are inexpensive enough nowadays that they are affordable by 95% of households, especially in a prosperous country like Belgium with a very generous social security regime. Of those households that don't have them, and can afford them, why force a computer on them when they would use it as a doorstop.
And for the 5% that can't afford them, they probably have greater concerns than being able to play quake or download naked pictures Britney Spears.
Slashdot Mirror
Please don't attribute any insecurities you may have concerning your own intelligence to me due to a simple mispelling.
Or did you have a substantive difference of opinion with me and being unable to express it, did you resort to rude potshots at my spelling?
Your correction would have been appreciated had it not been couched in such carping snideness.
I stand corrected as to the attribution. The poster is a greater idiot than Hemos.
But Hemos deserves some blame for posting such a ridiculous commentary without further editorial comment. We must assume his silence means assent.
Nevertheless, I admit my mistake in attributing full culpability for such a stupid news story commentary. But the sentiment and facts behind my original post remain unaltered and unredacted.
Boy, ain't I topping it off the crusader today?
Hemos' commentary is quite the misinformed hysteria.
,*horror*, radiation in a completely safe way.
What will he complain about next: those half-dead virii that are intentionally injected into people!?!
Ha Ha Ha! The tetse fly carries the sleeping sickness that threatens the lives and livelihoods of 60 million people.
Boy, what a hoot!
We would hate to use an innovative idea to fight this scurge. Better for people to basically die of insomnia than Hemo's hippy-dippy sensibilities to be offended by the use of
from the article:
"This is essentially a case where it (the ID) doesn't serve any purpose and it isn't used," [Microsoft's] Caulton said.
Which begs the obvious question of why put it in there in the first place.
The end of the article takes an interesting twist:
In a recent memo, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates ordered his company to check for privacy and security concerns before adding new features.
"Users should be in control of how their data is used," Gates wrote. "Policies for information use should be clear to the user. Users should be in control of when and if they receive information to make best use of their time."
[...]
He said the feature seems to conflict with Gates' directive.
"You can really see the Microsoft culture coming through that Gates wants to change. These guys are digging in their heels," he said.
Bill Gates is not a stupid person. Let us suppose for a few moments that he really has seen the writing on the wall and is sincere about this new direction for the company.
Gates bred this culture that he is now trying to change. And the paradigm shift for his company is much sharper philosophically than the previous one of desktop- to network-centric computing.
And then there is the very real argument that Microsoft's proprietary, closed-source code policy is antithetical, or at the very least sub-prime for dealing with privacy and security concerns.
What's an ersatz-visionary computer mogul to do?
I think that they mean that Yahoo censors and filters content and chats and search results on its /Chinese/ site, not on all Yahoo sites
I would be in much better shape if I was forced to power my computer with muscle-generated electricity.
Think of the health benefits if all of our electonic devices had to be muscle-powered. Couch potatoes would become musclebound, or would get lazy and read more, which is also good.
Internet addicts like myself could get some aerobic activity on a treadmill to power up our 'net surfing.
In a way, this hurdle could prove a boon, by forcing the SETI@home developers to make their system more efficient.
Necessity is, after all, the mother of invention.
As their own statement points out, two of the short-term solutions include making the data sent out more efficient (binary instead of text) and letting each node do more computation.
SETI@home was originally developed to male up for the shortcomings of processing power of any single computer. To solve the problem, they took a bit of a free ride on networking bandwidth to distribute the problem.
Now their success is also forcing them to be more efficient when it comes to network bandwidth, as well as processor, utilization.
So this forced economy will hopefully make the system more efficient through improvement of the system.
Pie-in-the-sky and we have all the computing power and bandwidth we need, but then who would have an incentive to innovate?
Ultimately, SETI@home's legacy will probably have less to do with discoveries of extraterrestrial intelligence and more to do with the evolution of better computing techniques!
So why do people still choose the GPL over BSD license?
While I sort of prefer the straightforwardness and the simplicity of the BSD license, I have to give credit to the GPL on at least one important, perhaps supreme, area: it seems to give better results.
Now really there is more correlation than causation involved here, but Linux is GPL'ed and BSD is, well, BSD'ed, and Linux seems to be winning the race at this point.
Now, there are other factors involoved, other than the way these unices are licensed, but couldn't this be a very important factor?
Again, the BSD license has always been more appealing to me, but GPL'ed
software seems to get better proliferation.
I'd love to hear some other thoughts or examples along these lines.
Ouch, my head hurts after trying to read that thing.
Something is wrong with the world when computing is more about legal document than writing code and fiddling with electronic gadgets.
Sometimes I think that GNU just makes matters worse by adding another layer of complexity.
I know it's not true. I know they really do try and help, but my head still hurts.
Ha ha!
Yes it is true, I suffer from this same malady.
What is even more amazing, I have found a secret government program that aids and abets this cursed addiction. Because so few people will be reading this (this is a discussion about reading, after all.), I will pass on to you the name of this institution in special Roman Swine code:
ethay ibrarylay
Gee, "All entries become the property of the FreeBSD Foundation." That sure sounds like a sweet open-source kind of deal. You send them a picture, for their product, and they get to own it whether they use it or not!
Excessive legalisms are a bane of existence, but so are stupid ones. I don't know the enforceability of this joke of a contest rule, since generally a contract is only valid if both parties get something of value in the deal.
Would programmers put up with such a noxious clause regarding their software submissions to FreeBSD?
I have the same experience. The web site is slow but the streaming video is maxing out my broadband at 1050 Kbs.
This is pretty interesting. I guess they did a good job scaling their video servers but not a good job on the web server. Kudos to them for devoting the most resources to the most important application.
Dammit! slashdot.tv is already snagged, but thank G-D that slash.tv is still available for a paltry $400/year! What a bargain!
.tv corporation's sliding scale pricing policy is pretty scary, as it charges more for "more desireable", but unregistered, names. I don't doubt that Verisign will continue such a nasty practice. I just hope they don't try to apply it to other TLD's. I know that they shouldn't be able too, but when has that ever stopped them. Maybe that is why they are hoarding expired domain names.
Seriously though,
The "Premium Discount Search" actually looks like a pretty good deal. Since Northern Light charges $1-$4/document normally, this discount rate could be very economical.
There is one *free* source of premium online info that is often not well known: Your local library.
By entering in my PIN # from my library card, the New York City, Westchester and White Plains library systems have some decent online tools.
They may not be Nexis/Lexis, but they are free, have some pretty decent information available, both in breadth and depth.
Interesting post on debianhelp.org, accusing some in the GNU community of acting like Microsoft with regard to community issues
So what should I do, as a new user? Go with bleeding edge 2.4.whatever, or go with 2.2.whatever and do without things like !USB!? I'm looking to build a box to play around with as a desktop workstation but mostly experiment with setting it up as a server.
I guess I more understand why Debian stable is still at 2.2. And I'll probably go with Debian as I can't trust Mandrake, it screwed with my machine too much on an install, and was completely unstable; Slackware seems to be dying a long slow death, not even maintaining a support forum; and Redhat just seems too corporate/business-oriented for a lil' guy like me.
Looking forward to suggestions on how to proceed and inevitable flames on not being h4CK3R 31it3 enough.
If some of the terminology in this article gets too daunting, check out this online Dictionary of Algorithms, Data Structures, and Problems
I've been looking at a few domain names held by network solutions for almost three months now. They expired three months ago and are still not available.
Oddly enough, the owner of the *expired* name is willing to sell it. Net. Sol. is the most expensive registrar out there, with the worst agreement contract. The system is seriously broke. The only solution I can think of is government action, but I can't see the current Bush administration doing anything. I hold out some hope that maybe some technocrats in Europe will pick up and run with this travesty.
Numbers? Yeah, OK. $200,000,000 is a more accurate figure. But that's still a big figure, and is likely to be a minimum of a quarter the cost of the hardware.
:)
And the ~$1,000,000,000 for the hardware is pretty expensive as well. Whatever OS is used, the cost is prohibitive.
The government would save loads of cash because it would cut down on the resources needed for filing, archiving, form-checking etc.; hence reducing taxes which I somehow have the impression you'd be in favour of
Whether these projects would be feasible, secure, cost-effective, or even desireable are certainly not established. In the short-term, they would certainly be expensive undertakings.
People are already forced pay tax and conduct other governmental correspondence through vast amounts of paperwork.[...]And what about education? If you accept that parents are forced to provide education for their kids then it's not much of a step to make sure their kids have access to a computer, and accept a free one if they don't own one.
Most people who would benefit from this plan either don't pay taxes because of a low income, or don't have a computer because they don't want one. Certainly the state does coerce and force its citizens to do certain things, but this does not lessen the imperative that government coersion and control of its constituents' lives should be kept to a minimum. And in the case of children having a computer at home, or even at school, there is really no direct correlation between educational success and computer use.
But if the government is providing computers, then they might as well install an OS that doesn't require them to buy a license
And I counter that it would be an even cheaper proposition to do without the computer in the first place.
Certainly there are worse things that money could be spent on than on computers in people's houses, but there are better things as well. This proposition is self evident when we again consider that computers are almost universally affordable in Belgium. People generally don't have computers because they don't want them, not because they can't afford them. I think we should have faith that people know what's good for them better than a government commissar.
Er, $100 is a lot of cash when you're trying to get a license for everyone in the country.
Population of Belgium ~ 10,000,000
10,000,000 * $100 =
$1,000,000,000
Let's assume that a new computer will not be purchased for every person, but rather for every household that does not have one. So let's assume average household size of 2.5 people, and half don't have a computer.
((10,000,000/2.5)*0.5)*100=
$200,000,000
a much lower, but much more accurate figure. Would using Linux be cheaper? Probably, but when bandying numbers about it is important to maintain some semblance of accuracy and realism. And why shouldn't people have a choice? The cost of hardware, support and installation is the main cost anyway. Or don't you think that users should have the right to choose their operating system?
But the heart of the matter is still that the whole scheme is misplaced, whichever OS would be used. Belgium is a prosperous country. Computers are cheap. Just about anyone who wants a computer can afford one. Education is free to all citizens at the highest levels.
Good government should not dictate to people how they should live their lives and what goods and services they should use. Good government merely allows people the opportunity to prosper.
With the money and education available to just about everyone who wants it in Belgium, so are computers available to just about everyone who wants them as well. But in a free society, the individual person ultimately decides, not some central-planning commissar.
And despite your assertion of the great good work that all these newbies will be putting their computers to, let us not suppose that they will be more virtuous than current computer users, who are playing Quake and looking for nipple shots of Britney Spears far more often than they use their computers to research issues of civic concern (let alone vote!) or file their taxes online.
There is a fundamental difference in our positions. It cannot be argued that nearly all Belgian households have the means to acquire a computer if they so wished.
Your argument says that those that don't get a computer don't because they are foolish and they must be forced to take one.
My argument is that those that don't have a computer have that right, and should spend their, or the government's money on whatever they want, whether it be a M$ OS box, a Linux box, a weekend in the country or just a few less days that they need to work (to pay for all these great social programs, like free computers)
I believe individual choice and freedom trumps the tyranny of central planning, no matter how enlightened or well-meaning the purpose.
I hate paying money for software myself, but let's get the price of the software accurately placed. At a volume, and this one is a huge volume, the MS OS would probably cost less than $50 a platform, as even an OEM version of XP in the States cost just $149 at a retailer.
And if they just have a basic suite like Works, it would probably cost another $50, at the very most.
I'm not necessarily for MS in this case, but you have to get the numbers right. To a certain degree, the added configuration cost of Linux would be greatly reduced as you have to assume that the platform chosen and the installation done would be carefully thought out in regards to compatibility and other issues.
I'm sorry to say it, but I just think that this Belgian project is a bad idea whichever platform they use. Computers and Internet access are inexpensive enough nowadays that they are affordable by 95% of households, especially in a prosperous country like Belgium with a very generous social security regime. Of those households that don't have them, and can afford them, why force a computer on them when they would use it as a doorstop.
And for the 5% that can't afford them, they probably have greater concerns than being able to play quake or download naked pictures Britney Spears.
This scheme is social activism at its worst.
I can't find anything untoward either.
/.'s part.
So far this looks like a pretty shoddy post on
There really should be some basic fact checking done before stories are posted. Commander Taco, you have some explaining to do.
Yes, but in the meantime, Mobilix must suffer significant legal bills in fighting this frivolous suit.
What are the sanctions that can be applied against the initiator of this farce?
My mouth is hanging open in astonishment. This is too stupid to be true.
I mean what can you say? I've never heard of such gall (pun intended).
Someone is actually trying to claim a trademark on a suffix. Whoops! I can't use that word, it has an "-ix" in it!
Are the Europeans trying to be more ridicuously litigious than the Americans?
I hope that there are sanctions in Europe for frivolous lawsuits.