The problem with this is just that: my CAR telling somebody about my habits? Isn't that what we have police officers for? If I let my buddy borrow my pickup to move a desk, and he speeds, I get the ticket & the insurance ding? Oh wait. Why not use the RFID tags in my clothing to make sure that I get the ticket?
But if he uses it NOW and kills someone in an accident, you are liable to be sued and your rates go up. All this without any nifty traffic monitoring device. Ain't life grand?
I assume, then, the first time you drive like an idiot, or forget to signal, you'll be prepared for the officers when you pull in your driveway.
Like they already do in New York state, where thanks to road rage laws, a simple call, "such and such a car with plates XYZ-123 was behaving erratically on this road and this time", gets you a knock at the door by a uniformed officer who reads you the riot act.
But it wont work because if a device can tell if your antilock brakes are working it can just as easily tell if your speeding or any other number of big brother activities. This information could be relayed to your local municipality and insurance company. Imagine discovering that you've gotten a speeding ticket and your insurance rates went up before you even finished driving home.
As another reader wrote, just because they CAN, doesn't mean they will. For a while people were worried about EZ-Pass and Fastlane automatic toll transponders, because they timestamp when you arrive at each toll, they could be used to catch people speeding. Of course, no one has ever received a summons in the mail because of it, yet they still use it.
If it's a voluntary system, I don't see the trouble. It's amazing how open-source geeks who want to try to build everything suddenly get all RIAA and support technology restriction, simply because it (like all tools) has the potential to be abused.
Yeah, because it's not like the government isn't already monitoring your speed and the road conditions with traffic cameras and speed & ground radar. Dammit, citizens have a right to their anti-lock brake systems' privacy!
The unfortunate part is, when I made that comment, I had Gibson's later books in mind. I happen to agree completely (that Gibson's earlier stuff is better, and I liked Pattern Recognition too).
I don't agree that he "gets the IP and tech issues that affect us today and tomorrow", but then, I don't think anyone really "gets" it. I mean, I've heard persuasive arguments from both sides of the issue, so I don't think, as it stands, there's a clear "this is the right way, that's the wrong way" to do it. I think the knee-jerk anti-copyright reaction of your average slashdotter belies a key ignorance or unwillingness to understand the complexities of the issue.
As for your "believable day-after-tomorrow view", if you haven't already, I highly recommend picking up the trade paperbacks of Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's comic Transmetropolitan. They present a much more interesting, funny and thought-provoking day-after-tomorrow view that is devoid of the subtle "I'm so clever" navel-gazing that goes on in Doctorow's writing. For me, that, along with Gibson's collection Burning Chrome are the benchmark for realistic near-future sci-fi. In light of those, Doctorow's work stands up as a pale imitation.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is great stuff in the spirit of Gibson and Stephenson.
That's my problem; I've read a number of the short stories he's made available and it's "in the spirit of Gibson and Stephenson" the way the Soviet space shuttle was "in the spirit" of the US design. (Sorry for the obscure reference, it was the first to come to mind.) The themes of his stories are pedestrian, even by sci-fi standards, and his writing style is all the style of Dick and Gibson with none of the substance. He tries to converse in these languages (sci-fi topics, and worse, actual tech issues) the same way a parrot might try to converse with Spaulding Gray. He knows the buzzwords because they are buzzwords, but that's about it as far as his talent goes.
So he's a mediocre sci-fi author who has deigns on the tech world, what's the big deal, right? Right, except for, as you mention, he gets more press than he quite deserves. I don't understand why so many slashdotters get in such a tizzy about him when there are a thousand of his analogs out there that nobody cares about.
As for the copyright issue, that's a YMMV debate. Some authors might want to keep tabs on the stuff they've written, and I don't see why they should be castigated or thought to be morally inferior to people who don't care if their names are attached to a given work. If Doctorow wants to give his work away, hey great, but not every author is an internet dilettante. Some people need to feed their families this way. Nobody harps on Asimov for doing the same thing.
...I renew my call for a Cory Doctorow filter. Just when it looks like/. has seen the last of Jon Katz, we get the heir apparent to the throne of 'know-nothing geek-worshipper'.
I just think he's an enormously overrated author who is enamored with his own l33+n355. I've read some of the short stories he has made available (and to be honest, I haven't finished them; I got so sick of his imitation-Gibson prose and warmed-over Philip K. Dick themes that I just couldn't finish them). Add to that his posts on boingboing.net, where he zealously drops buzzwords the way some people drop names and is eternally trying to prove his mastery over all things "geek" and "tech". (I mean, who really needs to advertise that they "wrote a mail filter"? I know it's just a throwaway point, but its presence in the article strikes me as posturing.) Most of what he posts is just cute net "memes", devoid of any interesting technical aspects or issues. I'm sorry, Mr. Doctorow, but I'm not impressed because you have mouse gestures and you've "written mail filters" (as if they're more complex than IM messages) and you might (gasp!) know how to turn a mozilla tarball into a working browser on the linux machine someone set up for you.
This is not to criticize people who are not technically inclined; the trouble is when they try to start talking intelligently about it, rather than actually being an expert on it (or just as good, consulting with experts). He comes off as a guy who reads Wired magazine for the hype and the jargon watch. But watching him pontificate on technical things is like watching a teenager comment on beltway politics. It's the difference between someone who churns out a Pearl Harbor vs. Tora! Tora! Tora!.
Slashdot ought to widen their story filters to allow filtering of "hacks who rip off more successful authors and/or talk about technology while having barely the slightest idea how it actually works". This way I can filter stories by Jon Katz and those submitted by/about Cory Doctorow.
What incentive do slashdot readers have to feel like companies are plotting to restrict their freedoms to print fake money? Is this a precursor to alarmism about DRM in wristwatches, digital calculators and tiny RC cars sold by thinkgeek?
The first rule of any kind of shoulder bag that will tote a laptop is, NEVER select one with one of those mini-carabiner plastic clips. They WILL break, it's only a matter of time. Sorry if you really love that eastpak, if the color's nice, et cetera; if it's got the plastic, it ain't boombastic.
Here are just a scant few guidelines from a guy who's spent a lot of time and money buying different, cheapo bags.
First, materials. The shoulder strap ought to be made from something that resembles a car seat belt. Leather would do, as well, provided it's not simply a covering over some foam; it will crack and eventually fail. Two (or three) strips of leather sewn flat together, from one end of the bag to the other, is very durable.
Next, stitching. Examine. It should look better than your mom's (unless she's a professional seamstress). The stitching should be made with thick thread, and should be at least double stitched all over the strap. Single stitching is completely unacceptable.
Make sure the strap is NOT sewn into a seam. I can't emphasize this enough. The repeated stress from the strap will not only rip it out, it will rip the seam apart as well. It should also not be sewn to the top of the bag unless it's not a shoulder strap. It should be sewn into the side of the bag.
Finally, look at it overall.Does it look like something you'd want to take to work, school, whereever? Do you plan to use it daily for years to come, or only for the rare occasion you tote it around? Do you use it only for work, or do you tote around other heavy objects (like engineering textbooks)? All the good things I've mentioned tend to make these kinds of bags very expensive, for good reason. But I firmly believe you end up saving money on buying replacements for cheaper bags.
I'm sure there are tons of good manufacturers out there, but I can't recommend any more than the one company that's solved my problems for almost ten years now. Courierware, an old Cambridge stalwart, makes fairly indestructible bags. (and that they do; I still have and use mine daily.) They make high quality bags from high quality material and hand stitch it very securely. They back their work with a lifetime guarantee; if ever the stitching or material fails through normal use, they will fix it for free. I really, really like these guys and recommend them as the last casual bag you'll ever buy.
But if you don't want to go whole hog and get a new bag, they also make great laptop inserts that I've been using with my TiBook for a couple years now. They keep it scratch free and help it survive the occasional drop (I know).
...right up until he wrote about how Apple and Dell are "misleading" customers by pricing their their boxes at $x-1 instead of $x. As if their sales really are dependent on nitwits saying "hot damn, I can get that machine for under $x! I never would've bought it for that much!" In short, his whining about a "marketing ploy" is a complaint about a pricing policy so common that, well, almost everyone, from computer companies to car companies to the corner grocer selling apples for 99 cents a pound are "misleading the public". And if people can be so mislead by a one cent/dollar reduction in price, who would be intelligent enough to read his review?
He also casually mentions that "most people use Integer (not FP) most of the time. Therefore, integer results (SPECint) are much more important than floating-point results (SPECfp)." What qualifies as "most people" using integer "most of the time"? Doesn't he have any data on FP usage?
And was I the only person that noticed almost all the results he posted had a caveat that such a benchmark "is a single-processor test, so in the following results, where the computer has a second processor, it is either disabled or not used."? Aren't these dual processor Apples we're comparing with single processor Oranges? (sorry, couldn't resist.) It might make sense if Apple actually ships machines with useless second processors where architecture and OS make them essentially uniprocessor machines. But if Apple does indeed sell multiprocessor machines, and I understand it, they are, shouldn't that be taken into account? What I read was not that Apple claimed that the PPC 970 is the fastest chip, but rather the dual processor G5 is the fastest desktop computer.
About all he convinced me of is that Apple perhaps twisting benchmarks for their own ends. But his review is hardly a clear and unambiguous refutation of Apple's statements.
so when will Apple go bankrupt/get bought out now? I'm sure they spent their entire year's profit on this keynote address. I hear their marketing budget for this new OS is bigger than their development budget. Oh wait, that's microsoft.
These "artists" are suddenly running up against the reality that their egos are much larger than their fan base. Most major label artists, the groups/singers/performers/whatevers that are known worldwide and heard endlessly on Top 40 stations, are not artists in the sense we might consider perhaps classical composers or even modern trailblazers like Elvis, Bob Dylan or Grandmaster Flash. They are simply hit machines. The music they make is not particularly unique or revolutionary. Rather, it's just noise for people to dance to at clubs, blast out of their 8000 watt car stereos or hear in the background at the gym or office. Their music will not be remembered on anything other than "Now that's what I call one-hit-wonders vol. LXVII"-type compilations.
As such, people don't want their albums. They buy them when there's no other way to get the hits they hear on the radio. Nobody will identify that sixth track on Shakira's latest album, but they will remember the one in the Pepsi commercials (if she's so lucky). The only substantitive difference between the two is the fact that the song is widely identifiable; the quality is not particularly great in either case. People don't want the albums, they want the hits. This is the reason for the massive appeal of the apple music store and P2P mp3 sharing beyond a few geeks looking to find some obscure Front 242 or Cure B-side.
And this runs straight up against the millionaire "artists" who conceive themselves as visionaries and look to their worldwide appeal as proof that they are, indeed, somehow different than their peers. As if the rise of Linkin Park from the engorged field of "rap-rock" crossovers had something to do intrinsically with their band's music, attitude or aptitude rather than the pure dumb luck of having caught the eye of a major label with the presence of mind to hype the hell out of them.
The artists in question are having to deal with the unpleasant fact that their visions of themselves as pioneers, saviors or rebels do not quite gel with the views of their customers, who see them merely as soundtracks -- soundtracks that get old and need to be changed, like everything else.
the problem isn't attracting them --
on
Sun's Last Stand
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
-- it's keeping them. I went to work for Sun my first job out of school. Our lab had largely Sun workstations and I really cut my unix teeth with Solaris, so the opportunity to go work for them was huge for me. When I went to work there, only 3 people in my group were over 30.
I went to interview at their brand new (at the time) Burlington, MA facility and I was simply amazed at the place; the facilities, the people and the atmosphere was so key in my going to work there (as was the salary they offered). I still think it's a great place to work, especially for people in my age group (I'm 25) who grew up getting used to flex time. That I could take a long lunch, play a few rounds of foosball and go to the gym at 4 in the afternoon made me a happy camper.
The problems began when I started sensing I ought to be moving up (or at least, around) in the company. I started in a position I liked but didn't want to stay in for more than a year or so, and as I started to make pushes to move around I was met with stiff resistance. Management claimed it was because of the economy, but I knew people who moved around and they weren't exactly examples of people who were going to save the company.
The key to this issue was that while Sun was publicly making overtures towards attracting the younger developers, the first and second level managers were only advertising positions for senior engineers and were being very inflexible in "stretching" the job prereq's for younger engineers. I often think the only reason I got a job in the first place was because I came in during one of the last "conscription"-type expansions the company did before the IT sector did its nosedive.
To this day they still have that problem; I often consider going back to Sun because the corporate culture is fast moving, fun and flexible, and I doubt I'll find that in any other company of that size. But the jobs and the people they're hiring now are all mid- or senior-level engineers.
So actually, now that I think about it, maybe it's more apt to say their problem isn't attracting young engineers -- the culture is almost geared towards them (why else would you put foosball tables and a Starbucks in your engineering centers?). The problem is that once they've attracted the young people, they have to get their managers to hire them.
...who doesn't care about the breathless reporting of a GAME SERVER HACK that did nothing more than allow some players "power overwhelming"? Am I the only slashdot reader who just doesn't see this as news? How many informative, worthwhile stories were shot down to make room for this?
Maybe I just don't understand, but unless people are riding money on this game, this strikes me as marginally less important than a "where's ESR?" update.
If we're going to lament the "death" of the internet because "a handful of evil corporations own everything", then why is the Register singing the praises of cellphone networks, which are some of the nastiest oligarchies out there? witness:
The most popular technology in the world - thanks to its low cost and high communications value - is the cellphone. This is derided by the 'freedom' lobby because it's regulated spectrum (boo!), and not an 'open' network (hiss!), and yet it delivers a tremendous social utility. The latest generation of phones impresses me not because they can run irc or ssh, which they do splendidly, but because I can send a photo to relatives with three clicks on a device costing less than $100. A small parcel of happiness, there.
of course you're locked into a four year contract to get that sub-$100 price, your network isn't accessible in Europe if you're in the US or vice versa (yes yes we know, but 3G isn't really here yet), and if you refuse to pay your bill, you're stuck with payphones. Not to mention it's far easier to track your presence on a wireless network than it is on the internet. Is that freedom? Is that happiness?
True, the internet isn't the liberating force it was hyped to be, setting even the lowest peons free in a world of free information (and that information is implied to be exactly what you want it to be, and no more). But the same can be said of the printing press. For some people, the press is a source of lurid photography (Playboy), cheap sensationalist "news" (USA Today), gossip and starwatching (People magazine), and no more. Not everyone will read The Economist or Scientific American. Not everyone has O'Reilly books at their desk or Shakespeare's works on their shelves. But no one will challenge the fact that the advent of the press revolutionized the world and still has a very visible role in the shaping of ideas and people. Would anyone really take Egon Spengler's statement "the Print is dead" as anything more than the throwaway joke it was? I don't think so.
Claiming to have forseen "the end of the internet" is nothing more than cheap sensationalism to raise his hit rates (oh how ironic). I think Lessig will, in time, grow to wish that statement not be attributed to him, simply because he can't stand the notion of people smirking at something he says.
For my money the last chapter is a complete waste of space since it only covers installing MySQL and PostgresSQL, and if you can't figure out how to install them from the documentation then you aren't smart enough to use them.
This is a little off-topic, but I raise this issue because I spent a week troubleshooting a MySQL install thanks to some cryptic error messages that were not reported anywhere in the MySQL documentation (which in itself is fairly light on the peculiarities of an OS X install). Nor could I find anything online by searching on the error phrase; the closest I got was some bizarre "SQL gazette" where someone mentioned a similar problem but they didn't even answer his question. Now, I don't consider myself "dumb", but does the fact that an esoteric error message halted my self-made progress make me "not smart enough to use" MySQL? Frankly, it's a lot easier USING SQL than it is installing it; so much so that any HTML or javascript monkey can do it.
There's this almost fanatical belief among a lot of slashdotters that follows this basic logic: "if you can't make it work with the documentation provided, well, you're dumb. Now begone from my sight! I have Matrix trailers to download and mp3's to convert to ogg."
And then they wonder why average computer users aren't interested in learning more about linux or running it in their businesses.
THE DOCUMENTATION ISN'T SCRIPTURE. Sometimes it's incomplete. Sometimes it's bad. And sometimes it's thorough and clearspoken, but things happen that the manual just doesn't cover. Saying people are dumb because they run into problems in HOWTO-reading is like saying people with learning disabilities are too stupid make decisions for themselves. It's elitist to suggest that anyone who can't follow any set of instructions ever written is a moron. end rant.
According to OpenSecrets.org this may have more to do with Joe's friends than how much attention he paid to his math teachers.
Yeah, I can see what vested interests the National Association of Realtors and the National Auto Dealers Assocation have in keeping shuttle flights on the ground. They want us to stop flying a Yugo into space and upgrade to a Toyota so we can sell "earthfront property" in orbit. Blasted corporate lackeys!
The signal to noise ratio in this piece is high. There's lots of metaphors and similes to explain his otherwise very facile points.
He also seems to be contradicting himself. " Semantically, strings are more or less a subset of lists in which the elements are characters. So why do you need a separate data type? You don't, really. Strings only exist for efficiency. ", he says at one point, then a few paragraphs later says "What's gross is a language that makes programmers do needless work. Wasting programmer time is the true inefficiency, not wasting machine time.". The efficiency in implementing strings in programming languages is for the programmer, who doesn't have to use said "compiler advice" and carefully separate his strings from his other, non-string list instances and keep the two distinct in his programming model. Apparently it's "lame" to simplify text manipulation for programmers, but at the same time the efforts of programming language design should be towards making the programmer's life easier. Which is it? I know strings and string libraries have made my life a whole lot easier.
Nevertheless, I'm willing to accept the notion that eliminating strings and other complex, native datatypes and structures serves to make a programmer's use of time more efficient. But how does it do it? Graham doesn't say, he just waxes nostalgic about lisp and simpler times and languages.
I don't think the slashdot crowd needs it explained why data manipulation by computer needn't be simplified; it already is, as machine code is binary in the common paradigm. What ought to be simplified is data manipulation by humans, and on this point Graham nominally agrees (I think). This has been the thrust of the evolution of programming from machine code to assembler to high level language. Simplifying high level languages into more and more basic, statements -- getting closer to the "axioms" that Graham calls tokens and grammars -- simply reverses that evolution. It makes it easier and more elegant to compile programs, but it does absolutely zero to make the programmer's life more efficient, or easy. The whole reason high level languages were developed was precisely to get away from this enormously simple, yet completely tedious way of programming.
The overarching fallacy in this article is Graham's reliance on what is known about computation theory now to determine what programming languages would (and should) look like then. And while it's interesting to prognosticate on what the future would be like 100 years from now based on what we have today, it's not a reliable guide. Like Metropolis, A Trip to the Moon, and other sci-fi stories from the distant past, they're entertaining and no doubt prescient to the people of the time, but when we reach the date in question, the predictions are largely off the mark. It's somewhat laughable to think that despite our flying cars and soaring skyscrapers, we use steam engines to power our cities and make robots with eyes and mouths. Likewise, I don't think an honest, intelligent prediction or forecast of (high level) programming languages 100 years hence can occur without a firm basis, or even idea, of what assembly code would look like then. This, in turn, relies on a firm idea of what computer architecture will look like. Who knows if five (or fifty) years from now a coprocessor is designed that makes string functionality as easy to implement as arithmetic. Such an advance would completely invalidate Graham's point about strings and advanced datatypes, and in fact possibly stand modern lexical analysis on its head. Or if an entirely new model of computation comes to the fore. Even Graham himself admits that foresight is foreshortened: " Languages today assume infrastructure that didn't exist in 1960.", but he doesn't let that stop him from making pronouncements on the future of computing.
Graham seems to be spending too much time optimizing his lisp code and not enough on his writing. This piece of code could have been optimized had he used a simile-reductor and strict idea explanations. But it's definitely a thesis worth considering, if for no other reason than mild entertainment. C-
I mean it in a legal and not normative way. Sure, spam sucks and I certainly agree it's bandwidth theft, but right now there's very few laws against it and those laws are weaky enforced. Thus spammers have a (legal, but not moral) right to spam.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with this is just that: my CAR telling somebody about my habits? Isn't that what we have police officers for? If I let my buddy borrow my pickup to move a desk, and he speeds, I get the ticket & the insurance ding? Oh wait. Why not use the RFID tags in my clothing to make sure that I get the ticket?
But if he uses it NOW and kills someone in an accident, you are liable to be sued and your rates go up. All this without any nifty traffic monitoring device. Ain't life grand?
I assume, then, the first time you drive like an idiot, or forget to signal, you'll be prepared for the officers when you pull in your driveway.
Like they already do in New York state, where thanks to road rage laws, a simple call, "such and such a car with plates XYZ-123 was behaving erratically on this road and this time", gets you a knock at the door by a uniformed officer who reads you the riot act.
But it wont work because if a device can tell if your antilock brakes are working it can just as easily tell if your speeding or any other number of big brother activities. This information could be relayed to your local municipality and insurance company. Imagine discovering that you've gotten a speeding ticket and your insurance rates went up before you even finished driving home.
As another reader wrote, just because they CAN, doesn't mean they will. For a while people were worried about EZ-Pass and Fastlane automatic toll transponders, because they timestamp when you arrive at each toll, they could be used to catch people speeding. Of course, no one has ever received a summons in the mail because of it, yet they still use it.
If it's a voluntary system, I don't see the trouble. It's amazing how open-source geeks who want to try to build everything suddenly get all RIAA and support technology restriction, simply because it (like all tools) has the potential to be abused.
Yeah, because it's not like the government isn't already monitoring your speed and the road conditions with traffic cameras and speed & ground radar. Dammit, citizens have a right to their anti-lock brake systems' privacy!
The unfortunate part is, when I made that comment, I had Gibson's later books in mind. I happen to agree completely (that Gibson's earlier stuff is better, and I liked Pattern Recognition too).
I don't agree that he "gets the IP and tech issues that affect us today and tomorrow", but then, I don't think anyone really "gets" it. I mean, I've heard persuasive arguments from both sides of the issue, so I don't think, as it stands, there's a clear "this is the right way, that's the wrong way" to do it. I think the knee-jerk anti-copyright reaction of your average slashdotter belies a key ignorance or unwillingness to understand the complexities of the issue.
As for your "believable day-after-tomorrow view", if you haven't already, I highly recommend picking up the trade paperbacks of Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's comic Transmetropolitan. They present a much more interesting, funny and thought-provoking day-after-tomorrow view that is devoid of the subtle "I'm so clever" navel-gazing that goes on in Doctorow's writing. For me, that, along with Gibson's collection Burning Chrome are the benchmark for realistic near-future sci-fi. In light of those, Doctorow's work stands up as a pale imitation.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is great stuff in the spirit of Gibson and Stephenson.
That's my problem; I've read a number of the short stories he's made available and it's "in the spirit of Gibson and Stephenson" the way the Soviet space shuttle was "in the spirit" of the US design. (Sorry for the obscure reference, it was the first to come to mind.) The themes of his stories are pedestrian, even by sci-fi standards, and his writing style is all the style of Dick and Gibson with none of the substance. He tries to converse in these languages (sci-fi topics, and worse, actual tech issues) the same way a parrot might try to converse with Spaulding Gray. He knows the buzzwords because they are buzzwords, but that's about it as far as his talent goes.
So he's a mediocre sci-fi author who has deigns on the tech world, what's the big deal, right? Right, except for, as you mention, he gets more press than he quite deserves. I don't understand why so many slashdotters get in such a tizzy about him when there are a thousand of his analogs out there that nobody cares about.
As for the copyright issue, that's a YMMV debate. Some authors might want to keep tabs on the stuff they've written, and I don't see why they should be castigated or thought to be morally inferior to people who don't care if their names are attached to a given work. If Doctorow wants to give his work away, hey great, but not every author is an internet dilettante. Some people need to feed their families this way. Nobody harps on Asimov for doing the same thing.
...I renew my call for a Cory Doctorow filter. Just when it looks like /. has seen the last of Jon Katz, we get the heir apparent to the throne of 'know-nothing geek-worshipper'.
That subject line is par for the course when talking about Cory Doctorow.
I just think he's an enormously overrated author who is enamored with his own l33+n355. I've read some of the short stories he has made available (and to be honest, I haven't finished them; I got so sick of his imitation-Gibson prose and warmed-over Philip K. Dick themes that I just couldn't finish them). Add to that his posts on boingboing.net, where he zealously drops buzzwords the way some people drop names and is eternally trying to prove his mastery over all things "geek" and "tech". (I mean, who really needs to advertise that they "wrote a mail filter"? I know it's just a throwaway point, but its presence in the article strikes me as posturing.) Most of what he posts is just cute net "memes", devoid of any interesting technical aspects or issues. I'm sorry, Mr. Doctorow, but I'm not impressed because you have mouse gestures and you've "written mail filters" (as if they're more complex than IM messages) and you might (gasp!) know how to turn a mozilla tarball into a working browser on the linux machine someone set up for you.
This is not to criticize people who are not technically inclined; the trouble is when they try to start talking intelligently about it, rather than actually being an expert on it (or just as good, consulting with experts). He comes off as a guy who reads Wired magazine for the hype and the jargon watch. But watching him pontificate on technical things is like watching a teenager comment on beltway politics. It's the difference between someone who churns out a Pearl Harbor vs. Tora! Tora! Tora!.
Beats me; I can't remember the last time I read a Katz piece because I enabled Katz-filtering so long ago.
Slashdot ought to widen their story filters to allow filtering of "hacks who rip off more successful authors and/or talk about technology while having barely the slightest idea how it actually works". This way I can filter stories by Jon Katz and those submitted by/about Cory Doctorow.
amen.
What incentive do slashdot readers have to feel like companies are plotting to restrict their freedoms to print fake money? Is this a precursor to alarmism about DRM in wristwatches, digital calculators and tiny RC cars sold by thinkgeek?
The first rule of any kind of shoulder bag that will tote a laptop is, NEVER select one with one of those mini-carabiner plastic clips. They WILL break, it's only a matter of time. Sorry if you really love that eastpak, if the color's nice, et cetera; if it's got the plastic, it ain't boombastic.
Here are just a scant few guidelines from a guy who's spent a lot of time and money buying different, cheapo bags.
First, materials. The shoulder strap ought to be made from something that resembles a car seat belt. Leather would do, as well, provided it's not simply a covering over some foam; it will crack and eventually fail. Two (or three) strips of leather sewn flat together, from one end of the bag to the other, is very durable.
Next, stitching. Examine. It should look better than your mom's (unless she's a professional seamstress). The stitching should be made with thick thread, and should be at least double stitched all over the strap. Single stitching is completely unacceptable.
Make sure the strap is NOT sewn into a seam. I can't emphasize this enough. The repeated stress from the strap will not only rip it out, it will rip the seam apart as well. It should also not be sewn to the top of the bag unless it's not a shoulder strap. It should be sewn into the side of the bag.
Finally, look at it overall.Does it look like something you'd want to take to work, school, whereever? Do you plan to use it daily for years to come, or only for the rare occasion you tote it around? Do you use it only for work, or do you tote around other heavy objects (like engineering textbooks)? All the good things I've mentioned tend to make these kinds of bags very expensive, for good reason. But I firmly believe you end up saving money on buying replacements for cheaper bags.
I'm sure there are tons of good manufacturers out there, but I can't recommend any more than the one company that's solved my problems for almost ten years now. Courierware, an old Cambridge stalwart, makes fairly indestructible bags. (and that they do; I still have and use mine daily.) They make high quality bags from high quality material and hand stitch it very securely. They back their work with a lifetime guarantee; if ever the stitching or material fails through normal use, they will fix it for free. I really, really like these guys and recommend them as the last casual bag you'll ever buy.
But if you don't want to go whole hog and get a new bag, they also make great laptop inserts that I've been using with my TiBook for a couple years now. They keep it scratch free and help it survive the occasional drop (I know).
...right up until he wrote about how Apple and Dell are "misleading" customers by pricing their their boxes at $x-1 instead of $x. As if their sales really are dependent on nitwits saying "hot damn, I can get that machine for under $x! I never would've bought it for that much!" In short, his whining about a "marketing ploy" is a complaint about a pricing policy so common that, well, almost everyone, from computer companies to car companies to the corner grocer selling apples for 99 cents a pound are "misleading the public". And if people can be so mislead by a one cent/dollar reduction in price, who would be intelligent enough to read his review?
He also casually mentions that "most people use Integer (not FP) most of the time. Therefore, integer results (SPECint) are much more important than floating-point results (SPECfp)." What qualifies as "most people" using integer "most of the time"? Doesn't he have any data on FP usage?
And was I the only person that noticed almost all the results he posted had a caveat that such a benchmark "is a single-processor test, so in the following results, where the computer has a second processor, it is either disabled or not used."? Aren't these dual processor Apples we're comparing with single processor Oranges? (sorry, couldn't resist.) It might make sense if Apple actually ships machines with useless second processors where architecture and OS make them essentially uniprocessor machines. But if Apple does indeed sell multiprocessor machines, and I understand it, they are, shouldn't that be taken into account? What I read was not that Apple claimed that the PPC 970 is the fastest chip, but rather the dual processor G5 is the fastest desktop computer.
About all he convinced me of is that Apple perhaps twisting benchmarks for their own ends. But his review is hardly a clear and unambiguous refutation of Apple's statements.
so when will Apple go bankrupt/get bought out now? I'm sure they spent their entire year's profit on this keynote address. I hear their marketing budget for this new OS is bigger than their development budget. Oh wait, that's microsoft.
These "artists" are suddenly running up against the reality that their egos are much larger than their fan base. Most major label artists, the groups/singers/performers/whatevers that are known worldwide and heard endlessly on Top 40 stations, are not artists in the sense we might consider perhaps classical composers or even modern trailblazers like Elvis, Bob Dylan or Grandmaster Flash. They are simply hit machines. The music they make is not particularly unique or revolutionary. Rather, it's just noise for people to dance to at clubs, blast out of their 8000 watt car stereos or hear in the background at the gym or office. Their music will not be remembered on anything other than "Now that's what I call one-hit-wonders vol. LXVII"-type compilations.
As such, people don't want their albums. They buy them when there's no other way to get the hits they hear on the radio. Nobody will identify that sixth track on Shakira's latest album, but they will remember the one in the Pepsi commercials (if she's so lucky). The only substantitive difference between the two is the fact that the song is widely identifiable; the quality is not particularly great in either case. People don't want the albums, they want the hits. This is the reason for the massive appeal of the apple music store and P2P mp3 sharing beyond a few geeks looking to find some obscure Front 242 or Cure B-side.
And this runs straight up against the millionaire "artists" who conceive themselves as visionaries and look to their worldwide appeal as proof that they are, indeed, somehow different than their peers. As if the rise of Linkin Park from the engorged field of "rap-rock" crossovers had something to do intrinsically with their band's music, attitude or aptitude rather than the pure dumb luck of having caught the eye of a major label with the presence of mind to hype the hell out of them.
The artists in question are having to deal with the unpleasant fact that their visions of themselves as pioneers, saviors or rebels do not quite gel with the views of their customers, who see them merely as soundtracks -- soundtracks that get old and need to be changed, like everything else.
-- it's keeping them. I went to work for Sun my first job out of school. Our lab had largely Sun workstations and I really cut my unix teeth with Solaris, so the opportunity to go work for them was huge for me. When I went to work there, only 3 people in my group were over 30.
I went to interview at their brand new (at the time) Burlington, MA facility and I was simply amazed at the place; the facilities, the people and the atmosphere was so key in my going to work there (as was the salary they offered). I still think it's a great place to work, especially for people in my age group (I'm 25) who grew up getting used to flex time. That I could take a long lunch, play a few rounds of foosball and go to the gym at 4 in the afternoon made me a happy camper.
The problems began when I started sensing I ought to be moving up (or at least, around) in the company. I started in a position I liked but didn't want to stay in for more than a year or so, and as I started to make pushes to move around I was met with stiff resistance. Management claimed it was because of the economy, but I knew people who moved around and they weren't exactly examples of people who were going to save the company.
The key to this issue was that while Sun was publicly making overtures towards attracting the younger developers, the first and second level managers were only advertising positions for senior engineers and were being very inflexible in "stretching" the job prereq's for younger engineers. I often think the only reason I got a job in the first place was because I came in during one of the last "conscription"-type expansions the company did before the IT sector did its nosedive.
To this day they still have that problem; I often consider going back to Sun because the corporate culture is fast moving, fun and flexible, and I doubt I'll find that in any other company of that size. But the jobs and the people they're hiring now are all mid- or senior-level engineers.
So actually, now that I think about it, maybe it's more apt to say their problem isn't attracting young engineers -- the culture is almost geared towards them (why else would you put foosball tables and a Starbucks in your engineering centers?). The problem is that once they've attracted the young people, they have to get their managers to hire them.
...who doesn't care about the breathless reporting of a GAME SERVER HACK that did nothing more than allow some players "power overwhelming"? Am I the only slashdot reader who just doesn't see this as news? How many informative, worthwhile stories were shot down to make room for this?
Maybe I just don't understand, but unless people are riding money on this game, this strikes me as marginally less important than a "where's ESR?" update.
True, the internet isn't the liberating force it was hyped to be, setting even the lowest peons free in a world of free information (and that information is implied to be exactly what you want it to be, and no more). But the same can be said of the printing press. For some people, the press is a source of lurid photography (Playboy), cheap sensationalist "news" (USA Today), gossip and starwatching (People magazine), and no more. Not everyone will read The Economist or Scientific American. Not everyone has O'Reilly books at their desk or Shakespeare's works on their shelves. But no one will challenge the fact that the advent of the press revolutionized the world and still has a very visible role in the shaping of ideas and people. Would anyone really take Egon Spengler's statement "the Print is dead" as anything more than the throwaway joke it was? I don't think so.
Claiming to have forseen "the end of the internet" is nothing more than cheap sensationalism to raise his hit rates (oh how ironic). I think Lessig will, in time, grow to wish that statement not be attributed to him, simply because he can't stand the notion of people smirking at something he says.
For my money the last chapter is a complete waste of space since it only covers installing MySQL and PostgresSQL, and if you can't figure out how to install them from the documentation then you aren't smart enough to use them.
This is a little off-topic, but I raise this issue because I spent a week troubleshooting a MySQL install thanks to some cryptic error messages that were not reported anywhere in the MySQL documentation (which in itself is fairly light on the peculiarities of an OS X install). Nor could I find anything online by searching on the error phrase; the closest I got was some bizarre "SQL gazette" where someone mentioned a similar problem but they didn't even answer his question. Now, I don't consider myself "dumb", but does the fact that an esoteric error message halted my self-made progress make me "not smart enough to use" MySQL? Frankly, it's a lot easier USING SQL than it is installing it; so much so that any HTML or javascript monkey can do it.
There's this almost fanatical belief among a lot of slashdotters that follows this basic logic: "if you can't make it work with the documentation provided, well, you're dumb. Now begone from my sight! I have Matrix trailers to download and mp3's to convert to ogg."
And then they wonder why average computer users aren't interested in learning more about linux or running it in their businesses.
THE DOCUMENTATION ISN'T SCRIPTURE. Sometimes it's incomplete. Sometimes it's bad. And sometimes it's thorough and clearspoken, but things happen that the manual just doesn't cover. Saying people are dumb because they run into problems in HOWTO-reading is like saying people with learning disabilities are too stupid make decisions for themselves. It's elitist to suggest that anyone who can't follow any set of instructions ever written is a moron. end rant.
According to OpenSecrets.org this may have more to do with Joe's friends than how much attention he paid to his math teachers.
Yeah, I can see what vested interests the National Association of Realtors and the National Auto Dealers Assocation have in keeping shuttle flights on the ground. They want us to stop flying a Yugo into space and upgrade to a Toyota so we can sell "earthfront property" in orbit. Blasted corporate lackeys!
I can't get IE 5.2 for OS X to crash with this bug (nor safari). Watch, now someone will come along and tell me I'm not crashing my browser correctly.
The signal to noise ratio in this piece is high. There's lots of metaphors and similes to explain his otherwise very facile points.
He also seems to be contradicting himself. " Semantically, strings are more or less a subset of lists in which the elements are characters. So why do you need a separate data type? You don't, really. Strings only exist for efficiency. ", he says at one point, then a few paragraphs later says "What's gross is a language that makes programmers do needless work. Wasting programmer time is the true inefficiency, not wasting machine time.". The efficiency in implementing strings in programming languages is for the programmer, who doesn't have to use said "compiler advice" and carefully separate his strings from his other, non-string list instances and keep the two distinct in his programming model. Apparently it's "lame" to simplify text manipulation for programmers, but at the same time the efforts of programming language design should be towards making the programmer's life easier. Which is it? I know strings and string libraries have made my life a whole lot easier.
Nevertheless, I'm willing to accept the notion that eliminating strings and other complex, native datatypes and structures serves to make a programmer's use of time more efficient. But how does it do it? Graham doesn't say, he just waxes nostalgic about lisp and simpler times and languages.
I don't think the slashdot crowd needs it explained why data manipulation by computer needn't be simplified; it already is, as machine code is binary in the common paradigm. What ought to be simplified is data manipulation by humans, and on this point Graham nominally agrees (I think). This has been the thrust of the evolution of programming from machine code to assembler to high level language. Simplifying high level languages into more and more basic, statements -- getting closer to the "axioms" that Graham calls tokens and grammars -- simply reverses that evolution. It makes it easier and more elegant to compile programs, but it does absolutely zero to make the programmer's life more efficient, or easy. The whole reason high level languages were developed was precisely to get away from this enormously simple, yet completely tedious way of programming.
The overarching fallacy in this article is Graham's reliance on what is known about computation theory now to determine what programming languages would (and should) look like then. And while it's interesting to prognosticate on what the future would be like 100 years from now based on what we have today, it's not a reliable guide. Like Metropolis, A Trip to the Moon, and other sci-fi stories from the distant past, they're entertaining and no doubt prescient to the people of the time, but when we reach the date in question, the predictions are largely off the mark. It's somewhat laughable to think that despite our flying cars and soaring skyscrapers, we use steam engines to power our cities and make robots with eyes and mouths. Likewise, I don't think an honest, intelligent prediction or forecast of (high level) programming languages 100 years hence can occur without a firm basis, or even idea, of what assembly code would look like then. This, in turn, relies on a firm idea of what computer architecture will look like. Who knows if five (or fifty) years from now a coprocessor is designed that makes string functionality as easy to implement as arithmetic. Such an advance would completely invalidate Graham's point about strings and advanced datatypes, and in fact possibly stand modern lexical analysis on its head. Or if an entirely new model of computation comes to the fore. Even Graham himself admits that foresight is foreshortened: " Languages today assume infrastructure that didn't exist in 1960.", but he doesn't let that stop him from making pronouncements on the future of computing.
Graham seems to be spending too much time optimizing his lisp code and not enough on his writing. This piece of code could have been optimized had he used a simile-reductor and strict idea explanations. But it's definitely a thesis worth considering, if for no other reason than mild entertainment. C-
I mean it in a legal and not normative way. Sure, spam sucks and I certainly agree it's bandwidth theft, but right now there's very few laws against it and those laws are weaky enforced. Thus spammers have a (legal, but not moral) right to spam.