We can't just stop supporting a large userbase because the company that produced their os is now doing some things that are against some peoples ethics/morals.
How about we remove SCO support until they go out of business, then add it back in afterwards to support the users on "legacy" SCO systems?
There's a difference between speaking up about protecting your rights and acting like a three year old kid.
The funny thing is, what the FSF is considering is the kind of thing that happens between businesses all the time. (Maybe they are ALL three year olds;) ) I think their approach is actually pretty good. They state the problem, what possible actions are, but intend to take a "wait and see" approach. They've obviously considered the ramifications to innocent parties, which is good. And as of yet, they haven't taken any real action. I feel reasonably confident that if they decide to take action, it'll be warranted.
Perhaps a more important question is, WHY does it have so many lines of code ?
That might be one of the reasons why they feel it is becoming unmaintainable. I think all the contribution is cool, but it's probably time to stop adding new features and spend most of the time making the existing codebase maintainable and well-documented (they mention some of that in the article). It's actually something I'm highly interested in, and if I could find a way to get involved without getting even less sleep than I do now, I definitely would.
I thought the most offensive post was the original message, actually.
Agreed. It probably should have started with a "Should we?" rather than spending time and energy on creating the patch in the first place. Just assuming COULD be considered rather offensive. As far as the typical spelling banter that goes on, I would hope at this point that those in England / Europe and those in the United States consider it as just what it is -- friendly bashing over an interesting and funny phenomenon in the history of spelling derivation. I personally find "tyre" and "tire" much more amusing.:-)
I believe that health insurance is necessary- but I would rather pay more money, to get better coverage.
Agreed, although I'm now at the age where medical bills start to rise, and I have a family that requires medical care too. Catastrophic isn't really an option for me. If I were still 21 and single, I'd probably opt for the Catastrophic.
That's the key. While I can't speak for Blue Cross in particular, I can state with some degree of confidence that pretty much all catastrophic policies are... well... catastrophies. (insert groan here).
What would be more interesting to note is what you would have paid WITHOUT the insurance. Catastrophic insurance is really only intended to keep you from losing your house or otherwise assuming an unbearable debt load. Although in your case you might not be able to get a new car, at least you would be able to keep the home (assuming you aren't renting). Also, you should be able to reclaim a large chunk of the expenses in your tax return.
Re:Some Interesting New Products...
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You laugh, but why not an embedded IC that senses glucose levels and then uses up enough so that your balanced again?
I was half-laughing and half-serious. This would be WONDERFUL for me, and I'm not really diabetic. For my Dad (who is diabetic) it would be even better.
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Because he can fit a lot of it in his stomach, due to its density.
That's pretty much what I was thinking. Also, the AC seems to have missed the point that complex carbohydrates are converted into glucose relatively quickly, as a big old starch molecule doesn't have a prayer of making it into the bloodstream.
As for me, I DO need to lose weight, but those starchy foods are my downfall. If becoming a human battery can allow me to eat what I want and still lose weight, then hook me up to the Matrix!
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complex carbohydrates != glucose
No, but that's what it ultimately turns into before entering your bloodstream.
of all the things to binge on, why the fuck would you want to eat potato salad?
For crying out loud, it was the first REALLY starchy thing that came to mind.
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Pretty soon we'll see places like ThinkGeek [thinkgeek.com] selling stuff to boost your glucose levels.
Forget that, man. Do you realize this means I can eat ALL the potato salad I can fit in my stomach. And potato chips and popcorn and pretty much anything starchy. For those of us walking dangerously close to the diabetes line this thing could be great! I could power my laptop AND lose weight at the same time. I can just see the Infomercials now. Of course, we'll need Dan Akroyd to do the voiceover....
They made no mention of whether they had prior experience with 95/98/ME or NT/2K, all of which would give a fairly large boost to the XP side of things since most non-administrative tasks are accomplished in the same way, with XP only adding a few colors and curves to the mix.
Good point. Can any of our German colleagues take a look at the detailed article (not available in Englisch yet) and let us know if this is addressed?
What the hell happened in their childhood that promotes these people to ignore their conscience and annoy millions of people for the name of $?
I agree with you, and I'd really like to know the answer to your question. Unfortunately, here in the United States this attribute seems to be the rule rather than the exception.
First off, let me apologize if what I said was too strongly worded. Apparently, at least two moderators felt it was because they modded it as "troll." I had absolutely no intention of trolling, nor did I intend any personal attack on you.
The job of the High School is to prepare students to go out into the world and take a job, or continue on to college. "
No thats a parents job. The role of history is to teach a child how to educate themselves so that they will be able to learn in college.
Actually, I think the responsibility belongs to both schools and parents -- this may be a point we disagree on. I do agree with you that schools should also be teaching children to educate themselves.
Not all of these jobs care about what time you arrive, how you look, or how good your manners are.
Since I feel that both the parents and the schools have the responsibility of teaching kids to be "professional," I also realize that the much broader audience that high schools have (as compared to colleges) puts them in the position of teaching values that might not be useful in all lines of work.
This is why our kids cant read...
Actually, I disagree. I think kids can't read for a couple reasons: Class sizes are too large and early education teachers don't spend enough one-on-one time with students who are having problems, and both teachers and parents are reluctant to hold a student back a year when they are clearly struggling.
Argh please stop assuming everyone is going to be an office clerk.
Office clerk jobs are not the only ones that require timeliness and dress codes. There are plenty of much higher paying jobs that require these. You put a lot of energy into describing all kinds of jobs that don't require the attendance and appearance records, and seem to be lumping pretty much everything that has these requirements as office clerk, which isn't quite accurate. One thing to keep in mind is that most students don't know what kind of career they want until after their second major in college. So, I think high schools are left with trying to provide skills for the largest common group. But let's look at some of the other job descriptions you provided.
CEO -- Almost nobody leaves college and takes the position of CEO. They work their way up, and most of the jobs in between would probably be lumped into what you consider office clerk.
Musicians and Artists -- OK, appearance and timeliness probably don't count much here
Programmers -- depends on the job. I've worked as a programmer for several companies. Some required strict attendance and dress code. Others did not.
Scientists -- also depends on the job
Firemen -- there are very few professional firemen. Most are volunteers and have some other career.
Politicians -- attendance, timeliness and appearance aver VERY important in this career, and seem to matter much more than how well you do your job.
Lawyers -- courtroom lawyers have to pay close attention to appearance and timeliness. It can make or break a case.
there are plenty of jobs for non profit
I've worked for a non-profit before. That happened to be one of the jobs that required me to wear a suit and show up on time.
Its not the office clerk who runs and fetches that coffee, thats what you do, some people actually have creative jobs which are deadline based, and task based.
Just for the record, if you are implying that I'm an office clerk and fetch coffee, you're way wrong. I'm a software developer at a major corporation. My tasks are deadline based, but that doesn't stop me from having to dress and act appropriately and be in the office during certain hours.
See they give homework because they assume you need to practice 20,000 times before you get something...
Although I agree that most of the time my homework required me to "practice" something more than I
I'm terribly entertained... high schools are "preparing" students... forcing attendance, dress code, etc, when colleges and universities... next to none of that...
Glad I could provide some entertainment value.:-) Seriously, though, I didn't mean to imply that I'm thrilled with the way high schools are run. Quite frankly, I'm disappointed enough to have already made the decision to send my 4 year old to a private school when he reaches that age. However, my take on it is that high schools are educating (and I use the term losely) a much broader audience than colleges. The kids attending high school may end up with pretty much any job. Some will require standards in attendance, dress, etc. Some will not. When students reach college, their course of study is usually better aligned with the types of jobs they may be taking. Although you assert that colleges don't enforce attendance, etc, that's not really true. It all depends on the college and the area of study. For example, My degree is in Computer Science. Most of my professors didn't care whether I showed up or not. But I took an elective in Economics, and that particular professor based a large percentage of my grade on attendance and class participation. Although this evidence is merely anecdotal, I have enough additional evidence from friends of mine in different courses of study to conclude that the rules seem to change based on major.
So, in support of my earlier arguments, I believe high schools enforce some of the standards they do simply because they have such a broad audience. Is this the best way to do it? Maybe not. But I do find it interesting that schools fifty years ago were considered much more successful in educating their students, yet they were also more strict about attendance, dress code, etc.
you can actually attend class in the nude at several dozen unversities
Darn! I went to the wrong University. Can you be specific? If I decide to pursue an advanced degree, such information might be useful.:-) Got any good stories?
This is the problem. Kids are judged on stupid stuff, homework, attendance, how they dress, ability to sit still, ability to pay attention.
I think I need to spell out things a bit for you. The job of the High School is to prepare students to go out into the world and take a job, or continue on to college. Let's leave aside the argument about how academically prepared students exiting high school really are and look at your other arguments. In the job world, attendance, manners, dress and perceived attention span are very important. We all hear about how "cool company X" lets their employees wear whatever they want to, show up anytime, and ride skateboards through the hallways. However, we all know that this isn't the "norm." Most managers want to see their employees in their offices on time. The want to see employees paying attention in meetings. They get nervous when these characteristics aren't displayed, and employees who can't achieve these standards are frequently fired. Maybe it doesn't matter too much in economically good times, but during downturns, when jobs are scarce, this kind of behavior is important. High schools would be doing an incredibly bad job if they didn't enforce behavior that will ultimately make their students more likely to get a job.
You also mentioned homework. While I agree that some homework assignments are absolutely idiotic, the vast majority of it is for practice. Most students perform much better in all subjects when they do their homework. Countless times, I've heard teenagers complain about how bad their math was. When I asked whether they did their homework, they pretty much always answered "no" or "sometimes." Homework also gets students used to working independently -- a valuable skill for on the job.
Teachers spend more time trying to "Control" the students, than actually teaching students.
This is nonsense. At present, teachers expend very little time or energy on this. If the kid doesn't attend, they get marked absent. If the teacher doesn't like what they are wearing, they send them to the office. If the kids don't do their homework, it just gets factored into their final grades. Pretty much everything else is handled by administration (the office).
A teacher could spend all the class trying to get johnny to sit still
Depending on the grade, if the teacher can't get Johnny to sit still in about 5 minutes, Johnny should find himself in the office. In Kindergarten and first grade, this might be an issue, but learning to sit still and avoid distracting the other students is all part of the process. I certainly would have trouble hiring somebody who couldn't sit still.
Now, I definitely DO agree that the quality of education is severely lacking, but I don't believe that it is based on any of the reasons you listed. I think the single biggest problem with education today is lack of parental involvement. A strong group of concerned parents can probably fix most problems in their local schools. Since parents seem less concerned these days, you might come to the conclusion that this whole database thing is an attempt by teachers and administration to take over some of those responsibilities. I also agree that schools jump on the medication bandwagon way too quickly. Maybe Johnny can't sit still because he's bored to tears. Unfortunately, standard public schools can only target the median students. They are not suited for either the slow learners or the extremely gifted. However, there are alternatives for both groups of people. The difficulty is in diagnosing the problem and providing the right answer.
I use NiMH batteries for my wireless mouse, and my camera.
Me too, and oddly enough I've had really good success with the cheaper Rayovac rechargeables. They last something like 5 times as long as the normal alkalines, and actually seem to be a tad better than the new longer offerings from Duracell (Ultra) and Energizer (e2, max). I'm not happy with anything else in my digital camera.
Not that Microsoft would ever allow that to happen and could probably keep this in courts until either 1) The patents expire or 2) XP is no longer supported or sold anyways.
Actually, I think Microsoft's future plans depend on this technology. Even if the patent expired tomorrow, they'd still owe a BUNCH of back payments should the case be decided in favor of Intertrust.
Yes, but it doesn't completely eliminate the possibility of Microsoft buying the patent itself. If all patent rights are passed to Microsoft, they would have just the bargaining chip they need to prevent anybody else (including OSS) from developing competing security products. They'd just make the price tag for licensing use of the patented technology high enough to discourage people.
I was under the impression that in the American justice system, you are innocent until proven guilty. Is this not still true?
Of course it's still true. The problem here is that it'll cost you more than the $3500 proposed settlement to go to court and watch DirecTV fail to prove your guilt... unless you happen to be an attorney.
But did you buy them from a "pirate" website? That's the leverage that DirecTV is using. They have convinced the judge that since people are buying products from known pirate sites that are advertised specifically for stealing DirecTV, it can be implied that the devices are being used to steal their signal.
If you bought different programmers from another source, you have nothing to worry about.
That would be missing the point. The point is to show how the American consumer is hurt.
Yes, but since you compared the impact for both American and Japanese consumers based on the price of goods, you must also make the same comparison of resources available to American and Japanese consumers. It's like an algebraic equation. What you do to one side, you must also do to the other. To really understand the economic impact, you have to realize that the Japanese consumer does not have the resources available to him/her that the American consumer does. Therefore, even though he/she will pay less for their vehicle, they won't have any more resources left over to inject into the Japanese economy than the American consumer would have to inject into the American economy.
All of this is why protectionism needs to be an all or nothing policy. If we aren't going to protect jobs, we can't protect prices. If we are going to protect prices, we must also protect jobs. I totally agree with you that the ultimate goal should be no import tarifs and no penalties to companies who outsource labor to other countries. The problem is that getting there overnight would be a tremendous blood bath that would ultimately yield real blood in the form of a revolution.
For the purposes of this discussion we'll say they both make the same salary of $50,000 after tax dollars.
If you want your argument to be valid, you'll have to come up with a way of doing so that doesn't involve this assumption. The salary difference between consumers in two different countries is exactly what causes the differences in cost of production.
Slashdot Mirror
How about we remove SCO support until they go out of business, then add it back in afterwards to support the users on "legacy" SCO systems?
The funny thing is, what the FSF is considering is the kind of thing that happens between businesses all the time. (Maybe they are ALL three year olds ;) ) I think their approach is actually pretty good. They state the problem, what possible actions are, but intend to take a "wait and see" approach. They've obviously considered the ramifications to innocent parties, which is good. And as of yet, they haven't taken any real action. I feel reasonably confident that if they decide to take action, it'll be warranted.
That might be one of the reasons why they feel it is becoming unmaintainable. I think all the contribution is cool, but it's probably time to stop adding new features and spend most of the time making the existing codebase maintainable and well-documented (they mention some of that in the article). It's actually something I'm highly interested in, and if I could find a way to get involved without getting even less sleep than I do now, I definitely would.
Agreed. It probably should have started with a "Should we?" rather than spending time and energy on creating the patch in the first place. Just assuming COULD be considered rather offensive. As far as the typical spelling banter that goes on, I would hope at this point that those in England / Europe and those in the United States consider it as just what it is -- friendly bashing over an interesting and funny phenomenon in the history of spelling derivation. I personally find "tyre" and "tire" much more amusing. :-)
There probably won't be much else, even when they *do* produce output.
Agreed, although I'm now at the age where medical bills start to rise, and I have a family that requires medical care too. Catastrophic isn't really an option for me. If I were still 21 and single, I'd probably opt for the Catastrophic.
That's the key. While I can't speak for Blue Cross in particular, I can state with some degree of confidence that pretty much all catastrophic policies are ... well ... catastrophies. (insert groan here).
What would be more interesting to note is what you would have paid WITHOUT the insurance. Catastrophic insurance is really only intended to keep you from losing your house or otherwise assuming an unbearable debt load. Although in your case you might not be able to get a new car, at least you would be able to keep the home (assuming you aren't renting). Also, you should be able to reclaim a large chunk of the expenses in your tax return.
I was half-laughing and half-serious. This would be WONDERFUL for me, and I'm not really diabetic. For my Dad (who is diabetic) it would be even better.
That's pretty much what I was thinking. Also, the AC seems to have missed the point that complex carbohydrates are converted into glucose relatively quickly, as a big old starch molecule doesn't have a prayer of making it into the bloodstream.
As for me, I DO need to lose weight, but those starchy foods are my downfall. If becoming a human battery can allow me to eat what I want and still lose weight, then hook me up to the Matrix!
No, but that's what it ultimately turns into before entering your bloodstream.
of all the things to binge on, why the fuck would you want to eat potato salad?
For crying out loud, it was the first REALLY starchy thing that came to mind.
Forget that, man. Do you realize this means I can eat ALL the potato salad I can fit in my stomach. And potato chips and popcorn and pretty much anything starchy. For those of us walking dangerously close to the diabetes line this thing could be great! I could power my laptop AND lose weight at the same time. I can just see the Infomercials now. Of course, we'll need Dan Akroyd to do the voiceover....
Good point. Can any of our German colleagues take a look at the detailed article (not available in Englisch yet) and let us know if this is addressed?
I agree with you, and I'd really like to know the answer to your question. Unfortunately, here in the United States this attribute seems to be the rule rather than the exception.
How long until someone makes a comment about a beowulf cluster of them? Oh wait...
No thats a parents job. The role of history is to teach a child how to educate themselves so that they will be able to learn in college.
Actually, I think the responsibility belongs to both schools and parents -- this may be a point we disagree on. I do agree with you that schools should also be teaching children to educate themselves.
Not all of these jobs care about what time you arrive, how you look, or how good your manners are.
Since I feel that both the parents and the schools have the responsibility of teaching kids to be "professional," I also realize that the much broader audience that high schools have (as compared to colleges) puts them in the position of teaching values that might not be useful in all lines of work.
This is why our kids cant read...
Actually, I disagree. I think kids can't read for a couple reasons: Class sizes are too large and early education teachers don't spend enough one-on-one time with students who are having problems, and both teachers and parents are reluctant to hold a student back a year when they are clearly struggling.
Argh please stop assuming everyone is going to be an office clerk.
Office clerk jobs are not the only ones that require timeliness and dress codes. There are plenty of much higher paying jobs that require these. You put a lot of energy into describing all kinds of jobs that don't require the attendance and appearance records, and seem to be lumping pretty much everything that has these requirements as office clerk, which isn't quite accurate. One thing to keep in mind is that most students don't know what kind of career they want until after their second major in college. So, I think high schools are left with trying to provide skills for the largest common group. But let's look at some of the other job descriptions you provided.
there are plenty of jobs for non profit
I've worked for a non-profit before. That happened to be one of the jobs that required me to wear a suit and show up on time.
Its not the office clerk who runs and fetches that coffee, thats what you do, some people actually have creative jobs which are deadline based, and task based.
Just for the record, if you are implying that I'm an office clerk and fetch coffee, you're way wrong. I'm a software developer at a major corporation. My tasks are deadline based, but that doesn't stop me from having to dress and act appropriately and be in the office during certain hours.
See they give homework because they assume you need to practice 20,000 times before you get something...
Although I agree that most of the time my homework required me to "practice" something more than I
Glad I could provide some entertainment value. :-) Seriously, though, I didn't mean to imply that I'm thrilled with the way high schools are run. Quite frankly, I'm disappointed enough to have already made the decision to send my 4 year old to a private school when he reaches that age. However, my take on it is that high schools are educating (and I use the term losely) a much broader audience than colleges. The kids attending high school may end up with pretty much any job. Some will require standards in attendance, dress, etc. Some will not. When students reach college, their course of study is usually better aligned with the types of jobs they may be taking. Although you assert that colleges don't enforce attendance, etc, that's not really true. It all depends on the college and the area of study. For example, My degree is in Computer Science. Most of my professors didn't care whether I showed up or not. But I took an elective in Economics, and that particular professor based a large percentage of my grade on attendance and class participation. Although this evidence is merely anecdotal, I have enough additional evidence from friends of mine in different courses of study to conclude that the rules seem to change based on major.
So, in support of my earlier arguments, I believe high schools enforce some of the standards they do simply because they have such a broad audience. Is this the best way to do it? Maybe not. But I do find it interesting that schools fifty years ago were considered much more successful in educating their students, yet they were also more strict about attendance, dress code, etc.
you can actually attend class in the nude at several dozen unversities
Darn! I went to the wrong University. Can you be specific? If I decide to pursue an advanced degree, such information might be useful. :-) Got any good stories?
I think I need to spell out things a bit for you. The job of the High School is to prepare students to go out into the world and take a job, or continue on to college. Let's leave aside the argument about how academically prepared students exiting high school really are and look at your other arguments. In the job world, attendance, manners, dress and perceived attention span are very important. We all hear about how "cool company X" lets their employees wear whatever they want to, show up anytime, and ride skateboards through the hallways. However, we all know that this isn't the "norm." Most managers want to see their employees in their offices on time. The want to see employees paying attention in meetings. They get nervous when these characteristics aren't displayed, and employees who can't achieve these standards are frequently fired. Maybe it doesn't matter too much in economically good times, but during downturns, when jobs are scarce, this kind of behavior is important. High schools would be doing an incredibly bad job if they didn't enforce behavior that will ultimately make their students more likely to get a job.
You also mentioned homework. While I agree that some homework assignments are absolutely idiotic, the vast majority of it is for practice. Most students perform much better in all subjects when they do their homework. Countless times, I've heard teenagers complain about how bad their math was. When I asked whether they did their homework, they pretty much always answered "no" or "sometimes." Homework also gets students used to working independently -- a valuable skill for on the job.
Teachers spend more time trying to "Control" the students, than actually teaching students.
This is nonsense. At present, teachers expend very little time or energy on this. If the kid doesn't attend, they get marked absent. If the teacher doesn't like what they are wearing, they send them to the office. If the kids don't do their homework, it just gets factored into their final grades. Pretty much everything else is handled by administration (the office).
A teacher could spend all the class trying to get johnny to sit still
Depending on the grade, if the teacher can't get Johnny to sit still in about 5 minutes, Johnny should find himself in the office. In Kindergarten and first grade, this might be an issue, but learning to sit still and avoid distracting the other students is all part of the process. I certainly would have trouble hiring somebody who couldn't sit still.
Now, I definitely DO agree that the quality of education is severely lacking, but I don't believe that it is based on any of the reasons you listed. I think the single biggest problem with education today is lack of parental involvement. A strong group of concerned parents can probably fix most problems in their local schools. Since parents seem less concerned these days, you might come to the conclusion that this whole database thing is an attempt by teachers and administration to take over some of those responsibilities. I also agree that schools jump on the medication bandwagon way too quickly. Maybe Johnny can't sit still because he's bored to tears. Unfortunately, standard public schools can only target the median students. They are not suited for either the slow learners or the extremely gifted. However, there are alternatives for both groups of people. The difficulty is in diagnosing the problem and providing the right answer.
Me too, and oddly enough I've had really good success with the cheaper Rayovac rechargeables. They last something like 5 times as long as the normal alkalines, and actually seem to be a tad better than the new longer offerings from Duracell (Ultra) and Energizer (e2, max). I'm not happy with anything else in my digital camera.
Come to think of it, Microsoft is looking for a way to reduce its cash reserves.
Actually, I think Microsoft's future plans depend on this technology. Even if the patent expired tomorrow, they'd still owe a BUNCH of back payments should the case be decided in favor of Intertrust.
Yes, but it doesn't completely eliminate the possibility of Microsoft buying the patent itself. If all patent rights are passed to Microsoft, they would have just the bargaining chip they need to prevent anybody else (including OSS) from developing competing security products. They'd just make the price tag for licensing use of the patented technology high enough to discourage people.
Of course it's still true. The problem here is that it'll cost you more than the $3500 proposed settlement to go to court and watch DirecTV fail to prove your guilt... unless you happen to be an attorney.
But did you buy them from a "pirate" website? That's the leverage that DirecTV is using. They have convinced the judge that since people are buying products from known pirate sites that are advertised specifically for stealing DirecTV, it can be implied that the devices are being used to steal their signal.
If you bought different programmers from another source, you have nothing to worry about.
Yes, but since you compared the impact for both American and Japanese consumers based on the price of goods, you must also make the same comparison of resources available to American and Japanese consumers. It's like an algebraic equation. What you do to one side, you must also do to the other. To really understand the economic impact, you have to realize that the Japanese consumer does not have the resources available to him/her that the American consumer does. Therefore, even though he/she will pay less for their vehicle, they won't have any more resources left over to inject into the Japanese economy than the American consumer would have to inject into the American economy.
All of this is why protectionism needs to be an all or nothing policy. If we aren't going to protect jobs, we can't protect prices. If we are going to protect prices, we must also protect jobs. I totally agree with you that the ultimate goal should be no import tarifs and no penalties to companies who outsource labor to other countries. The problem is that getting there overnight would be a tremendous blood bath that would ultimately yield real blood in the form of a revolution.
If you want your argument to be valid, you'll have to come up with a way of doing so that doesn't involve this assumption. The salary difference between consumers in two different countries is exactly what causes the differences in cost of production.