The legitimate abandonware sites have one goal in mind: Make software which is not available retail or through the copyright holder available through another venue.
The problem is that the holders of the copyright feel legitimate ownership of these software titles, and have legal ane moral grounds for demanding that such software be removed.
Granted this is a shortsighted attitude, but such is their right.
As has been pointed out here, the GPL is based on copyright law. We scream loudly when violations to the GPL occur, and should allow others to have the same feelings toward their software.
My solution would extend the copyright of software owners indefinatly, however there are some requirments to keep copyright.
Those wishing to obtain a copy of said software title must have that title made available to them at a reasonable cost (Cost of media, plus shipping, plus some reasonable profit, not more than realistically obtainable via a retail outlet).
This would allow those who want to to get a copy of whatever software titles they desired, and would allow the company to hold on to the copyright.
If the company chooses not to make the software available, it and all related materials (code wheels, documentation...) reverts to public domain in five years. There would have to also be provisions to stop companies from holding on to a copyright without really providing access (providing only one day per 5 years or somesuch).
If a company really has reason to hold on to the copyright of a title, they should have no problem providing it. On the other hand if the goal is control of what you see and do with your computer (as is I suspect often the case), the copyright needs to be lost.
This should reasonably make everyone happy. If I want to I can get a game simply by writing the company. If they don't want to provide it, they loose the copyright, and I can LEGALLY get a copy from anyone who has it.
Companies may argue that this will hurt their revenue, as they will have to expend money on software that they do not wish to support, but that argument does not hold water, as it costs virtually nothing to reproduce software, and such software could be listed as unsupported.
There would be some cost to running the reproduction service, but that could be turned into something making a small profit simply through being able to charge a reasonable fee for such software.
Of course I doubt such a thing will ever happen, but who knows, if some companies were to think about it rationally, they may even find it worth doing.
Another idea would be for someone to start a company which would buy up the rights to old titles, upgrade them a little (move to linux, run under win 95, or at least not have to worry so much about the old DOS problems. Those could then be sold, and money made.
Well, so much for my idea. You may now discuss amongst yourselves:-)
The first is that they are the cheapest means of storing a small quantity of data. Ideal for say turning in programs to a professor and the like.
While many would reccomend email for such endeavors, it is impractical. Imagine a large university class of 200 or so coding in Visual C++ or Visual Basic. Associated source, dll, and executable files could easily mostly fill a floppy (I know, I've had to do it).
200 or more students each sending the professor ~1mb email all at the same time is going to cause all sorts of fun problems, particularly if he/she is using a departmental mail server (often the case when dealing with VB teachers).
Zips are nicer, and more stable, but if I loose a $0.50 floppy, I don't really care. If I loose a $10.00 zip I'm going to be a little upset.
I just realizet that my old c64 floppies (5.25") are still good, and I have fewer problems with them than with brand new floppies running on brand new drives. Perhaps companies are putting less quality into floppies than before.
CD-RW's are nice, but tend to need slightly different treatment both in use, and in storage/transport. Concepts often beyond many of those who frequent university computer labs.
They are also more expensive. Not by a lot, and they're much cheaper considering the amount of space, but the downsides outweigh the upsides for the uninitiated.
The other main use of floppies are for booting machines. They're cheap, and effective. If a machine must be booted, a floppy drive can be procured for under $20.00, and something minimal can be done. Other solutions are more difficult.
The best solution is education. (It should be noted that most users will resist to the death all such education attempts however).
Users should use zip disks for most transport, saving things on servers when necessary, and only saving that which they really need at that.
Most of the problems I see involve people wanting to save every cute little attachment their friends send them. These usually go on the servers, rather than onto the zips or floppies.
The the correct action is to put things you really want to save on cd-rw's or zips, If zips, something more permanant such as a cd-R would be a good idea.
Zips are not only good mass storage, but can store various utilities that are not present on the university machines, such as print formatters, or other such free utilities. (We all know that this would break the eula of most pay software).
As users tend to resist education, it needs to be pointed out to them that they are responsible for loosing data.
Show them the correct way to guard against data loss. Point out how long it's been since you lost data. Tell them about how the servers usually are backed up regularly, and how things are not usually lost.
Some of these things may make them feel bad, or ever make them mad. So what? They need to know it, and if they don't have it put to them in very simple terms, they will fail to understand.
The thing to remember is that while most users aren't stupid, most do have a fear of the computer that makes them so.
I have seen people on the verge of hysterics over having to use a computer. One man (who had other psychological and medical problems too) was so frightened that he would get an error that he was actually unable to move.
Another individual pulled a multi-page paper off of a dot-matrix printer (ca 1992) looked at it, and screamed "IT PRINTED IT UPSIDE DOWN!" I had to physically restrain him long enough to show him that he had the paper upside down. (He was printing up a major portion of his masters thesis due in a few minutes).
Neither was stupid, but the fear of the computer made them loose their wits, and they did stupid things. Most users will have similar problems, although to a lesser degree. If things are not very simple, and straightforeward, they won't understand, not because they can't but because they believe that they can't.
The greatest problems will come when people are under stress. Many people will resist education until five minutes before a paper is due, the only copy of which is on a corrupt floppy. They will consider it to be YOUR fault that the floppy died.
Hopefully they'll learn that a single copy of anything is not to be trusted, but many won't. I've seen people loose papers four and five times, and not learn to make multiple backups.
Disabling the floppy drives is one solution, but I think a bad one. There are times that someone may need to copy something to a floppy. There are times you may need to boot off a floppy (we use ghost servers to restore machines to a default configuration, a boot floppy is used in a reboot once with floppy type setup).
The best answer is that expierence will teach eventually. It just may take time, and you'll have to take some abuse in the mean time. That is the primary duty of tech support after all, to take abuse when computers can't save people from themselves.
There are a number of things you could do to publish online, but there are several problems with each.
You could simply publish the book to a web page in the regular manner, but that would negate making any money on it.
Another option is to do what Steven King did, and publish it in some manner that lets people download the text after they pay.
This also creates a problem. Steven King did it for the publicity. If you are trying to make money as an author (King already has loads, and can afford a flop), you want to reach the widest audence possible. Online publishing doesn't do this.
Then comes the problems of downloading anything over the internet:
1. Paying for it. You need a credit card. Most people do have them, but some don't, and some (myself included) don't want them.
2. What happens if something happens right near the end of the download? You would need protection to allow a person to download it again, but only if necessary. Not everyone has cable or DSL. My local phone provider (Name withheald to protect the guilty) can't even provide an acceptable voice connection for more than an hour or so (Not Internet voice, dial your friend's phone number and talk voice). Cable and DSL are just becomming available where I live.
3. There are a lot of people who don't get online, and wouldn't think of looking for YOUR book when they are online. I know of no 'Online Bookstores' that sell digital books. (Yes I know there are several that you can order paper books, but I've never heard of one that lets you BUY digital copies).
4. Piracy. We all know just how easy it is to copy and distribute anything in a digital format. Placing your book online with no paper version would give people no incentive to buy it. They would just copy it. Orson Scott Card places part of his books on his website, but the paper version is still at the bookstore.
5. I for one hate sitting and reading the screen. I can't lie back in bed and read my computer monitor. I can't take it with me in the car easily. Laptops mitigate this somewhat, but laptops are still more unwieldy than a book, and more valuable. I can leave a book, walk away and come back. If it isn't there I'm annoyed, but I can get another for under ten dollars (paperback). A laptop is a little more difficult to replace.
The internet is not ubiquitous enough to consider publishing to it exclusively. Steven King can do it, because he already has huge amounts of money. It is likely that he is doing the online thing because he wants to sell more of his other books, not because he wants to sell the novella he put online. It's all kinds of free publicity. An unknown author trying to do the same thing, after it's already been done, won't make news at all.
No serious Open Source advocete ever said that Open Source was the magic bullet for better security. It is true that several less informed have interpeted several statments by the more vocal 'leaders', but tha actual assertion is that Open Source code allows for a greater chance of discovering such errors.
Every test that can be made on closed source code can be made on open source code. Open Source also gives you the advantage of being able to see the code and find out what and where an error might be.
The real advantage isn't the ability to find it fast, in fact Open Source security holes and closed source security holes are found with about equal speed. The real advantage is in the speed at which the fix can be made.
In the example of the PGP problem, the article gave the fix. All one would need to do is find the offending line, replace it and recompile. It is likely that updated source files and binaries are already available, and binary patches won't be far behind.
In the closed source world, we are left up to the dictates of a company to decide when or if it will get fixed. Many closed source products have had published holes in their code for years, which is to be fixed "in the next release". With Open source, such things can be rectified more rapidly.
This is the "security advantange" of Open Source. Having the code available does give a small advantage of finding an error that way, but the great advantage is the ease of fixing it when a problem is actually found.
It's been so long since we.....( long description of what the individual would like to be doing with Julie).
of
Dear Sadam:
Here is the information you requested on the guidance system of the Patriot Missle. As you can see the system could be jamned sufficiently to force it to miss your scuds.
Both emails are inappropiate, one means someone may be having an illicit affair, the other means that some vital information has been given away that will prevent anti-missle defense systems from working as intended.
Come on. The DOE or DOD aren't going to be looking through your stuff to see if you're surfing porn. They might, but are going to care a whole lot less than if you are selling National Security Secrets.
That's why (as steted in the original article) they implemented it. Someone apparently sold such secrets, they want to stop it.
It's more like Corporatocracy. I guess I can spell that any way I want, since I made up the word.
Under a republic, the people can choose leaders, and can remove a ruler if they so choose.
Under a Corporatococracy, the corporations can see to it that there is never a decent alternative. It is much like Communist Russia. You could vote for whomever you wanted, just as long as they were part of the Communist party.
Under Corporatism, you can kind of choose by what you buy, but anyone who doesn't toe the party line is never allowed to rise to the top.
Why do you think there are so many corporatists against Open Source. It's something that doesn't toe the party line, and something they can't control.
What we really have in the US, is a Corporatocracy giving us the illusion of a Republic while telling people that the US is a Democracy.
BTW Democracy in the United States is a rather new idea. The 1928 US army training manual no 2000-25 reports that Democracy resultis in mobocracy, a communistic attitude toward property, and has an overall result of agitation, discontent, and anarchy.
Others can debate the positives and negatives of all forms of governments, but it is clear that the US thought of Democracy as bad as late as 1932 when that particular section was removed.
The corpratists want everyone to believe that they are choosing the laws, this is why the United States still holds elections, and has court cases involving the constitution. It is basically a sham. Most of congress and of course the Presidency is bought and paid for.
Notice the primary issues in the campaigns. Abortion, gun congrol, campaign reform. Whatever your feelings on these, they are really just being used to make you think that the government is doing something. Nothing will ever be resolved. They don't want it resolved until there are no more people who can be duped by that particular issue. However important you think the issue is on a moral basis, none of them matter anymore from a political standpoint, because as far as anyone with the power to decide is concerned, they are just good ways to keep getting reelected without ever needing to acomplish anything.
Look at both presidential candidates. Both are corpratists. One clams to be 'liberal', the other claims to be 'conservative' but those are only the facades they put on to put forth their corporate agenda.
Do I think there's a conspiracy? Not really. Everyone is just acting with un-enlightened self interest. What gets ME the most money, power whatever. For such things, vast conspiracies are inefficient, when normal greed will suffice for an explanation. Of course there are small conspiacies everywhere. If two or more people are involved it's a conspiracy after all.
Democracy in the United States is an illusion. The corporatism present her controls the government, we have allowed it to spread to the rest of the world.
I havn't seen or heard of one for a long time, but as late as 14.4 kbps modems, there were capable acoustic couplers similar to the old style acoustic modems. They are a little more elaborate, allowing for a decent hookup to even odd shaped phones, but something along those lines should allow for an acceptable connection from anything that can carry the signal. It would also free you of having to take an expensive cell phone, or a plethora of connectors. I do understand though that they are rather large.
There is one other serious oversite in the article as to motivations for contributing to open source projects.
The original authors of most open source projects seem to have needed the particular piece of software they were writing. They also didn't care about potential economic gain from said software.
She quotes "The Cathederal and the Bazarr", but she missed one of the most important points for undertaing the fetchmail project used as the example in that essay. ESR needed a decent program to handle certian email problems. Most programs had some things he needed, and taken together pretty much every needed feature was covered, but no single program had all of the needed features. He wrote fetchmail because he needed it.
He also didn't have the time and energy to debug it properly. Turning to open source projects for many things creates instant feedback. If you have a good idea that is valuable, it will be improved by a huge number of people. Their motivation? It would make their lives easier too.
This seems to be the true reason for contributing to an Open Source or Free Software project.
Why did Linus create Linux? DOS sucked. Minix sucked. He needed something to suit his purposes. It turned out that it also suited the purposes of many other people. They saw the potential in Linux, saw where it needed imrovement, and contributed. Not because of alturism, or to get better known (although that is a factor), but because they also needed it as a tool.
If you look at any of the other high profile open source projects (Apache, Perl, etc.) You will find that people are contributing to those because they find them very useful, and would find the contributions they make useful as well. Once you have something that works, why not share?
If you keep the source to yourself, you might be able to sell it, on the other hand you might not. You may also just find yourself in competition with a large corperation who would think nothing of doing whatever they can to see to it that you never get your program out. Open Sourceing a project is essentially opening a pandora's box. Once you let it out, no one can put it back in.
These are the real motivatioins for Open Source. Not because it's fun (although that is a factor), not for prestige (although that is also a factor), but because you need that software to accomplish a particular task, and it's too difficult to do by your self. Since a lot of other people would be able to use the same software to accomplish the same task, they are more than willing to help if it gets them closer to their goal.
In his presentation ESR has everyone who programs for a living stand up. Then he has everyone who programs for a living, and their company depends upon selling the software that they have written.
In the presentation I saw, the first question had more than half of the room standing. I would estimate that over 100 people stood. The second question had four people stand up. Most people write code to accomplish a specific purpose. Once that purpose is accomplished, they see nothing wrong with giving it away. Their incentive has already been met.
I hate to say it, but it's true. I really can't blame you, but you made the #1 error that Free Software advocates everywhere have been making for a long time.
You tried to argue ethics to a businessman. Eric Raymond pointed this out at one of his talks. While he was explaining how best to advocat Open Source, the same methods apply to arguing to businesses. "You have to learn how to convince someone who doesn't give a shit about ehtics." (I can't say that's an exact quote but it's close).
All they care about is the bottom line. ESR pointed out that the way to convince them to switch to Linux is to point out that it is better a better deal.
The Plinkerton group responded very predictably to ethical arguments. "If we don't do it, someone else will", and "We have put our company on the line, we can't pull out now. Instead let's change it to make it more pallatable."
The better thing would thave been to point out that there were more who fit the profile of 'dangerous' than didn't. They won't be happy. Advertisers aren't going to be very entheuastic about advertising through a company that is pissing off most of their target demographic. (ESR also pointed out that it's a good idea to throw in a couple of 'business' words:> )
Then there are the possible lawsuits. The Plinkertons are opening themselves up for major lawsuits if they persue this and ANYONE gets screwed over injustly. Admittedly those likely to to sue will be conspicuously absent from any school diciplinary action no matter the offense.
Arguments such as this are more likely to shake their confidence. Comparing them to Hitler isn't likely to convince them. After all they believe that facism is about hating Jews, not about controlling ideas. For that many marketing people actually study Hitler's technique, after all he was the most brilliant mass manipultor in recent history, and what is marketing besides mass manipulation.
There was nothing unpredictable in the meeting. Most 'geeks' are quite concerned with ethics, and have a rather finely developed sense of what is right and wrong.
What we generally fail to realize is that so do businessmen. It is just that their view of right and wrong is directly tied to how much money is made. After all, they have a "responsibility to the shareholders."
The first step in convincing a copratist is to learn to think like him, then construct arguments that will appeal to that sense. Remember, power and money seem to make up the ethical landscape in that world, and your arguments must show that.
If you want to point out ethics, point out that the target demographic feels this way, and will respond accordingly.
SuSE is IMO one of the best distributions. Particularly if you do not have a decent internet connection.
For example, many distros have the attiude, that you should start simple, and download the rest. If you have a t3 running to your machine, that would be great.
If (like me) you're stuck in an area where DSL is still around $70 a month and not available all over the area, cable modems have been comming "next year for sure" for three years running, and the phone lines suck so badly that a two hour connection (even for voice) is a remarkable thing, SuSE is the only real alternative. I can install whatever I need from the disks provided, and then just download some of the patches.
SuSE's biggest strength is that everything is available on the disks. The internationalization is big for some people, but not relevant for me. SuSE has released three new versions since I bought mine, and each has more than the last. I estimate that SuSE will ship on 7 or more CD's before long. It is already shipping on DVD.
Yast (yet another setup tool) is also great. I prefer yast over yast2 however. Yast allows you to install, or uninstall the standard packages in a reasonable menu driven interface. If there are dependancies, yast informs you, and gives you the option of selecting them automatically. It even tells you if installing certian packages together might cause problems. Many system administration tasks can be completed through yast, but using yast create obscure scripts that only the setup tool understands. It is easy to hack anything by hand.
Unlike a couple of other distros I've tried, SuSE gives you the choice of graphical or text login, and you can also choose between KDM or XDM if you choose a graphical login. Changing this is simple and accomplished through Yast.
SuSE does have a couple of disadvantages. It is an international distribution, and does not contain strong encryption utilities. (newer releases may have fixed this, but there is still none on the U.S. website). It is necessary to download that information from the German website.
Once in a while, some of the documentation looks poorly translated as well. Everything seems gramatically correct, but it is often stated in a way that would cause most North American to have to think about what is said.
On occasion, there will also be an error message (espically in yast), which will end up in german.
Other than those few annoyances, SuSE is the best I have used.
While it's true that a single install is always desirable, it isn't always the case. In the modern office Linux may have to be instaled several dozen times because there are several dozen machines to install it on. This makes ease of installation desirable.
There is also the possibility of hardware problems requiring a reinstall (I have seen numerous hard drives die).
So, from an idealistic standpoint, Linux should have to be installed once, but from a more realistic standpoint, even a bulletproof OS needs a simple installer, because there are other reasons to install it.
Of course I reinstall Linux every few months on my machine, but I'm trying out every distribution I can get my hands on, and I like to start fresh each time as it is a fairer test.
wouldn't the easiest way to 'hack' DEV audio encryption be to run the audio out from my DVD audio player (This is needed because you want to be able to have speakers.), to the audio in of something that can record them in MP3 or other format of similar quality? What have I missed? What is the point of encrypting it at all? It seems a great waste of time, money, and effort for zero gain. If I had stock in any company pushing for such a stupid security model, I would sell it.
While you will never get an argument from me that open source software is generally better, there are some things however for which Open Source is not appropiate. Even Eric Raymond would agree, after all, one of his presentations convinced me of this fact.
SETI@home is such software. It isn't some kind of disk system that just needs to run more quickly. It is a scientific endeavor. Unless it can be assured that the new algorithm being used in the patch produces EXACTLY the same results given the same input for ANY possible input, use of such altered packages could invalidate the experiment.
While it is nice to have such things open, in this case it just doesn't seem prudent given that the software is performing complex computations on the data. It is possible that some of the shortcuts used in the patch eliminate some calculation which almost never seems to produce any results, but could given certian inputs.
In a case such as SETI@home, such things would be a serious problem.
There is another reason the SETI@home team wants to keep things a little secret. There are groups who (for whatever reason) may want to either mask a possible signal, or create a false one. There are fanatics on both sides. If you read the FAQ on the home page, it states as much, and that steps have been taken to assure that such things are not possible. This may require some secrecy.
While the ISA bus is seriously slow, there are several applications for which an ISA bus in easily adiquate. A modem for instance. Since a modem is far slower than even the ISA bus, there is no need to put it on a PCI bus. On the subject of PCI modems, does anyone make a non winmodem for the PCI bus? I have looked a little, and only found winmodems.
Sound Cards wouldn't seem to need that much bandwidth either. I looked at two soundcards once which were supposed to be the same 'model' one for ISA, and the other for PCI. The ISA card seemed normal, and had several IC chips on it. The PCI card didn't have any IC's on it. The most complex electrical component seemed to be a resistor. The sound card ran the speakers and not much else. All of the sound processing would have had to been offloaded back to the processor. The worst part was that the PCI card cost at least twice as much as the ISA card.
There are always legacy cards which someone may want to use. It is nice to have access to use some of those cards, even if the majority of the people don't need them. This is why MCA support has been added to Linux recently.
If I were to buy a motherboard (with no regard to price), it would have an AGP slot, at least 6 PCI slots, at least 2 EISA/VL slots (for those unfamiliar with the protocol, EISA slots can take ISA cards, and VL slots are a physical extension on the back of an ISA or EISA slot), and at least one preferably two MCA slots.
I like being able to put s piece of legacy hardware into my machine, even if for only a little while. I would use mostly the PCI slots, with maybe a card or two for ISA. If I wanted to try out a VL card, I could. If I wanted to try out an old MCA card, I could. If I wanted to try an EISA card, no problem.
On the other hand, I have heard that the ISA bus slows things down, even if it isn't being used. So losing it isn't all bad either.
I read and enjoyed the rest of the Ender series. I havn't had the chance to read Ender's Shadow as yet, but I do have some replies to various comments and commentary on some of the replies I've seen. If you havn't read Ender's game, there may be spoilers, but I can't possibly spoiler Ender's Shadow as I have not yet read it.
There have been several comments that bean should have not been more intelligent than Ender. I always thought that he was. Ender even kind of acknowledges this when he makes Bean the leader of a special toon, to figure out new strategies.
Ender was by far not the most intelligent person in the story. Mazer Rachman (sp?) was likely more capable of devising the actual tactics, but Mazer himslelf said that he was too old and tired to be able to do it, or words to that effect.
Peter was at least intelligent as Ender, as was Valentine. Ender's Game states explicitly that they weren't less intelligent than Ender. Peter was turned down from battle school, because they were afraid that he was TOO dangerous, further he was not empathetic enough to be able to begin to think like the enemy. He would have had no problem pulling the trigger on the Little Doctor, but would have had difficulty getting there. That is if he didn't take over the command school or something like that.
Valentine on the other hand, would have been able to figure out exactly what the buggers were doing, but once she did, she would have never blown up the bugger world, even if she thought she were in a game.
Of the three, Ender was the only one with the right balance of ruithlessness and empathy, which would make him into an appropiate weapon to use as an ultimate weapon.
Ender, Valentine and Peter aren't really in the same class as most geeks. While very intelligent, they all seem to have a great deal of leadership ability. I have no doubt that I could devise better strategies than many of the moden generals, getting people to follow me would be my greatest problem.
Bean struck me as much the same. He was more than capable of doing the job from the standpoint of tactics, and ruithlessness, he just couldn't have gotten the others to follow him as easily as they did Ender.
Of course Ender's Shadow may totally contradict this observation.
In regard to the best of the books, I though Speaker for the dead was the best, and I was disappointed with Xenocide and Cildren of the Mind. While both were rather good, and worth reading, they did not live up the eithe Ender's game, or Speaker. I expected Xenocide to be better than Speaker, after all Speaker was better than Ender, but I guess not.
The article sucked, but at least it was good press. The reporter should have had the intelligence to check out all of the facts before reporting them. Five minutes with any linux book in a bookstore would have ironed out several of the problems. Asking nearly anybody in the Linux community about some of the related facts would have fixed most of the rest. There is no real excuse for such egregious errors. The press screams that "The people have a right to know" which is true, but the people have the right to know the truth, not somebody's half baked, uninformed, misinterpeted version of it.
Further I found the comparason to a cathederal kind of insulting. "The Cathederal and the Bazaar" expresses the difference nicely.
If they do, what of Linux? Linus wouldn't have been 'qualified' when he wrote linux, at least according to the article's definition of qualified. Would Linux be moved out for many applications simply because most of the programmers who worked on it were not 'qualified'?
Bill Gates would be qualified, but not Linus (now he probably would, but not when the bulk of Linux was written). Which would you rather have writing your software if your life depended on it?
While it is true that different is not always good, Singling someone out because they are different is wrong.
Albert Einstein was 'different' Joan of Arc was 'different' Martin Luther King was 'different' Mohandas Gandhi was 'different'
Those of us who choose not to conform do so because conformity for the sake of conformity makes us ill. We usually just want to be left alone.
If anyone needs counciling, it is the 'popular' kids. After all they are the ones who persecute and punish all those who don't bow down before them, and emulate them in every way.
Why is being different lauded? It means that we aren't slaves to those who would be in control. We have minds, and the (gasp) ability to think and choose for ourselves.
Why did the two columbine students go on a rampage? They were driven to it by the EXACT attitude you have expressed. "Conform or you're worthless. Do what everyone else does, get out." We are of a different breed, and you better thank whatever deity you believe in that we exist. When we get pushed we want to push back. When we get stompped we want to stomp back. If someone says "It can't be done" we say "Bull, I'll do it."
Those like us are responsible for the existence of the internet, the airplane, the automobile, and the United States.
They said that a country with no king could never stand. WE proved them wrong.
The nonconformists are the ones who change the world, the conformists just take the credit.
Re:we're all over (I don't believe it.)
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In fairness, I have seen a few whose eyes don't glaze over at the mere mention of computers, and even a coulpe of legitimate geek chicks. Unfortunatly, Every one I have met has already been spoken for.:(
Linux has far more releases than any closed source OS, because the philosophy behind closed source code is to never let your customer see a bug. Obviously this hasn't worked with NT. Open source on the other hand, releases every even marginally working piece of software. This software is then viewed and 'fixed' by a large number of people, then resubmitted to whoever is maintaining that code.
With closed source software, about 10% of the time is spent writing the code, then the rest is spend debugging. Debugging takes many many worker hours in order to do correctly. This is why there are alpha and beta versions available for some things, but they are still being tested.
With open source, such things are not worried about. The user has access to the source code, and those thousands or hundreds of thousands of 'eyeball hours' looking at the code for problems, can be accomplished in a matter of days or even hours.
There have been times during the development of linux that Linus released a new kernel version more than once a day. I would imagine that this happens more with the unstable releases. For discussion on how to tell, see earlier posts.
I wanted to say to all proto-geeks out there that you are not alone. Read the posts here, there are many of us.
Other posters have accused us of haiting all non-geeks, others have accused us of the same crimes committed against us for feeling smarter and superior than our assailants.
This is untrue. In my own case, I do not hate all non-geeks. I do hate many non-geeks, I also hate quite a few geeks. What I can hear in these posts is a universal bitterness, not hairted.
We have a right to be angry. The United States is supposed to be a free country, but it only appears to be free to those who conform.
When I was in high school, I was told that I should try to conform so that I could be accepted. I didn't want to conform, and I didn't care about fitting in. I wanted basic rights.
I wanted the right to walk down the hall without being spit on. I wanted the right to attend class without being assaulted while the teacher turned the other way. I wanted the right to participate in PE class without being deliberatly injured. I wanted to eat my lunch without having it ruined by getting it dumpped on the floor or spit in. Such were daily occurences for me. Not once were those responsible punished. On the one occasion I went to a councilor, nothing happened, and I was punished for tardiness to class.
I didn't want more rights than anyone else, I simply wanted the same rights granted to prisoners of war, or convicted felons. They have the right to eat an unspoiled meal, and not be assaulted because some testosterone poisoned jerk needs to feel big and important.
Is there anything wrong with that? Yet, most of my teachers, principals, and 'councilors' seemed to think that I should just expect such treatment as part of growing up.
The powers that be need to wake up, and find out what is really happening under their own noses. They can't blame themselves though, they can't possibly admit to being less than perfect. They choose instead to blame violecne in the media, and violent video games. In truth, the video games probably delay the violence by allowing the persecuted to work out agression without actual violence.
It is time to band together. We can change the world for the better. Geeks young and old are still in control of what has been declared the most improtant development since the printing press. We can be heard and we can prevail.
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The legitimate abandonware sites have one goal in mind: Make software which is not available retail or through the copyright holder available through another venue.
:-)
The problem is that the holders of the copyright feel legitimate ownership of these software titles, and have legal ane moral grounds for demanding that such software be removed.
Granted this is a shortsighted attitude, but such is their right.
As has been pointed out here, the GPL is based on copyright law. We scream loudly when violations to the GPL occur, and should allow others to have the same feelings toward their software.
My solution would extend the copyright of software owners indefinatly, however there are some requirments to keep copyright.
Those wishing to obtain a copy of said software title must have that title made available to them at a reasonable cost (Cost of media, plus shipping, plus some reasonable profit, not more than realistically obtainable via a retail outlet).
This would allow those who want to to get a copy of whatever software titles they desired, and would allow the company to hold on to the copyright.
If the company chooses not to make the software available, it and all related materials (code wheels, documentation...) reverts to public domain in five years. There would have to also be provisions to stop companies from holding on to a copyright without really providing access (providing only one day per 5 years or somesuch).
If a company really has reason to hold on to the copyright of a title, they should have no problem providing it. On the other hand if the goal is control of what you see and do with your computer (as is I suspect often the case), the copyright needs to be lost.
This should reasonably make everyone happy. If I want to I can get a game simply by writing the company. If they don't want to provide it, they loose the copyright, and I can LEGALLY get a copy from anyone who has it.
Companies may argue that this will hurt their revenue, as they will have to expend money on software that they do not wish to support, but that argument does not hold water, as it costs virtually nothing to reproduce software, and such software could be listed as unsupported.
There would be some cost to running the reproduction service, but that could be turned into something making a small profit simply through being able to charge a reasonable fee for such software.
Of course I doubt such a thing will ever happen, but who knows, if some companies were to think about it rationally, they may even find it worth doing.
Another idea would be for someone to start a company which would buy up the rights to old titles, upgrade them a little (move to linux, run under win 95, or at least not have to worry so much about the old DOS problems. Those could then be sold, and money made.
Well, so much for my idea. You may now discuss amongst yourselves
The first is that they are the cheapest means of storing a small quantity of data. Ideal for say turning in programs to a professor and the like.
While many would reccomend email for such endeavors, it is impractical. Imagine a large university class of 200 or so coding in Visual C++ or Visual Basic. Associated source, dll, and executable files could easily mostly fill a floppy (I know, I've had to do it).
200 or more students each sending the professor ~1mb email all at the same time is going to cause all sorts of fun problems, particularly if he/she is using a departmental mail server (often the case when dealing with VB teachers).
Zips are nicer, and more stable, but if I loose a $0.50 floppy, I don't really care. If I loose a $10.00 zip I'm going to be a little upset.
I just realizet that my old c64 floppies (5.25") are still good, and I have fewer problems with them than with brand new floppies running on brand new drives. Perhaps companies are putting less quality into floppies than before.
CD-RW's are nice, but tend to need slightly different treatment both in use, and in storage/transport. Concepts often beyond many of those who frequent university computer labs.
They are also more expensive. Not by a lot, and they're much cheaper considering the amount of space, but the downsides outweigh the upsides for the uninitiated.
The other main use of floppies are for booting machines. They're cheap, and effective. If a machine must be booted, a floppy drive can be procured for under $20.00, and something minimal can be done. Other solutions are more difficult.
The best solution is education. (It should be noted that most users will resist to the death all such education attempts however).
Users should use zip disks for most transport, saving things on servers when necessary, and only saving that which they really need at that.
Most of the problems I see involve people wanting to save every cute little attachment their friends send them. These usually go on the servers, rather than onto the zips or floppies.
The the correct action is to put things you really want to save on cd-rw's or zips, If zips, something more permanant such as a cd-R would be a good idea.
Zips are not only good mass storage, but can store various utilities that are not present on the university machines, such as print formatters, or other such free utilities. (We all know that this would break the eula of most pay software).
As users tend to resist education, it needs to be pointed out to them that they are responsible for loosing data.
Show them the correct way to guard against data loss. Point out how long it's been since you lost data. Tell them about how the servers usually are backed up regularly, and how things are not usually lost.
Some of these things may make them feel bad, or ever make them mad. So what? They need to know it, and if they don't have it put to them in very simple terms, they will fail to understand.
The thing to remember is that while most users aren't stupid, most do have a fear of the computer that makes them so.
I have seen people on the verge of hysterics over having to use a computer. One man (who had other psychological and medical problems too) was so frightened that he would get an error that he was actually unable to move.
Another individual pulled a multi-page paper off of a dot-matrix printer (ca 1992) looked at it, and screamed "IT PRINTED IT UPSIDE DOWN!" I had to physically restrain him long enough to show him that he had the paper upside down. (He was printing up a major portion of his masters thesis due in a few minutes).
Neither was stupid, but the fear of the computer made them loose their wits, and they did stupid things. Most users will have similar problems, although to a lesser degree. If things are not very simple, and straightforeward, they won't understand, not because they can't but because they believe that they can't.
The greatest problems will come when people are under stress. Many people will resist education until five minutes before a paper is due, the only copy of which is on a corrupt floppy. They will consider it to be YOUR fault that the floppy died.
Hopefully they'll learn that a single copy of anything is not to be trusted, but many won't. I've seen people loose papers four and five times, and not learn to make multiple backups.
Disabling the floppy drives is one solution, but I think a bad one. There are times that someone may need to copy something to a floppy. There are times you may need to boot off a floppy (we use ghost servers to restore machines to a default configuration, a boot floppy is used in a reboot once with floppy type setup).
The best answer is that expierence will teach eventually. It just may take time, and you'll have to take some abuse in the mean time. That is the primary duty of tech support after all, to take abuse when computers can't save people from themselves.
There are a number of things you could do to publish online, but there are several problems with each.
You could simply publish the book to a web page in the regular manner, but that would negate making any money on it.
Another option is to do what Steven King did, and publish it in some manner that lets people download the text after they pay.
This also creates a problem. Steven King did it for the publicity. If you are trying to make money as an author (King already has loads, and can afford a flop), you want to reach the widest audence possible. Online publishing doesn't do this.
Then comes the problems of downloading anything over the internet:
1. Paying for it. You need a credit card. Most people do have them, but some don't, and some (myself included) don't want them.
2. What happens if something happens right near the end of the download? You would need protection to allow a person to download it again, but only if necessary. Not everyone has cable or DSL. My local phone provider (Name withheald to protect the guilty) can't even provide an acceptable voice connection for more than an hour or so (Not Internet voice, dial your friend's phone number and talk voice). Cable and DSL are just becomming available where I live.
3. There are a lot of people who don't get online, and wouldn't think of looking for YOUR book when they are online. I know of no 'Online Bookstores' that sell digital books. (Yes I know there are several that you can order paper books, but I've never heard of one that lets you BUY digital copies).
4. Piracy. We all know just how easy it is to copy and distribute anything in a digital format. Placing your book online with no paper version would give people no incentive to buy it. They would just copy it. Orson Scott Card places part of his books on his website, but the paper version is still at the bookstore.
5. I for one hate sitting and reading the screen. I can't lie back in bed and read my computer monitor. I can't take it with me in the car easily. Laptops mitigate this somewhat, but laptops are still more unwieldy than a book, and more valuable. I can leave a book, walk away and come back. If it isn't there I'm annoyed, but I can get another for under ten dollars (paperback). A laptop is a little more difficult to replace.
The internet is not ubiquitous enough to consider publishing to it exclusively. Steven King can do it, because he already has huge amounts of money. It is likely that he is doing the online thing because he wants to sell more of his other books, not because he wants to sell the novella he put online. It's all kinds of free publicity. An unknown author trying to do the same thing, after it's already been done, won't make news at all.
No serious Open Source advocete ever said that Open Source was the magic bullet for better security. It is true that several less informed have interpeted several statments by the more vocal 'leaders', but tha actual assertion is that Open Source code allows for a greater chance of discovering such errors.
Every test that can be made on closed source code can be made on open source code. Open Source also gives you the advantage of being able to see the code and find out what and where an error might be.
The real advantage isn't the ability to find it fast, in fact Open Source security holes and closed source security holes are found with about equal speed. The real advantage is in the speed at which the fix can be made.
In the example of the PGP problem, the article gave the fix. All one would need to do is find the offending line, replace it and recompile. It is likely that updated source files and binaries are already available, and binary patches won't be far behind.
In the closed source world, we are left up to the dictates of a company to decide when or if it will get fixed. Many closed source products have had published holes in their code for years, which is to be fixed "in the next release". With Open source, such things can be rectified more rapidly.
This is the "security advantange" of Open Source. Having the code available does give a small advantage of finding an error that way, but the great advantage is the ease of fixing it when a problem is actually found.
Dear Julie:
It's been so long since we.....( long description of what the individual would like to be doing with Julie).
of
Dear Sadam:
Here is the information you requested on the guidance system of the Patriot Missle. As you can see the system could be jamned sufficiently to force it to miss your scuds.
Both emails are inappropiate, one means someone may be having an illicit affair, the other means that some vital information has been given away that will prevent anti-missle defense systems from working as intended.
Come on. The DOE or DOD aren't going to be looking through your stuff to see if you're surfing porn. They might, but are going to care a whole lot less than if you are selling National Security Secrets.
That's why (as steted in the original article) they implemented it. Someone apparently sold such secrets, they want to stop it.
It's more like Corporatocracy. I guess I can spell that any way I want, since I made up the word.
Under a republic, the people can choose leaders, and can remove a ruler if they so choose.
Under a Corporatococracy, the corporations can see to it that there is never a decent alternative. It is much like Communist Russia. You could vote for whomever you wanted, just as long as they were part of the Communist party.
Under Corporatism, you can kind of choose by what you buy, but anyone who doesn't toe the party line is never allowed to rise to the top.
Why do you think there are so many corporatists against Open Source. It's something that doesn't toe the party line, and something they can't control.
What we really have in the US, is a Corporatocracy giving us the illusion of a Republic while telling people that the US is a Democracy.
BTW Democracy in the United States is a rather new idea. The 1928 US army training manual no 2000-25 reports that Democracy resultis in mobocracy, a communistic attitude toward property, and has an overall result of agitation, discontent, and anarchy.
Others can debate the positives and negatives of all forms of governments, but it is clear that the US thought of Democracy as bad as late as 1932 when that particular section was removed.
The corpratists want everyone to believe that they are choosing the laws, this is why the United States still holds elections, and has court cases involving the constitution. It is basically a sham. Most of congress and of course the Presidency is bought and paid for.
Notice the primary issues in the campaigns. Abortion, gun congrol, campaign reform. Whatever your feelings on these, they are really just being used to make you think that the government is doing something. Nothing will ever be resolved. They don't want it resolved until there are no more people who can be duped by that particular issue. However important you think the issue is on a moral basis, none of them matter anymore from a political standpoint, because as far as anyone with the power to decide is concerned, they are just good ways to keep getting reelected without ever needing to acomplish anything.
Look at both presidential candidates. Both are corpratists. One clams to be 'liberal', the other claims to be 'conservative' but those are only the facades they put on to put forth their corporate agenda.
Do I think there's a conspiracy? Not really. Everyone is just acting with un-enlightened self interest. What gets ME the most money, power whatever. For such things, vast conspiracies are inefficient, when normal greed will suffice for an explanation. Of course there are small conspiacies everywhere. If two or more people are involved it's a conspiracy after all.
Democracy in the United States is an illusion. The corporatism present her controls the government, we have allowed it to spread to the rest of the world.
I havn't seen or heard of one for a long time, but as late as 14.4 kbps modems, there were capable acoustic couplers similar to the old style acoustic modems. They are a little more elaborate, allowing for a decent hookup to even odd shaped phones, but something along those lines should allow for an acceptable connection from anything that can carry the signal. It would also free you of having to take an expensive cell phone, or a plethora of connectors. I do understand though that they are rather large.
There is one other serious oversite in the article as to motivations for contributing to open source projects.
The original authors of most open source projects seem to have needed the particular piece of software they were writing. They also didn't care about potential economic gain from said software.
She quotes "The Cathederal and the Bazarr", but she missed one of the most important points for undertaing the fetchmail project used as the example in that essay. ESR needed a decent program to handle certian email problems. Most programs had some things he needed, and taken together pretty much every needed feature was covered, but no single program had all of the needed features. He wrote fetchmail because he needed it.
He also didn't have the time and energy to debug it properly. Turning to open source projects for many things creates instant feedback. If you have a good idea that is valuable, it will be improved by a huge number of people. Their motivation? It would make their lives easier too.
This seems to be the true reason for contributing to an Open Source or Free Software project.
Why did Linus create Linux? DOS sucked. Minix sucked. He needed something to suit his purposes. It turned out that it also suited the purposes of many other people. They saw the potential in Linux, saw where it needed imrovement, and contributed. Not because of alturism, or to get better known (although that is a factor), but because they also needed it as a tool.
If you look at any of the other high profile open source projects (Apache, Perl, etc.) You will find that people are contributing to those because they find them very useful, and would find the contributions they make useful as well. Once you have something that works, why not share?
If you keep the source to yourself, you might be able to sell it, on the other hand you might not. You may also just find yourself in competition with a large corperation who would think nothing of doing whatever they can to see to it that you never get your program out. Open Sourceing a project is essentially opening a pandora's box. Once you let it out, no one can put it back in.
These are the real motivatioins for Open Source. Not because it's fun (although that is a factor), not for prestige (although that is also a factor), but because you need that software to accomplish a particular task, and it's too difficult to do by your self. Since a lot of other people would be able to use the same software to accomplish the same task, they are more than willing to help if it gets them closer to their goal.
In his presentation ESR has everyone who programs for a living stand up. Then he has everyone who programs for a living, and their company depends upon selling the software that they have written.
In the presentation I saw, the first question had more than half of the room standing. I would estimate that over 100 people stood. The second question had four people stand up. Most people write code to accomplish a specific purpose. Once that purpose is accomplished, they see nothing wrong with giving it away. Their incentive has already been met.
I hate to say it, but it's true. I really can't blame you, but you made the #1 error that Free Software advocates everywhere have been making for a long time.
You tried to argue ethics to a businessman. Eric Raymond pointed this out at one of his talks. While he was explaining how best to advocat Open Source, the same methods apply to arguing to businesses. "You have to learn how to convince someone who doesn't give a shit about ehtics." (I can't say that's an exact quote but it's close).
All they care about is the bottom line. ESR pointed out that the way to convince them to switch to Linux is to point out that it is better a better deal.
The Plinkerton group responded very predictably to ethical arguments. "If we don't do it, someone else will", and "We have put our company on the line, we can't pull out now. Instead let's change it to make it more pallatable."
The better thing would thave been to point out that there were more who fit the profile of 'dangerous' than didn't. They won't be happy. Advertisers aren't going to be very entheuastic about advertising through a company that is pissing off most of their target demographic. (ESR also pointed out that it's a good idea to throw in a couple of 'business' words:> )
Then there are the possible lawsuits. The Plinkertons are opening themselves up for major lawsuits if they persue this and ANYONE gets screwed over injustly. Admittedly those likely to to sue will be conspicuously absent from any school diciplinary action no matter the offense.
Arguments such as this are more likely to shake their confidence. Comparing them to Hitler isn't likely to convince them. After all they believe that facism is about hating Jews, not about controlling ideas. For that many marketing people actually study Hitler's technique, after all he was the most brilliant mass manipultor in recent history, and what is marketing besides mass manipulation.
There was nothing unpredictable in the meeting. Most 'geeks' are quite concerned with ethics, and have a rather finely developed sense of what is right and wrong.
What we generally fail to realize is that so do businessmen. It is just that their view of right and wrong is directly tied to how much money is made. After all, they have a "responsibility to the shareholders."
The first step in convincing a copratist is to learn to think like him, then construct arguments that will appeal to that sense. Remember, power and money seem to make up the ethical landscape in that world, and your arguments must show that.
If you want to point out ethics, point out that the target demographic feels this way, and will respond accordingly.
SuSE is IMO one of the best distributions. Particularly if you do not have a decent internet connection.
For example, many distros have the attiude, that you should start simple, and download the rest. If you have a t3 running to your machine, that would be great.
If (like me) you're stuck in an area where DSL is still around $70 a month and not available all over the area, cable modems have been comming "next year for sure" for three years running, and the phone lines suck so badly that a two hour connection (even for voice) is a remarkable thing, SuSE is the only real alternative. I can install whatever I need from the disks provided, and then just download some of the patches.
SuSE's biggest strength is that everything is available on the disks. The internationalization is big for some people, but not relevant for me. SuSE has released three new versions since I bought mine, and each has more than the last. I estimate that SuSE will ship on 7 or more CD's before long. It is already shipping on DVD.
Yast (yet another setup tool) is also great. I prefer yast over yast2 however. Yast allows you to install, or uninstall the standard packages in a reasonable menu driven interface. If there are dependancies, yast informs you, and gives you the option of selecting them automatically. It even tells you if installing certian packages together might cause problems. Many system administration tasks can be completed through yast, but using yast create obscure scripts that only the setup tool understands. It is easy to hack anything by hand.
Unlike a couple of other distros I've tried, SuSE gives you the choice of graphical or text login, and you can also choose between KDM or XDM if you choose a graphical login. Changing this is simple and accomplished through Yast.
SuSE does have a couple of disadvantages. It is an international distribution, and does not contain strong encryption utilities. (newer releases may have fixed this, but there is still none on the U.S. website). It is necessary to download that information from the German website.
Once in a while, some of the documentation looks poorly translated as well. Everything seems gramatically correct, but it is often stated in a way that would cause most North American to have to think about what is said.
On occasion, there will also be an error message (espically in yast), which will end up in german.
Other than those few annoyances, SuSE is the best I have used.
While it's true that a single install is always desirable, it isn't always the case. In the modern office Linux may have to be instaled several dozen times because there are several dozen machines to install it on. This makes ease of installation desirable.
There is also the possibility of hardware problems requiring a reinstall (I have seen numerous hard drives die).
So, from an idealistic standpoint, Linux should have to be installed once, but from a more realistic standpoint, even a bulletproof OS needs a simple installer, because there are other reasons to install it.
Of course I reinstall Linux every few months on my machine, but I'm trying out every distribution I can get my hands on, and I like to start fresh each time as it is a fairer test.
wouldn't the easiest way to 'hack' DEV audio encryption be to run the audio out from my DVD audio player (This is needed because you want to be able to have speakers.), to the audio in of something that can record them in MP3 or other format of similar quality? What have I missed? What is the point of encrypting it at all? It seems a great waste of time, money, and effort for zero gain. If I had stock in any company pushing for such a stupid security model, I would sell it.
While you will never get an argument from me that open source software is generally better, there are some things however for which Open Source is not appropiate. Even Eric Raymond would agree, after all, one of his presentations convinced me of this fact.
SETI@home is such software. It isn't some kind of disk system that just needs to run more quickly. It is a scientific endeavor. Unless it can be assured that the new algorithm being used in the patch produces EXACTLY the same results given the same input for ANY possible input, use of such altered packages could invalidate the experiment.
While it is nice to have such things open, in this case it just doesn't seem prudent given that the software is performing complex computations on the data. It is possible that some of the shortcuts used in the patch eliminate some calculation which almost never seems to produce any results, but could given certian inputs.
In a case such as SETI@home, such things would be a serious problem.
There is another reason the SETI@home team wants to keep things a little secret. There are groups who (for whatever reason) may want to either mask a possible signal, or create a false one. There are fanatics on both sides. If you read the FAQ on the home page, it states as much, and that steps have been taken to assure that such things are not possible. This may require some secrecy.
While the ISA bus is seriously slow, there are several applications for which an ISA bus in easily adiquate. A modem for instance. Since a modem is far slower than even the ISA bus, there is no need to put it on a PCI bus. On the subject of PCI modems, does anyone make a non winmodem for the PCI bus? I have looked a little, and only found winmodems.
Sound Cards wouldn't seem to need that much bandwidth either. I looked at two soundcards once which were supposed to be the same 'model' one for ISA, and the other for PCI. The ISA card seemed normal, and had several IC chips on it. The PCI card didn't have any IC's on it. The most complex electrical component seemed to be a resistor. The sound card ran the speakers and not much else. All of the sound processing would have had to been offloaded back to the processor. The worst part was that the PCI card cost at least twice as much as the ISA card.
There are always legacy cards which someone may want to use. It is nice to have access to use some of those cards, even if the majority of the people don't need them. This is why MCA support has been added to Linux recently.
If I were to buy a motherboard (with no regard to price), it would have an AGP slot, at least 6 PCI slots, at least 2 EISA/VL slots (for those unfamiliar with the protocol, EISA slots can take ISA cards, and VL slots are a physical extension on the back of an ISA or EISA slot), and at least one preferably two MCA slots.
I like being able to put s piece of legacy hardware into my machine, even if for only a little while. I would use mostly the PCI slots, with maybe a card or two for ISA. If I wanted to try out a VL card, I could. If I wanted to try out an old MCA card, I could. If I wanted to try an EISA card, no problem.
On the other hand, I have heard that the ISA bus slows things down, even if it isn't being used. So losing it isn't all bad either.
I read and enjoyed the rest of the Ender series. I havn't had the chance to read Ender's Shadow as yet, but I do have some replies to various comments and commentary on some of the replies I've seen. If you havn't read Ender's game, there may be spoilers, but I can't possibly spoiler Ender's Shadow as I have not yet read it.
There have been several comments that bean should have not been more intelligent than Ender. I always thought that he was. Ender even kind of acknowledges this when he makes Bean the leader of a special toon, to figure out new strategies.
Ender was by far not the most intelligent person in the story. Mazer Rachman (sp?) was likely more capable of devising the actual tactics, but Mazer himslelf said that he was too old and tired to be able to do it, or words to that effect.
Peter was at least intelligent as Ender, as was Valentine. Ender's Game states explicitly that they weren't less intelligent than Ender.
Peter was turned down from battle school, because they were afraid that he was TOO dangerous, further he was not empathetic enough to be able to begin to think like the enemy. He would have had no problem pulling the trigger on the Little Doctor, but would have had difficulty getting there. That is if he didn't take over the command school or something like that.
Valentine on the other hand, would have been able to figure out exactly what the buggers were doing, but once she did, she would have never blown up the bugger world, even if she thought she were in a game.
Of the three, Ender was the only one with the right balance of ruithlessness and empathy, which would make him into an appropiate weapon to use as an ultimate weapon.
Ender, Valentine and Peter aren't really in the same class as most geeks. While very intelligent, they all seem to have a great deal of leadership ability. I have no doubt that I could devise better strategies than many of the moden generals, getting people to follow me would be my greatest problem.
Bean struck me as much the same. He was more than capable of doing the job from the standpoint of tactics, and ruithlessness, he just couldn't have gotten the others to follow him as easily as they did Ender.
Of course Ender's Shadow may totally contradict this observation.
In regard to the best of the books, I though Speaker for the dead was the best, and I was disappointed with Xenocide and Cildren of the Mind. While both were rather good, and worth reading, they did not live up the eithe Ender's game, or Speaker. I expected Xenocide to be better than Speaker, after all Speaker was better than Ender, but I guess not.
The article sucked, but at least it was good press. The reporter should have had the intelligence to check out all of the facts before reporting them. Five minutes with any linux book in a bookstore would have ironed out several of the problems. Asking nearly anybody in the Linux community about some of the related facts would have fixed most of the rest. There is no real excuse for such egregious errors. The press screams that "The people have a right to know" which is true, but the people have the right to know the truth, not somebody's half baked, uninformed, misinterpeted version of it.
Further I found the comparason to a cathederal kind of insulting. "The Cathederal and the Bazaar" expresses the difference nicely.
If they do, what of Linux? Linus wouldn't have been 'qualified' when he wrote linux, at least according to the article's definition of qualified. Would Linux be moved out for many applications simply because most of the programmers who worked on it were not 'qualified'?
Bill Gates would be qualified, but not Linus (now he probably would, but not when the bulk of Linux was written). Which would you rather have writing your software if your life depended on it?
While it is true that different is not always good, Singling someone out because they are different is wrong.
Albert Einstein was 'different'
Joan of Arc was 'different'
Martin Luther King was 'different'
Mohandas Gandhi was 'different'
Those of us who choose not to conform do so because conformity for the sake of conformity makes us ill. We usually just want to be left alone.
If anyone needs counciling, it is the 'popular' kids. After all they are the ones who persecute and punish all those who don't bow down before them, and emulate them in every way.
Why is being different lauded? It means that we aren't slaves to those who would be in control. We have minds, and the (gasp) ability to think and choose for ourselves.
Why did the two columbine students go on a rampage? They were driven to it by the EXACT attitude you have expressed. "Conform or you're worthless. Do what everyone else does, get out." We are of a different breed, and you better thank whatever deity you believe in that we exist. When we get pushed we want to push back. When we get stompped we want to stomp back. If someone says "It can't be done" we say "Bull, I'll do it."
Those like us are responsible for the existence of the internet, the airplane, the automobile, and the United States.
They said that a country with no king could never stand. WE proved them wrong.
The nonconformists are the ones who change the world, the conformists just take the credit.
In fairness, I have seen a few whose eyes don't glaze over at the mere mention of computers, and even a coulpe of legitimate geek chicks. Unfortunatly, Every one I have met has already been spoken for. :(
Linux has far more releases than any closed source OS, because the philosophy behind closed source code is to never let your customer see a bug. Obviously this hasn't worked with NT. Open source on the other hand, releases every even marginally working piece of software. This software is then viewed and 'fixed' by a large number of people, then resubmitted to whoever is maintaining that code.
With closed source software, about 10% of the time is spent writing the code, then the rest is spend debugging. Debugging takes many many worker hours in order to do correctly. This is why there are alpha and beta versions available for some things, but they are still being tested.
With open source, such things are not worried about. The user has access to the source code, and those thousands or hundreds of thousands of 'eyeball hours' looking at the code for problems, can be accomplished in a matter of days or even hours.
There have been times during the development of linux that Linus released a new kernel version more than once a day. I would imagine that this happens more with the unstable releases. For discussion on how to tell, see earlier posts.
I wanted to say to all proto-geeks out there that you are not alone. Read the posts here, there are many of us.
Other posters have accused us of haiting all non-geeks, others have accused us of the same crimes committed against us for feeling smarter and superior than our assailants.
This is untrue. In my own case, I do not hate all non-geeks. I do hate many non-geeks, I also hate quite a few geeks. What I can hear in these posts is a universal bitterness, not hairted.
We have a right to be angry. The United States is supposed to be a free country, but it only appears to be free to those who conform.
When I was in high school, I was told that I should try to conform so that I could be accepted. I didn't want to conform, and I didn't care about fitting in. I wanted basic rights.
I wanted the right to walk down the hall without being spit on. I wanted the right to attend class without being assaulted while the teacher turned the other way. I wanted the right to participate in PE class without being deliberatly injured. I wanted to eat my lunch without having it ruined by getting it dumpped on the floor or spit in. Such were daily occurences for me. Not once were those responsible punished. On the one occasion I went to a councilor, nothing happened, and I was punished for tardiness to class.
I didn't want more rights than anyone else, I simply wanted the same rights granted to prisoners of war, or convicted felons. They have the right to eat an unspoiled meal, and not be assaulted because some testosterone poisoned jerk needs to feel big and important.
Is there anything wrong with that? Yet, most of my teachers, principals, and 'councilors' seemed to think that I should just expect such treatment as part of growing up.
The powers that be need to wake up, and find out what is really happening under their own noses. They can't blame themselves though, they can't possibly admit to being less than perfect. They choose instead to blame violecne in the media, and violent video games. In truth, the video games probably delay the violence by allowing the persecuted to work out agression without actual violence.
It is time to band together. We can change the world for the better. Geeks young and old are still in control of what has been declared the most improtant development since the printing press. We can be heard and we can prevail.