Done. Wrote (and waiting to send) a tersely-worded letter about the dwindling relevance of ISO when their standards ratification process is transparently manipulable. I second your motion, and encourage all who value the idea of an independent standards body ratifying standards based on their utility, technology-neutral implementation, and technical merit to write the ISO and demand accountability and review of OOXML as a standard, should that be the the announcement tomorrow.
If it's a known hold, then the download page should note that and not just spin wheels waiting for Bouncer to time the download request out.
Yes, I reported that to OOo.
No, I doubt that it breeds it; that would imply that anonymous computer worlds created terrorism.
I think the word you're looking for is facilitates:
(v) facilitate, ease, alleviate (make easier)
(copied from wordnet)
Any communication medium not being monitored by government agents is a facilitator if terrorists use it to plan their actions. 2nd Life, mind-to-mind PSI wave telepathy, carrier pigeon... you get the idea.
Wait. Microsoft reneged on an agreement? Microsoft said they'd do one thing to gain approval and support for their version of reality, then did something else?
That's unpossible!
Yeah... see The Post article from the trial. Relevant quotes:
"[...] Libby told her [Miller] in a confidential conversation on June 23, 2003, that the wife of a prominent critic of the Iraq war worked at the CIA [...] [h]e then mentioned that the wife of the ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson IV, worked at a bureau of the CIA."
"Libby told investigators he first learned Plame's name in a July 10, 2003, telephone conversation with NBC's Tim Russert. Miller testified [on 29 January] that Libby discussed the topic with her twice before that date: on June 23 and on July 8, when Libby invited Miller to a breakfast meeting at the St. Regis Hotel."
Did you just say out loud that Sexual Harrassment is a more serious crime than Treason? Yes, outing the identity of a covert operative is Treason (giving Aid to the Enemy). BTW, identity of covert operatives is never an "open" secret. The CIA and other branches of Intelligence go to great lengths to hide the identity of their covert operatives, and the various branches of the US Military do the same thing with their elite forces, and for the same reason: it is imperative that their identities remain a secret in order for them to perform their covert mission(s). In many cases, the 'outing' of a covert agent of any kind makes the agent completely useless in any covert role, ever, and is the worst possible thing you can do to such an agent.
Except that Libby's discussion about Plame to the Post took place a week before Armitage's conversation, another fact that came out in the trial.
Which, of course, is what he lied about and was convicted of lying about. Libby did the dirty work, and should have been charged with more than obstruction of justice. His commutation is an abomination of Justice.
It's funny you mention that... because Microsoft has, in the past, done exactly this sort of thing before, and if you read Groklaw, you'll note that this very issue is a major factor in a lawsuit currently being litigated. Microsoft is well-known for providing different builds of Windows to different developers, and for changing system calls, hooks, APIs, and other such things at the last minute and only telling certain third-party developers, if any.
I don't doubt that Apple might have some dirty hands here, if only because they seek to embarrass Microsoft at any opportunity, and may have deliberately withheld some updates specifically to cause the most possible bad publicity about Vista, but more likely than not Apple was given one set of APIs WRT the safe removal of iPods, only to have Microsoft change them without warning.
I'm glad I RTA before this comment... the accounting issues are New Line's, apparently; there seems to be some discrepancies between what New Line says their income was for Fellowship, and what was actually taken in, and PJ and Fran Walsh wanted the lawsuit -they- filed to resolve those discrepancies to be resolved before committing to the Hobbit and other prequel movie(s). If you read the linked article, it's pretty straighforward, and I'm really kind of stupified about why/how New Line couldn't just do the right thing in the first place. Oh, wait, money is involved; never mind.
This decision probably won't affect EULAs. It, however, should affect them. At least, it should affect a lot of them.
Why? Because in a lot of cases, the consideration is considerably one-sided: you* buy the software, take it home, open the box (which makes it unreturnable to most vendors), and only then can refuse the EULA, after you've attempted to install it. If you find the terms unconscionable, you are (usually) instructed to return the software to its place of purchase for a full refund. Unfortunately for you, since the place you've purchased the software from has a posted "no refunds for opened software" policy, you cannot receive a refund from your vendor, and the software manufacturer in many cases will not refund money for software purchased from a vendor. Some manufacturers don't even sell software direct, and so you can only buy it from a vendor, which means you are now entirely screwed for the cost of the software. Maybe you can take the issue up in your local Small Claims Court. Maybe your software manufacturer has laid out $100K/year to pay those claims, and doesn't care about a default judgement or a hundred, or maybe they don't pay them at all (and, in SCS, it's your problem to collect!).
It seems to me, in my small little mind, that posting an EULA which has effectively locked the end user into a position that only a lunatic would agree to if they knew beforehand what they were getting into constitutes an unconscionable contract. It also seems to me, in my small little mind, that this is nearly exactly the same problem this website faced: only a lunatic would read the self-selection criteria and decide they were required to not register for the site. Seems completely identical to me:)
opendir(QUEUE, "/var/spool/mqueue") or die "Can't open mqueue for reading: $!"; while (defined(my $file = readdir(QUEUE))) {
next unless $file =~/qf.*/; open (IN, $file); while (<IN>) {
if ($_ =~/^From:\S+Postmaster/) { print chomp($_). "\n\n"; }
}
}
save as "from_postmaster" or something. run 'that' as sudo. Tweak accordingly. (I'm not absolutely sure it will work as written, but it should come pretty close, and is just an example anyway).
more On-topic... personally, I usually su - for anything that's not a quick-and-dirty hax0r like this one; but it's a waste of time, personally, to su - for silly maintenance tasks. I do it three or four times, get fed up with the tedium of it, write a script like this, and add it to sudoers. After running it a few times and knowing that it works, then forgetting to run it a few times, I usually tweak it, test it, add it to root's crontab, and have it leave a log file.
... if you trust your online persona to MySpace, you deserve what you get. Likewise, if you don't have a MySpace account, and someone creates one for you, and you don't fight them tooth and nail (oh, and GOOD LUCK! fighting against Rupert Murdoch... though, his lawyers probably make less than the lawyers at IBM, and are probably pretty pissed about that).
Which brings up an interesting question: what if I live my life, and discover that someone else has created a myspace account "for" me? now what? Am "I" obligated to create personas everywhere? Even in those places that don't yet exist?!? Can I be held accountable for information about myself in an online environment that didn't exist the last time I logged on? If not, how can I prove that I am separate from any given online entry that purports to be me? And, how can I *disprove* that I am the person in that movie, that picture, that whatever?
Except that Public Figures, which might include the staff of MOC, are generally held to a much higher burden of proof in libel/slander cases, including proving that the defendant had "actual malice" and that the statements were totally false. Many defamation cases by "Public Figures" fail early in litigation because of this very high burden, and so a lack of suits, or successful ones anyway, is in no way an indicator of whether these edits occured or not.
First, I didn't talk about psychology. You presented an experiment involving 100 rats, and drew conclusions that are not supported by the existing information, whereupon I asked for proof.
Second, I specifically asked for background material; all you did was provide names, not actual information, links to information, or even citations that could have been decoded.
Third, this 'learning on their own' thing you cite is a red herring: you expect what, exactly? That a person who is well-versed in, say, Russian Literature to automatically know to what you refer? That your 100 rat experiment is a (seemingly) canonical example of this effect, and that this is common knowledge?
Instead of arrogantly posting what amounts to a plagarism of the study, you should probably have posted a link to the study, or its conclusions, or at least a useful explanation.
Seriously. Assume that some of the people who read these comments are not psychology students/PhDs/what-have-you. The fact that this may be a well-known problem in this field is irrelevant. Bohr, Heisenberg, and Plank want us to remember that Observation Affects Results. If you are not familiar with The History Of Physics, that statement is likely to be gobbeldygook.
Then it is a matter of conjecture. Subject to debate. Say, like Time Dilation. Oh, wait, that has been proven. Yes, "proof" in the scientific sense means "demonstrated, conforms to theory within established error parameters," but let's have at least that much.
Put up a link to a peer-reviewed study of these poor 100 rats. Rosenthal and Fode's 1963 discovery may be a world-class observation. Personally, I'm not an expert in Rat Tester Observation. Given that, provide evidence for the effect, that can be verified and reviewed, or at least read and examined, so that I (and any others similarly situated) can decide for myself whether you are blowing smoke or not. [fake_grin=ON]
Caveat: I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Mac zealot (ask anyone who knows me)
Have you tried getting a rebate for OS X? Buying a Mac, to run Linux, in order to avoid buying a Windows-based PC, to run Linux, because you don't want to pay the Microsoft Tax... that's just trading one tax for another.
I prefer Mac OS X. Mac OS X is what Linux wants to be when it grows up, IMO. But recommending a Powerbook with an un-refundable OS pre-installed in order to avoid buying a ThinkPad with a pre-installed OS doesn't make any sense.
[sings]Two All-Beef Patties, Special Sauce, Lettuce, Cheese, Pickles, Onions, on a Sesame-Seed Bun[/sings](emphasis added)
Wait, did I miss something? No... cheese comes on the BigMac so adding extra cheese to it should cost more. Now, $0.50 seems a bit much, but maybe you live in NYC. Or Montreal, where $0.50 doesn't go as far as it does even in NYC. At any rate, adding 'value' should cost something.
Additionally, McDonald's does indeed sell the Quarter Pounder, sans cheese (see http://app.mcdonalds.com/bagamcmeal?process=item&i temID=6 for details). Maybe the people working in the McDonald's near you are stupid, but that does occasionally happen; they should charge you the QP price if you ask for a QP w/cheese, no cheese.
However...
None of this is at all relevant. McDonald's doesn't have a monopoly on fast food, and can't require food-sellers to sell only with-cheese sandwiches. In order for your analogy to work, McDonald's would have to control nearly all food-service distribution by supplying, say, all the innards for sandwiches (food service is a bad analogy for this, period, but you brought it up...). If McDonald's had exclusive sales agreements for all food service establishments, and required that all of their sandwiches be made with McDonald's cheese, and that customers couldn't 1) buy cheeseless sandwiches and 2) could only buy sandwiches... well, it still doesn't work.
It used to be that any reputable (well, "major") PC maker was required by Microsoft to sell their hard wares with a pre-installed OS provided by Microsoft. There have been occasional exceptions (Dell was selling PCs with Linux pre-installed a while ago; may still be for all I know... I don't shop Dell), but most major consumer-level, pre-packaged and pre-installed PC makers sell their computers only with Windows. In theory, you can return the OS un-used, but all PC makers I'm familiar with require you to communicate refund requests to Microsoft, who then "conveniently" return you to the PC maker for help. The PC maker won't (usually) sell you a bare PC, and Windows is the only OS they offer. Since you can't request the PC come without Windows, and you can't get a refund for using it, you're stuck paying $100+ for software you neither want nor use. And that is how American-style Capitalism works... er, and that is the difference between McDonalds and Microsoft.
4x month = ~200
so month = ~50.
Which co-incides with:
gifts: once/month ~50.
But once/month = ~100
so month = ~100
which != 50. And also !~ 50.
Which is it?!?
This illustrates a good point: whether this sentence's object (Gates) is a singular or a plural object, the grammer checker should have caught the lack of an indefinite article between the verb and the subject clause:
{He/she/it} does {a/an} good marketing job in Microsoft.
vs.
{They} do {a/an} good marketing job in Microsoft.
Which, I will assume, was the point of the good professor in the first place: regardless of the referent of the object "Gates" the sentence is gramatically incoherent.
FYI, the post you replied to spelled 'vacuum' correctly. When you correct another person's spelling, you should probably make sure you spelled it correctly yourself, and that they did not.
Slashdot Mirror
Done. Wrote (and waiting to send) a tersely-worded letter about the dwindling relevance of ISO when their standards ratification process is transparently manipulable. I second your motion, and encourage all who value the idea of an independent standards body ratifying standards based on their utility, technology-neutral implementation, and technical merit to write the ISO and demand accountability and review of OOXML as a standard, should that be the the announcement tomorrow.
If it's a known hold, then the download page should note that and not just spin wheels waiting for Bouncer to time the download request out. Yes, I reported that to OOo.
No, I doubt that it breeds it; that would imply that anonymous computer worlds created terrorism.
... you get the idea.
I think the word you're looking for is facilitates:
(v) facilitate, ease, alleviate (make easier)
(copied from wordnet)
Any communication medium not being monitored by government agents is a facilitator if terrorists use it to plan their actions. 2nd Life, mind-to-mind PSI wave telepathy, carrier pigeon
Wait. Microsoft reneged on an agreement? Microsoft said they'd do one thing to gain approval and support for their version of reality, then did something else? That's unpossible!
Yeah ... see The Post article from the trial. Relevant quotes:
"[...] Libby told her [Miller] in a confidential conversation on June 23, 2003, that the wife of a prominent critic of the Iraq war worked at the CIA [...] [h]e then mentioned that the wife of the ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson IV, worked at a bureau of the CIA."
"Libby told investigators he first learned Plame's name in a July 10, 2003, telephone conversation with NBC's Tim Russert. Miller testified [on 29 January] that Libby discussed the topic with her twice before that date: on June 23 and on July 8, when Libby invited Miller to a breakfast meeting at the St. Regis Hotel."
Did you just say out loud that Sexual Harrassment is a more serious crime than Treason? Yes, outing the identity of a covert operative is Treason (giving Aid to the Enemy). BTW, identity of covert operatives is never an "open" secret. The CIA and other branches of Intelligence go to great lengths to hide the identity of their covert operatives, and the various branches of the US Military do the same thing with their elite forces, and for the same reason: it is imperative that their identities remain a secret in order for them to perform their covert mission(s). In many cases, the 'outing' of a covert agent of any kind makes the agent completely useless in any covert role, ever, and is the worst possible thing you can do to such an agent.
Except that Libby's discussion about Plame to the Post took place a week before Armitage's conversation, another fact that came out in the trial.
Which, of course, is what he lied about and was convicted of lying about. Libby did the dirty work, and should have been charged with more than obstruction of justice. His commutation is an abomination of Justice.
Sure, it's called Mac OS X and they give it away on all new Apple computers :P (joke, joke)
It's funny you mention that ... because Microsoft has, in the past, done exactly this sort of thing before, and if you read Groklaw, you'll note that this very issue is a major factor in a lawsuit currently being litigated. Microsoft is well-known for providing different builds of Windows to different developers, and for changing system calls, hooks, APIs, and other such things at the last minute and only telling certain third-party developers, if any.
I don't doubt that Apple might have some dirty hands here, if only because they seek to embarrass Microsoft at any opportunity, and may have deliberately withheld some updates specifically to cause the most possible bad publicity about Vista, but more likely than not Apple was given one set of APIs WRT the safe removal of iPods, only to have Microsoft change them without warning.
I'm glad I RTA before this comment ... the accounting issues are New Line's, apparently; there seems to be some discrepancies between what New Line says their income was for Fellowship, and what was actually taken in, and PJ and Fran Walsh wanted the lawsuit -they- filed to resolve those discrepancies to be resolved before committing to the Hobbit and other prequel movie(s). If you read the linked article, it's pretty straighforward, and I'm really kind of stupified about why/how New Line couldn't just do the right thing in the first place. Oh, wait, money is involved; never mind.
This decision should not effect EULAs.
:)
This decision probably won't affect EULAs. It, however, should affect them. At least, it should affect a lot of them.
Why? Because in a lot of cases, the consideration is considerably one-sided: you* buy the software, take it home, open the box (which makes it unreturnable to most vendors), and only then can refuse the EULA, after you've attempted to install it. If you find the terms unconscionable, you are (usually) instructed to return the software to its place of purchase for a full refund. Unfortunately for you, since the place you've purchased the software from has a posted "no refunds for opened software" policy, you cannot receive a refund from your vendor, and the software manufacturer in many cases will not refund money for software purchased from a vendor. Some manufacturers don't even sell software direct, and so you can only buy it from a vendor, which means you are now entirely screwed for the cost of the software. Maybe you can take the issue up in your local Small Claims Court. Maybe your software manufacturer has laid out $100K/year to pay those claims, and doesn't care about a default judgement or a hundred, or maybe they don't pay them at all (and, in SCS, it's your problem to collect!).
It seems to me, in my small little mind, that posting an EULA which has effectively locked the end user into a position that only a lunatic would agree to if they knew beforehand what they were getting into constitutes an unconscionable contract. It also seems to me, in my small little mind, that this is nearly exactly the same problem this website faced: only a lunatic would read the self-selection criteria and decide they were required to not register for the site. Seems completely identical to me
*: you == TheRoyalYou, not YouInParticular
Except that, my version you can run sudo. :)
more On-topic
Lazy and impatient.
... if you trust your online persona to MySpace, you deserve what you get. Likewise, if you don't have a MySpace account, and someone creates one for you, and you don't fight them tooth and nail (oh, and GOOD LUCK! fighting against Rupert Murdoch ... though, his lawyers probably make less than the lawyers at IBM, and are probably pretty pissed about that).
Which brings up an interesting question: what if I live my life, and discover that someone else has created a myspace account "for" me? now what? Am "I" obligated to create personas everywhere? Even in those places that don't yet exist?!? Can I be held accountable for information about myself in an online environment that didn't exist the last time I logged on? If not, how can I prove that I am separate from any given online entry that purports to be me? And, how can I *disprove* that I am the person in that movie, that picture, that whatever?
Except that Public Figures, which might include the staff of MOC, are generally held to a much higher burden of proof in libel/slander cases, including proving that the defendant had "actual malice" and that the statements were totally false. Many defamation cases by "Public Figures" fail early in litigation because of this very high burden, and so a lack of suits, or successful ones anyway, is in no way an indicator of whether these edits occured or not.
First, I didn't talk about psychology. You presented an experiment involving 100 rats, and drew conclusions that are not supported by the existing information, whereupon I asked for proof.
Second, I specifically asked for background material; all you did was provide names, not actual information, links to information, or even citations that could have been decoded.
Third, this 'learning on their own' thing you cite is a red herring: you expect what, exactly? That a person who is well-versed in, say, Russian Literature to automatically know to what you refer? That your 100 rat experiment is a (seemingly) canonical example of this effect, and that this is common knowledge?
Instead of arrogantly posting what amounts to a plagarism of the study, you should probably have posted a link to the study, or its conclusions, or at least a useful explanation.
Seriously. Assume that some of the people who read these comments are not psychology students/PhDs/what-have-you. The fact that this may be a well-known problem in this field is irrelevant. Bohr, Heisenberg, and Plank want us to remember that Observation Affects Results. If you are not familiar with The History Of Physics, that statement is likely to be gobbeldygook.
Obviously it is not something that can be proven
Then it is a matter of conjecture. Subject to debate. Say, like Time Dilation. Oh, wait, that has been proven. Yes, "proof" in the scientific sense means "demonstrated, conforms to theory within established error parameters," but let's have at least that much.
Put up a link to a peer-reviewed study of these poor 100 rats. Rosenthal and Fode's 1963 discovery may be a world-class observation. Personally, I'm not an expert in Rat Tester Observation. Given that, provide evidence for the effect, that can be verified and reviewed, or at least read and examined, so that I (and any others similarly situated) can decide for myself whether you are blowing smoke or not. [fake_grin=ON]
Prove it.
I see ... you forgot the [joke][/joke] tags. I do that all the time :\
Caveat: I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Mac zealot (ask anyone who knows me)
... that's just trading one tax for another.
Have you tried getting a rebate for OS X? Buying a Mac, to run Linux, in order to avoid buying a Windows-based PC, to run Linux, because you don't want to pay the Microsoft Tax
I prefer Mac OS X. Mac OS X is what Linux wants to be when it grows up, IMO. But recommending a Powerbook with an un-refundable OS pre-installed in order to avoid buying a ThinkPad with a pre-installed OS doesn't make any sense.
[sings]Two All-Beef Patties, Special Sauce, Lettuce, Cheese, Pickles, Onions, on a Sesame-Seed Bun[/sings](emphasis added)
... cheese comes on the BigMac so adding extra cheese to it should cost more. Now, $0.50 seems a bit much, but maybe you live in NYC. Or Montreal, where $0.50 doesn't go as far as it does even in NYC. At any rate, adding 'value' should cost something.
i temID=6 for details). Maybe the people working in the McDonald's near you are stupid, but that does occasionally happen; they should charge you the QP price if you ask for a QP w/cheese, no cheese.
...
...). If McDonald's had exclusive sales agreements for all food service establishments, and required that all of their sandwiches be made with McDonald's cheese, and that customers couldn't 1) buy cheeseless sandwiches and 2) could only buy sandwiches ... well, it still doesn't work.
... I don't shop Dell), but most major consumer-level, pre-packaged and pre-installed PC makers sell their computers only with Windows. In theory, you can return the OS un-used, but all PC makers I'm familiar with require you to communicate refund requests to Microsoft, who then "conveniently" return you to the PC maker for help. The PC maker won't (usually) sell you a bare PC, and Windows is the only OS they offer. Since you can't request the PC come without Windows, and you can't get a refund for using it, you're stuck paying $100+ for software you neither want nor use. And that is how American-style Capitalism works ... er, and that is the difference between McDonalds and Microsoft.
Wait, did I miss something? No
Additionally, McDonald's does indeed sell the Quarter Pounder, sans cheese (see http://app.mcdonalds.com/bagamcmeal?process=item&
However
None of this is at all relevant. McDonald's doesn't have a monopoly on fast food, and can't require food-sellers to sell only with-cheese sandwiches. In order for your analogy to work, McDonald's would have to control nearly all food-service distribution by supplying, say, all the innards for sandwiches (food service is a bad analogy for this, period, but you brought it up
It used to be that any reputable (well, "major") PC maker was required by Microsoft to sell their hard wares with a pre-installed OS provided by Microsoft. There have been occasional exceptions (Dell was selling PCs with Linux pre-installed a while ago; may still be for all I know
confused.
4x month = ~200
so month = ~50.
Which co-incides with:
gifts: once/month ~50.
But once/month = ~100
so month = ~100
which != 50. And also !~ 50.
Which is it?!?
vs. Which, I will assume, was the point of the good professor in the first place: regardless of the referent of the object "Gates" the sentence is gramatically incoherent.
FYI, the post you replied to spelled 'vacuum' correctly. When you correct another person's spelling, you should probably make sure you spelled it correctly yourself, and that they did not.
define:vacuum