Katz says, "Their imaginations have been continuously stretched", but I'd have to disagree. One of the reasons that I've pretty much given up on gaming (I occasionally play a few rounds when I'm bored and want to unstress) is that I always felt too limited. That was why I originally started to learn computer programming; I wanted to design a game that allowed for more creativity. In the process, I realized that programming quenched my thirst for creativity. Programming gives me a well-defined set of rules and methods, and allows me to decide what to do with them.
Another reason that I eventually gave up on gaming was because there was very little reward, in my opinion. Sure, you could beat the game or find all of the secrets and then brag to your friends...but somehow that just wasn't satisfying. When I program, I create something that serves a purpose. For me, the ultimate satisfaction comes from sitting back and looking at a finished program and saying, "Yeah, I did that. The computer now does this-and-such because I told it how."
Some clarification on "gene patents"
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From the Human Genome Project's website:
The patentability of inventions under U.S. law is determined by the Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in the Department of Commerce. A patent application is judged on four criteria. The invention must be "useful" in a practical sense (the inventor must identify some useful purpose for it), "novel" (i.e., not known or used before the filing), and "nonobvious" (i.e., not an improvement easily made by someone trained in the relevant area). The invention also must be described in sufficient detail to enable one skilled in the field to use it for the stated purpose (sometimes called the "enablement" criterion).
In general, raw products of nature are not patentable. It's usually when these DNA products have been isolated, purified, or modified to produce a unique form not found in nature that they become patentable.
For the rest of the explanation, go to:
http://www.ornl.gov/hgmis/elsi/patents.html
The Human Genome Project's web page is at:
http://www.ornl.gov/hgmis/
Hopefully this will clarify things for people who don't understand what is meant by "patenting genes"
I've seen this done in a small private institution, and the students there loved it. Rose-Hulman is a college of about 2500 students, and it's tech-majors only (engineering, computer science, etc.). All students are required to buy the same laptop. At first, this turned me off, and then they told me that they had an on-campus repair center with plenty of spare parts, so they could replace whatever broke on the spot.
Of course, never believe the hype. So I talked with students. One student told me her screen or something got damaged, she took it in to the repair center, and they swapped out her hard drive and put it in a spare and she was out in no time. And since the college knew that students would make use of it, a lot of the classrooms have power and ethernet jacks in the desks (so no hunting for that).
To address the teaching issues: I sat in on a Calculus class, and at the time, the teacher was covering three-dimensional integrals. It's fairly difficult to draw those on the board (shading is a _pain_), but Mathematica can do decent renderings fairly quickly. Now I can hear all of you saying, "Great, so now they only know what it looks like if the computer shows them!". No, it doesn't have to be that way. My HS calculus teacher would let us use calculators during lecture, but no calculators could be used on the exams. So we could use the calculators to "play" with ideas and test them, and get a deeper understanding of the theories. But come test time, it was us against the test, with only a #2 pencil to help us.
That's how teaching should be handled. Use all of the tools available to help students understand the material. But once it's time to test the student, make sure you're testing they're abilities to comprehend, not they're abilities to use the tools (unless teaching the tools are explicitly part of the course, which should be rare).
And actually, I've just recently decided that my next computer is going to be a laptop. I go to Virginia Tech, and I end up with a lot of small blocks of spare time. If I had my work with me, I could get something accomplished, but the blocks aren't big enough for me to make it back to my room, get work done, and then get to where I need to be next.
I've stopped using napster for several months now. I've got a lot of the songs that I want, and I'm pretty much content. Besides, it's too much work to find decent songs on Napster. There are too many people who don't know how to rip properly ("In any large group of people, the majority of them will be idiots" -- my own made up Law of Idiots).
So if I really want a song, and I get it from Napster, I generally have to download half a dozen copies to find a decent version. Luckily, I'm on a campus ethernet connection, so bandwidth (on my end) isn't much of a problem. It still takes me a minute or so per song. On top of that, I have to listen to half a dozen songs to find out if they're worth keeping. So I basically waste half an hour trying to get a "free" copy that doesn't even sound as good as the original.
And if I want to take it with me and play it in the car, I have to take the time to burn it onto CD, which means more lost time.
Considering my hourly pay rate, if I want more than one song on a CD, it's actually cheaper for me to _buy_ the CD. Oh yeah, and I also get the satisfaction of doing my job (which I enjoy), rather than fighting with Napster and bad connections (which just feels like I'm wasting time).
Which brings me to my idea. The record industry has no problem letting us listen to (and record) songs on the radio. So why not make low-quality versions of the songs available for free? Put them on their websites, and flood Napster with them.
I would rather download an mp3 that I know will be "low" quality, rather than gamble with Napster and end up with a bunch of songs that have skips, beeps, and other oddities. And I think a lot of people would have the same reaction. Heck, I'd probably buy more CD's too.
That's what you would think people would do, but that's not what usually happens. Look at all of the horrible rips that are available on napster. My theory is that people download songs in batches (like one person suggested), and then listen to them later. If they don't like a song, they'll generally delete a song from their playlists, but they rarely delete it from their comp (unless they know that they are low on disk space).
The fact of the matter is that Russia doesn't currently have a very good infrastructure. That's the way it is. UPS can ship to those cities because I imagine they're cities with decent access to the outside world.
I think the majority of the people in the U.S. (I live in the US and always have, so don't flame me) don't realize that interstates aren't universal. And the plethora of airports available to us is even rarer.
If you really want to help Russia, it sounds like you could ship some construction materials to some random address in Russia...you can be assured that they will find they're way to people who can use them:)
Face it, as many "problems" as we have in the US (and a lot of other developed countries), we really are spoiled.
If I recall correctly, there is a window manager (maybe that's not the right term for it, I've forgotten the right terms for the different parts of the X system) that looks almost exactly like Win9x? Was any credit given to MS for providing the work? I know that there is also a way to make X look like the Mac's interface. Was any credit given there?
Sorry, but don't throw stones if you live in a glass house.
Wonderful. So now they can store oogles of data in a small space. So can I, if I just write all of the data on the same place on my hard drive.
Why don't I do this, you ask? Because retrieval would be impossible.
So the real question is: can you _retrieve_ the data in a timely fashion? I read the article, and it didn't say anything about how they plan to read the data from the vial. With the chemicals constantly swishing around, how can you organize the data? Would you have to search the entire container for the molecule with the data on it?
This is pre-vaporware here. There's absolutely no technical information, and they don't even claim that they can retrieve the information.
This falls under the category: Wow, that's really cool if it works, but I'll believe it when I see it.
I live in Delaware, a small insignificant state just south of Pennsylvania. Consequently, all of our news comes from Philadelphia broadcasters. So the convention has been the big thing on TV. I watched part of the protesting, and I was rather impressed with how the Philadelphia cops handled everything. The news people were trying _very_ hard to find police abusing the protesters, but all they could find were protesters abusing police. Now, all of you conspiracy theorists are going to say, "But the media doesn't want to show you police brutality because they're getting paid off." Wrong! It's in their best interest to show you police brutality, because that's what gets ratings up.
Like I said, the media was actively looking for police brutality. Here's an example conversation between the newsroom reporters and the "on-site" reporters:
On-site: As you can see, the protesters have gathered in the intersection. They're stated purpose is to disrupt the traffic in Philadelphia.
Newsroom: Have you seen any police brutality yet?
On-site: No, in fact we haven't. The police have appeared remarkably restrained.
Newsroom: So, what you're saying, is that you haven't seen or heard about the police responding with violence at all?
On-site: That's correct. Although we have seen protesters both verbally and physically abusing police. Like I said, the police have not shown any response, verbally, emotionally, or physically. The most we've seen them do is hold their batons with both hands in front of them, so that they can hold the crowd away from themselves.
Personally, I think the protesters were extremely ticked off with the police's lack of response (it makes the protesters look bad when they're the only ones being violent). The local paper tried it's hardest to make the police sound like they had abused the protesters. ("The police responded with batons". They implied that the police beat the protesters with batons, but they were really holding them up to form a barrier between themselves and the protesters).
2600's article claims that you can't trust the media to report accurately. While I'm pretty skeptical about what the media "reports", in this case, I'm pretty sure that they would've preferred the police to be violent. Think about it; which of these two headlines would cause you to buy a paper:
xxx PROTESTERS ARRESTED BY POLICE
-or-
xxx PROTESTERS ASSAULTED BY POLICE
And yet it was the first headline that appeared in newspapers. Sorry guys, but for once, the police did the Right Thing (TM).
In fact, after everything was said and done, the police were left wondering if they had been too easy on the protesters. One officer said that the protesters seemed to take the police's non-response as a sign of weakness, which egged them on.
All I ask is that you think about it before you blindly believe either side of the story. Remember, occasionally the police will act reasonably, and occasionally the media will be truthful. Don't count on either happening all of the time, but don't automatically assume the opposite either.
Right now I'm in the process of creating a site for a business that wants all of the latest gizmos on their site (and since their targeting businesses with T1 connections, bandwidth isn't a problem). So I've been playing with JavaScript over the pass couple weeks, keeping the every-handy book "JavaScript: The Definitive Guide" (from O'Reilly) by my side. Now, it's a well known fact that O'Reilly is not in bed with MS (quite the opposite, in fact). But in the 3rd edition (copyright June 1998) IE's support for modifying styles thru JavaScript beat Netscape's, hands down. CSS is an open standard, and JavaScript was originally a _proprietary_ Netscape innovation. My point is simple, both companies/browsers have their faults. Personally, I hate both of them, but I (regretfully) use IE. All I really want in a browser is the following:
* HTML 4.0 _full_ compliancy * CSS1 _full_ compliancy * a good effort towards CSS2 compliancy (enough that they will be compliant within the somewhat near future) * JavaScript 1.1 _full_ compliancy * a good effort towards JavaScript 1.2 compliancy (similar to CSS2) * Java support * _stability_ (Netscape crashes way too much, which I understand is because of bugs in the MS code they use, maybe that'll all change) * a price of less than $50
Notice I did not mention the following things: * free (beer or speech) - honestly, I wouldn't mind paying for a decent browser, and while the source is very nice, I'd rather have something that worked w/out the source, then broken source. If you personally believe that the only way the above objectives can be reached is through a open/close (circle one) source project, I don't care. * bookmarks - I can cut and paste from a text file * skins - I don't care wtf the browser looks like, I want the webpage to look right!
Note: I have tried Opera on two occasions, and it's definitely getting better, but it wasn't quite good enough the last time I checked. I'll probably download the latest release after finishing this post, but I don't have my hopes too high.
If anyone knows of a browser that meets these requirements, please, please let me know. I don't want to beta test or write my own code (which is why I haven't tried Mozilla, and why I don't mind paying for the finished product).
I'm also in the process of switching my daily computer use from Windows to Linux, and I'm _extremely_ frustrated with Netscape under Linux. So I'm looking for a browser that works under Linux or Windows or both.
You are correct, perhaps I should have more carefully worded my statement. *Currently*, solar power is not a reasonable option. I certainly expect that to change in the future. Unfortunately, we're forced to live in the present, which, according to the article, is where the Ukrainians (sp?) are having their trouble.
There were several reactors at Chernobyl. One exploded, and it took a second one with it. The reactor that they are restarting was neither of these; it was only down for 5 months.
Yeah, but they have to stay in the same system. Most computer professionals are used to the idea that they can quit and find a job with similar pay somewhere else. Teachers aren't so lucky (at least this is what a teacher told me), if they switch outside their school district, they start back on the bottom rung of the salary ladder. Which really discourages teachers moving away from bad school districts, which school districts like because they don't have to worry about their employees leaving because the administration sucks. In high school (a year ago), I met many teachers who wanted to help students, and would work hard to make do. However, becuase of the above situation, they have the ultimate in pointy-haired bosses.
BTW, programmers aren't so hot either (I'm currently a CS major, and I've loved programming for several years, and yes my HS CS class was a joke). I'm not trying to start a flame war, but I have always had (what I think) is a reasonable question: Why can't I get a web browser that will 1) work on the majority of sites (hell, it can even be a stickler for HTML compliant code, i.e. it doesn't have to support MS/Netscape "extensions"), 2) not CRASH over stupid things, 3) support java. I don't care whether it runs on Linux or Windows, I just want the damn thing to RUN!!
I realize that it's hard to keep a web browser up to date, and introducing new code to adapt to the new standards will probably break old code, but isn't that basically what happens to teachers? They learn something new and have to rework their lesson plan, removing all references to the old information and replacing it with the new.
Sorry, but I think it's awfully ironic whenever computer programmers complain about the lack of dedication by some other profession.
If these mp3's were posted in a public SMB folder, for everyone on the network to see, then it really shouldn't count as an illegal search. It's like selling illegal movie copies on your front lawn...if a police officer drives by and sees you, he doesn't need (and shouldn't need) a search warrant to charge you.
I'm a student at VirginiaTech, and there are some idiots on the local network who leave their mp3 folders open to the public. I wouldn't feel sorry for them at all if they were caught.
Just because the rule wasn't enforced before doesn't mean that they have to make an announcement before they decide to enforce it.
I get halos with my glasses!! If a dark object is against a bright background (i.e. someone standing in front of an overhead screen), then one side of the person is outlined in blue, and the other side is outlined in orange-red. So basically I get to trip without the harmful side effects of acid:P
-The saddest part about this whole mess is that there really are people who find it "daemons", xbill and the like offensive.
I don't find any of them offensive, although "daemons" can be inconvenient when you have to explain them to a non-computer user. For instance, I was babysitting, and I brought along "The Complete FreeBSD" to read after the kids went to bed (after that chore, even learning unix can seem easy:)
However, I ended up spending 15 minutes trying to explain to a 5 year old why there was a picture of the devil (the FreeBSD logo) on my book. Luckily, his mother had enough experience with me to realize that I wasn't a devil worshiper (it was a very Christian family), so she didn't ask me to explain it to her.
Oh well, the chances of daemons changing names are about the same as the chances of everyone on Slashdot running Windows...
For those of you keeping score, I ended up explaining daemons by telling the kid that computer daemons were kind of like computer mice. Just like there is no fuzzy animal attached to your computer, there is no actual daemon on the computer; they're just nicknames.
Actually, it has the potential to solve one problem that I've often noticed about using a credit card over the Internet. In order to order over the Internet, you only have to have 1) the card number, 2) the expiration date, 3) the name on the card. That means I can place an order over the Internet for a card that isn't even mine.
If AmEx were to require that the card be swiped in order to be used to purchase something over the Internet, this could prevent this type of fraud. According to the article, they aren't doing this, probably because people freak out whenever they can't do something the "old way". So currently, the card doesn't seem to have any secuirity benefits.
However, it would be nice if they offered the customers an option that would make it so that their card could only be used if it was swiped (I honestly don't know how they would do this, I'm just hypothesizing). I realize that any system that they used to increase secuirity could be cracked. I also realize that any secuirity system can be cracked, the object is to make it more difficult.
And I don't know how often this particular type of credit card fraud happens, I just know that it should be possible (I haven't tried it). If anyone else has some more information, please share it.
In the first version, all of the hotheads would have many recursions, which would slow them down and possibly cause a few to crash. This would allow more time for them to cool down.
I understand your fear that this could actually hurt somebody, but the people that get the most upset often have the least mental hardware, so it would be a quick and painless process.
Ok, I've been reading Slashdot for a couple of months now, and I installed FreeBSD (I'm going to Virginia Tech next year and it is what the CS program uses) and I'm playing around with it. Once I get FreeBSD working, I intend to install Linux and decide which one stays (sorry, but a triple-boot just isn't worth it to me, and I need Windows for games).
However, that's not the point of this post. I've convinced myself that none of the current computer interfaces are near what they could be. So I've made it my mission in life to create a new UI that is to GUI what GUI was to the command-line (hey, a guy's got to have dreams, right?). And reading Slashdot and the Linux pages has convinced me that if I do make the next-level UI, I should Open-Source it.
The only problem is that you're supposed to make money off of OSS by selling support services, but if I do a good job, there should be no need for support services! Taking this concept further, the economic markets will push OSS companies to make difficult software so that people must buy their services. Some would argue that because it is open source the unpaid, independent programmers could write a better UI. But if you are a programmer, you know the inherent flaw there; most programmers would rather add functionality than make the current functionality more usable (I know that I am guilty of this).
What all of this means is that, if I'm right (which I hope I'm not), then OSS will *never* break into the main stream because it will always be difficult to use. As a warning, I haven't had a chance to get KDE or Gnome up and running on FreeBSD, and I haven't even installed Linux, yet. If you feel that my opinion will change once I use those, please say so.
Thank you, Tom Panning tpanning@vt.edu (sorry about the length)
While your letter was *very* informative, you forgot some minor details. When you criticize people, you should provide a way to correct their mistake. In this letter you should have included a list of URLs to assist them if they _hadn't_ heard of GPL. www.gnu.org would have been a good place to start.
You on the other hand should probably read the Linux advocacy mini-HOWTO. Then you should write a polite letter apologizing for your immature behavior. I suggest that the fellow Slashdot readers also write a short, carefully worded e-mail to to Microworkz and the misinformed news agencies.
Remember, it's easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar.
According to some of the other posts, it appears as though it is the second case. In which case, Linus should ask himself: is any real harm being done? Is it really that bad if some newbies like the iToaster (which they believe is a hybrid of BeOS/Linux) and go out and try _real_ Linux?
This falls under Section 18.3 of the Good PR: "no harm, no foul":)... Honestly, please remember this when you get out of law school: just because something is *technically* illegal doesn't mean that it should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Sometimes it's better to privately correct the situation with a polite letter; it keeps people's opinions up and what-not.
If Linus jumps all over Microworkz, it will make other companies very fearful of Linux. It's kinda like when a dog bites a kid: people are more likely to shoot the dog first and submit it for rabies testing second.
Honestly, I wished more people would understand that laws must be applied with a little common-sense.
Why do Slashdot readers need a Factoid?
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Most of the "useful" information that we gather is through the Internet. Personally, I'd rather have a piece of software let me find that article I read 2 months ago, but I can't remember where. The software wouldn't even have to record the webpages, users would simply set their cache to never erase. It would just take a simple search engine that only searched your cache. Something like this must exist, right? Could someone tell me where to get this? I guess the only problem would be that I use multiple browsers under multiple OS's, so I'd really like a universal place to store the cache is all.
Slashdot Mirror
Katz says, "Their imaginations have been continuously stretched", but I'd have to disagree. One of the reasons that I've pretty much given up on gaming (I occasionally play a few rounds when I'm bored and want to unstress) is that I always felt too limited. That was why I originally started to learn computer programming; I wanted to design a game that allowed for more creativity. In the process, I realized that programming quenched my thirst for creativity. Programming gives me a well-defined set of rules and methods, and allows me to decide what to do with them.
Another reason that I eventually gave up on gaming was because there was very little reward, in my opinion. Sure, you could beat the game or find all of the secrets and then brag to your friends...but somehow that just wasn't satisfying. When I program, I create something that serves a purpose. For me, the ultimate satisfaction comes from sitting back and looking at a finished program and saying, "Yeah, I did that. The computer now does this-and-such because I told it how."
From the Human Genome Project's website:
The patentability of inventions under U.S. law is determined by the Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in the Department of Commerce. A patent application is judged on four criteria. The invention must be "useful" in a practical sense (the inventor must identify some useful purpose for it), "novel" (i.e., not known or used before the filing), and "nonobvious" (i.e., not an improvement easily made by someone trained in the relevant area). The invention also must be described in sufficient detail to enable one skilled in the field to use it for the stated purpose (sometimes called the "enablement" criterion).
In general, raw products of nature are not patentable. It's usually when these DNA products have been isolated, purified, or modified to produce a unique form not found in nature that they become patentable.
For the rest of the explanation, go to:
http://www.ornl.gov/hgmis/elsi/patents.html
The Human Genome Project's web page is at:
http://www.ornl.gov/hgmis/
Hopefully this will clarify things for people who don't understand what is meant by "patenting genes"
I've seen this done in a small private institution, and the students there loved it. Rose-Hulman is a college of about 2500 students, and it's tech-majors only (engineering, computer science, etc.). All students are required to buy the same laptop. At first, this turned me off, and then they told me that they had an on-campus repair center with plenty of spare parts, so they could replace whatever broke on the spot.
Of course, never believe the hype. So I talked with students. One student told me her screen or something got damaged, she took it in to the repair center, and they swapped out her hard drive and put it in a spare and she was out in no time. And since the college knew that students would make use of it, a lot of the classrooms have power and ethernet jacks in the desks (so no hunting for that).
To address the teaching issues: I sat in on a Calculus class, and at the time, the teacher was covering three-dimensional integrals. It's fairly difficult to draw those on the board (shading is a _pain_), but Mathematica can do decent renderings fairly quickly. Now I can hear all of you saying, "Great, so now they only know what it looks like if the computer shows them!". No, it doesn't have to be that way. My HS calculus teacher would let us use calculators during lecture, but no calculators could be used on the exams. So we could use the calculators to "play" with ideas and test them, and get a deeper understanding of the theories. But come test time, it was us against the test, with only a #2 pencil to help us.
That's how teaching should be handled. Use all of the tools available to help students understand the material. But once it's time to test the student, make sure you're testing they're abilities to comprehend, not they're abilities to use the tools (unless teaching the tools are explicitly part of the course, which should be rare).
And actually, I've just recently decided that my next computer is going to be a laptop. I go to Virginia Tech, and I end up with a lot of small blocks of spare time. If I had my work with me, I could get something accomplished, but the blocks aren't big enough for me to make it back to my room, get work done, and then get to where I need to be next.
I've stopped using napster for several months now. I've got a lot of the songs that I want, and I'm pretty much content. Besides, it's too much work to find decent songs on Napster. There are too many people who don't know how to rip properly ("In any large group of people, the majority of them will be idiots" -- my own made up Law of Idiots).
So if I really want a song, and I get it from Napster, I generally have to download half a dozen copies to find a decent version. Luckily, I'm on a campus ethernet connection, so bandwidth (on my end) isn't much of a problem. It still takes me a minute or so per song. On top of that, I have to listen to half a dozen songs to find out if they're worth keeping. So I basically waste half an hour trying to get a "free" copy that doesn't even sound as good as the original.
And if I want to take it with me and play it in the car, I have to take the time to burn it onto CD, which means more lost time.
Considering my hourly pay rate, if I want more than one song on a CD, it's actually cheaper for me to _buy_ the CD. Oh yeah, and I also get the satisfaction of doing my job (which I enjoy), rather than fighting with Napster and bad connections (which just feels like I'm wasting time).
Which brings me to my idea. The record industry has no problem letting us listen to (and record) songs on the radio. So why not make low-quality versions of the songs available for free? Put them on their websites, and flood Napster with them.
I would rather download an mp3 that I know will be "low" quality, rather than gamble with Napster and end up with a bunch of songs that have skips, beeps, and other oddities. And I think a lot of people would have the same reaction. Heck, I'd probably buy more CD's too.
That's what you would think people would do, but that's not what usually happens. Look at all of the horrible rips that are available on napster. My theory is that people download songs in batches (like one person suggested), and then listen to them later. If they don't like a song, they'll generally delete a song from their playlists, but they rarely delete it from their comp (unless they know that they are low on disk space).
Just my $0.02
The fact of the matter is that Russia doesn't currently have a very good infrastructure. That's the way it is. UPS can ship to those cities because I imagine they're cities with decent access to the outside world.
:)
I think the majority of the people in the U.S. (I live in the US and always have, so don't flame me) don't realize that interstates aren't universal. And the plethora of airports available to us is even rarer.
If you really want to help Russia, it sounds like you could ship some construction materials to some random address in Russia...you can be assured that they will find they're way to people who can use them
Face it, as many "problems" as we have in the US (and a lot of other developed countries), we really are spoiled.
If I recall correctly, there is a window manager (maybe that's not the right term for it, I've forgotten the right terms for the different parts of the X system) that looks almost exactly like Win9x? Was any credit given to MS for providing the work? I know that there is also a way to make X look like the Mac's interface. Was any credit given there?
Sorry, but don't throw stones if you live in a glass house.
Wonderful. So now they can store oogles of data in a small space. So can I, if I just write all of the data on the same place on my hard drive.
Why don't I do this, you ask? Because retrieval would be impossible.
So the real question is: can you _retrieve_ the data in a timely fashion? I read the article, and it didn't say anything about how they plan to read the data from the vial. With the chemicals constantly swishing around, how can you organize the data? Would you have to search the entire container for the molecule with the data on it?
This is pre-vaporware here. There's absolutely no technical information, and they don't even claim that they can retrieve the information.
This falls under the category: Wow, that's really cool if it works, but I'll believe it when I see it.
I live in Delaware, a small insignificant state just south of Pennsylvania. Consequently, all of our news comes from Philadelphia broadcasters. So the convention has been the big thing on TV. I watched part of the protesting, and I was rather impressed with how the Philadelphia cops handled everything. The news people were trying _very_ hard to find police abusing the protesters, but all they could find were protesters abusing police. Now, all of you conspiracy theorists are going to say, "But the media doesn't want to show you police brutality because they're getting paid off." Wrong! It's in their best interest to show you police brutality, because that's what gets ratings up.
Like I said, the media was actively looking for police brutality. Here's an example conversation between the newsroom reporters and the "on-site" reporters:
On-site: As you can see, the protesters have gathered in the intersection. They're stated purpose is to disrupt the traffic in Philadelphia.
Newsroom: Have you seen any police brutality yet?
On-site: No, in fact we haven't. The police have appeared remarkably restrained.
Newsroom: So, what you're saying, is that you haven't seen or heard about the police responding with violence at all?
On-site: That's correct. Although we have seen protesters both verbally and physically abusing police. Like I said, the police have not shown any response, verbally, emotionally, or physically. The most we've seen them do is hold their batons with both hands in front of them, so that they can hold the crowd away from themselves.
Personally, I think the protesters were extremely ticked off with the police's lack of response (it makes the protesters look bad when they're the only ones being violent). The local paper tried it's hardest to make the police sound like they had abused the protesters. ("The police responded with batons". They implied that the police beat the protesters with batons, but they were really holding them up to form a barrier between themselves and the protesters).
2600's article claims that you can't trust the media to report accurately. While I'm pretty skeptical about what the media "reports", in this case, I'm pretty sure that they would've preferred the police to be violent. Think about it; which of these two headlines would cause you to buy a paper:
xxx PROTESTERS ARRESTED BY POLICE
-or-
xxx PROTESTERS ASSAULTED BY POLICE
And yet it was the first headline that appeared in newspapers. Sorry guys, but for once, the police did the Right Thing (TM).
In fact, after everything was said and done, the police were left wondering if they had been too easy on the protesters. One officer said that the protesters seemed to take the police's non-response as a sign of weakness, which egged them on.
All I ask is that you think about it before you blindly believe either side of the story. Remember, occasionally the police will act reasonably, and occasionally the media will be truthful. Don't count on either happening all of the time, but don't automatically assume the opposite either.
Right now I'm in the process of creating a site for a business that wants all of the latest gizmos on their site (and since their targeting businesses with T1 connections, bandwidth isn't a problem). So I've been playing with JavaScript over the pass couple weeks, keeping the every-handy book "JavaScript: The Definitive Guide" (from O'Reilly) by my side. Now, it's a well known fact that O'Reilly is not in bed with MS (quite the opposite, in fact). But in the 3rd edition (copyright June 1998) IE's support for modifying styles thru JavaScript beat Netscape's, hands down. CSS is an open standard, and JavaScript was originally a _proprietary_ Netscape innovation.
My point is simple, both companies/browsers have their faults. Personally, I hate both of them, but I (regretfully) use IE. All I really want in a browser is the following:
* HTML 4.0 _full_ compliancy
* CSS1 _full_ compliancy
* a good effort towards CSS2 compliancy (enough that they will be compliant within the somewhat near future)
* JavaScript 1.1 _full_ compliancy
* a good effort towards JavaScript 1.2 compliancy (similar to CSS2)
* Java support
* _stability_ (Netscape crashes way too much, which I understand is because of bugs in the MS code they use, maybe that'll all change)
* a price of less than $50
Notice I did not mention the following things:
* free (beer or speech) - honestly, I wouldn't mind paying for a decent browser, and while the source is very nice, I'd rather have something that worked w/out the source, then broken source. If you personally believe that the only way the above objectives can be reached is through a open/close (circle one) source project, I don't care.
* bookmarks - I can cut and paste from a text file
* skins - I don't care wtf the browser looks like, I want the webpage to look right!
Note: I have tried Opera on two occasions, and it's definitely getting better, but it wasn't quite good enough the last time I checked. I'll probably download the latest release after finishing this post, but I don't have my hopes too high.
If anyone knows of a browser that meets these requirements, please, please let me know. I don't want to beta test or write my own code (which is why I haven't tried Mozilla, and why I don't mind paying for the finished product).
I'm also in the process of switching my daily computer use from Windows to Linux, and I'm _extremely_ frustrated with Netscape under Linux. So I'm looking for a browser that works under Linux or Windows or both.
Damn that's funny! I may have to make that my sig, with seanb's permission, of course.
You are correct, perhaps I should have more carefully worded my statement. *Currently*, solar power is not a reasonable option. I certainly expect that to change in the future. Unfortunately, we're forced to live in the present, which, according to the article, is where the Ukrainians (sp?) are having their trouble.
I'd like to hear a better plan for getting electricity. Every other source of significant power is criticized for being environmentally unfriendly.
Note: I included the adjective "significant" because everyone thinks solar power is wonderful, but it just can't produce.
There were several reactors at Chernobyl. One exploded, and it took a second one with it. The reactor that they are restarting was neither of these; it was only down for 5 months.
Yeah, but they have to stay in the same system. Most computer professionals are used to the idea that they can quit and find a job with similar pay somewhere else. Teachers aren't so lucky (at least this is what a teacher told me), if they switch outside their school district, they start back on the bottom rung of the salary ladder. Which really discourages teachers moving away from bad school districts, which school districts like because they don't have to worry about their employees leaving because the administration sucks. In high school (a year ago), I met many teachers who wanted to help students, and would work hard to make do. However, becuase of the above situation, they have the ultimate in pointy-haired bosses.
BTW, programmers aren't so hot either (I'm currently a CS major, and I've loved programming for several years, and yes my HS CS class was a joke). I'm not trying to start a flame war, but I have always had (what I think) is a reasonable question: Why can't I get a web browser that will 1) work on the majority of sites (hell, it can even be a stickler for HTML compliant code, i.e. it doesn't have to support MS/Netscape "extensions"), 2) not CRASH over stupid things, 3) support java. I don't care whether it runs on Linux or Windows, I just want the damn thing to RUN!!
I realize that it's hard to keep a web browser up to date, and introducing new code to adapt to the new standards will probably break old code, but isn't that basically what happens to teachers? They learn something new and have to rework their lesson plan, removing all references to the old information and replacing it with the new.
Sorry, but I think it's awfully ironic whenever computer programmers complain about the lack of dedication by some other profession.
If these mp3's were posted in a public SMB folder, for everyone on the network to see, then it really shouldn't count as an illegal search. It's like selling illegal movie copies on your front lawn...if a police officer drives by and sees you, he doesn't need (and shouldn't need) a search warrant to charge you.
I'm a student at VirginiaTech, and there are some idiots on the local network who leave their mp3 folders open to the public. I wouldn't feel sorry for them at all if they were caught.
Just because the rule wasn't enforced before doesn't mean that they have to make an announcement before they decide to enforce it.
I get halos with my glasses!! If a dark object is against a bright background (i.e. someone standing in front of an overhead screen), then one side of the person is outlined in blue, and the other side is outlined in orange-red. So basically I get to trip without the harmful side effects of acid :P
-The saddest part about this whole mess is that there really are people who find it "daemons", xbill and the like offensive.
:)
I don't find any of them offensive, although "daemons" can be inconvenient when you have to explain them to a non-computer user. For instance, I was babysitting, and I brought along "The Complete FreeBSD" to read after the kids went to bed (after that chore, even learning unix can seem easy
However, I ended up spending 15 minutes trying to explain to a 5 year old why there was a picture of the devil (the FreeBSD logo) on my book. Luckily, his mother had enough experience with me to realize that I wasn't a devil worshiper (it was a very Christian family), so she didn't ask me to explain it to her.
Oh well, the chances of daemons changing names are about the same as the chances of everyone on Slashdot running Windows...
For those of you keeping score, I ended up explaining daemons by telling the kid that computer daemons were kind of like computer mice. Just like there is no fuzzy animal attached to your computer, there is no actual daemon on the computer; they're just nicknames.
Sigh....
Actually, it has the potential to solve one problem that I've often noticed about using a credit card over the Internet. In order to order over the Internet, you only have to have 1) the card number, 2) the expiration date, 3) the name on the card. That means I can place an order over the Internet for a card that isn't even mine.
If AmEx were to require that the card be swiped in order to be used to purchase something over the Internet, this could prevent this type of fraud. According to the article, they aren't doing this, probably because people freak out whenever they can't do something the "old way". So currently, the card doesn't seem to have any secuirity benefits.
However, it would be nice if they offered the customers an option that would make it so that their card could only be used if it was swiped (I honestly don't know how they would do this, I'm just hypothesizing). I realize that any system that they used to increase secuirity could be cracked. I also realize that any secuirity system can be cracked, the object is to make it more difficult.
And I don't know how often this particular type of credit card fraud happens, I just know that it should be possible (I haven't tried it). If anyone else has some more information, please share it.
I understand your fear that this could actually hurt somebody, but the people that get the most upset often have the least mental hardware, so it would be a quick and painless process.
However, that's not the point of this post. I've convinced myself that none of the current computer interfaces are near what they could be. So I've made it my mission in life to create a new UI that is to GUI what GUI was to the command-line (hey, a guy's got to have dreams, right?). And reading Slashdot and the Linux pages has convinced me that if I do make the next-level UI, I should Open-Source it.
The only problem is that you're supposed to make money off of OSS by selling support services, but if I do a good job, there should be no need for support services! Taking this concept further, the economic markets will push OSS companies to make difficult software so that people must buy their services. Some would argue that because it is open source the unpaid, independent programmers could write a better UI. But if you are a programmer, you know the inherent flaw there; most programmers would rather add functionality than make the current functionality more usable (I know that I am guilty of this).
What all of this means is that, if I'm right (which I hope I'm not), then OSS will *never* break into the main stream because it will always be difficult to use. As a warning, I haven't had a chance to get KDE or Gnome up and running on FreeBSD, and I haven't even installed Linux, yet. If you feel that my opinion will change once I use those, please say so.
Thank you, Tom Panning tpanning@vt.edu (sorry about the length)
You on the other hand should probably read the Linux advocacy mini-HOWTO. Then you should write a polite letter apologizing for your immature behavior. I suggest that the fellow Slashdot readers also write a short, carefully worded e-mail to to Microworkz and the misinformed news agencies.
Remember, it's easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar.
This falls under Section 18.3 of the Good PR: "no harm, no foul" :) ... Honestly, please remember this when you get out of law school: just because something is *technically* illegal doesn't mean that it should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Sometimes it's better to privately correct the situation with a polite letter; it keeps people's opinions up and what-not.
If Linus jumps all over Microworkz, it will make other companies very fearful of Linux. It's kinda like when a dog bites a kid: people are more likely to shoot the dog first and submit it for rabies testing second.
Honestly, I wished more people would understand that laws must be applied with a little common-sense.
Most of the "useful" information that we gather is through the Internet. Personally, I'd rather have a piece of software let me find that article I read 2 months ago, but I can't remember where. The software wouldn't even have to record the webpages, users would simply set their cache to never erase. It would just take a simple search engine that only searched your cache. Something like this must exist, right? Could someone tell me where to get this? I guess the only problem would be that I use multiple browsers under multiple OS's, so I'd really like a universal place to store the cache is all.