Seems to me like he is buying fame, but anyone who complains about someone giving 2 grand away to a charity for purposes of achieving another few minutes in the spotlight isn't gauging the situation properly.
No shit.
Andover offers up millions to buy Slashdot, get press attention and make its IPO a lot more attractive. The Slashdot community responds with as much adoration, love and praise as it can muster.
This guy offers up $2,500 to help charity and possibly -- though by no means definitely -- get press attention for himself. The Slashdot community thinks he's a contemptible publicity whore.
The only reason he registered the domain name was to put Microsoft into an embarassing situation (he only beat them to registering it by a couple of minutes).
a) He didn't register the domain. He paid a delinquent bill. The domain was placed on hold by Network Solutions but was in no danger of being released for someone else to register for at least 90-120 days.
b) By paying the bill when he did, the guy saved hours of Hotmail downtime, benefitting several hundred thousand users at least.
Now he's just draggin it on and on... Get over it pal, it may have been mildly amusing at first, now it's just pathetic. You're 15 minutes are up, let it go.
He's using media attention to help a worthy charity. What's wrong with that?
I think Microsoft would be justified to stop things if somebody tried to sell "windows95.com", or used it to point at some page that has nothing to do with MicroSoft or Windows or attacked them, or perhaps provided false information that misled consumers.
Selling a domain to someone else is not prohibited because the domain has a trademark in it. The owner of windows95.com sold it to CNET at some point, in fact. Recently, the owner of windows2000.com sold it to Microsoft in exchange for money and the rights to bob.com.
The main issue here is what you publish on a domain that you own. That's where a trademark holder can step in and say your domain infringes on his rights by creating confusion in the marketplace. That's what a trademark is all about -- owning and protecting a brand that distinguishes your goods from other peoples' goods. If I own a Linux domain and publish nothing on it, how am I creating confusion with Linux consumers by selling that domain to someone else?
The only other issue worth considering is the new set of cybersquatting laws. Someone who owns a domain with "Linux" in it and contacts Torvalds with an offer to sell it could be running afoul of those new laws. That, however, is the problem of the person buying from SeriousDomains, not the seller. Caveat emptor.
This sounds like what Sun did in 1996, going after a bunch of domain names that included the word "java." See the NetSurfer Digest summarizing the story.
SeriousDomains would not be infringing anyone's trademark rights by selling domains with the word "Linux" in them. The buyer of those domains wouldn't be infringing by buying them, either -- it's what you do with them that counts.
For what it's worth, Microsoft has allowed many domains to include its trademarks for years -- windows95.com and activex.com are two examples. It seems odd that someone who gave away intellectual property worth millions -- his operating system -- would be exerting a trademark claim over domains while the closed-source bajillionaires at Microsoft are looking the other way.
I used to think he was just a know-nothing tech writer that tried hard. Now I know for a fact that he doesn't even try hard. He is useless.
The year-long "I can't install Linux" adventure should have been all the proof you needed. Katz has less hands-on experience with computers and technology than any other tech journalist on the planet -- and that's no mean feat.
Clicking on Star Office took me to an open file, where I wrote a message I intended to post directly to Slashdot. In two minutes, I had gone deeper into the inside of a computer than I ever had.
At the time he wrote this, Katz had been a technology pundit/journalist for several years, and yet clicking a word processor icon and entering text was "deeper into the inside of a computer" than he had ever gone.
Did you really need a misquote to convince you that Katz was an inert gas?
Are you new to the web? I can go out and get ten different email addresses at hotmail, yahoo, excite, etc. in about twenty minutes and send ten different convincing messages telling you the sky is falling.
And Slashdot's editors would see the same submission posted 12 different times in rapid succession. If you think it's so easy to get Slashdot to bite on a rumor, do it: Send me a rumor by e-mail from one of the freebie e-mail providers and get Slashdot to report that rumor by the end of the week.
Uh-Oh Mr. Bill! Fact checking is difficult!! I don't know what I'm going to do!
You're missing the point. Calling the flack at Yahoo! who answers the media relations phone isn't going to confirm or deny the rumor. The idea that a single call is going to be useful at all is laughable to anyone who knows anything about newsgathering.
The news media reports rumors as rumors all the time. If you don't believe me, watch any of the hundreds of hours devoted each week to covering the 2000 presidential race. (If you can't pry yourself from the monitor, visit the kind of rumormongering journalism: Matt Drudge.)
If a rumor is widespread enough for it to be submitted numerous times to Slashdot, I think they serve a useful purpose by stating this -- as long as they include the caveat that it is a rumor. It's certainly 10 times more useful than Jon Katz taking the current week's hot-button issue, no matter what it is, and turning it into a pity party for misunderstood geeks.
As for picking up the phone and calling Yahoo!, do you really think some random public information droid at the company is going to be honest about a rumored switch to Windows Media Player?
Slashdot: "Hi. Can I speak to Mr. or Mrs. Yahoo?"
Yahoo: "Speaking."
Slashdot: "Have you received secret orders from Redmond that force you to abandon RealPlayer for Windows Media Player?"
You cannot get a virus simply by reading email. It's a saying that's been repeated to newbies since who-knows-when, and I'm surprised that/. missed it.
This was true when e-mail was ASCII only, but now that Web-based e-mail sites, Outlook Express and other mail software support HTML, ActiveX controls, and even scripting languages like JavaScript, it's possible to get a virus simply by reading e-mail. All it takes is an Internet Explorer security hole -- lord knows there are plenty of those -- and a malicious programmer with a little free time.
Your statement should be amended: If you only read mail as plain text, you cannot get an email virus simply by reading e-mail.
Their HTML compatibility was awful (this was the 3.0 release).... As far as I'm concerned, Opera is nowhere near the browser that Netscape/Mozilla is and is only getting recognition because they're an 'alternative'.
Early versions of Opera were terrible, but version 3.60 for Windows renders HTML well and supports standard HTML better than any other browser. It also contains more support for Cascading Style Sheets than any of its rivals.
There are dozens of alternatives to Navigator and Internet Explorer. The reason Opera is getting attention now is because it's getting good.
1) Their HTML rendering is quite lame. It doesn't render most simple HTML correctly, so things look 'weird' compared to Navigator/IE. If they can't even get that right, they've got no chance
Most cases of poor Opera rendering are due to malformed HTML on the Web page you're looking at. Netscape and Microsoft have created browsers that are extremely lax in enforcing HTML syntax, and as a result many lazy Web page developers like me don't make sure our pages are valid HTML.
Opera, on the other hand, is less forgiving of bad HTML. For this reason, it's a great browser to have around as you are developing and testing a Web site. (Another good tool: The W3C HTML Validator.)
I've been using Opera as my main Windows browser for several months, and the only poor rendering I would blame on Opera is how the browser displays numbered and unnumbered lists. The renderer puts a lot more vertical space between list items than any other browser, and I hope the developers will address this in a future release.
Nobody's going to pay for a closed-source browser, however spiffy, when there's a reasonable selection of respectable open _and_ closed browsers, all of which are free. It's time the Opera folks started a new project.
I gladly paid $35 for Opera's Windows version, because it was the best performing, fastest loading, most reliable browser for this OS. I think some Linux users will make the leap for the same reasons, regardless of Mozilla's supposed future dominance.
I think it's extremely unfortunate that Nikolai Bezroukov permeated his essay with political labelling laced with so much historical baggage that it was bound to cause from ESR a knee-jerk defensive reaction permeated with an equal and opposite amount of irrelevance. And it did.
Amen.
The central point of Nikolai Bezroukov's essay seemed to be that the open source model may have something to learn from the academic model it emulates.
It's an interesting line of thought to travel, especially when you compare the IPO millionaires open source has created at places like Red Hat to the vow of poverty that's both expected and respected in the academic community. How essential to the open exchange of knowledge is the notion that none of the participants are getting rich off the exchange?
Unfortunately, Bezroukov's comparison between "vulgar Raymondism" and "vulgar Marxism," and Raymond's subsequent comparison between socialism and "pure evil," ensured that the discussion would be about everything *but* the issue most relevant to Slashdot.
Unlike information-sorting programs and sites - there are dozens - Clotho wouldn't present us with fewer choices, but making tough choices for us.
There already is a Clotho to protect us from all the "scary" things offered by "Gee-Whiz Technology."
It's called a power button.
I know the point's been made several dozen times, but the idea that personal technology is overpowering, instead of empowering, is a weak one. That's the kind of thinking I would expect of people in older generations who have not become skilled users (and discerning customers) of new personal technology. Someone who writes for Slashdot should know better.
I don't understand how anyone could cede so much control over their life that they think a computer program is needed to protect them from the new PalmPilot. Do you also blame your cel phone for making you carry on phone conversations in your car?
There's no need for computer mediation to protect us from the rapid advances in computer technology that are offered in so many areas of our daily lives. The power button toggles both ways, and any personal device that makes your life more difficult will stay off if you want it to.
Besides, any computer program that can do all the things expected of Clotho would be used to sell more stuff to us, giving Jon Katz more reasons to have a panic attack when he drives past a Best Buy. No investor would pay to develop a program that slows down the adoption of technology and makes us live a more balanced, less consumerist life.
Frankly, I'm not sure how yahoo!(TM) is getting away with "Do You Yahoo!?", but don't really feel up to slapping them with a lawsuit.
Yahoo! is able to use "Do You Yahoo!?" without problems because they also trademarked that phrase -- see the trademark filing on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database.
I don't think Slashdot is in much danger of trademark dilution at this point, though Andover employees and contributors probably should catch up on trademark guidelines so they don't use the name improperly.
Anyway, what would a Web-like interface accomplish? Nothing except to confuse the user about how the Internet works.
A Web-like interface accomplishes a lot: It enables people who can surf a Web site to send and receive e-mail and use other services without a learning curve.
That isn't important to most of Slashdot's readership, but it's extremely important to the masses. The Web interface, for all its faults, is popular because of its simplicity and ubiquity. Do you think dozens of people would be discussing this article today if we had to run a Usenet client and load up alt.slashdot.discussion just to read and write messages?
One of the reason services like Hotmail have taken off is that most people don't want to learn 16 programs to use 16 Internet protocols.
Besides, users don't need to know how the Internet works any more than they need to know the protocols involved in making a long-distance phone call. They pay good money to other people (namely, geeks like us) so they can be shielded from this kind of technical arcana.
If e-mail clients look like Hotmail, then Microsoft can call Hotmail an e-mail client and get away with it.
Hotmail is an e-mail client that delivers most of the functionality John Q. User would want or need. It's a security nightmare, obviously, but the adoption of Web-based e-mail by millions of people shows the service is valued.
The stars of Star Wars must get *really* tired of being assailed by obsessed fans. Wouldn't you be sour if every time you went into public you was asked stupid questions about a movie you were in 20 years ago?
I'm a Talk subscriber, so I'll have a chance to see whether Guinness has a legitimate beef in terms of how fans have treated him. I don't expect he has been treated badly enough to justify his verbal bitch-slap of a 12-year-old kid, though.
Basically, there's a limit to how sour a person gets to be over a project that made him fabulously wealthy. I like my sourpusses to be embittered, screwed-over sourpusses, not unbelievably fortunate, ungrateful ones.
Guinness also regales the magazine with a very un-mentor-like story his treatment of a 12-year-old fan. The actor harshly reprimanded the child, who approached Guinness and told him he'd seen the original 100 times, bringing the boy to tears. "There was something obsessive there that really frightened me," Guinness recounts.
Reducing children to tears strikes me as fairly obsessive behavior, too.
If Sir Guinness finds the lasting success of Star Wars so distasteful, he can send back those residual checks that he gets as a consequence of that success.
Surely, Guinness and the other actors who signed on to these movies did so because of the money-making potential rather than artistic satisfaction. No one could have mistaken the original Star Wars script for Shakespeare in the Park.
His two-decades-late development of artistic sensibilities strikes me as sour grapes, and it says more about a grumpy old man than it does about the supposed faults of George Lucas and his dreadfully over-marketed movies.
Some people seem to be forgetting that the World Wide Web was designed to be a medium that transparently handled other protocols. Users could familiarize themselves with one interface -- the Web browser -- and exchange information via HTTP, FTP, Usenet and gopher.
I'd like to see more protocols adopted as part of a Web browser, but not in the "office suite" style that Netscape seems to have adopted. The e-mail and Usenet clients should look and act like Web pages if they are part of the browser, the same way that FTP directories do. You should be able to use them without feeling like you've left the Web. Posting to Usenet from a browser should look like posting to any other form. Reading and writing e-mail using your ISP's SMTP and POP3 servers should look like a free-mail site.
Spawning separate programs with their own unique interfaces is not an improvement. For instance, there's no compelling reason to go with Netscape's e-mail client instead of a third-party's program, because the learning curve is the same -- and both are much harder to learn than a free-mail site like Hotmail or Prontomail.
If Mozilla can assimilate IRC and other messaging standards as part of the Web interface -- rather than a separately spawned interface -- I think it's a great reason to start using the browser again. If it's just being used to bundle and deliver separate apps together a la Microsoft Office 2000, the benefit to users is negligible.
I'm pretty sure many people reading Slashdot learned how to code around that age, humble myself included. Perhaps working at Pizza Pizza would have been much better for building a real character;
The kind of character that posts anonymous insults? I don't think this guy was bragging (and I certainly don't think he deserved your hostile response).
However, he should brag: Any teen who is learning computer languages and working as a software developer is doing something good for himself at an age most of us were sacking groceries or flipping burgers.
Give them a strongly typecasted language like java, where every little thing they do causes an error. Where they have to type in 5 lines of code to get a simple thing done.
Java requires a basic knowledge of class structure to create "Hello World." After that, though, there are many compelling things you can do with Java that would be impossible to tackle with other languages in a beginning course.
The graphical user interface classes in Java are simple enough for a beginner to tackle during a one-semester course. Remembering back to the time I learned the language, I thought it was immensely satisfying to create functional GUI programs in so little code.
I don't know enough about Python to compare it to Java as a "programming for everyone" language. However, I'd hate to see the issue boil down to which language handles "Hello World" more easily.
Yet the record companies - one of the world's larger cartels outside Colombia - were due some comeuppance for their arrogance, greed and control over music.
There are times I think Jon Katz was held against his will at some kind of Rolling Stone re-education camp. Mentioning the recording industry and the Colombian drug cartels in the same breath would be laughable if it wasn't so offensive. What next -- comparing the fast food industry to the Shining Path?
Katz needs to abandon the notion that those evil record companies are "The Man" and everyone else is being held down by them.
On the other hand, crackers inhibit the government's ability to propogate its world view when they deface a web page, with the (unspoken?) threat of possibly doing much more (such as compromizing their databases and whatnot).
A cracker who breaks into a government Web server and changes content is a threat worthy of federal investigation and prosecution.
Allegedly, this guy just did some obvious defacement of the site. He could have made more subtle changes and removed restrictions on confidential data that's available on the server.
For instance, what if a cracker breaks into CPSC.GOV and removes links to a product recall he doesn't agree with? Thousands of consumers might not find out about an unsafe product and the means to get it fixed.
As another example, what if a cracker jacked with the IRS site so that taxpayers thought they owed lower taxes than they really do? The immediate gratification would be replaced with audits, late fees, and other tax boom-lowering.
The offense allegedly committed by Chad Davis is trivial, and that should be considered in his sentencing if he is found guilty. Breaking into a government Web site and changing information is a crime the feds should be taking seriously, though. (They also should be creating content-verification systems that prevent subtle changes from escaping notice.)
However, I as an individual am hardly harmed. If the IRS gets their facts wrong and I underpay, the IRS is at fault, not me. I may have to hire a good lawyer and go to court, but no lasting harm is done.
I think most people who have hired a lawyer to defend themselves and go to court would define that as "lasting harm." Lawyers and trials are expensive, both in money and time. The IRS Web site is just one of many that publishes information that could be harmful to people if altered or removed.
If my only source of information for a recall is a government web page I have to take the trouble to find and dig through, then there are more serious problems with the recall notification procedure than a petty vandal's mucking with the web page.
Access to accurate information from the government is essential to the democratic process. I think it's a serious problem when crackers alter this information, despite the fact that most of these break-ins have been trivial to date.
If you don't hear about a product recall from the media, the only place that information is made available is the CPSC Web site. It serves a vital need, and it's important for that information to be reliable.
As more people rely on the Web for information, the necessity of accuracy on government Web sites becomes more important to this country. That's why I think it is important to investigate and prosecute people who break into government Web sites and alter them.
I am at most inconvenienced by such things. The government, on the other hand, has its power to govern more seriously hampered.
I think the feds prosecute crackers for the same reasons many local prosecuters do. It's a sexy crime with non-violent perpetrators that gets media attention and can help justify bigger budgets. No conspiracy there, aside from the most popular conspiracy on Earth -- making easy money.
The administrators of this site (Slashdot) made a point of not themselves publishing the URLs to the sites trafficing in the information needed to trespass. It's up to a legal body to determine if the fact that they then stood by and watched as users posted that information in forums they moderate implicates them.
Posting the specific details of a security exploit should not be illegal, especially when it is as simple as a URL. Software and security measures get better much more quickly when the details of an exploit are made public.
Many of the people who tried out the Hotmail exploit did so using their own account, or the account of someone who gave permission for the attempt. Those folks have nothing to worry about, and the other idiots will probably be saved by the sheer volume of break-ins.
Slashdot Mirror
Seems to me like he is buying fame, but anyone who complains about someone giving 2 grand away to a charity for purposes of achieving another few minutes in the spotlight isn't gauging the situation properly.
No shit.
Andover offers up millions to buy Slashdot, get press attention and make its IPO a lot more attractive. The Slashdot community responds with as much adoration, love and praise as it can muster.
This guy offers up $2,500 to help charity and possibly -- though by no means definitely -- get press attention for himself. The Slashdot community thinks he's a contemptible publicity whore.
Go figure.
The only reason he registered the domain name was to put Microsoft into an embarassing situation (he only beat them to registering it by a couple of minutes).
a) He didn't register the domain. He paid a delinquent bill. The domain was placed on hold by Network Solutions but was in no danger of being released for someone else to register for at least 90-120 days.
b) By paying the bill when he did, the guy saved hours of Hotmail downtime, benefitting several hundred thousand users at least.
Now he's just draggin it on and on... Get over it pal, it may have been mildly amusing at first, now it's just pathetic. You're 15 minutes are up, let it go.
He's using media attention to help a worthy charity. What's wrong with that?
I think Microsoft would be justified to stop things if somebody tried to sell "windows95.com", or used it to point at some page that has nothing to do with MicroSoft or Windows or attacked them, or perhaps provided false information that misled consumers.
Selling a domain to someone else is not prohibited because the domain has a trademark in it. The owner of windows95.com sold it to CNET at some point, in fact. Recently, the owner of windows2000.com sold it to Microsoft in exchange for money and the rights to bob.com.
The main issue here is what you publish on a domain that you own. That's where a trademark holder can step in and say your domain infringes on his rights by creating confusion in the marketplace. That's what a trademark is all about -- owning and protecting a brand that distinguishes your goods from other peoples' goods. If I own a Linux domain and publish nothing on it, how am I creating confusion with Linux consumers by selling that domain to someone else?
The only other issue worth considering is the new set of cybersquatting laws. Someone who owns a domain with "Linux" in it and contacts Torvalds with an offer to sell it could be running afoul of those new laws. That, however, is the problem of the person buying from SeriousDomains, not the seller. Caveat emptor.
This sounds like what Sun did in 1996, going after a bunch of domain names that included the word "java." See the NetSurfer Digest summarizing the story.
SeriousDomains would not be infringing anyone's trademark rights by selling domains with the word "Linux" in them. The buyer of those domains wouldn't be infringing by buying them, either -- it's what you do with them that counts.
For what it's worth, Microsoft has allowed many domains to include its trademarks for years -- windows95.com and activex.com are two examples. It seems odd that someone who gave away intellectual property worth millions -- his operating system -- would be exerting a trademark claim over domains while the closed-source bajillionaires at Microsoft are looking the other way.
I used to think he was just a know-nothing tech writer that tried hard. Now I know for a fact that he doesn't even try hard. He is useless.
The year-long "I can't install Linux" adventure should have been all the proof you needed. Katz has less hands-on experience with computers and technology than any other tech journalist on the planet -- and that's no mean feat.
Read this excerpt from a past Katz piece here:
At the time he wrote this, Katz had been a technology pundit/journalist for several years, and yet clicking a word processor icon and entering text was "deeper into the inside of a computer" than he had ever gone.
Did you really need a misquote to convince you that Katz was an inert gas?
Are you new to the web? I can go out and get ten different email addresses at hotmail, yahoo, excite, etc. in about twenty minutes and send ten different convincing messages telling you the sky is falling.
And Slashdot's editors would see the same submission posted 12 different times in rapid succession. If you think it's so easy to get Slashdot to bite on a rumor, do it: Send me a rumor by e-mail from one of the freebie e-mail providers and get Slashdot to report that rumor by the end of the week.
Uh-Oh Mr. Bill! Fact checking is difficult!! I don't know what I'm going to do!
You're missing the point. Calling the flack at Yahoo! who answers the media relations phone isn't going to confirm or deny the rumor. The idea that a single call is going to be useful at all is laughable to anyone who knows anything about newsgathering.
The news media reports rumors as rumors all the time. If you don't believe me, watch any of the hundreds of hours devoted each week to covering the 2000 presidential race. (If you can't pry yourself from the monitor, visit the kind of rumormongering journalism: Matt Drudge.)
If a rumor is widespread enough for it to be submitted numerous times to Slashdot, I think they serve a useful purpose by stating this -- as long as they include the caveat that it is a rumor. It's certainly 10 times more useful than Jon Katz taking the current week's hot-button issue, no matter what it is, and turning it into a pity party for misunderstood geeks.
As for picking up the phone and calling Yahoo!, do you really think some random public information droid at the company is going to be honest about a rumored switch to Windows Media Player?
Slashdot: "Hi. Can I speak to Mr. or Mrs. Yahoo?"
Yahoo: "Speaking."
Slashdot: "Have you received secret orders from Redmond that force you to abandon RealPlayer for Windows Media Player?"
Yahoo: "Yes."
Slashdot: "Thanks for letting us know!"
Yahoo: "Call anytime. B-bye."
You cannot get a virus simply by reading email. It's a saying that's been repeated to newbies since who-knows-when, and I'm surprised that /. missed it.
This was true when e-mail was ASCII only, but now that Web-based e-mail sites, Outlook Express and other mail software support HTML, ActiveX controls, and even scripting languages like JavaScript, it's possible to get a virus simply by reading e-mail. All it takes is an Internet Explorer security hole -- lord knows there are plenty of those -- and a malicious programmer with a little free time.
Your statement should be amended: If you only read mail as plain text, you cannot get an email virus simply by reading e-mail.
Their HTML compatibility was awful (this was the 3.0 release). ... As far as I'm concerned, Opera is nowhere near the browser that Netscape/Mozilla is and is only getting recognition because they're an 'alternative'.
Early versions of Opera were terrible, but version 3.60 for Windows renders HTML well and supports standard HTML better than any other browser. It also contains more support for Cascading Style Sheets than any of its rivals.
There are dozens of alternatives to Navigator and Internet Explorer. The reason Opera is getting attention now is because it's getting good.
1) Their HTML rendering is quite lame. It doesn't render most simple HTML correctly, so things look 'weird' compared to Navigator/IE. If they can't even get that right, they've got no chance
Most cases of poor Opera rendering are due to malformed HTML on the Web page you're looking at. Netscape and Microsoft have created browsers that are extremely lax in enforcing HTML syntax, and as a result many lazy Web page developers like me don't make sure our pages are valid HTML.
Opera, on the other hand, is less forgiving of bad HTML. For this reason, it's a great browser to have around as you are developing and testing a Web site. (Another good tool: The W3C HTML Validator.)
I've been using Opera as my main Windows browser for several months, and the only poor rendering I would blame on Opera is how the browser displays numbered and unnumbered lists. The renderer puts a lot more vertical space between list items than any other browser, and I hope the developers will address this in a future release.
Nobody's going to pay for a closed-source browser, however spiffy, when there's a reasonable selection of respectable open _and_ closed browsers, all of which are free. It's time the Opera folks started a new project.
I gladly paid $35 for Opera's Windows version, because it was the best performing, fastest loading, most reliable browser for this OS. I think some Linux users will make the leap for the same reasons, regardless of Mozilla's supposed future dominance.
I think it's extremely unfortunate that Nikolai Bezroukov permeated his essay with political labelling laced with so much historical baggage that it was bound to cause from ESR a knee-jerk defensive reaction permeated with an equal and opposite amount of irrelevance. And it did.
Amen.
The central point of Nikolai Bezroukov's essay seemed to be that the open source model may have something to learn from the academic model it emulates.
It's an interesting line of thought to travel, especially when you compare the IPO millionaires open source has created at places like Red Hat to the vow of poverty that's both expected and respected in the academic community. How essential to the open exchange of knowledge is the notion that none of the participants are getting rich off the exchange?
Unfortunately, Bezroukov's comparison between "vulgar Raymondism" and "vulgar Marxism," and Raymond's subsequent comparison between socialism and "pure evil," ensured that the discussion would be about everything *but* the issue most relevant to Slashdot.
Unlike information-sorting programs and sites - there are dozens - Clotho wouldn't present us with fewer choices, but making tough choices for us.
There already is a Clotho to protect us from all the "scary" things offered by "Gee-Whiz Technology."
It's called a power button.
I know the point's been made several dozen times, but the idea that personal technology is overpowering, instead of empowering, is a weak one. That's the kind of thinking I would expect of people in older generations who have not become skilled users (and discerning customers) of new personal technology. Someone who writes for Slashdot should know better.
I don't understand how anyone could cede so much control over their life that they think a computer program is needed to protect them from the new PalmPilot. Do you also blame your cel phone for making you carry on phone conversations in your car?
There's no need for computer mediation to protect us from the rapid advances in computer technology that are offered in so many areas of our daily lives. The power button toggles both ways, and any personal device that makes your life more difficult will stay off if you want it to.
Besides, any computer program that can do all the things expected of Clotho would be used to sell more stuff to us, giving Jon Katz more reasons to have a panic attack when he drives past a Best Buy. No investor would pay to develop a program that slows down the adoption of technology and makes us live a more balanced, less consumerist life.
Frankly, I'm not sure how yahoo!(TM) is getting away with "Do You Yahoo!?", but don't really feel up to slapping them with a lawsuit.
Yahoo! is able to use "Do You Yahoo!?" without problems because they also trademarked that phrase -- see the trademark filing on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database.
I don't think Slashdot is in much danger of trademark dilution at this point, though Andover employees and contributors probably should catch up on trademark guidelines so they don't use the name improperly.
Anyway, what would a Web-like interface accomplish? Nothing except to confuse the user about how the Internet works.
A Web-like interface accomplishes a lot: It enables people who can surf a Web site to send and receive e-mail and use other services without a learning curve.
That isn't important to most of Slashdot's readership, but it's extremely important to the masses. The Web interface, for all its faults, is popular because of its simplicity and ubiquity. Do you think dozens of people would be discussing this article today if we had to run a Usenet client and load up alt.slashdot.discussion just to read and write messages?
One of the reason services like Hotmail have taken off is that most people don't want to learn 16 programs to use 16 Internet protocols.
Besides, users don't need to know how the Internet works any more than they need to know the protocols involved in making a long-distance phone call. They pay good money to other people (namely, geeks like us) so they can be shielded from this kind of technical arcana.
If e-mail clients look like Hotmail, then Microsoft can call Hotmail an e-mail client and get away with it.
Hotmail is an e-mail client that delivers most of the functionality John Q. User would want or need. It's a security nightmare, obviously, but the adoption of Web-based e-mail by millions of people shows the service is valued.
The stars of Star Wars must get *really* tired of being assailed by obsessed fans. Wouldn't you be sour if every time you went into public you was asked stupid questions about a movie you were in 20 years ago?
I'm a Talk subscriber, so I'll have a chance to see whether Guinness has a legitimate beef in terms of how fans have treated him. I don't expect he has been treated badly enough to justify his verbal bitch-slap of a 12-year-old kid, though.
Basically, there's a limit to how sour a person gets to be over a project that made him fabulously wealthy. I like my sourpusses to be embittered, screwed-over sourpusses, not unbelievably fortunate, ungrateful ones.
From the story:
Guinness also regales the magazine with a very un-mentor-like story his treatment of a 12-year-old fan. The actor harshly reprimanded the child, who approached Guinness and told him he'd seen the original 100 times, bringing the boy to tears. "There was something obsessive there that really frightened me," Guinness recounts.
Reducing children to tears strikes me as fairly obsessive behavior, too.
If Sir Guinness finds the lasting success of Star Wars so distasteful, he can send back those residual checks that he gets as a consequence of that success.
Surely, Guinness and the other actors who signed on to these movies did so because of the money-making potential rather than artistic satisfaction. No one could have mistaken the original Star Wars script for Shakespeare in the Park.
His two-decades-late development of artistic sensibilities strikes me as sour grapes, and it says more about a grumpy old man than it does about the supposed faults of George Lucas and his dreadfully over-marketed movies.
Some people seem to be forgetting that the World Wide Web was designed to be a medium that transparently handled other protocols. Users could familiarize themselves with one interface -- the Web browser -- and exchange information via HTTP, FTP, Usenet and gopher.
I'd like to see more protocols adopted as part of a Web browser, but not in the "office suite" style that Netscape seems to have adopted. The e-mail and Usenet clients should look and act like Web pages if they are part of the browser, the same way that FTP directories do. You should be able to use them without feeling like you've left the Web. Posting to Usenet from a browser should look like posting to any other form. Reading and writing e-mail using your ISP's SMTP and POP3 servers should look like a free-mail site.
Spawning separate programs with their own unique interfaces is not an improvement. For instance, there's no compelling reason to go with Netscape's e-mail client instead of a third-party's program, because the learning curve is the same -- and both are much harder to learn than a free-mail site like Hotmail or Prontomail.
If Mozilla can assimilate IRC and other messaging standards as part of the Web interface -- rather than a separately spawned interface -- I think it's a great reason to start using the browser again. If it's just being used to bundle and deliver separate apps together a la Microsoft Office 2000, the benefit to users is negligible.
I'm pretty sure many people reading Slashdot learned how to code around that age, humble myself included. Perhaps working at Pizza Pizza would have been much better for building a real character;
The kind of character that posts anonymous insults? I don't think this guy was bragging (and I certainly don't think he deserved your hostile response).
However, he should brag: Any teen who is learning computer languages and working as a software developer is doing something good for himself at an age most of us were sacking groceries or flipping burgers.
Give them a strongly typecasted language like java, where every little thing they do causes an error. Where they have to type in 5 lines of code to get a simple thing done.
Java requires a basic knowledge of class structure to create "Hello World." After that, though, there are many compelling things you can do with Java that would be impossible to tackle with other languages in a beginning course.
The graphical user interface classes in Java are simple enough for a beginner to tackle during a one-semester course. Remembering back to the time I learned the language, I thought it was immensely satisfying to create functional GUI programs in so little code.
I don't know enough about Python to compare it to Java as a "programming for everyone" language. However, I'd hate to see the issue boil down to which language handles "Hello World" more easily.
Yet the record companies - one of the world's larger cartels outside Colombia - were due some comeuppance for their arrogance, greed and control over music.
There are times I think Jon Katz was held against his will at some kind of Rolling Stone re-education camp. Mentioning the recording industry and the Colombian drug cartels in the same breath would be laughable if it wasn't so offensive. What next -- comparing the fast food industry to the Shining Path?
Katz needs to abandon the notion that those evil record companies are "The Man" and everyone else is being held down by them.
It's only a matter of time before the Turks dump Linux and adopt the Ottoman PC.
On the other hand, crackers inhibit the government's ability to propogate its world view when they deface a web page, with the (unspoken?) threat of possibly doing much more (such as compromizing their databases and whatnot).
A cracker who breaks into a government Web server and changes content is a threat worthy of federal investigation and prosecution.
Allegedly, this guy just did some obvious defacement of the site. He could have made more subtle changes and removed restrictions on confidential data that's available on the server.
For instance, what if a cracker breaks into CPSC.GOV and removes links to a product recall he doesn't agree with? Thousands of consumers might not find out about an unsafe product and the means to get it fixed.
As another example, what if a cracker jacked with the IRS site so that taxpayers thought they owed lower taxes than they really do? The immediate gratification would be replaced with audits, late fees, and other tax boom-lowering.
The offense allegedly committed by Chad Davis is trivial, and that should be considered in his sentencing if he is found guilty. Breaking into a government Web site and changing information is a crime the feds should be taking seriously, though. (They also should be creating content-verification systems that prevent subtle changes from escaping notice.)
However, I as an individual am hardly harmed. If the IRS gets their facts wrong and I underpay, the IRS is at fault, not me. I may have to hire a good lawyer and go to court, but no lasting harm is done.
I think most people who have hired a lawyer to defend themselves and go to court would define that as "lasting harm." Lawyers and trials are expensive, both in money and time. The IRS Web site is just one of many that publishes information that could be harmful to people if altered or removed.
If my only source of information for a recall is a government web page I have to take the trouble to find and dig through, then there are more serious problems with the recall notification procedure than a petty vandal's mucking with the web page.
Access to accurate information from the government is essential to the democratic process. I think it's a serious problem when crackers alter this information, despite the fact that most of these break-ins have been trivial to date.
If you don't hear about a product recall from the media, the only place that information is made available is the CPSC Web site. It serves a vital need, and it's important for that information to be reliable.
As more people rely on the Web for information, the necessity of accuracy on government Web sites becomes more important to this country. That's why I think it is important to investigate and prosecute people who break into government Web sites and alter them.
I am at most inconvenienced by such things. The government, on the other hand, has its power to govern more seriously hampered.
I think the feds prosecute crackers for the same reasons many local prosecuters do. It's a sexy crime with non-violent perpetrators that gets media attention and can help justify bigger budgets. No conspiracy there, aside from the most popular conspiracy on Earth -- making easy money.
The administrators of this site (Slashdot) made a point of not themselves publishing the URLs to the sites trafficing in the information needed to trespass. It's up to a legal body to determine if the fact that they then stood by and watched as users posted that information in forums they moderate implicates them.
Posting the specific details of a security exploit should not be illegal, especially when it is as simple as a URL. Software and security measures get better much more quickly when the details of an exploit are made public.
Many of the people who tried out the Hotmail exploit did so using their own account, or the account of someone who gave permission for the attempt. Those folks have nothing to worry about, and the other idiots will probably be saved by the sheer volume of break-ins.