I run a ~700 member mailing list and a ~500 member Forum. We've had a lot of problems with the AOL Spam filter. Eventually the AOL postmaster emailed my Hosting provider, and they asked me to cease and desist.
I spent some time with my customer rep at the hosting service, and while they fully understood my point of view, they just couldn't fight AOL, so they asked me to drop all of the AOL.com addresses.
And that's what I did. I emailed all of those members, offered them help and support to setup free webmail accounts, and then dropped every aol.com accounts.
What's really ironic was that AOL told us a member complained that they were getting email from us, and we even received a copy of the offending email. It was a mailing list post from another member. You have to go through the usual subscribing process (register, wait for an email, reply, confirm, etc) to get on that list in the first place!
In the end, it turned out to be great for us, since most of my time was spent dealing with aol.com blocked emails anyway. The site runs very smoothly now.
At the risk of totally destroying my karma, the slashdot editors seem to have the same level of discretion as CNN's editors when posting a story. So every article promoting Open Source is worthy of publication now?
None of the arguments in that post are new. Several are idiotic. So why is this news? Because it's less than 110 words?
On to the idiotic comments.
"It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
Security has nothing to do with open and closed source. It has to do with competent developers and proper reviewing procedures.
"Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
Many big, essential open source projects are US based (The Free Software Foundation, The Python Software Foundation, Red Hat), and most big names in the Open Source world are also American (RMS, ESR, Larry Wall), or living in the US (Linus, Guido, etc). I doubt that this will make a difference to anyone.
Besides, the US is still the largest IT market in the world, with Japan a close second. Does anyone really think the anti-US sentiment is gonig to matter?
"Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
Yeah, because the CIOs of Global Fortune 500 companies factor in what the l33t h4x0rs will think about them when deciding what software to buy.
"There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software companies."
And how exactly does this help grow Open Source? Are these non-software companies required to use Open Source software? Isn't it possible for them to use VB or Java?
Mod me down as flamebait or troll if you'd like, but I don't see why we need to continue promoting Open Source through these ridiculous articles. The quality of Open Source software speaks for itself.
PHB: We're having a meeting to discuss employee retention.
Dilbert: Tell them that employees quit because there are too many useless meetings.
PHB: We won't be getting into reasons at the first meeting
Actually, cut your caffeine intake BY half a cup a day, and you should get through it pretty smoothly. Make sure you drink lots of water, and get lots of sleep.
If you do get headaches (some people are more prone than others because of stress, lack of exercise, genetics, whatever), then take caffeine-free pain-killers, like Advil.
A few posters have mentioned that it's just too difficult to write a game as an independent developer. It's definitely difficult, but not *too* difficult.
Two examples come to mind. (1) The Combat Mission series and (2) Norm Koger games.
The Combat Mission games have been hailed as the best wargames ever developed, and even some of the best PC games developed period. It's a truly amazing achievement, considering that Combat Mission was started in a garage by two or three guys, and that the only place to get it was online.
Norm Koger, who's claim to fame was The Operation Art of War (another incredibly popular and well critiqued wargame), is truly an independent game developer. Not only did he design and code the game, he's also responsible for all of the artwork.
Of course, ID software needs to be mentioned. They not be an indie developer anymore, but that's where they started.
These are just a few examples of very well known and very successfull indie game developers, and I'm sure there are others. What everyone needs to realize is that indie game development is ridiculously hard work (but then again, so is developing any game).
If virtual items could be used to make real money, then the control of the economy would be put into the hand of game developers. Essentially, game developers would now have a license to produce money.
Although, it would be funny to hear Alan Greenspan talk about the effects of nerfing the Druid farm class on the US GDP.
Your argument that SCO is acting against capitalism is incorrect.
You state:
Nobody is forced to produce, and nobody is forced to consume -- people are free to produce and consume on their own terms, as long as they do so voluntarily.
This is true. But as part of the "freedom to produce and freedom to consume", you've left out the part where people produce and consume one their own terms.
Microsoft chooses to sell its products, while the Open Source community chooses to distribute them for free. That's freedom of production. Consumers then decide if the conditions (price, requirements to distribute or not, value, etc) for each products suite their needs, and choose which product to buy. That's freedom of consumption.
In this case, SCO believes that some of their non-distributable code was illegally released as part of the Linux kernel. If this is the case, then someone somewhere has taken a product from a producer, and has broken the agreement. It may have been inadvertant, but the trade rule was still broken, and restitution is required.
Capitalism is the absence of force.
Wrong. Force is an absolute necessity in any fair system. Without force, there's no way to enforce rules and fairness. How could Microsoft have been sued for anti-trust if there was no way to enforce the anti-trust laws?
The inverse is also true. How could the OpenSource community enforce open and redistributable code if there's no way to stop individuals or companies from releasing binaries only and making a mint from awesome OSS projects?
This Alien Shore, by C.S. Freidman. The main plot isn't geek-centric, but the two main characters of the story are a younger, underground geek hacker and an an older, academic Computer Scientist PhD-type, both chasing down the same problem. Very good read.
GW has been pulling stunts like this for a while. In the last rules revision, the point value for units were essentially halved (armies are created by purchasing units at a point value. Tanks are 150pts, squads are 60 pts, etc). But the total point value for an army has not.
That means that if you want to play with the latest rules, you have to buy twice as many models. What's worse, GW sponsored tournaments have upped the army point limit from 1500 points to 1800 points, so you have to buy even more models.
Here's another example. Registration for a GW sponsored tournament? 175$. That gives you access to the floor, a T-shirt and that's about it.
The game is ridiculously popular, and it is a blast to play however. Still, I wonder how much this will affect sales. My guess is not very much.
If none of your submissions have ever been accepted, now would be an excellent time to do so; Slashdot editors are accepting ALL submissions for the same story.
So pick one that's already been accepted, change the wording and submit it. An accepted submission looks *great* on any Geek resume.
Do you have evidence that torture is NOT being used by our government?
No, but I don't go around saying so. Also as you've mentioned, the burden of proof lies with those making those statements. I find it quite hypocritical that protestors refuse to believe the US government when it says that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, and that the US can't attack without proof, and at the same time, condemn the US for torturing captured terrorists without having proof themselves.
does that sound like something a militant fanatic would easily do *without* torture?
Torture isn't the only means of extracting information from someone. As a matter of fact, it isn't even a good method. There are far more effective ways to extract information from someone without torturing them. A skilled investigator in combination with a polygraph, drugs, can work wonders. There's also the possiblity of bugging prisoner cells, inserting undercover prisoners, making false promises, etc. The possibilities are endless.
The things that tend to make me believe that torture is being used by OUR government is the capture of terrorists around the world and the refusal to bring them to OUR country to be judged
It's definitely a possibility, but there are other reasons I can think of. For example, by keeping terrorists prisoners outside of your borders, you reduce the risk of collateral damage on civilian populations in case their "terrorist brothers" decide to attack the prison to remove them. It's also easier to protect the prisoners themselves in case the civilians decide to take matters into their own hands (which would have been likely in the weeks after 9/11).
Finally, if the US gets caught torturing *anyone*, they'd lose all support they have, both foreign and domestic. It's definitly in their interest to keep their nose cleaner than anyone else.
I have a hard time believing the US would use torture considering the cost of getting caught, the availability of alternate methods of getting information and the need for that information (they have a truckload of other methods for gathering intelligence). The price of having questionable methods exposed far outweighs the benefits of that information, considering.
Are you talking about the US gov't jailing thousands of innocent Muslim people as suspected terrorists, blowing up cars full of "suspects" (including an American citizen) by remote control, and torturing Al Queda members that they've caught?
I don't believe you. Please provide evidence of this, or I may stop believing everything I read on the Internet.
I have to agree with the original author of the parent post. I believe it's still possible to write games without the big budgets of the top selling games.
The indie film was a good example, but I think we have to look no further than the Linux desktops. Developing such a desktop takes more than just talented programmers. It takes someone to manage projects on this scale, it takes talented graphic artists (because there aren't that many developers with artistic talent:-) ), etc. Yet several have been built with an intial budget of 0$, and without the expectation of a big profits in the end (my thanks to all those involved in the KDE project, btw).
Talent and breaks are important, but so is passion. Most games that eventually developed into gendre-defining titles were written by guys in a garage who simply wanted a fun game to play. Doom is a good example. So are the Blizzard titles. And so are a lot of the high-quality mods available for free.
Even today, independant developers and publishers are still producing very high quality titles. Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord and Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin are very good examples. These were developed by small development teams, with very little budget, because these guys decided that there were no wargames they really liked. So they built it themselves. And their passion and need for such a game has shown itself in their success: both games have won almost every award there is for computer and strategy-based wargaming (www.battlefront.com
Norm Koger (sp?) is another good example. He's the guy that designed and coded The Operational Art of War, another highly acclaimed wargame. If I recall correctly, he did most of the work himself, design, code, art, docs, etc. The publisher only played a minor role in manufacturing and editing.
I respect Mr. Molyneux as a designer, but in this case, I believe he's completely wrong.
While I agree with your other points... number 3 is never a reason to keep from embracing something new.
I think the previous author's point was that changing something for the sake of change or for a marginal improvement is not a good reason. While I agree that spending some time training individuals on a new, *improved* way of doing things, training users on an unproven, untested system is not desirable.
In your example, training and upgrading was definitely the way to go, as cars are a much better mode of transportation than horses. This new persistence system may not be (yet).
At least, not at the high school where I went. As a matter of fact, the smartest people were also some of the most popular. Examples:
Arguably the most popular person in school went on to graduating at the top of his class from his Bachelor's degree, and was admitted to a Master's degree in finance.
I was captain of the swim team, quite popular (I dated the "popular" girls in school, anyway). Yet I graduated with an B+ average in CS (and I didn't get an A because my responsibilities as Student Council President for 2 years ate up much of my time).
Of the students that graduated with excellence ( which requires above 90% average for the 3 years of high school), 8 were girls, and all 8 were considered "catches" by most (if not all) jocks in school.
One student won the Canadian Science Fair (that's all of Canadian Students) and went on to work on the Canadarm. He was not much of an athlete, but he was respected by everyone in school, including the athletes.
I'm not 100% sure why some people were picked on more than others. If I'd have to veture a guess, I'd say that general "dork" behavior would have you tagged as unpopular (brown-nosing the teacher and mentioning anything RPG were big no-nos).
If one company holds a de-facto monopoly, the market is obviously not competitive.
That's not correct. A monopoly has nothing to do with competition. A monopoly is defined as a situation where an entity has control over a market through legal or control of supply means (as defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary). This obviously applies to Microsoft, as they have control of application supply due to their dominance of their OS.
Bundling and UI Bias does *not* prevent another company from installing an application on the Windows platform, neither through legal means, neither through control of supply (unlike their insistance on close protocols, which does limit companies from installing applications on Windows).
Here's an example. Let's say only two cars were available, a 5-Series BMW and a Chevy Chevette. Both were the same price. I think there would be very few Chevettes sold, because the BMW is a far superior product. That's competition.
If BMW started giving away free CD players with each of their car, would that be a monopoly? Of course not, since there's nothing stopping Chevrolet from giving away radios for their cars, or even giving away radios to put in BMWs.
But if BMW prevented Chevrolet from selling Chevette radios for use in BMWs, that would be monopolistic behavior.
(It's a retarded example, I know, but I couldn't think of anything better:-) ).
A situation in which no buyer(s) or seller(s) have the power to affect or manipulate market prices.
Again, I'm not disputing that Microsoft is trying to do so. I'm disputing that Bundling and UI Bias is a means to that end.
uses bundling and UI bias to extend their monopoly into other areas
How does bundling IE extend their monopoly? It doesn't activate any laws preventing anyone from installing a competing product, nor does it prevent a company from supplying a browser to the Windows desktop. Therefor it isn't monopolistic behavior.
What do you mean by monopolistic, btw?
By monopolistic, I mean engaging in behavior that strengthens one's own monopoly. I don't believe bundling or UI Bias strengthens one's monopoly. I believe it's just good business. Trying to patent their version of a public-domain protocol is monopolistic, and that's what the EU should focus on (among other things).
So bundling is a good thing, but bundling by a dominant company is a bad thing.
That's called a double-standard, and it has no place in a competitive market. If rules governing corporate competition are put in place, they have to be the same for everyone.
Anti-monopoly laws were put into place to prevent companies from stifling competition, not to increase their own competitive edge. Microsoft not allowing any other browser from running is monopolistic. Microsoft bundling IE with Windows isn't.
Here's an example. I have Windows running at work and at home, and I *never* use IE, even though it's a bundled package. Same for Outlook, MediaPlayer, MovieMaker, etc.
I'm not defending Microsoft's behavior, I'm simply stating that bundling and UI bias isn't monopolistic: everyone is doing it.
I'm don't understand your point. Why is it that I can't know it's good for consumers? I am a consumer. I've installed both MS products and Linux products, and I can assure you, if apps like a browser or email client were not bundled with an application, I wouldn't buy it.
When people go out and buy a Linux Distro, don't they look at the back of the box to see what's packaged on the CD? Don't they make their distro decision based (in part) on the bundling? Of course they do.
To help me understand, could you explain why bundling is bad for consumers?
While I agree with most of the CCIA's complaint, two of them have no business being in this lawsuit:
(A) Biasing of the UI
This is not anti competitive. The example given in the summary is that if a site is mistyped, MSN search comes up. Pheonix does the same thing, except it runs a Google or Netscape search.
From what I can tell, the complaint here is that whenever Windows or a MS app requires the services of another application, it uses another MS application. Open Source projects do the same thing (although Open Source usually have more than one choice of application, but never a Microsoft application).
Granted, MS never allows Open Source choices, but then again, Open Source projects don't always allow MS choices either (Pheonix for example, only allows Google and DMOZ for searching).
(B) Bundling
Bundling is actually very good for consumers, as they get more goods for their money. Granted, Microsoft apps are impossible to remove from Windows, which is an issue, but the bundling itself isn't.
If bundling is anti-competitive, then Linux is screwed, considering the 1GB+ worth of software that's packaged on almost every distribution.
I know, I know, the applications bundled on a Linux distro aren't all from the same developer. That's not my point. My point is that when I buy an OS, I'd expect a minimum amount of functionality, and in this "Internet" age, a browser and a mail tool is a minimal requirement. I mean seriously, if I installed an OS without a browser (this applies to Apple and Linux as well), how can I download alternatives?
The rest of the CCIA complaints are valid, particularly price (300$ CDN for XP?!?!), closed/obfuscated protocols, non-interoperability, and the impossible-to-remove apps that no one wants.
Story here about 3 weeks ago. Can't find it now. since I'm not in IT,
Let me get this straight. You have no facts about what you're saying, and you don't even have anecdotal evidence or life experience about what you're saying, yet you try to defend your opinion? Give us something, ANYTHING to prove your points.
Have you ever seen a situation where there were more managers than employees?
Actually, yes. I've worked on several teams where the manager to employee ration was 1 to 1. This situation occurs where you have a very deep hierarchy of managers between the CEO and the employees, and where many managers are also developers. (and yes, it is inefficient).
Coders are typically gotten at college campuses, not through want ads.
Again, I want you to prove this to me. I've been responsible for hiring at the three companies I've worked for so far, first as the co-op student manager, then as a full-time employee manager, and in all three cases, we've hired more experienced developers through referals and our web sites than through colleges.
if your job is so wonderful, why are you so touchy about anyone who would state otherwise
I'm not touchy about someone saying that software development or IT jobs aren't wonderful, I'm touchy about someone spreading false, baseless information. If you can provide proof to what you say, or proof to counter my own, then I'll conceed to your superior knowledge of my own profession.
I'll even show you how to prove a point, and discredit someone else's opinion.
People just can't take being a code monkey, with the insane hours, for longer than that
This month's Canadian Business magazine has an article stating that insane hours are a myth.
But what's even more interesting, is that high-tech companies are actually seeing an aging of the workforce, and if I "use my brain", that tells me that an average of 4 years doesn't quite make sense.
You sound like you have an anger thing happening. Maybe it's time for you to up the meds. Forget to take your prozac today?
Prozac is an anti-depressive, not a sedative. If you had researched your facts, once again, you would have known to prescribe a sedative like Valium or even Zoloft as an anti-agression medicine.
It's been well documented that the average career of a programmer is about 4 years
Please provide a reference for this "well documented" statistic, because in my personal experience, it's utter rubbish.
I have 6 years of experience as a software developer, which barely puts me above the "new-hire" grade at the shop where I work. On my team of 20 developers, we have 3 developers with 25+ years of experience, one of which was the 3rd developer hired by the company in 1969. The other two are just as experienced, with one being a senior VP (who still writes some of our critical code), and the other who is one of the company's most respected architects.
People just can't take being a code monkey, with the insane hours, for longer than that
More rubbish. The 3 senior developers I speak about above all had it put in their contracts that they must do some sort of technical work, specifically NOT to go insane.
There aren't enough management positions for all of them to get promoted within 4 years
You're just making stuff up now. Take a look at most corporate job postings. Most available positions are in management. Better yet, take a look at this chart. It's the current job openings in the US, organized by job type. Pay particular attention to number one job (Management) and the number 4 job (Software development).
Oh wait. General manager isn't IT management? Fine, then compare number 11 (Computer Systems Management) and number 12 (Computer Systems Administrators).
I have no idea what your grudge against software development or IT careers is, but you should seriously consider researching your facts before you spout out such drivel.
Would you, as a presumably anti-gun person, be willing to put a sign in your front yard "This house is gun free!" ?
No, but at the same time I wouldn't put up a sign on my front lawn that says "This house is loaded with Jewelry"
I do, however, have stickers on my doors that says "Protected by Security 24", very large strike plates, solid oak doors, bars in the basement windows, a locked bar in the sliding doors, and top-notch home insurance that's cheap, because I've NEVER had to submit a claim. Also, the police and fire dept have never been dispatched to my street (which can't be said for very many streets in my city).
Granted, even with all of this, I could get robbed or assaulted. But honestly, I'm not sure a gun would help. Besides, I spoke to the security consultant who helped me secure my home, and he said that of the 1000+ houses he's protected over the last 20 years, there were only two break-ins, both because the alarm was not on, and owners left the house unlocked.
(Rant warning) With that said, I still don't think guns should be outlawed. Responsible citizens (which is the majority of people) should have the right to carry guns, if nothing else than for hunting or sport shooting. Being a big military history buff, I wish there were Anti-Tank shooting competitions, where competitors could fire 40mm AT rounds into hard targets, see who gets the quickest kill.
But I totally disagree with the argument that claims that armed individuals can better protect themselves. There isn't any more proof that it will help reduce crime than there is proof than NOT being armed increases it.
Enigma2175 is absolutely right. Understand that large companies (like GE, GM, American Express) have tens of thousands of users, not half a dozen. In order to keep every body's system connected to a network, standardization is essential. They have no interest in upgrading every few years, much less every few months.
I've actually attended a conference with GE's director of IT. He explained to us what upgrading means to GE: 6 months of testing, training and deployment, at a cost of 10 million dollars. And this is required for upgrades we take for granted, like a web browser. He made it quite clear to use that "upgrade your browser" is not an acceptable solution to a bug.
Even though Microsoft doesn't support Win95, 98 we still do, because our customers don't want to upgrade. We only stopped supporting Win3.11 about a year ago, because there was that much interest in it.
Phemur
Slashdot Mirror
I spent some time with my customer rep at the hosting service, and while they fully understood my point of view, they just couldn't fight AOL, so they asked me to drop all of the AOL.com addresses.
And that's what I did. I emailed all of those members, offered them help and support to setup free webmail accounts, and then dropped every aol.com accounts.
What's really ironic was that AOL told us a member complained that they were getting email from us, and we even received a copy of the offending email. It was a mailing list post from another member. You have to go through the usual subscribing process (register, wait for an email, reply, confirm, etc) to get on that list in the first place!
In the end, it turned out to be great for us, since most of my time was spent dealing with aol.com blocked emails anyway. The site runs very smoothly now.
Phemur
None of the arguments in that post are new. Several are idiotic. So why is this news? Because it's less than 110 words?
On to the idiotic comments.
"It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
Security has nothing to do with open and closed source. It has to do with competent developers and proper reviewing procedures.
"Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
Many big, essential open source projects are US based (The Free Software Foundation, The Python Software Foundation, Red Hat), and most big names in the Open Source world are also American (RMS, ESR, Larry Wall), or living in the US (Linus, Guido, etc). I doubt that this will make a difference to anyone.
Besides, the US is still the largest IT market in the world, with Japan a close second. Does anyone really think the anti-US sentiment is gonig to matter?
"Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
Yeah, because the CIOs of Global Fortune 500 companies factor in what the l33t h4x0rs will think about them when deciding what software to buy.
"There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software companies."
And how exactly does this help grow Open Source? Are these non-software companies required to use Open Source software? Isn't it possible for them to use VB or Java?
Mod me down as flamebait or troll if you'd like, but I don't see why we need to continue promoting Open Source through these ridiculous articles. The quality of Open Source software speaks for itself.
Phemur
Phemur
PHB: We're having a meeting to discuss employee retention.
Dilbert: Tell them that employees quit because there are too many useless meetings.
PHB: We won't be getting into reasons at the first meeting
Phemur
If you do get headaches (some people are more prone than others because of stress, lack of exercise, genetics, whatever), then take caffeine-free pain-killers, like Advil.
Phemur
Two examples come to mind. (1) The Combat Mission series and (2) Norm Koger games.
The Combat Mission games have been hailed as the best wargames ever developed, and even some of the best PC games developed period. It's a truly amazing achievement, considering that Combat Mission was started in a garage by two or three guys, and that the only place to get it was online.
Norm Koger, who's claim to fame was The Operation Art of War (another incredibly popular and well critiqued wargame), is truly an independent game developer. Not only did he design and code the game, he's also responsible for all of the artwork.
Of course, ID software needs to be mentioned. They not be an indie developer anymore, but that's where they started.
These are just a few examples of very well known and very successfull indie game developers, and I'm sure there are others. What everyone needs to realize is that indie game development is ridiculously hard work (but then again, so is developing any game).
Phemur
Although, it would be funny to hear Alan Greenspan talk about the effects of nerfing the Druid farm class on the US GDP.
Phemur
You state:
Nobody is forced to produce, and nobody is forced to consume -- people are free to produce and consume on their own terms, as long as they do so voluntarily.
This is true. But as part of the "freedom to produce and freedom to consume", you've left out the part where people produce and consume one their own terms.
Microsoft chooses to sell its products, while the Open Source community chooses to distribute them for free. That's freedom of production. Consumers then decide if the conditions (price, requirements to distribute or not, value, etc) for each products suite their needs, and choose which product to buy. That's freedom of consumption.
In this case, SCO believes that some of their non-distributable code was illegally released as part of the Linux kernel. If this is the case, then someone somewhere has taken a product from a producer, and has broken the agreement. It may have been inadvertant, but the trade rule was still broken, and restitution is required.
Capitalism is the absence of force.
Wrong. Force is an absolute necessity in any fair system. Without force, there's no way to enforce rules and fairness. How could Microsoft have been sued for anti-trust if there was no way to enforce the anti-trust laws?
The inverse is also true. How could the OpenSource community enforce open and redistributable code if there's no way to stop individuals or companies from releasing binaries only and making a mint from awesome OSS projects?
Phemur
courriel is a short form of "courrier electronique" just like email is the short form of electronic mail.
A real sentence with courriel would be:
He Pierre, envoye moi ces graphiques de ventes par courriel
Phemur
This Alien Shore
Phemur.That means that if you want to play with the latest rules, you have to buy twice as many models. What's worse, GW sponsored tournaments have upped the army point limit from 1500 points to 1800 points, so you have to buy even more models.
Here's another example. Registration for a GW sponsored tournament? 175$. That gives you access to the floor, a T-shirt and that's about it.
The game is ridiculously popular, and it is a blast to play however. Still, I wonder how much this will affect sales. My guess is not very much.
Phemur
So pick one that's already been accepted, change the wording and submit it. An accepted submission looks *great* on any Geek resume.
Phemur
No, but I don't go around saying so. Also as you've mentioned, the burden of proof lies with those making those statements. I find it quite hypocritical that protestors refuse to believe the US government when it says that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, and that the US can't attack without proof, and at the same time, condemn the US for torturing captured terrorists without having proof themselves.
does that sound like something a militant fanatic would easily do *without* torture?
Torture isn't the only means of extracting information from someone. As a matter of fact, it isn't even a good method. There are far more effective ways to extract information from someone without torturing them. A skilled investigator in combination with a polygraph, drugs, can work wonders. There's also the possiblity of bugging prisoner cells, inserting undercover prisoners, making false promises, etc. The possibilities are endless.
The things that tend to make me believe that torture is being used by OUR government is the capture of terrorists around the world and the refusal to bring them to OUR country to be judged
It's definitely a possibility, but there are other reasons I can think of. For example, by keeping terrorists prisoners outside of your borders, you reduce the risk of collateral damage on civilian populations in case their "terrorist brothers" decide to attack the prison to remove them. It's also easier to protect the prisoners themselves in case the civilians decide to take matters into their own hands (which would have been likely in the weeks after 9/11).
Finally, if the US gets caught torturing *anyone*, they'd lose all support they have, both foreign and domestic. It's definitly in their interest to keep their nose cleaner than anyone else.
I have a hard time believing the US would use torture considering the cost of getting caught, the availability of alternate methods of getting information and the need for that information (they have a truckload of other methods for gathering intelligence). The price of having questionable methods exposed far outweighs the benefits of that information, considering.
Phemur
I don't believe you. Please provide evidence of this, or I may stop believing everything I read on the Internet.
Sort of like what you've been doing, apparently.
Phemur
The indie film was a good example, but I think we have to look no further than the Linux desktops. Developing such a desktop takes more than just talented programmers. It takes someone to manage projects on this scale, it takes talented graphic artists (because there aren't that many developers with artistic talent :-) ), etc. Yet several have been built with an intial budget of 0$, and without the expectation of a big profits in the end (my thanks to all those involved in the KDE project, btw).
Talent and breaks are important, but so is passion. Most games that eventually developed into gendre-defining titles were written by guys in a garage who simply wanted a fun game to play. Doom is a good example. So are the Blizzard titles. And so are a lot of the high-quality mods available for free.
Even today, independant developers and publishers are still producing very high quality titles. Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord and Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin are very good examples. These were developed by small development teams, with very little budget, because these guys decided that there were no wargames they really liked. So they built it themselves. And their passion and need for such a game has shown itself in their success: both games have won almost every award there is for computer and strategy-based wargaming (www.battlefront.com
Norm Koger (sp?) is another good example. He's the guy that designed and coded The Operational Art of War, another highly acclaimed wargame. If I recall correctly, he did most of the work himself, design, code, art, docs, etc. The publisher only played a minor role in manufacturing and editing.
I respect Mr. Molyneux as a designer, but in this case, I believe he's completely wrong.
Phemur
I think the previous author's point was that changing something for the sake of change or for a marginal improvement is not a good reason. While I agree that spending some time training individuals on a new, *improved* way of doing things, training users on an unproven, untested system is not desirable.
In your example, training and upgrading was definitely the way to go, as cars are a much better mode of transportation than horses. This new persistence system may not be (yet).
Phemur
Arguably the most popular person in school went on to graduating at the top of his class from his Bachelor's degree, and was admitted to a Master's degree in finance.
I was captain of the swim team, quite popular (I dated the "popular" girls in school, anyway). Yet I graduated with an B+ average in CS (and I didn't get an A because my responsibilities as Student Council President for 2 years ate up much of my time).
Of the students that graduated with excellence ( which requires above 90% average for the 3 years of high school), 8 were girls, and all 8 were considered "catches" by most (if not all) jocks in school.
One student won the Canadian Science Fair (that's all of Canadian Students) and went on to work on the Canadarm. He was not much of an athlete, but he was respected by everyone in school, including the athletes.
I'm not 100% sure why some people were picked on more than others. If I'd have to veture a guess, I'd say that general "dork" behavior would have you tagged as unpopular (brown-nosing the teacher and mentioning anything RPG were big no-nos).
Phemur
That's not correct. A monopoly has nothing to do with competition. A monopoly is defined as a situation where an entity has control over a market through legal or control of supply means (as defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary). This obviously applies to Microsoft, as they have control of application supply due to their dominance of their OS.
Bundling and UI Bias does *not* prevent another company from installing an application on the Windows platform, neither through legal means, neither through control of supply (unlike their insistance on close protocols, which does limit companies from installing applications on Windows).
Here's an example. Let's say only two cars were available, a 5-Series BMW and a Chevy Chevette. Both were the same price. I think there would be very few Chevettes sold, because the BMW is a far superior product. That's competition.
If BMW started giving away free CD players with each of their car, would that be a monopoly? Of course not, since there's nothing stopping Chevrolet from giving away radios for their cars, or even giving away radios to put in BMWs.
But if BMW prevented Chevrolet from selling Chevette radios for use in BMWs, that would be monopolistic behavior.
(It's a retarded example, I know, but I couldn't think of anything better :-) ).
A situation in which no buyer(s) or seller(s) have the power to affect or manipulate market prices.
Again, I'm not disputing that Microsoft is trying to do so. I'm disputing that Bundling and UI Bias is a means to that end.
uses bundling and UI bias to extend their monopoly into other areas
How does bundling IE extend their monopoly? It doesn't activate any laws preventing anyone from installing a competing product, nor does it prevent a company from supplying a browser to the Windows desktop. Therefor it isn't monopolistic behavior.
What do you mean by monopolistic, btw?
By monopolistic, I mean engaging in behavior that strengthens one's own monopoly. I don't believe bundling or UI Bias strengthens one's monopoly. I believe it's just good business. Trying to patent their version of a public-domain protocol is monopolistic, and that's what the EU should focus on (among other things).
Phemur
That's called a double-standard, and it has no place in a competitive market. If rules governing corporate competition are put in place, they have to be the same for everyone.
Anti-monopoly laws were put into place to prevent companies from stifling competition, not to increase their own competitive edge. Microsoft not allowing any other browser from running is monopolistic. Microsoft bundling IE with Windows isn't.
Here's an example. I have Windows running at work and at home, and I *never* use IE, even though it's a bundled package. Same for Outlook, MediaPlayer, MovieMaker, etc.
I'm not defending Microsoft's behavior, I'm simply stating that bundling and UI bias isn't monopolistic: everyone is doing it.
Phemur
When people go out and buy a Linux Distro, don't they look at the back of the box to see what's packaged on the CD? Don't they make their distro decision based (in part) on the bundling? Of course they do.
To help me understand, could you explain why bundling is bad for consumers?
Phemur
(A) Biasing of the UI
This is not anti competitive. The example given in the summary is that if a site is mistyped, MSN search comes up. Pheonix does the same thing, except it runs a Google or Netscape search. From what I can tell, the complaint here is that whenever Windows or a MS app requires the services of another application, it uses another MS application. Open Source projects do the same thing (although Open Source usually have more than one choice of application, but never a Microsoft application).
Granted, MS never allows Open Source choices, but then again, Open Source projects don't always allow MS choices either (Pheonix for example, only allows Google and DMOZ for searching).
(B) Bundling
Bundling is actually very good for consumers, as they get more goods for their money. Granted, Microsoft apps are impossible to remove from Windows, which is an issue, but the bundling itself isn't.
If bundling is anti-competitive, then Linux is screwed, considering the 1GB+ worth of software that's packaged on almost every distribution.
I know, I know, the applications bundled on a Linux distro aren't all from the same developer. That's not my point. My point is that when I buy an OS, I'd expect a minimum amount of functionality, and in this "Internet" age, a browser and a mail tool is a minimal requirement. I mean seriously, if I installed an OS without a browser (this applies to Apple and Linux as well), how can I download alternatives?
The rest of the CCIA complaints are valid, particularly price (300$ CDN for XP?!?!), closed/obfuscated protocols, non-interoperability, and the impossible-to-remove apps that no one wants.
Phemur
since I'm not in IT,
Let me get this straight. You have no facts about what you're saying, and you don't even have anecdotal evidence or life experience about what you're saying, yet you try to defend your opinion? Give us something, ANYTHING to prove your points.
Have you ever seen a situation where there were more managers than employees?
Actually, yes. I've worked on several teams where the manager to employee ration was 1 to 1. This situation occurs where you have a very deep hierarchy of managers between the CEO and the employees, and where many managers are also developers. (and yes, it is inefficient).
Coders are typically gotten at college campuses, not through want ads.
Again, I want you to prove this to me. I've been responsible for hiring at the three companies I've worked for so far, first as the co-op student manager, then as a full-time employee manager, and in all three cases, we've hired more experienced developers through referals and our web sites than through colleges.
if your job is so wonderful, why are you so touchy about anyone who would state otherwise
I'm not touchy about someone saying that software development or IT jobs aren't wonderful, I'm touchy about someone spreading false, baseless information. If you can provide proof to what you say, or proof to counter my own, then I'll conceed to your superior knowledge of my own profession.
I'll even show you how to prove a point, and discredit someone else's opinion.
People just can't take being a code monkey, with the insane hours, for longer than that
This month's Canadian Business magazine has an article stating that insane hours are a myth.
But what's even more interesting, is that high-tech companies are actually seeing an aging of the workforce, and if I "use my brain", that tells me that an average of 4 years doesn't quite make sense.
Here's the link to that article.
You sound like you have an anger thing happening. Maybe it's time for you to up the meds. Forget to take your prozac today?
Prozac is an anti-depressive, not a sedative. If you had researched your facts, once again, you would have known to prescribe a sedative like Valium or even Zoloft as an anti-agression medicine.
Phemur
Please provide a reference for this "well documented" statistic, because in my personal experience, it's utter rubbish.
I have 6 years of experience as a software developer, which barely puts me above the "new-hire" grade at the shop where I work. On my team of 20 developers, we have 3 developers with 25+ years of experience, one of which was the 3rd developer hired by the company in 1969. The other two are just as experienced, with one being a senior VP (who still writes some of our critical code), and the other who is one of the company's most respected architects.
People just can't take being a code monkey, with the insane hours, for longer than that
More rubbish. The 3 senior developers I speak about above all had it put in their contracts that they must do some sort of technical work, specifically NOT to go insane.
There aren't enough management positions for all of them to get promoted within 4 years
You're just making stuff up now. Take a look at most corporate job postings. Most available positions are in management. Better yet, take a look at this chart. It's the current job openings in the US, organized by job type. Pay particular attention to number one job (Management) and the number 4 job (Software development).
Oh wait. General manager isn't IT management? Fine, then compare number 11 (Computer Systems Management) and number 12 (Computer Systems Administrators).
I have no idea what your grudge against software development or IT careers is, but you should seriously consider researching your facts before you spout out such drivel.
Phemur
No, but at the same time I wouldn't put up a sign on my front lawn that says "This house is loaded with Jewelry"
I do, however, have stickers on my doors that says "Protected by Security 24", very large strike plates, solid oak doors, bars in the basement windows, a locked bar in the sliding doors, and top-notch home insurance that's cheap, because I've NEVER had to submit a claim. Also, the police and fire dept have never been dispatched to my street (which can't be said for very many streets in my city).
Granted, even with all of this, I could get robbed or assaulted. But honestly, I'm not sure a gun would help. Besides, I spoke to the security consultant who helped me secure my home, and he said that of the 1000+ houses he's protected over the last 20 years, there were only two break-ins, both because the alarm was not on, and owners left the house unlocked.
(Rant warning) With that said, I still don't think guns should be outlawed. Responsible citizens (which is the majority of people) should have the right to carry guns, if nothing else than for hunting or sport shooting. Being a big military history buff, I wish there were Anti-Tank shooting competitions, where competitors could fire 40mm AT rounds into hard targets, see who gets the quickest kill.
But I totally disagree with the argument that claims that armed individuals can better protect themselves. There isn't any more proof that it will help reduce crime than there is proof than NOT being armed increases it.
Phemur
I've actually attended a conference with GE's director of IT. He explained to us what upgrading means to GE: 6 months of testing, training and deployment, at a cost of 10 million dollars. And this is required for upgrades we take for granted, like a web browser. He made it quite clear to use that "upgrade your browser" is not an acceptable solution to a bug.
Even though Microsoft doesn't support Win95, 98 we still do, because our customers don't want to upgrade. We only stopped supporting Win3.11 about a year ago, because there was that much interest in it. Phemur