But Orwell is also an example of how a book can be misinterpreted -- Animal Farm is commonly misread as a critique of communism.
Hmmm, maybe I'm misunderstanding you here, but I find it hard to imagine what other reading you could make of it. I thought Orwell was pretty explicit that he wrote Animal Farm as a critique of communism, or more specifically, of communist totalitarianism as practiced by Stalin. If you're saying Orwell was not necessarily a critic of socialism, on the other hand, I agree there.
Even then, it took those tight-wad doctors years to make the change to TCP what with the wiring and hardware costs.
You wouldn't be alone in your experience. I don't know if it's really being tight-wads or just general reluctance to commit to IT, but I've never heard of such a thing as a doctor whom you could describe as being "proactive" or "forward-thinking" when it comes to computer technology. Imagine your experience repeated thousands of times over, all across the country, with the move toward electronic medical records...
Not on Ubuntu 8.04, which my dedicated server provider uses.
Now you're just being silly. Is everything someone else's fault? Is there nothing you can do to overcome the seemingly insurmountable problems you have with Python 3? Ubuntu 8.04 was released in April 2008. Python 3.0 final was released in December 2008 -- one full release of Ubuntu later. Why you expect Canonical to provide ongoing new software releases for your legacy version of the OS is beyond me. If you must use 8.04, then by all means compile Python 3 your damn self. There is nothing stopping you except your need to bitch incessantly about this non-issue.
And which has a name confusingly similar to that of Python 2. And which uses the same file name extension as Python 2. And which takes web hosting services that currently offer Python 2 far longer to adopt.
Consider yourself lucky with Python, then. C code written for two entirely different machine architectures uses a similar (but inconsistent) syntax and the same file extensions; in fact, the same *.c files might not compile successfully using two different compilers on the same box. Really, you're holding Python to a standard that no other language has ever been able to meet.
And there is NO shared web host offering the Python 3 Language that I could find in a few minutes of Googling (e.g. python 3 shared web hosting).
Just to give one concrete example to bury this whole line of argument, I have a couple sites on HostGator, one of the larger shared hosting providers around. I don't remember what I pay for them, but it's nothing... $10/month or less. HostGator granted me shell access for free; all they requested was a copy of my photo ID. Logging into my server just now, I can see that they have Python 2.4.3 and Python 2.7 installed. The default if I just type "python" is Python 2.4.3. There's also a symbolic link called "python2.6" that links to Python 2.7. A quick search of the customer support forums reveals that they will install Python 3 for you if you ask, but that they recommend you stick with 2.x for Web development because most of the popular modules and packages (Django, for instance) don't work properly yet with Python 3.
Honestly, at this stage you are not going to have any trouble getting support for the version of Python you need on any reputable hosting provider.
Putting the clocks forward by an hour to British Summer Time +1 (equivalent to Greenwich Mean Time +2) would mean lighter evenings in the summer months, but darker mornings.
Am I the only one who feels utterly miserable going to work in the pitch dark, where the first light of the day I see is the fluorescent tubes above my cubicle?
Two points here. First of all, any such "risk" is caused by the very same legal system in the form of otherwise frivolous lawsuits that may still succeed. That's the location of the problem and it is there that any solution needs to be applied.
We don't disagree here, yet this is one form of legal solution. It's probably about as effective as the proverbial finger in the dike, but it's one way to tackle the problem.
That's why the security requirements need to start from first principles (bottom-up) and not from authoritarian fiat to meet some arbitrary set of legal requirements (top-down). The former comes from experts in the field who can make a solid case for their position.
To give a recent example of why that isn't sufficient, look at the HBGary hack. These guys were self-proclaimed security "experts," who were summarily stomped by a combination of SQL injection, lousy passwords, lousy encryption, unpatched servers, and social engineering. Some expertise.
Mind you, which is the more likely outcome of this certification? That companies who hire security consultants will be able to demand a certain quality of service? Or that security consultants will be able to hide their incompetence behind a government rubber stamp? I think we both know the answer to that one.
For what it's worth, I was speaking in terms of an IT worker who must relate to corporate management.
That much was obvious. And as such, I maintain that you're looking at it backwards. You're looking at it from the perspective of an employee, looking up, who's asked to "obey." But the laws themselves are drafted for the benefit of the business owner, who never knows when his employees might screw up, leaving him exposed to legal liability. By codifying practices that business can "certify" against, laws like this put legal tools in the hands of business owners that can shield them from lawsuits. The point of the law is not to make businesses more secure. The point of the law is to create a legal framework by which businesses can reduce risk.
Organizational types, suits, institution men, whatever you want to call them just love bureaucratic measures of compliance. They honesty believe the world is a better place when you do what you're told because the policy says so, and not when you take action because as a thinking man you can see that it's a reasonable step towards a worthy goal. That way they can measure down to fractions of a percentage point just how obedient you are and sanction you accordingly.
Not quite. Suits like it when government sets a bar because it gives them a bar to aim for, no matter how meaningless that bar might be. When your goal is to defend your company from lawsuits, it helps to have boxes you can check off that can be admitted as evidence. It's not about being "obedient." It's about being able to do what you like, but having a pass in your back pocket that exonerates you in the event of a legal challenge. Vague "best practices" and "reasonable steps" in the eyes of "a thinking man" do no good to anybody in the current legal environment.
Also, companies generally hire outside consultants to verify regulatory compliance. If consultants are aiming for a government-mandated benchmark, then you can hire them under the tacit assumption that they have been sanctioned by the U.S. government. Then, when your compliance measures prove to be utterly futile and misguided, it's the consultant's fault, and you sue. You sue and win, because the government let you down.
Right, so everybody on/. understands Alan Moore's creative works better than Alan Moore. Who gives a shit what his intent was, or what he would have wanted, as long as somebody makes a really cool movie using his characters and ideas in a way we think is entertaining.
I'm sorry it threatens you that MogNuts didn't like Watchmen, but unfortunately for you, he is right. The Watchmen movie was fucking terrible in almost every appreciable way. You want good movies? Go watch The Godfather. Go watch Gandhi. Go watch Amadeus. Those are good movies. You want something more recent? Watch No Country for Old Men, The Wrestler, or True Grit. These are movies made with skill by intelligent people with taste and a firm command of the art of filmmaking. Watchmen was a steaming pile of shit.
So you're saying that if we want to save Hollywood, modern directors need to drop all their current projects and watch Zardoz a half dozen times? Bold statement -- I doubt most people will agree, but I'm with you that Zardoz is an awesome movie.
For precisely that reason - the negative point claimed it was bad as a fact. The positive one claimed it was good in the author's opinion.
So it's your feeling that everyone should always excuse themselves and beg your pardon before voicing an opinion, especially if it's an opinion you don't agree with.
Disagree. In the comics his penis was artfully rendered -- literally, as in he resembled a painting or a Greek statue where his nudity is almost an afterthought. In the movie, you had his eight-inch CG blue cock swinging back and forth as he moved. It was distracting.
I never read the original comic book, so I don't really get all the fanboy angst over altered endings and such (or why it really even matters). But I'm a pretty harsh critic of superhero movies
Well, just one point then -- in the comic book of Watchmen, the protagonists are not superheroes. Only Doctor Manhattan has any powers of any kind. So when all the characters are punching through walls an eight-inch retaining beams with their bare hands, you can be pretty certain you're not watching a Watchmen movie.
Post a link to it, because I can't find it anywhere on their site. Unless you're talking about the print edition, in which case you're missing the point.
Bullshit. Jobs sits on the board of directors at Disney and he has a less than 10 percent share of Disney stock. As such, he's not even in control of Pixar anymore.
Unfortunately, the local library has far more PDF offerings than ePub, and far more DRM'ed Windows Media content than anything else.
Free ya mind, yo. This is en electronic library you're talking about. If you have any friends in other cities, check out the libraries there. If they're good, call up your friend and tell him to get a library card, or let you know the password for his. He doesn't have to worry that you'll never return the books, because the automatic return period is preset by Overdrive's DRM.
If that's true, then the cost of an eBook should be far less than the cost of a physical book, since I'm not buying a stack of paper and cost of printing/shipping/storing/retailing that paper. My share of the author's time (assuming he sells millions of books) should be a pittance.
You're misinterpreting what the GP said based on your own assumptions. What he said is that you're paying for your share of the author's time. Then you replied by "agreeing" that you're paying for a stack of paper, printing, and shipping. You failed to understand that these are not necessarily the primary costs involved with publishing a book. Writing, editing, laying out, and marketing the book are all labor costs -- and labor is usually the biggest line-item for any business.
Slashdot Mirror
But Orwell is also an example of how a book can be misinterpreted -- Animal Farm is commonly misread as a critique of communism.
Hmmm, maybe I'm misunderstanding you here, but I find it hard to imagine what other reading you could make of it. I thought Orwell was pretty explicit that he wrote Animal Farm as a critique of communism, or more specifically, of communist totalitarianism as practiced by Stalin. If you're saying Orwell was not necessarily a critic of socialism, on the other hand, I agree there.
Even then, it took those tight-wad doctors years to make the change to TCP what with the wiring and hardware costs.
You wouldn't be alone in your experience. I don't know if it's really being tight-wads or just general reluctance to commit to IT, but I've never heard of such a thing as a doctor whom you could describe as being "proactive" or "forward-thinking" when it comes to computer technology. Imagine your experience repeated thousands of times over, all across the country, with the move toward electronic medical records...
Not on Ubuntu 8.04, which my dedicated server provider uses.
Now you're just being silly. Is everything someone else's fault? Is there nothing you can do to overcome the seemingly insurmountable problems you have with Python 3? Ubuntu 8.04 was released in April 2008. Python 3.0 final was released in December 2008 -- one full release of Ubuntu later. Why you expect Canonical to provide ongoing new software releases for your legacy version of the OS is beyond me. If you must use 8.04, then by all means compile Python 3 your damn self. There is nothing stopping you except your need to bitch incessantly about this non-issue.
And which has a name confusingly similar to that of Python 2. And which uses the same file name extension as Python 2. And which takes web hosting services that currently offer Python 2 far longer to adopt.
Consider yourself lucky with Python, then. C code written for two entirely different machine architectures uses a similar (but inconsistent) syntax and the same file extensions; in fact, the same *.c files might not compile successfully using two different compilers on the same box. Really, you're holding Python to a standard that no other language has ever been able to meet.
And there is NO shared web host offering the Python 3 Language that I could find in a few minutes of Googling (e.g. python 3 shared web hosting).
Just to give one concrete example to bury this whole line of argument, I have a couple sites on HostGator, one of the larger shared hosting providers around. I don't remember what I pay for them, but it's nothing... $10/month or less. HostGator granted me shell access for free; all they requested was a copy of my photo ID. Logging into my server just now, I can see that they have Python 2.4.3 and Python 2.7 installed. The default if I just type "python" is Python 2.4.3. There's also a symbolic link called "python2.6" that links to Python 2.7. A quick search of the customer support forums reveals that they will install Python 3 for you if you ask, but that they recommend you stick with 2.x for Web development because most of the popular modules and packages (Django, for instance) don't work properly yet with Python 3.
Honestly, at this stage you are not going to have any trouble getting support for the version of Python you need on any reputable hosting provider.
From TFA:
Putting the clocks forward by an hour to British Summer Time +1 (equivalent to Greenwich Mean Time +2) would mean lighter evenings in the summer months, but darker mornings.
Am I the only one who feels utterly miserable going to work in the pitch dark, where the first light of the day I see is the fluorescent tubes above my cubicle?
Consistent enforcement is not a requirement of copyright claims, which are among the IP claims Oracle has brought against Google.
Two points here. First of all, any such "risk" is caused by the very same legal system in the form of otherwise frivolous lawsuits that may still succeed. That's the location of the problem and it is there that any solution needs to be applied.
We don't disagree here, yet this is one form of legal solution. It's probably about as effective as the proverbial finger in the dike, but it's one way to tackle the problem.
That's why the security requirements need to start from first principles (bottom-up) and not from authoritarian fiat to meet some arbitrary set of legal requirements (top-down). The former comes from experts in the field who can make a solid case for their position.
To give a recent example of why that isn't sufficient, look at the HBGary hack. These guys were self-proclaimed security "experts," who were summarily stomped by a combination of SQL injection, lousy passwords, lousy encryption, unpatched servers, and social engineering. Some expertise.
Mind you, which is the more likely outcome of this certification? That companies who hire security consultants will be able to demand a certain quality of service? Or that security consultants will be able to hide their incompetence behind a government rubber stamp? I think we both know the answer to that one.
Well sure, and to clarify, it's not like I'm arguing more laws will be the answer here.
For what it's worth, I was speaking in terms of an IT worker who must relate to corporate management.
That much was obvious. And as such, I maintain that you're looking at it backwards. You're looking at it from the perspective of an employee, looking up, who's asked to "obey." But the laws themselves are drafted for the benefit of the business owner, who never knows when his employees might screw up, leaving him exposed to legal liability. By codifying practices that business can "certify" against, laws like this put legal tools in the hands of business owners that can shield them from lawsuits. The point of the law is not to make businesses more secure. The point of the law is to create a legal framework by which businesses can reduce risk.
Organizational types, suits, institution men, whatever you want to call them just love bureaucratic measures of compliance. They honesty believe the world is a better place when you do what you're told because the policy says so, and not when you take action because as a thinking man you can see that it's a reasonable step towards a worthy goal. That way they can measure down to fractions of a percentage point just how obedient you are and sanction you accordingly.
Not quite. Suits like it when government sets a bar because it gives them a bar to aim for, no matter how meaningless that bar might be. When your goal is to defend your company from lawsuits, it helps to have boxes you can check off that can be admitted as evidence. It's not about being "obedient." It's about being able to do what you like, but having a pass in your back pocket that exonerates you in the event of a legal challenge. Vague "best practices" and "reasonable steps" in the eyes of "a thinking man" do no good to anybody in the current legal environment.
Also, companies generally hire outside consultants to verify regulatory compliance. If consultants are aiming for a government-mandated benchmark, then you can hire them under the tacit assumption that they have been sanctioned by the U.S. government. Then, when your compliance measures prove to be utterly futile and misguided, it's the consultant's fault, and you sue. You sue and win, because the government let you down.
It's all a game, basically.
Right, so everybody on /. understands Alan Moore's creative works better than Alan Moore. Who gives a shit what his intent was, or what he would have wanted, as long as somebody makes a really cool movie using his characters and ideas in a way we think is entertaining.
I'm sorry it threatens you that MogNuts didn't like Watchmen, but unfortunately for you, he is right. The Watchmen movie was fucking terrible in almost every appreciable way. You want good movies? Go watch The Godfather. Go watch Gandhi. Go watch Amadeus. Those are good movies. You want something more recent? Watch No Country for Old Men, The Wrestler, or True Grit. These are movies made with skill by intelligent people with taste and a firm command of the art of filmmaking. Watchmen was a steaming pile of shit.
So you're saying that if we want to save Hollywood, modern directors need to drop all their current projects and watch Zardoz a half dozen times? Bold statement -- I doubt most people will agree, but I'm with you that Zardoz is an awesome movie.
For precisely that reason - the negative point claimed it was bad as a fact. The positive one claimed it was good in the author's opinion.
So it's your feeling that everyone should always excuse themselves and beg your pardon before voicing an opinion, especially if it's an opinion you don't agree with.
Nope. If anything, the movie was tamer about it.
Disagree. In the comics his penis was artfully rendered -- literally, as in he resembled a painting or a Greek statue where his nudity is almost an afterthought. In the movie, you had his eight-inch CG blue cock swinging back and forth as he moved. It was distracting.
I never read the original comic book, so I don't really get all the fanboy angst over altered endings and such (or why it really even matters). But I'm a pretty harsh critic of superhero movies
Well, just one point then -- in the comic book of Watchmen, the protagonists are not superheroes. Only Doctor Manhattan has any powers of any kind. So when all the characters are punching through walls an eight-inch retaining beams with their bare hands, you can be pretty certain you're not watching a Watchmen movie.
Watchmen stuck about as close as they could to the comic
...which must be why Alan Moore, the guy who wrote the comic, refused to allow his name to be associated with the movie, yes?
Nice advertisement. But the point is a digital subscription. And you can't get it from B&N.
Post a link to it, because I can't find it anywhere on their site. Unless you're talking about the print edition, in which case you're missing the point.
Jobs is now effectively in control of Disney
Bullshit. Jobs sits on the board of directors at Disney and he has a less than 10 percent share of Disney stock. As such, he's not even in control of Pixar anymore.
Unfortunately, the local library has far more PDF offerings than ePub, and far more DRM'ed Windows Media content than anything else.
Free ya mind, yo. This is en electronic library you're talking about. If you have any friends in other cities, check out the libraries there. If they're good, call up your friend and tell him to get a library card, or let you know the password for his. He doesn't have to worry that you'll never return the books, because the automatic return period is preset by Overdrive's DRM.
They didn't adopt a reduced instruction set, but they engineered their chips beyond the polarized RISC/CISC world of the 1990s and earlier.
How did Apple do it?
After all, Nokia had been producing smartphones for a long time before the iPhone. Surely they had the market sewn up before Apple came along?
FTFY.
If that's true, then the cost of an eBook should be far less than the cost of a physical book, since I'm not buying a stack of paper and cost of printing/shipping/storing/retailing that paper. My share of the author's time (assuming he sells millions of books) should be a pittance.
You're misinterpreting what the GP said based on your own assumptions. What he said is that you're paying for your share of the author's time. Then you replied by "agreeing" that you're paying for a stack of paper, printing, and shipping. You failed to understand that these are not necessarily the primary costs involved with publishing a book. Writing, editing, laying out, and marketing the book are all labor costs -- and labor is usually the biggest line-item for any business.