Anonymous tip or no anonymous tip, why did your company agree to the audit? If I rang your doorbell and asked to see your accounts payable for the last 12 months, you'd laugh me out of the lobby.
They also have many of the earmarks of urban legends. "We know exactly who is responsible" -- OK, then, what are their names? Where are their photographs? Surely the Russian government wouldn't deny a simple request for criminal conviction records, if we asked nicely. If that's too much to ask, then what are the names of the agents at the FBI and other U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies who have information on the perpetrators? Are they unwilling to speak anonymously, even?
Just because a few people conspired to do something doesn't mean your explanation is not just another conspiracy theory.
First they passed a tax to pay the songwriters. I said nothing, because I don't listen to music. Then they passed a tax to pay the movie writers. Again I said nothing, because I don't go to the movies. Then they passed a tax to pay the book industry. I said nothing, because I don't read. Then they passed a tax to pay the software industry. I said nothing, because I don't own a computer. Then they passed a tax to pay me... but there was nobody left with any money.:-(
Well, true, and I've also had at least one manager who was several years younger than me, but whom I felt did a great job and I had no problem taking directions from. However, I believe there are some people out there in the world who would never say the same. To some people who might be your subordinates, age is experience. If they think you're too young, they will never accept you. They may even try to undermine you. Upper management knows this, and while it may not be "your fault" and there's precious little you can do about it, they may consider it a valid reason not to promote you to management until you grow a little older. And who knows? In that particular company, with those particular team members, they may be right.
Yes, yes. The point is that the developers of this new strain have found a method to dial down the infectiousness of this virus.
No, they have not. Ebola was never really "infectious" in the sense that you mean. A typical outbreak is confined to a single village, at which point the virus runs out of potential hosts. It is not airborne (except, as some have pointed out, in harmless variants) and there is no other way to catch it than by direct contact with the bodily fluids of the infected. Ironically, this limited range of infection is what leads military types to classify Ebola as a potential biological weapon already, in its natural form.
Before all the bat-lovers start crying foul I would like to point out that it is only ebola's high mortality rate that keeps it contained.
Actually, that's not totally true. Ebola infection has spread in rural African villages mainly because of lack of education. Relatives of people who have died of Ebola make the mistake of directly handling the body during burial procedures, thus coming into contact with infected blood. I suppose that if Ebola had a lower mortality rate then it would become a sexually-transmitted disease (e.g. AIDS, which also requires direct contact with infected tissues) but I imagine relatively few people are sexually attracted to someone who is suffering from an extremely painful, high fever, with blood running from the nose, ears, and eyes. As it stands, Ebola is really not categorized as a high contagion risk.
Biotech on the other hand, we create something, and when it leaves (and sometimes before it leaves) the 'home', it gets all grown up, with the possibility of getting a serious attitude of it's own and some seriously big boots to come back kicking with.
You're right. If those evil scientists keep tinkering around with Ebola like this, it might end up turning into something really bad.
All sarcasm aside, creating less-pathogenic versions of deadly viruses is one of the best techniques available to provide hope for developing vaccines. It's already been done with the H5N1 "chicken flu" virus, for example, and scientists are now proceeding to find ways to turn this weakened virus into a vaccine. Other scientists have successfully spliced West Nile virus DNA into a weakened version of the dengue virus, and this vaccine seems to be effective in immunizing horses and monkeys against West Nile.
Both these diseases are highly dangerous, emerging pathogens against which medicine currently can offer very few defenses. What would be your alternative? Let everyone breathe in the germs, let the weak ones die, and let the strong pass on their immunity via natural selection? Seriously, how would you go about finding cures for these emerging diseases if scientists are forbidden to use "worrisome" science?
Bluntly put: You fear these techniques because of your own ignorance. You don't know anything about biohazard control procedures or the techniques of biotech that go into developing these vaccine candidates, but you have seen "28 Days Later," so you hear that scientists are conducting science and you instantly think "hemorrhagic zombies." This is a dumb attitude. If you're concerned about "what might happen," read the literature, find articles in popular science magazines, and educate yourself.
To give you a general idea... you remember that whole "sequencing the genome" thing? It might surprise you to learn that scientists these days do a lot of "breaking the digital" before they ever get a shot at "breaking the biotech." And, no offense, but I think the scientists in charge of setting up major disease research laboratories have a far more intimate knowledge of the risks of the pathogens they confront than you do. What makes you assume that they'd be willing to just "let it slide"?
Leave it to the engineers at NASA: It's not enough that the probe is going to send messages back from an alien world. It's not enough that the world in question is Mercury, who was the messenger of the Roman gods. No. They have to make it an acronym.
The HS football game, the HS football team, the cheerleaders get paraded, and it's cool to be a jock. When's the last time you see the Math team, the Chess team, or the Academic Decathlon team get that sort of "hero's welcome"?
Academic isolationism is also to blame. For your average, middle-of-the-road student, there are tangible benefits to buddying up with the cool kids (and especially the cheerleaders). I've met many highly intelligent people, on the other hand -- Chess Club types -- who are completely incapable of even looking you in the eye, let alone telling a joke. Why would Joe Average even want to spend time with such people, let alone shower them with honors?
Harsh, I know. But nerd snobbery notwithstanding, a great many "jocks" actually go on to perform well in school. How many pimply, obsessive Monty Python fans with 1,321 logged hours on MMORPGs go on to become great community leaders, or captains of industry?
Of course, you could argue that the trollish nerds are in fact a product of the American educational system -- just as there are economic haves and have-nots (and the gap is widening), there are social haves and have-nots -- but I'm not a sociologist.
He probably just had personal daddy issues since he was a Jew
That would be mommy issues, actually. Judaism is "inherited" from the mother. (The clearest explanation why that I ever heard: "Somebody always knows who your mother is.")
I think it is time to stop comparisons like "the US is the largest, single, R&D-performing nation in the world pumping some $340 billion into future-related technologies", because they give a distorted view of reality. The main reason the USA comes out on top so often with this kind of statistic is simply because it is sound a large populous county.
By that standard, China and India should have been leading the world for years. Indonesia would be right behind the U.S., followed by Brazil.
how about using an OS that has decent hibernate and sleep functions? I know MSFT keeps breaking them so windows users rarely know that joy, but damn. I know Linux can do it, Windows can too.
Linux might be able to do it in theory, but I know I haven't been able to do it since I upgraded to Gutsy Gibbon. I suspect Compiz Fusion is the problem. (Suspend, or features? Suspend, or features? Which do I choose? Oh well, guess I'll boot to Windows.)
Wow, a well reasoned comment that for the side I'm not on!:-)
You know, I'm repeatedly dismayed by the fact that some people on/. just can't seem to get their heads around the idea that I don't require everybody else to agree with me. In fact, it's when everybody on/. seems to be saying the same thing that I start to suspect that what they're saying might not be totally correct.;-)
My first impulse is to figure out if they were paid to do it. My next impulse is to figure out if they have a strongly self-interested reason to do it. The latter appears to be the case. No matter how respected they might be, their bread and butter is threatened if Microsoft Office significantly diminishes in importance.
I'm not sure that's true. I'm not familiar with the names of these particular analysts, but at least in the past, the Burton Group was primarily concerned with stuff like identity management and privacy, Web services/SOA, network and telecom, network security, etc...areas where Microsoft is a player, sure, but not necessarily a prominent one. If anything, I'd say they're more likely to be in the pocket of Novell or Sun than of Microsoft...but they make a point of saying they're "vendor neutral," right on their homepage.
I know everybody wants to immediately jump to the conclusion that the Burton Group is in Microsoft's pocket, etc., etc., but while it is perfectly appropriate to question the methodologies and motivations of analysts' research, in my experience the Burton Group is as much of a "good guy" as an analyst firm gets. If you've ever been to one of their conferences, they are packed to the gills with useful information, and their analysts generally come off as being genuinely knowledgeable.
That said, I'd love to see the Burton Group get rid of the registration requirement on this PDF so I can see what they actually say. TFA is mostly paraphrasing, and I'm not certain they are taking every comment in context.
Some folks on here seem to be taking issue with the statement that ODF is "indirectly controlled" by Sun. But, as far as I understand it, that's pretty much the case. Last I heard, the vast majority of work on OpenOffice.org is done by Sun employees. The codebase is just too complex for amateurs to get their heads around. You could argue (and many do) that OOXML is directly controlled by Microsoft... but for all I know, not having read the paper, the Burton Group never disputes that. Maybe they're just saying that anybody who insists on using ODF because Microsoft has a disproportionate influence over OOXML is fooling themselves, because the same can be said (to an extent) of ODF.
The Burton Group's greater concern seems to be that Sun has a conflict of interest here. What is the purpose of ODF? Is it to empower users? Or is a means for Sun to erode the profitability of core Microsoft products? If the latter, does it make sense for a corporation to support it on that basis? Maybe you'd argue that it does make sense. Me, I'm not so sure.
As far as ODF "only supporting a fraction of what enterprises need," well, that's probably true. I doubt that ODF was ever designed to define a standard for everything that enterprise customers do with their office suites. Be that as it may, if an ODF application suite does not support all of the features that an enterprise might want, does it make sense to conduct a mass migration to a new office suite on the basis that the new suite uses document formats that are "open"? In other words, the Burton Group seems to be making the age-old case for sticking with the status quo, even given the understanding that it represents a capitulation to "vendor lock-in." Many customers may decided that open file formats just aren't worth the trade-off.
You can call it cynical, or self-interested, or just plain lazy, but given the opportunity to participate in a revolution, there will always be some people who will say, "No thanks." Some of them might be deluded. And others may merely be acting in their own self-interest. If they are deluded, however -- and sticking with the status quo really means trading long-term best interests for short-term interests -- then isn't it up to us to convince them of their mistake? Calling them "shills," claiming that they were paid off in "hookers and blow," and all the other stuff I see in this thread, doesn't strike me as a very effective way of making the counter-argument.
Nor, in fact, does the Ars article. It doesn't seem like a "thorough debunking" to me; more like a fairly well-reasoned opinion piece/editorial/blog.
I've seen it in action. It also seems pretty intuitive. Working as a bunch of like-minded, geographically disperse individuals does not seem as likely to inspire morale and productivity as "working as a team" -- meaning you see the people every day, you meet with the people face to face, you drop by their desks when you have questions, and so on.
The question is, what can this tell us about how to successfully manage community-based open source projects?
Books will continue to be written (a writer has no choice but to write)
What a strange statement. I suppose a breather has no choice but to breathe, and an eater has no choice but to eat. But, last I heard, a writer can do whatever the hell he wants (and a great many of them might do well to try something else).
Thats a silly list... in NY you can buy alcohol in all of those places but movie theaters and its 5%+ at all hours of the day/night.
Actually, the way I remember it, you could not buy liquor on a Sunday in New York City in the mid-90s. Beer was OK, hard hooch was not (and bars were OK to sell anything -- I'm talking grocery stores). I understand that this has now changed, but it wasn't so long ago (assuming nobody here discredits my memory).
A similar example is the widely-ridiculed "ebonics" episode, where teachers in California schools sought to have African-American dialect classified as its own language. People interpreted this as an attempt by left-leaning teachers to enshrine illiteracy in our education system. In fact, it was merely an attempt to bureaucratically establish the existence of a new "language," which would allow inner-city schools to get additional federal and state funding for their "English as a Second Language" programs.
If your child had special needs, and you were told that those needs could get paid for by the government, but only if your child was classified as autistic... I'd wager you'd play along, too.
If the course is for people who are already grounded in the basics of programming, and who understand how to use the command line to begin with, then perhaps you can dispense with teaching them how to use javac and ant, but you still need to at least tell them which tools they should be using.
If, on the other hand, the course is for people who have never programmed before, you absolutely need to teach them about how to use javac and ant.
OK, fair enough. So which is it? I kind of lean toward the idea that a Computer Science program need not necessarily teach students how to program in ANY language, any more than an English composition program should include a course on the ins and outs of Microsoft Word. "Here's an assignment. Pick a language and solve this problem, using an implementation of this data structure."
I recently took a CS110A class at my local community college, just to get "free" transferable credits, and I was kind of shocked. It was a C++ programming class that assumed no significant knowledge of computers or programming concepts at all. Although it was a C++ class, and not C, the word "object" was never mentioned. By the end of the semester we had been taught multi-dimensional arrays. Throughout the course, all exercises used C-style strings where strings were called for. We had done the basic control structures, including for and while loops, if, and case/switch, but several students seemed to be forever writing while loops where for would have been more appropriate, and others never really got the hang of else -- in other words, there was no real emphasis on coding practice.
My question for you: Is that properly called a Computer Science class? At the same community college, you can take classes in elementary math, algebra, geometry, algebra II, and so on... but only Calculus and up is going to count toward the lower-division coursework of a science degree. CS110A, on the other hand, is a foundational course for a Computer Science degree. Seems like we're cheating the students, if you ask me.
Sorry, that's just not the case. OO is just a formalization of what was already happening with good procedural programmers. OO is not fundamentally different that procedural programming-- it is a superset. OO languages force the programmer to do certain things: code modularity, polymorphism, typedefs/classes, etc, and does so in a way that encourage a programmer NOT to come up with their own system to do the same thing.
Great zot, it's so rarely that I actually hear this spoken aloud that I'd almost forgotten how true it is.
Slashdot Mirror
Anonymous tip or no anonymous tip, why did your company agree to the audit? If I rang your doorbell and asked to see your accounts payable for the last 12 months, you'd laugh me out of the lobby.
They also have many of the earmarks of urban legends. "We know exactly who is responsible" -- OK, then, what are their names? Where are their photographs? Surely the Russian government wouldn't deny a simple request for criminal conviction records, if we asked nicely. If that's too much to ask, then what are the names of the agents at the FBI and other U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies who have information on the perpetrators? Are they unwilling to speak anonymously, even?
Just because a few people conspired to do something doesn't mean your explanation is not just another conspiracy theory.
First they passed a tax to pay the songwriters. I said nothing, because I don't listen to music. ... but there was nobody left with any money. :-(
Then they passed a tax to pay the movie writers. Again I said nothing, because I don't go to the movies.
Then they passed a tax to pay the book industry. I said nothing, because I don't read.
Then they passed a tax to pay the software industry. I said nothing, because I don't own a computer.
Then they passed a tax to pay me
Well, true, and I've also had at least one manager who was several years younger than me, but whom I felt did a great job and I had no problem taking directions from. However, I believe there are some people out there in the world who would never say the same. To some people who might be your subordinates, age is experience. If they think you're too young, they will never accept you. They may even try to undermine you. Upper management knows this, and while it may not be "your fault" and there's precious little you can do about it, they may consider it a valid reason not to promote you to management until you grow a little older. And who knows? In that particular company, with those particular team members, they may be right.
No, they have not. Ebola was never really "infectious" in the sense that you mean. A typical outbreak is confined to a single village, at which point the virus runs out of potential hosts. It is not airborne (except, as some have pointed out, in harmless variants) and there is no other way to catch it than by direct contact with the bodily fluids of the infected. Ironically, this limited range of infection is what leads military types to classify Ebola as a potential biological weapon already, in its natural form.
Actually, that's not totally true. Ebola infection has spread in rural African villages mainly because of lack of education. Relatives of people who have died of Ebola make the mistake of directly handling the body during burial procedures, thus coming into contact with infected blood. I suppose that if Ebola had a lower mortality rate then it would become a sexually-transmitted disease (e.g. AIDS, which also requires direct contact with infected tissues) but I imagine relatively few people are sexually attracted to someone who is suffering from an extremely painful, high fever, with blood running from the nose, ears, and eyes. As it stands, Ebola is really not categorized as a high contagion risk.
You're right. If those evil scientists keep tinkering around with Ebola like this, it might end up turning into something really bad.
All sarcasm aside, creating less-pathogenic versions of deadly viruses is one of the best techniques available to provide hope for developing vaccines. It's already been done with the H5N1 "chicken flu" virus, for example, and scientists are now proceeding to find ways to turn this weakened virus into a vaccine. Other scientists have successfully spliced West Nile virus DNA into a weakened version of the dengue virus, and this vaccine seems to be effective in immunizing horses and monkeys against West Nile.
Both these diseases are highly dangerous, emerging pathogens against which medicine currently can offer very few defenses. What would be your alternative? Let everyone breathe in the germs, let the weak ones die, and let the strong pass on their immunity via natural selection? Seriously, how would you go about finding cures for these emerging diseases if scientists are forbidden to use "worrisome" science?
Bluntly put: You fear these techniques because of your own ignorance. You don't know anything about biohazard control procedures or the techniques of biotech that go into developing these vaccine candidates, but you have seen "28 Days Later," so you hear that scientists are conducting science and you instantly think "hemorrhagic zombies." This is a dumb attitude. If you're concerned about "what might happen," read the literature, find articles in popular science magazines, and educate yourself.
To give you a general idea ... you remember that whole "sequencing the genome" thing? It might surprise you to learn that scientists these days do a lot of "breaking the digital" before they ever get a shot at "breaking the biotech." And, no offense, but I think the scientists in charge of setting up major disease research laboratories have a far more intimate knowledge of the risks of the pathogens they confront than you do. What makes you assume that they'd be willing to just "let it slide"?
Leave it to the engineers at NASA: It's not enough that the probe is going to send messages back from an alien world. It's not enough that the world in question is Mercury, who was the messenger of the Roman gods. No. They have to make it an acronym.
Why? I mean ... isn't that all you need? Or do people do things with IM that I don't do?
Not unless "water boarding" counts as torture.
Thanks, folks! I'll be here all week.
Bobby Fisher's mother was a Jew. His father was not -- although apparently (ahem) there's some dispute over who his father actually was.
Academic isolationism is also to blame. For your average, middle-of-the-road student, there are tangible benefits to buddying up with the cool kids (and especially the cheerleaders). I've met many highly intelligent people, on the other hand -- Chess Club types -- who are completely incapable of even looking you in the eye, let alone telling a joke. Why would Joe Average even want to spend time with such people, let alone shower them with honors?
Harsh, I know. But nerd snobbery notwithstanding, a great many "jocks" actually go on to perform well in school. How many pimply, obsessive Monty Python fans with 1,321 logged hours on MMORPGs go on to become great community leaders, or captains of industry?
Of course, you could argue that the trollish nerds are in fact a product of the American educational system -- just as there are economic haves and have-nots (and the gap is widening), there are social haves and have-nots -- but I'm not a sociologist.
That would be mommy issues, actually. Judaism is "inherited" from the mother. (The clearest explanation why that I ever heard: "Somebody always knows who your mother is.")
By that standard, China and India should have been leading the world for years. Indonesia would be right behind the U.S., followed by Brazil.
Uhh... MySQL AB never actually went IPO. It was reportedly planning one, but it got bought by Sun instead.
Linux might be able to do it in theory, but I know I haven't been able to do it since I upgraded to Gutsy Gibbon. I suspect Compiz Fusion is the problem. (Suspend, or features? Suspend, or features? Which do I choose? Oh well, guess I'll boot to Windows.)
You know, I'm repeatedly dismayed by the fact that some people on /. just can't seem to get their heads around the idea that I don't require everybody else to agree with me. In fact, it's when everybody on /. seems to be saying the same thing that I start to suspect that what they're saying might not be totally correct. ;-)
I'm not sure that's true. I'm not familiar with the names of these particular analysts, but at least in the past, the Burton Group was primarily concerned with stuff like identity management and privacy, Web services/SOA, network and telecom, network security, etc...areas where Microsoft is a player, sure, but not necessarily a prominent one. If anything, I'd say they're more likely to be in the pocket of Novell or Sun than of Microsoft...but they make a point of saying they're "vendor neutral," right on their homepage.
I know everybody wants to immediately jump to the conclusion that the Burton Group is in Microsoft's pocket, etc., etc., but while it is perfectly appropriate to question the methodologies and motivations of analysts' research, in my experience the Burton Group is as much of a "good guy" as an analyst firm gets. If you've ever been to one of their conferences, they are packed to the gills with useful information, and their analysts generally come off as being genuinely knowledgeable.
... but for all I know, not having read the paper, the Burton Group never disputes that. Maybe they're just saying that anybody who insists on using ODF because Microsoft has a disproportionate influence over OOXML is fooling themselves, because the same can be said (to an extent) of ODF.
That said, I'd love to see the Burton Group get rid of the registration requirement on this PDF so I can see what they actually say. TFA is mostly paraphrasing, and I'm not certain they are taking every comment in context.
Some folks on here seem to be taking issue with the statement that ODF is "indirectly controlled" by Sun. But, as far as I understand it, that's pretty much the case. Last I heard, the vast majority of work on OpenOffice.org is done by Sun employees. The codebase is just too complex for amateurs to get their heads around. You could argue (and many do) that OOXML is directly controlled by Microsoft
The Burton Group's greater concern seems to be that Sun has a conflict of interest here. What is the purpose of ODF? Is it to empower users? Or is a means for Sun to erode the profitability of core Microsoft products? If the latter, does it make sense for a corporation to support it on that basis? Maybe you'd argue that it does make sense. Me, I'm not so sure.
As far as ODF "only supporting a fraction of what enterprises need," well, that's probably true. I doubt that ODF was ever designed to define a standard for everything that enterprise customers do with their office suites. Be that as it may, if an ODF application suite does not support all of the features that an enterprise might want, does it make sense to conduct a mass migration to a new office suite on the basis that the new suite uses document formats that are "open"? In other words, the Burton Group seems to be making the age-old case for sticking with the status quo, even given the understanding that it represents a capitulation to "vendor lock-in." Many customers may decided that open file formats just aren't worth the trade-off.
You can call it cynical, or self-interested, or just plain lazy, but given the opportunity to participate in a revolution, there will always be some people who will say, "No thanks." Some of them might be deluded. And others may merely be acting in their own self-interest. If they are deluded, however -- and sticking with the status quo really means trading long-term best interests for short-term interests -- then isn't it up to us to convince them of their mistake? Calling them "shills," claiming that they were paid off in "hookers and blow," and all the other stuff I see in this thread, doesn't strike me as a very effective way of making the counter-argument.
Nor, in fact, does the Ars article. It doesn't seem like a "thorough debunking" to me; more like a fairly well-reasoned opinion piece/editorial/blog.
I've seen it in action. It also seems pretty intuitive. Working as a bunch of like-minded, geographically disperse individuals does not seem as likely to inspire morale and productivity as "working as a team" -- meaning you see the people every day, you meet with the people face to face, you drop by their desks when you have questions, and so on.
The question is, what can this tell us about how to successfully manage community-based open source projects?
What a strange statement. I suppose a breather has no choice but to breathe, and an eater has no choice but to eat. But, last I heard, a writer can do whatever the hell he wants (and a great many of them might do well to try something else).
Actually, the way I remember it, you could not buy liquor on a Sunday in New York City in the mid-90s. Beer was OK, hard hooch was not (and bars were OK to sell anything -- I'm talking grocery stores). I understand that this has now changed, but it wasn't so long ago (assuming nobody here discredits my memory).
A similar example is the widely-ridiculed "ebonics" episode, where teachers in California schools sought to have African-American dialect classified as its own language. People interpreted this as an attempt by left-leaning teachers to enshrine illiteracy in our education system. In fact, it was merely an attempt to bureaucratically establish the existence of a new "language," which would allow inner-city schools to get additional federal and state funding for their "English as a Second Language" programs.
... I'd wager you'd play along, too.
If your child had special needs, and you were told that those needs could get paid for by the government, but only if your child was classified as autistic
You idiot!! Ix-nay on the illings-fay! If they catch on to where their autism really came from, our goose is cooked!
OK, fair enough. So which is it? I kind of lean toward the idea that a Computer Science program need not necessarily teach students how to program in ANY language, any more than an English composition program should include a course on the ins and outs of Microsoft Word. "Here's an assignment. Pick a language and solve this problem, using an implementation of this data structure."
I recently took a CS110A class at my local community college, just to get "free" transferable credits, and I was kind of shocked. It was a C++ programming class that assumed no significant knowledge of computers or programming concepts at all. Although it was a C++ class, and not C, the word "object" was never mentioned. By the end of the semester we had been taught multi-dimensional arrays. Throughout the course, all exercises used C-style strings where strings were called for. We had done the basic control structures, including for and while loops, if, and case/switch, but several students seemed to be forever writing while loops where for would have been more appropriate, and others never really got the hang of else -- in other words, there was no real emphasis on coding practice.
My question for you: Is that properly called a Computer Science class? At the same community college, you can take classes in elementary math, algebra, geometry, algebra II, and so on ... but only Calculus and up is going to count toward the lower-division coursework of a science degree. CS110A, on the other hand, is a foundational course for a Computer Science degree. Seems like we're cheating the students, if you ask me.
Great zot, it's so rarely that I actually hear this spoken aloud that I'd almost forgotten how true it is.