I have been working professionally in software development for not quite 24 years with experience in aerospace/defense, established commercial, "dot com", and a post dot-com startup companies plus I dabble in Linux. This still means this is a series of single data points taken in different industries at different times so take what I have to say with a grain of salt.
The worst programming problem is unrealistic expectations on the part of management. What it really will cost and how long it will take is always too much and too long so budgets and schedules get cut. At least aerospace/defense makes an attempt to figure this out and bid the contract accordingly. The commercial world looks at when the next trade show is or something else equally irrelevant and then says it has to be done by then with the staff that's available. They end up getting what they paid for and blaming the programmers when it crashes (See my sig. Yes, I do software QA). Established commercial companies aren't quite as bad but there is still a tendency for making the sale to somehow trump in the determination of what can be developed with the time and resources available. The resources may be there but there is a tendency to try to produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant and then wondering why there is no baby after the month is up in spite of publishing detailed schedules.
In contrast, I think one of the primary reasons free/open source software tends to be of significantly higher quality is that these factors don't come into play. A feature or program either is ready or it is not. If it is not, it stays as a development project until it either dies of apathy or enough people are attracted to it to make it into something real. For established projects, you have people like Linus who "own" the project and ensure that contributions only get incorporated if they pass muster.
I find it amusing that one of the criticisms of FOSS is that the schedules are unpredictable but the reality is that software development schedules ARE somewhat unpredictable* but at least the FOSS development process recognizes this and instead focuses on the quality of the program rather than pretending it doesn't exist and coughing up something that isn't really done based on someone else's absurd schedule.
* If someone develops the same sort of software over and over again (think IBM) they will eventually gain enough experience to have a reasonable shot at scheduling and resourcing a project correctly. The fewer data points you have, the less likely you are to get it right.
What you say is absolutely true but Darl has hinted in the last couple of interviews he has given that SCO is finding Groklaw to be a major pain in their backside. If you look at SCO's past behavior, this is exactly what they have done before their other suits. I wouldn't blame PJ for finding an appropriate vehicle like fouding a company offering "Open Source Liability Insurance" to shield herself from personal liability from a bunch of litiguous bastards like SCO.
(Not everyone can work that link into a legitimate post)
Regular readers of Groklaw have a pretty good idea what PJ thinks of SCO's chances with their various lawsuits. I see a couple of different reasons why PJ and Bruce Perens would both (RTFA) be in on this:
1) Our dear friend Darl has made threatening noises with regard to Groklaw being on the side of whoever SCO is suing this week (e.g., IBM, Red Hat, Novell, Autzone, etc.). OSRM may provide PJ and the rest of the Groklawyers with a corporate vehicle to continue doing exactly what they've been doing without fear that Darl can go after PJ (in particular but also anyone else who contributes) in some sort of malicious (big $ personal lawsuit) way. SCO has amply demonstrated that their response to anyone who opposes them is to file a lawsuit (See SLAPP).
2) You will note that the first activity of this insurance company doesn't seem to be trying to sell an insurance policy. Its to offer a class "...on how best to mitigate the risk of using open source software". Any bets that a lot of that class will be on how to file the right paper work to legally tell SCO to go find an alien who can probe them until the existing SCO litigation is cleared up including deciding if SCO really does own the copyrights to UNIX? (Maybe Darl should look into that alien abduction insurance.)
That was my first thought when I read the headline, "Microsoft Customers Get No Bang for Buck". Especially if you assume that banged and screwed mean the same thing. They got banged really good.
Google also works quite well for specific recipes. My wife and I have been subscribing to an organic farm that provides lots of interesting vegitables I've often never heard of before. I just go to Google, put in the name of the vegitable and the word recipe in the search string and see what comes up. Usually we end up with quite a few choices and sometimes its thousands. Once I started using Google for vegi recipes, I also started doing searches for various meat dishes as well just to find some alternatives.
From what I've seen, the internet *is* an open cookbook if you know how to use Google.
Well, I was going to point out that the article did show up on Friday night but then I remembered that this was slashdot. Actually, the response time wasn't bad but I'm on an ISDN line so my pipe is pretty thin. Maybe the stereotypes are wrong and people who hang out on slashdot really do have a life. Nah.
(Who me? I'm married and work for a living so, by Friday night, I'm too tired to do much of anything but either watch the tube or read slashdot).
Actually the $2 loss yesterday is probably why there was a minor uptick today. There are a lot of "mechanical" traders who assume a big, one day downturn overstates how much a company's stock should be punished for a given news item. They pick up the stock the next day on the assumption the cooler heads will prevail and the stock will regain some of its dramatic loss.
A lot of trading is done simply in response to a stock's momentum, average value, deviation from average, etc. It has very little to do with the long term prospects of the company.
This knowledge has been around a lot longer than most people realize. I remember hearing about this effect as a kid in the 1960s and it was "old knowledge" then. If you did a coin toss, you shook the coin in your hands before flipping it such that which side was up when you initially flipped the coin was random and the trick was to not disclose which side was up at the time it was flipped.
Also, you were actually lucky that it worked as well as it did with a quarter. One of the other things that can effect the outcome is whether the coin is serrated on the edge or not. Dimes, quarters, half-dollars, etc. are serrated and the effect isn't as pronounced. Pennies and nickels are not serrated and will more frequently follow the how it starts is how it ends up bias.
How about advertisers realize that the internet isn't the same as television and radio and actually work at creating compelling content such that the ads aren't annoying?
Watching television and listening to radio are passive activities. An ad has to be sufficiently "disturbing" that you notice it but not so annoying that you change channels, hit mute, etc. That is the extent of the interaction. The internet is different. Think more along the lines of the ads that get run during the Superbowl. The advertisers go all out because they know they have a huge audience and they know there are other things to do besides watch their ad (biology break to let out last beer; get next beer). The interaction still isn't there but the companies who advertise realize that they need to do something different to keep your attention.
The internet falls in between but is closer to the "Superbowl" model. If the ads are too obnoxious (e.g., pop-ups), people find a way to defeat them. If they are too bland (e.g., simple banner ads), people ignore them. Internet advertising will start to pay when the advertisers realize that they need to create ads that people will at least pay attention to and, preferably, will actually enjoy. This stands in marked contrast to the current generation of internet advertisements that simply are new ways to shove the ad in front of the content you were actually looking for.
Before you say it will never happen, I will point out that every once in a while an ad firm actually manages to create a traditional media ad that people actually enjoy. As an example, there was a mini-soap opera coffee ad series a few years back that people actually enjoyed because they wanted to see how the plot turned out. The difference is that people actually wanted to see the ad to see what was going to happen next.
Thus, the main thing that has to change is the advertiser's mind set of forcing people to hear their message since the internet will always come with a technological mute button. I'd guess you'll initially see some fumbling efforts as advertisers go with traditional techniques like product placement in exchange for what are currently pay services. The main thing advertisers will need to learn is that the internet isn't a tradition media (print or broadcast) and creating successful advertising will take a new way of conveying the message.
I lived in suburban L.A. (Torrance to be exact) and always thought the exact opposite was true. Even toward the end of the rainy season when the gunk had been washed off the roads and people should have had enough time to adjust to it, they still did stupid stuff like hitting standing water at 80 mph (of course, maybe they slowed down to 80 because of the water).
Ever since moving to Colorado from California nine years ago, my wife and I have gotten into the habit of telling people we are "from" where we were born. In my case, that means Ohio and, in her case, it means Minneapolis. We only admit we moved to Colorado from California under intense interrogation.
Besides "liberal" tax and spend attitudes, most Califorians don't have the slightest idea of how to drive in ice and snow. This seems to be as much a part of Coloradans taking a dislike to Californians as anything. Thus, saying we are "from" the midwest seems to disarm some of the hostility we might otherwise encounter.
I ended up teaching introductory Pascal back in the late '80s and found it to be useful only for teaching programming concepts but useless for teaching the students about how computers actually work. As an alternative to Pascal, I would choose FORTRAN over C because its possible to introduce students to things like internal representation without getting them tied up in their shorts over things like pass be reference vs. pass by value, pointers, etc. If C is bad, assembler is worse because the students will more likely get bogged down in nuances of assembly syntax. Also, if someone simply wants to learn how to program in C, I would suggest they buy "C for Dummies" and knock themselves out. On the otherhand, if someone wants to learn about how a computer works while at the same time being introduced to programming skills, debugging, etc., I'd go with something like FORTRAN as the teaching language.
The goal of a first "computer science" class should not be to merely teach technical skills (programming, debugging, program design) but to also give the students an understanding of how computers work. Even with today's proliferation of home computers, most people (student or otherwise) have utterly no idea how a computer works internally since their exposure is limited to simply installing software someone else wrote. Assembler is too far on the side of "how the CPU works" without giving the student any better insight into how the whole system actually operates (memory, CPU, storage, peripherals, etc.) than a higher level language while requiring much more effort by the student to accomplish anything useful. This would seem to indicate that a second generation language such as FORTRAN (or C) would be more likely to let the course delve into programming, machine operations, machine organization, etc. It also means that the students can produce "interesting" programs fairly early on which will keep more people interested (which would you rather have: a PHB MBA with no programming classes or one that has at least sat through enough classes to have some understanding of what goes on inside the box and how difficult that can be to accomplish).
One other complaint against assembler as an introductory teaching language is that, depending on the specific assembler, it is usually difficult to see the overall program structure even after the program is complete. This is primarily due to the low implementation level that leaves simple program controls (if-then-else, do-for, do-while, etc.) burried in the assembler syntax of loading and testing registers and smeared out over what is generally multiple individual statements. The student *may* end up with an appreciation of what it involves to implement these structures but will loose site of the tree (control structure) and never even notice the forrest (overall program design).
Sure sounds plausible, though the link here says only "someone told me."
Sounds like we all need to go off and do some "research" before we'll really know whether this is rubbish or not. Everyone, be sure to post your "research" results here if one find such a site so we can all confirm it for ourselves.
I like the theory that the SCO attack part of the worm is just to camouflage the key logger. You should note that it was enough to get CNN to find some so-called virus specialist who would blame the thing on a Linux/FOSS advocate and totally ignore the key logger. I agree that most people out there don't know or care who SCO is but the so-called technology pundits do and I'm sure SCO was quick to point out that only a Linux/FOSS advocate would have a prima facie cause for attacking them.
...you have people over there who think operating systems should be free in IBM's camp.
This guy actually believes in a blanket statement like that?
Darl's "blanket statement" is patently false. Just go ask IBM for your free copy and source code for MVS, OS/390, VM, OS/400, AIX, OS/2, (see note) etc. and you'll find out that IBM only believes in free/open source OSes for commodity hardware as a alternative to Microsoft. SCO had the bad luck to get caught in the crossfire and to have an idiot like Darl running the place and picking the wrong side in the fight.
I appreciate what IBM is doing to support Linux and open source but I don't for a minute believe they are doing it either out of the goodness of the heart or because they truly believe in open source. IBM is out to make money and selling support for Linux fits their service business model and undercuts Microsoft. Likewise, I'll believe that IBM believes in open source the day they GPL the OSes for their big iron. They're doing good things for Linux and open source but they're doing them to make money (nothing wrong with that either) and they're protecting their closed source products at the same time.
Note: its been since the early '80s that I dealt with IBM on anything other than a PC so I may not have all of their OSes listed correctly but you get the idea.
And the funny thing, as you noted, is that your original post got modded as "Informative" which means our beloved moderators don't even RTFA before modding.
Go ahead. Mod me down as "off topic". I've got karma to burn. But only if *YOU* RTFA.
I really think we ought to leave the old bat who sued McDs because she spilled her coffee on herself to wallow in her ill gotten gains. Lets start picking on a really fun lawsuit that is "more in touch" with the the humor level here on slashdot: the case of the infamous condom in the soup. Its definitely good for more laughs (Patron: "Waiter, what's this condom doing in my clam chowder?" Waiter: "Those are really fresh clams. Let me know if one starts to hit on you." Budda-boom)
Yeah, I'm sick of the MickeyDs coffee example too. Can you tell? Sorry, best joke I could come up with on short notice.
I'm coming to the conclusion that against all common sense and reason, SCO's stock is indestructable.
What everyone here seems to be missing here is that the stock is valued by the market based on an expected result. SCO has sued IBM for $3 billion and is making noises about shaking down every single Linux user for licensing their intellectual property. Those of us who know anything about the case think this has close to zero probability of happenning but lots of people out there just hear the SCO press blurbs and the blatherings of so-called industry analysts like Laura DiDio or pulp writers like/shills Dan Lyons and don't know any better. Lets keep the math easy and say such investors come up with SCO having a 1 in 10 chance of winning:
10 percent of $3 billion is $300 million which is about double SCO's current market capitalization. Throw in something similar for licensing SCO IP to Linux users and you get a future valuation for SCO of somewhere around half a billion dollars. I don't feel like looking up how many shares they currently have outstanding but I'm betting that means their share price needs to about double. The gotcha is its like playing the lottery and the investor only makes money
IF THEY WIN so the stock price is based on a future expected value that has a probability of coming to pass.
Lots of investors will do the same analysis and keep the stock price up until something really goes wrong with SCO's case(s). Short term investors will also see a trend that every time the stock starts to slide, SCO releases some new claim that bouys it back up and may even try to time the press releases. It all combines to keep the stock propped up.
Yeah, it sucks. The really scary thing is that this "system" works better than anything else that has been tried. Live with it.
One of the principles of inadvertent commercial copyright infringement is that the copyright owner has to identify the infringing matter such that the infringer can takes steps to mitigate the damages. That is, before SCO can collect damages from anyone, they must identify the infringing code, show ownership of the copyright and give the infringer(s) a chance to replace the infringing code. Only if those infringing don't take effective steps to mitigate the infringement after SCO has identified the specific material that infringes can SCO get anything in the way of damages. Until SCO identifies specific code and shows ownership, no one has any liability and then they only have liability for damages if they don't replace the infringing code.
What Red Hat has basically done with this announcement is probably much more effective than any sort of indemnification. Red Hat has now made an formal public offer to remove any legitimately infringing code from Linux. That is, they are offering to mitigate any damages SCO might have incurred if only SCO would be so kind as to identify with specificity exactly where the infringing code lies and show clear copyright ownership for said code. Red Hat (and everyone else) knows that this isn't going to happen but it completely undercuts any claim SCO may have to damages from copyright infringement.
Since SCO has not made an actual copyright infringement claim (the 65 files were only given as examples and it is doubtful that the material can be copyrighted since they were almost all header files) and Red Hat has just said they will mitigate the damages from any proven infringement, SCO doesn't get a penny. The Linux copyright infringement lottery ticket isn't going to pay. Maybe SCO will have better luck fighting off the Nazgul of Armonk (also known as IBM's IP legal team)... but I wouldn't bet a wooden nickel on them.
Would that be $699 to actually visit Mars or $699 to look at something that might look like Mars but I have to sign an NDA before I get to see it? And would the same fee apply if I just want to visit a Mars-like planet in another star system?
I'm computer geek not an MD and this was from a mass circulation daily newspaper so I'm really stretching to pull stuff together here...
I vaguely remember that the result of the plaques is that brain tissue gets destroyed leaving voids which are fairly indistinguishable from the results of BSE/CJD/CWD/scrapie and, while the prions seem to be the "infectious agent" in TSEs, no one knows how they actually end up destroying brain tissue. By the time an animal shows outward signs of TSE its brain is already pretty well chewed up.
Here's a link to the story: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/articl e/0,1299,DRMN_21_2569718,00.html
A tad late but the article only hit the local treeware newspaper (Rocky Mountain News) today...
It seems that with all of the renewed "interest" in BSE, CJD, vCJD, scrapie, etc., someone noticed that the effects of these diseases are very similar to alzheimers. Could be that the problem isn't meat per se but that the meat industry is throwing a few too many "downer" cows into the food chain and the older you get, the more likely it is that you get exposed. I only had a chance to skim the article but apparently there is some research (main stream, recognized university and peer reviewed) going on looking into this as a possible cause.
I don't have the article handy but I remember that they *don't* claim that this is the only cause of alzheimers; just that maybe 5 to 10 percent could be the caused this way. There aren't any good numbers because alzheimers patients usually aren't autopsied since the general cause of death is obvious.
BTW, I like vegitarians... they're usually good with a little bar-b-que sauce.
Microsoft shouldn't be expected to take something like this lying down. You can expect the folks in Redmond to dig into their bag of dirty marketing agreement tricks and find a way to punish IBM. Things like not giving them preferential pricing for installed Microsoft software unless IBM publicly renounces use of Linux on internel systems, that sort of thing.
Microsoft wasn't able to force IBM out of the OS and applications market by offering technically superior products; they did it by using their ability to set prices for their own products to punish anyone who dared to offer an alternative to Redmond. IBM can expect a price increase on Microsoft products (both those for internal use and for re-sale) as soon as they drop licenses for Microsoft products internally.
Re:Install module-init-tools! Or you will get erro
on
Kernel 2.6.1 Released
·
· Score: 1
Slashdot Mirror
I have been working professionally in software development for not quite 24 years with experience in aerospace/defense, established commercial, "dot com", and a post dot-com startup companies plus I dabble in Linux. This still means this is a series of single data points taken in different industries at different times so take what I have to say with a grain of salt.
The worst programming problem is unrealistic expectations on the part of management. What it really will cost and how long it will take is always too much and too long so budgets and schedules get cut. At least aerospace/defense makes an attempt to figure this out and bid the contract accordingly. The commercial world looks at when the next trade show is or something else equally irrelevant and then says it has to be done by then with the staff that's available. They end up getting what they paid for and blaming the programmers when it crashes (See my sig. Yes, I do software QA). Established commercial companies aren't quite as bad but there is still a tendency for making the sale to somehow trump in the determination of what can be developed with the time and resources available. The resources may be there but there is a tendency to try to produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant and then wondering why there is no baby after the month is up in spite of publishing detailed schedules.
In contrast, I think one of the primary reasons free/open source software tends to be of significantly higher quality is that these factors don't come into play. A feature or program either is ready or it is not. If it is not, it stays as a development project until it either dies of apathy or enough people are attracted to it to make it into something real. For established projects, you have people like Linus who "own" the project and ensure that contributions only get incorporated if they pass muster.
I find it amusing that one of the criticisms of FOSS is that the schedules are unpredictable but the reality is that software development schedules ARE somewhat unpredictable* but at least the FOSS development process recognizes this and instead focuses on the quality of the program rather than pretending it doesn't exist and coughing up something that isn't really done based on someone else's absurd schedule.
* If someone develops the same sort of software over and over again (think IBM) they will eventually gain enough experience to have a reasonable shot at scheduling and resourcing a project correctly. The fewer data points you have, the less likely you are to get it right.
(Not everyone can work that link into a legitimate post)
1) Our dear friend Darl has made threatening noises with regard to Groklaw being on the side of whoever SCO is suing this week (e.g., IBM, Red Hat, Novell, Autzone, etc.). OSRM may provide PJ and the rest of the Groklawyers with a corporate vehicle to continue doing exactly what they've been doing without fear that Darl can go after PJ (in particular but also anyone else who contributes) in some sort of malicious (big $ personal lawsuit) way. SCO has amply demonstrated that their response to anyone who opposes them is to file a lawsuit (See SLAPP).
2) You will note that the first activity of this insurance company doesn't seem to be trying to sell an insurance policy. Its to offer a class "...on how best to mitigate the risk of using open source software". Any bets that a lot of that class will be on how to file the right paper work to legally tell SCO to go find an alien who can probe them until the existing SCO litigation is cleared up including deciding if SCO really does own the copyrights to UNIX? (Maybe Darl should look into that alien abduction insurance.)
That was my first thought when I read the headline, "Microsoft Customers Get No Bang for Buck". Especially if you assume that banged and screwed mean the same thing. They got banged really good.
Google also works quite well for specific recipes. My wife and I have been subscribing to an organic farm that provides lots of interesting vegitables I've often never heard of before. I just go to Google, put in the name of the vegitable and the word recipe in the search string and see what comes up. Usually we end up with quite a few choices and sometimes its thousands. Once I started using Google for vegi recipes, I also started doing searches for various meat dishes as well just to find some alternatives.
From what I've seen, the internet *is* an open cookbook if you know how to use Google.
Well, I was going to point out that the article did show up on Friday night but then I remembered that this was slashdot. Actually, the response time wasn't bad but I'm on an ISDN line so my pipe is pretty thin. Maybe the stereotypes are wrong and people who hang out on slashdot really do have a life. Nah.
(Who me? I'm married and work for a living so, by Friday night, I'm too tired to do much of anything but either watch the tube or read slashdot).
Actually the $2 loss yesterday is probably why there was a minor uptick today. There are a lot of "mechanical" traders who assume a big, one day downturn overstates how much a company's stock should be punished for a given news item. They pick up the stock the next day on the assumption the cooler heads will prevail and the stock will regain some of its dramatic loss.
A lot of trading is done simply in response to a stock's momentum, average value, deviation from average, etc. It has very little to do with the long term prospects of the company.
This knowledge has been around a lot longer than most people realize. I remember hearing about this effect as a kid in the 1960s and it was "old knowledge" then. If you did a coin toss, you shook the coin in your hands before flipping it such that which side was up when you initially flipped the coin was random and the trick was to not disclose which side was up at the time it was flipped.
Also, you were actually lucky that it worked as well as it did with a quarter. One of the other things that can effect the outcome is whether the coin is serrated on the edge or not. Dimes, quarters, half-dollars, etc. are serrated and the effect isn't as pronounced. Pennies and nickels are not serrated and will more frequently follow the how it starts is how it ends up bias.
How about advertisers realize that the internet isn't the same as television and radio and actually work at creating compelling content such that the ads aren't annoying?
Watching television and listening to radio are passive activities. An ad has to be sufficiently "disturbing" that you notice it but not so annoying that you change channels, hit mute, etc. That is the extent of the interaction. The internet is different. Think more along the lines of the ads that get run during the Superbowl. The advertisers go all out because they know they have a huge audience and they know there are other things to do besides watch their ad (biology break to let out last beer; get next beer). The interaction still isn't there but the companies who advertise realize that they need to do something different to keep your attention.
The internet falls in between but is closer to the "Superbowl" model. If the ads are too obnoxious (e.g., pop-ups), people find a way to defeat them. If they are too bland (e.g., simple banner ads), people ignore them. Internet advertising will start to pay when the advertisers realize that they need to create ads that people will at least pay attention to and, preferably, will actually enjoy. This stands in marked contrast to the current generation of internet advertisements that simply are new ways to shove the ad in front of the content you were actually looking for.
Before you say it will never happen, I will point out that every once in a while an ad firm actually manages to create a traditional media ad that people actually enjoy. As an example, there was a mini-soap opera coffee ad series a few years back that people actually enjoyed because they wanted to see how the plot turned out. The difference is that people actually wanted to see the ad to see what was going to happen next.
Thus, the main thing that has to change is the advertiser's mind set of forcing people to hear their message since the internet will always come with a technological mute button. I'd guess you'll initially see some fumbling efforts as advertisers go with traditional techniques like product placement in exchange for what are currently pay services. The main thing advertisers will need to learn is that the internet isn't a tradition media (print or broadcast) and creating successful advertising will take a new way of conveying the message.
I lived in suburban L.A. (Torrance to be exact) and always thought the exact opposite was true. Even toward the end of the rainy season when the gunk had been washed off the roads and people should have had enough time to adjust to it, they still did stupid stuff like hitting standing water at 80 mph (of course, maybe they slowed down to 80 because of the water).
Ever since moving to Colorado from California nine years ago, my wife and I have gotten into the habit of telling people we are "from" where we were born. In my case, that means Ohio and, in her case, it means Minneapolis. We only admit we moved to Colorado from California under intense interrogation.
Besides "liberal" tax and spend attitudes, most Califorians don't have the slightest idea of how to drive in ice and snow. This seems to be as much a part of Coloradans taking a dislike to Californians as anything. Thus, saying we are "from" the midwest seems to disarm some of the hostility we might otherwise encounter.
I ended up teaching introductory Pascal back in the late '80s and found it to be useful only for teaching programming concepts but useless for teaching the students about how computers actually work. As an alternative to Pascal, I would choose FORTRAN over C because its possible to introduce students to things like internal representation without getting them tied up in their shorts over things like pass be reference vs. pass by value, pointers, etc. If C is bad, assembler is worse because the students will more likely get bogged down in nuances of assembly syntax. Also, if someone simply wants to learn how to program in C, I would suggest they buy "C for Dummies" and knock themselves out. On the otherhand, if someone wants to learn about how a computer works while at the same time being introduced to programming skills, debugging, etc., I'd go with something like FORTRAN as the teaching language.
The goal of a first "computer science" class should not be to merely teach technical skills (programming, debugging, program design) but to also give the students an understanding of how computers work. Even with today's proliferation of home computers, most people (student or otherwise) have utterly no idea how a computer works internally since their exposure is limited to simply installing software someone else wrote. Assembler is too far on the side of "how the CPU works" without giving the student any better insight into how the whole system actually operates (memory, CPU, storage, peripherals, etc.) than a higher level language while requiring much more effort by the student to accomplish anything useful. This would seem to indicate that a second generation language such as FORTRAN (or C) would be more likely to let the course delve into programming, machine operations, machine organization, etc. It also means that the students can produce "interesting" programs fairly early on which will keep more people interested (which would you rather have: a PHB MBA with no programming classes or one that has at least sat through enough classes to have some understanding of what goes on inside the box and how difficult that can be to accomplish).
One other complaint against assembler as an introductory teaching language is that, depending on the specific assembler, it is usually difficult to see the overall program structure even after the program is complete. This is primarily due to the low implementation level that leaves simple program controls (if-then-else, do-for, do-while, etc.) burried in the assembler syntax of loading and testing registers and smeared out over what is generally multiple individual statements. The student *may* end up with an appreciation of what it involves to implement these structures but will loose site of the tree (control structure) and never even notice the forrest (overall program design).
I like the theory that the SCO attack part of the worm is just to camouflage the key logger. You should note that it was enough to get CNN to find some so-called virus specialist who would blame the thing on a Linux/FOSS advocate and totally ignore the key logger. I agree that most people out there don't know or care who SCO is but the so-called technology pundits do and I'm sure SCO was quick to point out that only a Linux/FOSS advocate would have a prima facie cause for attacking them.
Darl's "blanket statement" is patently false. Just go ask IBM for your free copy and source code for MVS, OS/390, VM, OS/400, AIX, OS/2, (see note) etc. and you'll find out that IBM only believes in free/open source OSes for commodity hardware as a alternative to Microsoft. SCO had the bad luck to get caught in the crossfire and to have an idiot like Darl running the place and picking the wrong side in the fight.
I appreciate what IBM is doing to support Linux and open source but I don't for a minute believe they are doing it either out of the goodness of the heart or because they truly believe in open source. IBM is out to make money and selling support for Linux fits their service business model and undercuts Microsoft. Likewise, I'll believe that IBM believes in open source the day they GPL the OSes for their big iron. They're doing good things for Linux and open source but they're doing them to make money (nothing wrong with that either) and they're protecting their closed source products at the same time.
Note: its been since the early '80s that I dealt with IBM on anything other than a PC so I may not have all of their OSes listed correctly but you get the idea.
And the funny thing, as you noted, is that your original post got modded as "Informative" which means our beloved moderators don't even RTFA before modding.
Go ahead. Mod me down as "off topic". I've got karma to burn. But only if *YOU* RTFA.
Yeah, I'm sick of the MickeyDs coffee example too. Can you tell? Sorry, best joke I could come up with on short notice.
Yeah, it sucks. The really scary thing is that this "system" works better than anything else that has been tried. Live with it.
One of the principles of inadvertent commercial copyright infringement is that the copyright owner has to identify the infringing matter such that the infringer can takes steps to mitigate the damages. That is, before SCO can collect damages from anyone, they must identify the infringing code, show ownership of the copyright and give the infringer(s) a chance to replace the infringing code. Only if those infringing don't take effective steps to mitigate the infringement after SCO has identified the specific material that infringes can SCO get anything in the way of damages. Until SCO identifies specific code and shows ownership, no one has any liability and then they only have liability for damages if they don't replace the infringing code.
What Red Hat has basically done with this announcement is probably much more effective than any sort of indemnification. Red Hat has now made an formal public offer to remove any legitimately infringing code from Linux. That is, they are offering to mitigate any damages SCO might have incurred if only SCO would be so kind as to identify with specificity exactly where the infringing code lies and show clear copyright ownership for said code. Red Hat (and everyone else) knows that this isn't going to happen but it completely undercuts any claim SCO may have to damages from copyright infringement.
Since SCO has not made an actual copyright infringement claim (the 65 files were only given as examples and it is doubtful that the material can be copyrighted since they were almost all header files) and Red Hat has just said they will mitigate the damages from any proven infringement, SCO doesn't get a penny. The Linux copyright infringement lottery ticket isn't going to pay. Maybe SCO will have better luck fighting off the Nazgul of Armonk (also known as IBM's IP legal team)... but I wouldn't bet a wooden nickel on them.
Would that be $699 to actually visit Mars or $699 to look at something that might look like Mars but I have to sign an NDA before I get to see it? And would the same fee apply if I just want to visit a Mars-like planet in another star system?
I'm computer geek not an MD and this was from a mass circulation daily newspaper so I'm really stretching to pull stuff together here...
l e/0,1299,DRMN_21_2569718,00.html
I vaguely remember that the result of the plaques is that brain tissue gets destroyed leaving voids which are fairly indistinguishable from the results of BSE/CJD/CWD/scrapie and, while the prions seem to be the "infectious agent" in TSEs, no one knows how they actually end up destroying brain tissue. By the time an animal shows outward signs of TSE its brain is already pretty well chewed up.
Here's a link to the story: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/artic
A tad late but the article only hit the local treeware newspaper (Rocky Mountain News) today...
It seems that with all of the renewed "interest" in BSE, CJD, vCJD, scrapie, etc., someone noticed that the effects of these diseases are very similar to alzheimers. Could be that the problem isn't meat per se but that the meat industry is throwing a few too many "downer" cows into the food chain and the older you get, the more likely it is that you get exposed. I only had a chance to skim the article but apparently there is some research (main stream, recognized university and peer reviewed) going on looking into this as a possible cause.
I don't have the article handy but I remember that they *don't* claim that this is the only cause of alzheimers; just that maybe 5 to 10 percent could be the caused this way. There aren't any good numbers because alzheimers patients usually aren't autopsied since the general cause of death is obvious.
BTW, I like vegitarians... they're usually good with a little bar-b-que sauce.
Backlash
Microsoft shouldn't be expected to take something like this lying down. You can expect the folks in Redmond to dig into their bag of dirty marketing agreement tricks and find a way to punish IBM. Things like not giving them preferential pricing for installed Microsoft software unless IBM publicly renounces use of Linux on internel systems, that sort of thing.
Microsoft wasn't able to force IBM out of the OS and applications market by offering technically superior products; they did it by using their ability to set prices for their own products to punish anyone who dared to offer an alternative to Redmond. IBM can expect a price increase on Microsoft products (both those for internal use and for re-sale) as soon as they drop licenses for Microsoft products internally.
Or they can build a monolithic kernel.
;-)
We don't need no stinking modules!
Novell bought Ximian. Novell bought SuSE. IBM invested $50M in Novell.
Any bets that IBM's corporate desktop looks a lot like Ximian running on SuSE?