It's about time IBM opened up a can of whoopass on SCO. It is entirely appropriate then to recount this story (it may be wrong in many details or even completely false, but it's still a good story).
It seems Sun and IBM sat down for a little conference because Sun accused IBM of violating several patents of theirs. The Sun engineers, somewhat casually dressed, laid out the their case on a whiteboard to a bunch of Armani-wearing IBM Lawyers, who sat stone faced throughout the proposal.
When Sun was done, the Lawyers sat there for a few minutes, and then proposed a sum to cover the licensing. Sun demurred, saying that the money was hardly enough to cover what they thought the license terms were worth.
The Lawyers sat there for a moment more, discussed and then proposed that if Sun did not like the terms presented, then IBM was perfectly willing to go back to Armonk and dig through their files to see just how many IBM patents Sun was violating at the given moment.
Needless to say, Sun gave in very quickly.
----
IBM is the world's largest patent holder (3,288 in 2002 alone, according to EE Times) and for ten years running has been issued the largest number of patents in a given year. While not all of those patents are directly related to Linux, there is a pretty good chance that SCO's mere existence alone may violate an IBM patent.
AFAIK, IBM has been a pretty benevolent player in the patent arena, only hauling out the big guns when necessary. I would love to see them unload their file cabinets on SCO just once.
IBM may not always be the reasonable giant (they have a spotty record at best in some areas), but I would definitely rather have them behind me, than in front of me.
OK, enthusiastic cheering is over. Back to sarcasm and trolling.
But with most objectionable speech, I don't have to pay to listen to it. SPAM costs me money - a small percentage of my monthly cablemodem bill pays for them to transmit that spam to my inbox.
And I'm going to begrudge them every 1/10th of 1 percent that I can because they have no right to it.
If spam was delivered as a "sender-pays" option, rather than sucking money out my pocket as well, then it would just be obnoxious, as opposed to now, where it borders on (or crosses into) theft.
Ah, you wound me, sir - I was referring to the general sense, not the specific. There are instances where it would be helpful (I honestly didn't think of music schools - who does?) but in the general scope of universities (say, UTexas or A&M), this just sounds like a way to press-gang students into paying a bunch of extra fees for something that will only benefit a few.
Is it just me or have unis forgotton that they're in the business of providing education? This is getting ridiculous, with a capital 'iculous'. I'm not saying this is one of those "in my day we walked uphill to school" kind of things, but this sounds like something that has absolutely zero to do with furthering human knowledge.
But all of this is progress. It takes ten tons of crap to produce one nugget of gold - but that is the nature of our business. Most of it is indeed crap - we're writing the same code over and over to produce the same results for different customers (speaking of the industry as a whole).
It's slow progress for us; frustating most of the time; but the people who consume the products we produce clamor for more and more of it, so we must be doing SOMETHING right.
The XForms brouhaha will be yesterday's news next year, just like Java is no longer the hot new technology. But the good thing is, pieces of it will remain that will require maintenance and someone has to perform that maintenance. XForms could very well be the next COBOL, with younger developers moving onto some other cool technology, but leaving older developers to get fat and rich as they draw higher and higher pay for maintaining code that no one wants to deal with anymore, but can't afford to switch to more modern systems.
Now that I think of it, it may be time to dust off those COBOL references and put that knowledge on my resume.
1) ensure that companies can continue to market computers to 2) consumers who complain that the technology is too complex because 3) programmers just can't leave well enough alone.
It's all a part of progress and the Darwinistic natural selection process of computer engineering. Yup, I'll be obsolete in a couple of years (if not already) but so what? That's life.
Goddamn, I wish I could hammer that into the heads of 3/4 of the/. audience. Call me neurotic about spelling, but jeebus, is it really that hard to learn to spell English?
I can almost forgive those whose native language is something other than English, but only almost. It is as insulting to see badly spelled English as it is for a person of the French persuasion to hear me speak French with my Texan accent.
I have had only a two problems with my iBook that required calling AppleCare (bad logic board, bad power supply) and they were extremely pleasant to talk to. In the case of the logic board, it took them 4 days to replace it. With the power supply, they sent me a new one and had me return the old one in the same box.
While the warranty is an extra cost, it's worth it knowing that they won't give you much hassle if you do need repairs and that Apple will do so quickly and efficiently.
Yes, but people who use the 10 net are sooooo last century, being academics with their heads buried in the sand and old-school hackers who refuse to give up their 1GHz machines for the newer 2GHz machines.
172 and 192 rule, though. I've had such a better computing experience with 172 and 192 than I'm converting all devices in my house to use those networks.
Re:Microsoft Research?
on
Inkblot Passwords
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I wish that the ideas that I come up with at my internship would end up on the front page of slashdot.
So every disgruntled nerd in the world can take potshots at your idea, just because it came from Microsoft?
With fists if necessary. We are talking about a civilization that transmitted entire philosophies of martial arts for two millenia despite each emperor trying to stamp them out by burning extant books.
I did not say it would be easy, but it is within their power. The United States did the same thing 200 years ago against a better funded, better organized and better armed enemy. I did not say it would be easy or without cost, but it is possible.
Some other things to consider: 1. Do we have the right to intervene? I would say - no, this is a problem for the Chinese to sort out. This comes from my belief that we can only really accept responsibility for our own actions. Each person must settle his or her own issues and while help may be asked of another, it is entirely the right of others to refuse that help (without a reason, no less - courtesy is a social convention, not a rule). 2. How effective is the method of intervention? Freenet sounds like a good idea, but is there a measurable method of determining that effectiveness aside from whether or not the Chinese government changes? That's a pretty damn big yardstick and one that we're not likely to see the end of, in my opinion. 3. What is the cost to me? If it was just a matter of installing the software and assuming everyone outside the area to be intervened in was perfect, then I'd be all in favor of it, but it is definitely not. This software will be used for illegal purposes whether you or I like it or not (and it's not the software or the writers fault) and it is entirely reasonable to assume that the burden of punishment will fall on those who had nothing to do with the original illegal acts, since the information storage is anonymous. Authorities can only go after those who actually possess the illegal information.
Consider: certain pornographic materials are already not only illegal, but like way, seriously illegal. Society has deemed that one is not worth saving for possession of those materials, and certain other portions of society will KILL you if they find out (i.e., other prisoners). They have considerably less consideration for burden of proof that we have in the outside world. It is entirely likely to assume that you will die if you wind up in prison for having such materials on your computer and it is found out. I cannot imagine that they would care whether or not the material was encrypted - the mechanics and philosophy of information storage and retrieval are probably not something convicts would stop and listen to unless you were REALLY, REALLY persuasive.
Yes, it is a rationalization, but it is something we do everyday as an unconscious act, and here it is merely more exposed. I wish you luck if you choose to participate, but remember that you signed on freely and must be willing to accept whatever consequences may arise.
I am not, and so I choose not to participate.
In closing, the concept of child pornography is repugnant in the extreme and I, for one, do not wish to face prosecution just because someone else cannot control their own impulses.
The problem is not with the storage mechanism, it is with the sick person creating the content.
That statement is entirely true. HOWEVER, I doubt any court in the United States would see it that way and you could end up spending a whole lot time next to some hardened killer who "just wants to cuddle".
I'm not sure that sort of indignity is worth some wierdo's free speech rights.
And yes, I am aware that people in China die because of government repression. But it is entirely within the power of the Chinese people to settle their problems with the government, WITHOUT our intervention, and so I leave it to them to do so.
Really bad physics? Who gives a damn? I don't - I watch a show to be entertained, not educated. There's enough physics in the real world what with having to dodge falling safes and keeping my Acme rocket skates underneath me that I, for one, don't care at all.
Geez. Learn to enjoy life. If you keep expecting TV to be real, then you need to watch the Crocodile Botherer or something ("Oy, me and my wife, we're gonna move these 'ere crocs from this mudpit where we put'em yesterday, to this other mudpit where we got'em from originally!").
It all boils down to this: which is more fun - thinking up smart stuff all day long or having sex?
I think the process goes something like this: Man sits around thinking up smart stuff all day, which requires a certain amount of practice. You don't just wake up thinking smart stuff - you kinda gotta work into it. Those first ideas upon waking are probably not going to be winners in anyone's book.
To continue, then, one day, Woman gets introduced into the environment. So now Man has to go have sex. Hey, he thinks, this is fun - maybe I better practice this instead. So now, instead of thinking up smart stuff all the time, he's having sex and thinking up smart stuff, not in equal measure and probably without a whole lot of consideration to the fact that smart stuff requires practice, just like sex.
So, now all of a sudden, he's dumb as a rock. Dumber even. Except it doesn't matter. Wow, he thinks, I don't have to be smart to have sex - in fact, Woman get's pretty upset when I think up smart stuff while having sex, so maybe it's just better if I have sex and stop trying to be so smart all the time.
That's my view of how genius ends.
As to the claim that one doesn't have to be to bright to have sex - go to any Walmart sometime. There's the proof right there. I swear they import hillbillies to attend every Walmart. There's can't be that many badly dressed, foul-mouthed, gaptoothed ignorami with equally dumb spawn in the world, can there?
Contrary to claims by Linux advocates, any computer subjected to the above would be GLAD, nay ECSTATIC, to be running crash-prone versions of Windows software. Otherwise, just trying to turn itself off might prove to be a security violation.
Note that I said "absolute focus on profit and nothing else". Such a thing leads to the labor abuses of the late 18th and early 20th century.
To put it another way, if profit is the only thing that matters, then one should be able to hire four-year olds to run heavy stamping machinery and ten-year olds to spray toxic chemicals at a plant farm. Or twelve year olds to run sewing machines in third-world countries for 12-14 hours a day.
Profit is good - but not at the cost of those who work for you or around you. So a better mindset to have would be to keep an eye on profits, but very closely attached to that would be the mind for your community as well.
In some ways, the OP has a point though. If the intention is to get rid of sites that require you potentially open yourself up to spam, the anything linking to the NYT should be filtered.
Now, I know it's ridiculous because the NYT is easily spoofable, but one day, they may not be.
Slashdot Mirror
It's about time IBM opened up a can of whoopass on SCO. It is entirely appropriate then to recount this story (it may be wrong in many details or even completely false, but it's still a good story).
It seems Sun and IBM sat down for a little conference because Sun accused IBM of violating several patents of theirs. The Sun engineers, somewhat casually dressed, laid out the their case on a whiteboard to a bunch of Armani-wearing IBM Lawyers, who sat stone faced throughout the proposal.
When Sun was done, the Lawyers sat there for a few minutes, and then proposed a sum to cover the licensing. Sun demurred, saying that the money was hardly enough to cover what they thought the license terms were worth.
The Lawyers sat there for a moment more, discussed and then proposed that if Sun did not like the terms presented, then IBM was perfectly willing to go back to Armonk and dig through their files to see just how many IBM patents Sun was violating at the given moment.
Needless to say, Sun gave in very quickly.
----
IBM is the world's largest patent holder (3,288 in 2002 alone, according to EE Times) and for ten years running has been issued the largest number of patents in a given year. While not all of those patents are directly related to Linux, there is a pretty good chance that SCO's mere existence alone may violate an IBM patent.
AFAIK, IBM has been a pretty benevolent player in the patent arena, only hauling out the big guns when necessary. I would love to see them unload their file cabinets on SCO just once.
IBM may not always be the reasonable giant (they have a spotty record at best in some areas), but I would definitely rather have them behind me, than in front of me.
OK, enthusiastic cheering is over. Back to sarcasm and trolling.
But with most objectionable speech, I don't have to pay to listen to it. SPAM costs me money - a small percentage of my monthly cablemodem bill pays for them to transmit that spam to my inbox.
And I'm going to begrudge them every 1/10th of 1 percent that I can because they have no right to it.
If spam was delivered as a "sender-pays" option, rather than sucking money out my pocket as well, then it would just be obnoxious, as opposed to now, where it borders on (or crosses into) theft.
Because the "God|Limbaugh" options will get you upgraded to first class, not marked as a terrorist.
We had the same thing at our school. Our teams sucked so bad, you couldn't scalp the tickets.
Ah, you wound me, sir - I was referring to the general sense, not the specific. There are instances where it would be helpful (I honestly didn't think of music schools - who does?) but in the general scope of universities (say, UTexas or A&M), this just sounds like a way to press-gang students into paying a bunch of extra fees for something that will only benefit a few.
You know, kind of like football teams.
Is it just me or have unis forgotton that they're in the business of providing education? This is getting ridiculous, with a capital 'iculous'. I'm not saying this is one of those "in my day we walked uphill to school" kind of things, but this sounds like something that has absolutely zero to do with furthering human knowledge.
But all of this is progress. It takes ten tons of crap to produce one nugget of gold - but that is the nature of our business. Most of it is indeed crap - we're writing the same code over and over to produce the same results for different customers (speaking of the industry as a whole).
It's slow progress for us; frustating most of the time; but the people who consume the products we produce clamor for more and more of it, so we must be doing SOMETHING right.
The XForms brouhaha will be yesterday's news next year, just like Java is no longer the hot new technology. But the good thing is, pieces of it will remain that will require maintenance and someone has to perform that maintenance. XForms could very well be the next COBOL, with younger developers moving onto some other cool technology, but leaving older developers to get fat and rich as they draw higher and higher pay for maintaining code that no one wants to deal with anymore, but can't afford to switch to more modern systems.
Now that I think of it, it may be time to dust off those COBOL references and put that knowledge on my resume.
A lot of this complexity has been introduced to:
1) ensure that companies can continue to market computers to
2) consumers who complain that the technology is too complex because
3) programmers just can't leave well enough alone.
It's all a part of progress and the Darwinistic natural selection process of computer engineering. Yup, I'll be obsolete in a couple of years (if not already) but so what? That's life.
It happens.
Goddamn, I wish I could hammer that into the heads of 3/4 of the /. audience. Call me neurotic about spelling, but jeebus, is it really that hard to learn to spell English?
I can almost forgive those whose native language is something other than English, but only almost. It is as insulting to see badly spelled English as it is for a person of the French persuasion to hear me speak French with my Texan accent.
I have had only a two problems with my iBook that required calling AppleCare (bad logic board, bad power supply) and they were extremely pleasant to talk to. In the case of the logic board, it took them 4 days to replace it. With the power supply, they sent me a new one and had me return the old one in the same box.
While the warranty is an extra cost, it's worth it knowing that they won't give you much hassle if you do need repairs and that Apple will do so quickly and efficiently.
I'd say go for it.
In Soviet Russia, thankfully, you would be jailed for making that joke.
Can we please get some new material?!
Just tell the customer to RTFM.
Yes, but people who use the 10 net are sooooo last century, being academics with their heads buried in the sand and old-school hackers who refuse to give up their 1GHz machines for the newer 2GHz machines.
172 and 192 rule, though. I've had such a better computing experience with 172 and 192 than I'm converting all devices in my house to use those networks.
I wish that the ideas that I come up with at my internship would end up on the front page of slashdot.
So every disgruntled nerd in the world can take potshots at your idea, just because it came from Microsoft?
I think not.
Good intentions and lawyers do not mix.
With fists if necessary. We are talking about a civilization that transmitted entire philosophies of martial arts for two millenia despite each emperor trying to stamp them out by burning extant books.
I did not say it would be easy, but it is within their power. The United States did the same thing 200 years ago against a better funded, better organized and better armed enemy. I did not say it would be easy or without cost, but it is possible.
Some other things to consider:
1. Do we have the right to intervene? I would say - no, this is a problem for the Chinese to sort out. This comes from my belief that we can only really accept responsibility for our own actions. Each person must settle his or her own issues and while help may be asked of another, it is entirely the right of others to refuse that help (without a reason, no less - courtesy is a social convention, not a rule).
2. How effective is the method of intervention? Freenet sounds like a good idea, but is there a measurable method of determining that effectiveness aside from whether or not the Chinese government changes? That's a pretty damn big yardstick and one that we're not likely to see the end of, in my opinion.
3. What is the cost to me? If it was just a matter of installing the software and assuming everyone outside the area to be intervened in was perfect, then I'd be all in favor of it, but it is definitely not. This software will be used for illegal purposes whether you or I like it or not (and it's not the software or the writers fault) and it is entirely reasonable to assume that the burden of punishment will fall on those who had nothing to do with the original illegal acts, since the information storage is anonymous. Authorities can only go after those who actually possess the illegal information.
Consider: certain pornographic materials are already not only illegal, but like way, seriously illegal. Society has deemed that one is not worth saving for possession of those materials, and certain other portions of society will KILL you if they find out (i.e., other prisoners). They have considerably less consideration for burden of proof that we have in the outside world. It is entirely likely to assume that you will die if you wind up in prison for having such materials on your computer and it is found out. I cannot imagine that they would care whether or not the material was encrypted - the mechanics and philosophy of information storage and retrieval are probably not something convicts would stop and listen to unless you were REALLY, REALLY persuasive.
Yes, it is a rationalization, but it is something we do everyday as an unconscious act, and here it is merely more exposed. I wish you luck if you choose to participate, but remember that you signed on freely and must be willing to accept whatever consequences may arise.
I am not, and so I choose not to participate.
In closing, the concept of child pornography is repugnant in the extreme and I, for one, do not wish to face prosecution just because someone else cannot control their own impulses.
The problem is not with the storage mechanism, it is with the sick person creating the content.
That statement is entirely true. HOWEVER, I doubt any court in the United States would see it that way and you could end up spending a whole lot time next to some hardened killer who "just wants to cuddle".
I'm not sure that sort of indignity is worth some wierdo's free speech rights.
And yes, I am aware that people in China die because of government repression. But it is entirely within the power of the Chinese people to settle their problems with the government, WITHOUT our intervention, and so I leave it to them to do so.
Yay! And there was rejoicing throughout the land!
And then they ate the politicians.
Good overall story, decent effects, but the acting wasn't very good and the writing on individual episodes was uneven. I give it a B+ for effort.
Really bad physics? Who gives a damn? I don't - I watch a show to be entertained, not educated. There's enough physics in the real world what with having to dodge falling safes and keeping my Acme rocket skates underneath me that I, for one, don't care at all.
Geez. Learn to enjoy life. If you keep expecting TV to be real, then you need to watch the Crocodile Botherer or something ("Oy, me and my wife, we're gonna move these 'ere crocs from this mudpit where we put'em yesterday, to this other mudpit where we got'em from originally!").
It all boils down to this: which is more fun - thinking up smart stuff all day long or having sex?
I think the process goes something like this: Man sits around thinking up smart stuff all day, which requires a certain amount of practice. You don't just wake up thinking smart stuff - you kinda gotta work into it. Those first ideas upon waking are probably not going to be winners in anyone's book.
To continue, then, one day, Woman gets introduced into the environment. So now Man has to go have sex. Hey, he thinks, this is fun - maybe I better practice this instead. So now, instead of thinking up smart stuff all the time, he's having sex and thinking up smart stuff, not in equal measure and probably without a whole lot of consideration to the fact that smart stuff requires practice, just like sex.
So, now all of a sudden, he's dumb as a rock. Dumber even. Except it doesn't matter. Wow, he thinks, I don't have to be smart to have sex - in fact, Woman get's pretty upset when I think up smart stuff while having sex, so maybe it's just better if I have sex and stop trying to be so smart all the time.
That's my view of how genius ends.
As to the claim that one doesn't have to be to bright to have sex - go to any Walmart sometime. There's the proof right there. I swear they import hillbillies to attend every Walmart. There's can't be that many badly dressed, foul-mouthed, gaptoothed ignorami with equally dumb spawn in the world, can there?
Contrary to claims by Linux advocates, any computer subjected to the above would be GLAD, nay ECSTATIC, to be running crash-prone versions of Windows software. Otherwise, just trying to turn itself off might prove to be a security violation.
Note that I said "absolute focus on profit and nothing else". Such a thing leads to the labor abuses of the late 18th and early 20th century.
To put it another way, if profit is the only thing that matters, then one should be able to hire four-year olds to run heavy stamping machinery and ten-year olds to spray toxic chemicals at a plant farm. Or twelve year olds to run sewing machines in third-world countries for 12-14 hours a day.
Profit is good - but not at the cost of those who work for you or around you. So a better mindset to have would be to keep an eye on profits, but very closely attached to that would be the mind for your community as well.
In some ways, the OP has a point though. If the intention is to get rid of sites that require you potentially open yourself up to spam, the anything linking to the NYT should be filtered.
Now, I know it's ridiculous because the NYT is easily spoofable, but one day, they may not be.
How C++EvilBit?
...)
(OK, lame, but I just woke up