I laugh at people who think you can create a standard before any experimentation has occurred.. as if a committee can create anything remotely good. Competing APIs are competing for a reason.. people have different ideas about what is the best way of doing something. Only after a clear winner has been decided for a particular subset of the API can you standardize that subset. The alternative is the "standard" of monopoly.. you get what you are given and to hell with what is better. This is why the win32 api is so horrid.
Besides which, you're the one that changed this from being a discussion about open platforms like Linux, to being a discussion about APIs. The whole discussion is about having an open market for services. This is confusing to IT consumers because they've never had it before, so they moan about not knowing where to go to get support or who to find responsible if something is broken - the kind of things you don't need to think about when you're used to dealing with monopoly providers. To these people I say: get used to it.. because the advantages of having an open market over a monopoly is worth it.
Well I'm glad I inspired you. You should go get involved, talk to some people in charge, etc. If they don't already have a program for this sort of thing, I'm sure you could get the necessary people interested and hook it up. I guarantee you that world vision and oxfam and the other third world charities have a shortage of IT trained volunteers.
how about we round up all these people who want to play with an OLPC laptop and ship them off to one of the pilot nations to train teachers or children how to use it. You get to play with it, the kids get someone to teach them, it's win, win right?
because it is one of those bullshit "hypothetical" questions that I really hate.. but hey, this is Slashdot, so what the hell. If I show up 6 months after the first government sale with $100,000,000 will the OLPC sell me some laptops? Or will they say "no, we don't want your money".. hmmm.. let me think about this.. hmm.. I'm pretty sure they'll take my money. They might say "we require you to guarantee us that these laptops will be used solely by children" and when I say no? Will they say "no dice" and walk away or will they say "ok, the price just went up $100 per unit".
If someone nice and rich out there really wants to buy these laptops for the first world, I think they can do it. Just don't go asking OLPC for 3 units "for my grandkids" for xmas next year.. cause that's not the way electronics manufacturers sell stuff.. they sell in bulk to retailers who add their markup, add postage and handling, etc.
Regarding the sig, you'll probably find some help understanding your hostility if you google "latent homosexuality" I work in corporate America dude, all my sexuality is required to be latent at all times.
PHP provides a means to access the fields of a form submit as strings.. not as integers.. not as dates.. not a html input boxes.. as strings. The default and common usage of accessing the fields of a form submit should require that you provide a type. Similarly, the default and common usage of accessing the fields of a form submit should do SQL escaping for you. If you find out you have a problem with that escaping, you should be able to turn it off... but the escaping should happen by default and should be built into the library call.
Way to totally miss the point. The purpose of introducing passwords to the MIT lab back in the early 80s wasn't to protect user's content from people hacking into the system over a network. The purpose of introducing passwords was to give administrators control over the use of the computers. It doesn't matter if today we have large networks and buffer overflows and the assumption that every machine contains confidential information. That wasn't the purpose of introducing passwords. That wasn't what RMS, and other hackers of his era, found offensive. The key message to take away from the password incident is that some people don't believe that the person sitting in front of the keyboard should have complete freedom to do whatever they want to do on the computer.. and some people do. If you want a modern version of this message, think about DRM on home computers. Or region coding on DVD players. A computer is a tool. The operator of that tool should have complete control over how it is used. If we don't have control over our tools, we can never be free.
Ya know, back when I was 11 years old, I would have given all my pocket money and done weeks and weeks of chores just to be able to write BASIC on one of these things. These kids, who have never even seen a computer before, will get to code in Python/Smalltalk, browse the web, talk to their neighbours, and write a blog..
I've actually had that happen. "Please stop talking" "You there, I said, stop talking." "That's it, you, leave my class." "Either you leave or I leave." "Ok, fine, that's it." The lecturer leaves the room, everyone stands up and calls the dude who refused to leave an asshole.
No, they're not. They get paid to create coursework and present it. Rude and inconsiderate people sometimes interrupt those presentations and are asked to leave.
Frankly, I don't think you need "teachers" anymore. Schools should be a place for responsible young adults to meet and study together. A teacher's job should be the creation of course work and reading lists to direct students' study in the direction of that knowledge that will be tested on the exam. And the exams should actually test knowledge, not memorization, by being practical, interactive and hands on. And yeah, if young adults can't see the point of "all this school stuff", let em go get a job. When they find they can't get a job or that all the good jobs require schooling, they'll be back. The whole "I know better than you, so you can't leave the school grounds during 9 to 3" is just absurd for anyone over 12 years old.
The purpose of an undergraduate degree is to give you a base of knowledge that you can build upon in a post-graduate degree, or in industry. If you wanna just "know stuff", go read a book, you don't need a university to help you.
It all comes down to treating young adults as children. Where I live, the last two years of high school are optional. As such, any bad behaviour on behalf of students is met with one response from teachers "You're not required to be here and I'm not required to teach you anymore, so if you wanna act like a jerk, get out." Personally, I don't think it goes far enough. At university, they would be saying "I'm not here to teach you. I'm here to provide the information you need for the exam. If you think you can pass the exam without listening to me, you're welcome to leave." This is exactly how schools should be run. The kids that fail their exams should be required to repeat their classes. If they continue to fail, they should be kicked out. The world will always need ditch diggers.
Slashdot Mirror
I laugh at people who think you can create a standard before any experimentation has occurred.. as if a committee can create anything remotely good. Competing APIs are competing for a reason.. people have different ideas about what is the best way of doing something. Only after a clear winner has been decided for a particular subset of the API can you standardize that subset. The alternative is the "standard" of monopoly.. you get what you are given and to hell with what is better. This is why the win32 api is so horrid.
Besides which, you're the one that changed this from being a discussion about open platforms like Linux, to being a discussion about APIs. The whole discussion is about having an open market for services. This is confusing to IT consumers because they've never had it before, so they moan about not knowing where to go to get support or who to find responsible if something is broken - the kind of things you don't need to think about when you're used to dealing with monopoly providers. To these people I say: get used to it.. because the advantages of having an open market over a monopoly is worth it.
That's what Apple is doing right now. If you don't want to read about Apple, turn off that category.
Yeah, and dealing with competition is just so hard. I don't want a market economy. Someone please look after me.
Go watch "who killed the electric car?" GM is the bad guy.
so we can drive around town on full electric and we can fill up on gas when we go on long trips. Stop *telling* us we want hydrogen cars.
Well I'm glad I inspired you. You should go get involved, talk to some people in charge, etc. If they don't already have a program for this sort of thing, I'm sure you could get the necessary people interested and hook it up. I guarantee you that world vision and oxfam and the other third world charities have a shortage of IT trained volunteers.
how about we round up all these people who want to play with an OLPC laptop and ship them off to one of the pilot nations to train teachers or children how to use it. You get to play with it, the kids get someone to teach them, it's win, win right?
1000 aint shit. Try 500,000 at $250 each.
because it is one of those bullshit "hypothetical" questions that I really hate.. but hey, this is Slashdot, so what the hell. If I show up 6 months after the first government sale with $100,000,000 will the OLPC sell me some laptops? Or will they say "no, we don't want your money".. hmmm.. let me think about this.. hmm.. I'm pretty sure they'll take my money. They might say "we require you to guarantee us that these laptops will be used solely by children" and when I say no? Will they say "no dice" and walk away or will they say "ok, the price just went up $100 per unit".
If someone nice and rich out there really wants to buy these laptops for the first world, I think they can do it. Just don't go asking OLPC for 3 units "for my grandkids" for xmas next year.. cause that's not the way electronics manufacturers sell stuff.. they sell in bulk to retailers who add their markup, add postage and handling, etc.
DRM is the automatic enforcement of copyright (and then some).
Therefore DRM is also intrinsically distasteful.
QED.
PHP provides a means to access the fields of a form submit as strings.. not as integers.. not as dates.. not a html input boxes.. as strings. The default and common usage of accessing the fields of a form submit should require that you provide a type. Similarly, the default and common usage of accessing the fields of a form submit should do SQL escaping for you. If you find out you have a problem with that escaping, you should be able to turn it off... but the escaping should happen by default and should be built into the library call.
Yeah, no. You have no understanding of the history of the MIT lab.
Way to totally miss the point. The purpose of introducing passwords to the MIT lab back in the early 80s wasn't to protect user's content from people hacking into the system over a network. The purpose of introducing passwords was to give administrators control over the use of the computers. It doesn't matter if today we have large networks and buffer overflows and the assumption that every machine contains confidential information. That wasn't the purpose of introducing passwords. That wasn't what RMS, and other hackers of his era, found offensive. The key message to take away from the password incident is that some people don't believe that the person sitting in front of the keyboard should have complete freedom to do whatever they want to do on the computer.. and some people do. If you want a modern version of this message, think about DRM on home computers. Or region coding on DVD players. A computer is a tool. The operator of that tool should have complete control over how it is used. If we don't have control over our tools, we can never be free.
Ya know, back when I was 11 years old, I would have given all my pocket money and done weeks and weeks of chores just to be able to write BASIC on one of these things. These kids, who have never even seen a computer before, will get to code in Python/Smalltalk, browse the web, talk to their neighbours, and write a blog..
It comes with all the apps kids need to form open and interactive communities, and write applications for their own needs.
How about you judge them then instead of now and just say thank you now for doing the legal work to make you a great license in the first place.
I've actually had that happen. "Please stop talking" "You there, I said, stop talking." "That's it, you, leave my class." "Either you leave or I leave." "Ok, fine, that's it." The lecturer leaves the room, everyone stands up and calls the dude who refused to leave an asshole.
No, they're not. They get paid to create coursework and present it. Rude and inconsiderate people sometimes interrupt those presentations and are asked to leave.
Frankly, I don't think you need "teachers" anymore. Schools should be a place for responsible young adults to meet and study together. A teacher's job should be the creation of course work and reading lists to direct students' study in the direction of that knowledge that will be tested on the exam. And the exams should actually test knowledge, not memorization, by being practical, interactive and hands on. And yeah, if young adults can't see the point of "all this school stuff", let em go get a job. When they find they can't get a job or that all the good jobs require schooling, they'll be back. The whole "I know better than you, so you can't leave the school grounds during 9 to 3" is just absurd for anyone over 12 years old.
The purpose of an undergraduate degree is to give you a base of knowledge that you can build upon in a post-graduate degree, or in industry. If you wanna just "know stuff", go read a book, you don't need a university to help you.
It all comes down to treating young adults as children. Where I live, the last two years of high school are optional. As such, any bad behaviour on behalf of students is met with one response from teachers "You're not required to be here and I'm not required to teach you anymore, so if you wanna act like a jerk, get out." Personally, I don't think it goes far enough. At university, they would be saying "I'm not here to teach you. I'm here to provide the information you need for the exam. If you think you can pass the exam without listening to me, you're welcome to leave." This is exactly how schools should be run. The kids that fail their exams should be required to repeat their classes. If they continue to fail, they should be kicked out. The world will always need ditch diggers.
for giving everyone an equal opportunity to express themselves.
Maybe if teachers were more educators than prison wardens, kids would love them instead of hating them.
wow, someone who gets my commentary on british politicals, brilliant.
Time for another revolution boys.