Let's hope that Frank Darabont has a better take on the book in the upcoming Fahrenheit 451 remix... Probably they should remake 1984 also; not because it was a bad movie -- I found it very good actually -- but because nowadays it seems that the only way to get a message across in this publicity saturated world is through massive propaganda. Oh, and a Brave New World film would be nice too.
But I doubt it that the people want to see this type of movies; most already know the problems and know they can do something about it, but are highly unorganized and unable to focus on a common objective (unless that objective affects their physical survival). And with the american patriotic -- I would call it idiotic -- outrage, I question if the government would allow such movies (I wonder at what temperature the movies burn).
---
The true patriot is the first to question the government.
It didn't matter much for me the ease of the FF7 game; it was the story.
You've got to admit, those Final Fantasy personages really get into you, and it's that "bound", helped by long hours of character and story development, between you and the characters that makes the games so impressive, altough the gameplay can become somewhat repetitive.
If you skip the story of any Final Fantasy, there isn't much left to enjoy.
Re:Actually a hack deterrent
on
Uplink
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
It is also not going to teach "Billy" how to hack.
Neither did movies like "Hackers" or "Matrix", nor books as "Neuromancer" or the like; but it boosted their curiosity on the theme. I'm guessing that some kids, after the completion of the game, are going to get curious and join some "hacking" (or at least denominate themselves as "hacking") channels on IRC or search for the keyword "hack" on some search engine. Some of these kids will get bored real easy and just quit, other's will persist and start learning some more advanced techniques. Of those that endure, some will use the little knowledge (as compared to the whole) that they possess to do something that might be called "bad" (defacing, deleting files, releasing worms, etc) and other's will probably use it for something more productive (call it "good" if you like), like coding some usefull aplication to help little poor old granny to cross the street without a big huge truck getting in her way (or on her either) or the likes. Some of these kids will probably get jobs in the area that they dedicated their youth, others won't.
But, those that get in the final stage, will always remember the movie/book/game/whatever that started the whole thing, for good or for bad.
Emacs, GCC, glibc and many others are the time and effort of many people, not just RMS.
Individually, each of the many developers did a very small part of the GNU/Linux. Collectively, they are the ones that produced the entire GNU/Linux (or, by your definition, it would be more in the likes of RMS/Linux). RMS is just a small part of the whole, even if a ratter important part.
Just where are they going to get qualified teachers? Or the money to pay them? Why don't they just provide a multi-boot system, where they can choose between RedHat and Windows? Why are they providing hardware and software to poor schools, when what they really need is food, books and better study places? How exactly is this compensating for the damages that they have done to friendly competition, to the other rival companies and to the development of technology? If this goes through, how exactly is this going to affect the U.S.A. economy? How will be the Microsoft's employees affected by this? And the IT in general?
Re:Are they really talking freedom, though?
on
Freedom or Power?
·
· Score: 1
Right now, we all have the freedom to choose open source solutions or to stay with closed source solutions. I'm not sure I am happy with someone exercising their power over the software industry and removing that choice by dictating that all software needs to be free.
And you still have that freedom; just don't use GPL. Use another license that fits your needs or create your own. That simple.
(sorry for the double post, I hit submit by mistake)
Re:Are they really talking freedom, though?
on
Freedom or Power?
·
· Score: 1
Right now, we all have the freedom to choose open source solutions or to stay with closed source solutions.
And you still do; just don't use GPL. Use another license that fits your needs or create your own. That simple.
Programs, like math formulas, like cooking recipies, like common sense, are generally useful technical information. They help advance society, and it's wrong for someone to deny that to people, just like it's wrong to deny people the ability to use common sense ideas and methods, (read: one click shopping) just like it's wrong to deny people to make use of information that can help them. (think of banning people from using calculus unless they paid a licensing fee)
Wrong? Yes, I agree. But can we implement these ideals on software licensing, thus (in a hypothetical situation) eviscerating commercial software? Absolutely no.
Even though I hate to admit it, we probably wouldn't have this huge computer culture if it wasn't for Microsoft and it's commercial software model. It was this model that initially provided many jobs for programmers and decent and easy to use software for the masses (I won't get into the much discussed fact that Microsoft blatantly used opposition and it's works, crushing them when they didn't need them anymore, preventing healthy competition in this way) and still provides. So you see, evolution also comes in other forms of licensing software, even though it is much more capitalistic and "wrong". Most open source coders rely entirely on non open source related jobs for survival, renegating open source as a fun hobbie and that's probably the way it will remain for an indefinite amount of time.
Open Source has it's place, but so does Closed Source.
Re:The freedom to swing your fist
on
Freedom or Power?
·
· Score: 2, Offtopic
Open Source's GPL itself requires a hierarchy to maintain it, although it was designed to fight a hierarchy.
In the immortal words of Eric Arthur Blair (better know as George Orwell):
"Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age; but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other."
If you want to change the hierarchy, change the human being.
Been there, done that... Usually it's just a bunch of guys/girls screaming about civil rights while people pass by thinking their just a bunch of drunken hippies.
Without mass publicity (by whatever means possible) there will never be awareness. And, of course, the big guns of information will never pass this kind of publicity. That's why some (wrongly) think that terrorism is a good way to raise awareness to a certain problem. However, they forget that the government is much more capable of counter-information and has much more trust from the general public than they can ever dream to gain.
Yes, the implementation of the theory of democracy on America has major errors compared to the original ideal, being one of the most dangerous to the people the high survival instincts of it's government (borned from the intellectual elite that the politics surrond themselves with and the gain of historical awareness that prevent history from repeating itself for the american government) that prevent any attempt of rebelion mostly through effective brainwash (television, radio, etc), secrecy of their acts and abuse of power, among others. So far, a government is only about self-preservation (happiness of the people means preservation of the ideals and the preachers of the ideals, for example), nothing more.
Welcome to 1985, where privacy is taken away much more discretly than in 1984 (since no one would allow this to go through if it was openly admited) and evil is in people who are "just doing their jobs". Big Brother is watching you...
How exactly can they assure that users of other countrys are not infected by "Magic Lantern"? How do they prevent infection of other government facilities? What if I use a custom, home made, encryption software? And let's not get started on how illegal (for now) this is...
If it is only one virus, chances are it isn't cross platform. But they can release more than one, exploiting different vulns in different platforms.
Anyways, I highly doubt any high-tech criminal will ever be stupid enough to be infected. This is just another case of the "good willing" government inducing a false sense of security through the very discret and highly political and "lawful" evisceration of privacy...
Microsoft wins big time with this. They may lose some money by providing computers and software, but they will win it all back in future upgrades. Plus, the way they do business stays intact, meaning that they will eventually get the money back and much more.
Anyways, this is good news to the Microsoft employees. At least they don't lose their jobs.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's hope that Frank Darabont has a better take on the book in the upcoming Fahrenheit 451 remix... Probably they should remake 1984 also; not because it was a bad movie -- I found it very good actually -- but because nowadays it seems that the only way to get a message across in this publicity saturated world is through massive propaganda. Oh, and a Brave New World film would be nice too.
But I doubt it that the people want to see this type of movies; most already know the problems and know they can do something about it, but are highly unorganized and unable to focus on a common objective (unless that objective affects their physical survival). And with the american patriotic -- I would call it idiotic -- outrage, I question if the government would allow such movies (I wonder at what temperature the movies burn).
---
The true patriot is the first to question the government.
And just think about how much time an average american spends in front of a television.
Humans don't care about productivity, but humanity does.
Wouldn't be funny if the companies product ended up ruining the company?
Only if you enjoy seeing some hundreds of people losing their jobs.
It didn't matter much for me the ease of the FF7 game; it was the story.
You've got to admit, those Final Fantasy personages really get into you, and it's that "bound", helped by long hours of character and story development, between you and the characters that makes the games so impressive, altough the gameplay can become somewhat repetitive.
If you skip the story of any Final Fantasy, there isn't much left to enjoy.
It is also not going to teach "Billy" how to hack.
Neither did movies like "Hackers" or "Matrix", nor books as "Neuromancer" or the like; but it boosted their curiosity on the theme. I'm guessing that some kids, after the completion of the game, are going to get curious and join some "hacking" (or at least denominate themselves as "hacking") channels on IRC or search for the keyword "hack" on some search engine. Some of these kids will get bored real easy and just quit, other's will persist and start learning some more advanced techniques. Of those that endure, some will use the little knowledge (as compared to the whole) that they possess to do something that might be called "bad" (defacing, deleting files, releasing worms, etc) and other's will probably use it for something more productive (call it "good" if you like), like coding some usefull aplication to help little poor old granny to cross the street without a big huge truck getting in her way (or on her either) or the likes. Some of these kids will probably get jobs in the area that they dedicated their youth, others won't.
But, those that get in the final stage, will always remember the movie/book/game/whatever that started the whole thing, for good or for bad.
Emacs, GCC, glibc and many others are the time and effort of many people, not just RMS.
Individually, each of the many developers did a very small part of the GNU/Linux. Collectively, they are the ones that produced the entire GNU/Linux (or, by your definition, it would be more in the likes of RMS/Linux). RMS is just a small part of the whole, even if a ratter important part.
Just where are they going to get qualified teachers? Or the money to pay them? Why don't they just provide a multi-boot system, where they can choose between RedHat and Windows? Why are they providing hardware and software to poor schools, when what they really need is food, books and better study places? How exactly is this compensating for the damages that they have done to friendly competition, to the other rival companies and to the development of technology? If this goes through, how exactly is this going to affect the U.S.A. economy? How will be the Microsoft's employees affected by this? And the IT in general?
Right now, we all have the freedom to choose open source solutions or to stay with closed source solutions. I'm not sure I am happy with someone exercising their power over the software industry and removing that choice by dictating that all software needs to be free.
And you still have that freedom; just don't use GPL. Use another license that fits your needs or create your own. That simple.
(sorry for the double post, I hit submit by mistake)
Right now, we all have the freedom to choose open source solutions or to stay with closed source solutions.
And you still do; just don't use GPL. Use another license that fits your needs or create your own. That simple.
Programs, like math formulas, like cooking recipies, like common sense, are generally useful technical information. They help advance society, and it's wrong for someone to deny that to people, just like it's wrong to deny people the ability to use common sense ideas and methods, (read: one click shopping) just like it's wrong to deny people to make use of information that can help them. (think of banning people from using calculus unless they paid a licensing fee)
Wrong? Yes, I agree. But can we implement these ideals on software licensing, thus (in a hypothetical situation) eviscerating commercial software? Absolutely no.
Even though I hate to admit it, we probably wouldn't have this huge computer culture if it wasn't for Microsoft and it's commercial software model. It was this model that initially provided many jobs for programmers and decent and easy to use software for the masses (I won't get into the much discussed fact that Microsoft blatantly used opposition and it's works, crushing them when they didn't need them anymore, preventing healthy competition in this way) and still provides. So you see, evolution also comes in other forms of licensing software, even though it is much more capitalistic and "wrong". Most open source coders rely entirely on non open source related jobs for survival, renegating open source as a fun hobbie and that's probably the way it will remain for an indefinite amount of time.
Open Source has it's place, but so does Closed Source.
Open Source's GPL itself requires a hierarchy to maintain it, although it was designed to fight a hierarchy.
In the immortal words of Eric Arthur Blair (better know as George Orwell):
"Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age; but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other."
If you want to change the hierarchy, change the human being.
Been there, done that... Usually it's just a bunch of guys/girls screaming about civil rights while people pass by thinking their just a bunch of drunken hippies.
Without mass publicity (by whatever means possible) there will never be awareness. And, of course, the big guns of information will never pass this kind of publicity. That's why some (wrongly) think that terrorism is a good way to raise awareness to a certain problem. However, they forget that the government is much more capable of counter-information and has much more trust from the general public than they can ever dream to gain.
Yes, the implementation of the theory of democracy on America has major errors compared to the original ideal, being one of the most dangerous to the people the high survival instincts of it's government (borned from the intellectual elite that the politics surrond themselves with and the gain of historical awareness that prevent history from repeating itself for the american government) that prevent any attempt of rebelion mostly through effective brainwash (television, radio, etc), secrecy of their acts and abuse of power, among others. So far, a government is only about self-preservation (happiness of the people means preservation of the ideals and the preachers of the ideals, for example), nothing more.
Welcome to 1985, where privacy is taken away much more discretly than in 1984 (since no one would allow this to go through if it was openly admited) and evil is in people who are "just doing their jobs". Big Brother is watching you...
How exactly can they assure that users of other countrys are not infected by "Magic Lantern"? How do they prevent infection of other government facilities? What if I use a custom, home made, encryption software? And let's not get started on how illegal (for now) this is...
It obviously couldn't be cross-platform either.
If it is only one virus, chances are it isn't cross platform. But they can release more than one, exploiting different vulns in different platforms.
Anyways, I highly doubt any high-tech criminal will ever be stupid enough to be infected. This is just another case of the "good willing" government inducing a false sense of security through the very discret and highly political and "lawful" evisceration of privacy...
Microsoft wins big time with this. They may lose some money by providing computers and software, but they will win it all back in future upgrades. Plus, the way they do business stays intact, meaning that they will eventually get the money back and much more.
Anyways, this is good news to the Microsoft employees. At least they don't lose their jobs.