$1.5 billion does seem a bit high. If I were the CEO of NewsCorp, I'd make YouTube a counteroffer: $1 billion, plus a tank full of sharks with laser beams.
Part of the problem is that projects suitable for newbie programmers are no longer interesting to those programmers. They've been brought up in a world of sophisticated graphics and they want to be able to produce the same very early in their learning process. That isn't possible for them, so they lose interest.
Not only is it not interesting to them, it's not necessary. When I first started learning computers, you couldn't do anything without doing some programming yourself. Computer magazines came with programs printed in them that we typed in by hand. Who wants to do that today with the Internets?
I would argue, though, that this "problem" isn't even a problem at all. Who cares if most people can't write computer programs? When cars first came out, they came in kits you had to put together and always tinker with. Now most people couldn't describe how an engine or transmission works. But really, who cares?
Only people who are interested in how cars work tinker with them. Only people who are interested in how computers work tinker with them. That's progress in my opinion, not a problem to be solved.
Even when downloaded, the file is in the uncommon.FLV format, which will need to be re-encoded to be played on any portable media player.
How long do you think it will be before that changes? It wasn't too long ago that there was no such thing as a portable native.mp3 player. If the format becomes popular, the hardware will support it. (Of course I still doubt that would hurt album sales, since the audio quality on YouTube is horrible.)
Plus the TSA people aren't going to put much creedance into something that dramatically increases their daily workload, but might catch one terrorist every decade.
The TSA already has various means of determining which passengers will be more thoroughly searched. This is simply another tool to be used in those heuristics. TFA says that this technology will enhance, not replace, existing technology.
Airport security already has a seemingly insurmountable task of finding the handful of bad guys out of those millions who travel. Every tool they can add to their arsenal to help in this job is a welcome one. But it's not like a false positive on one test automatically means you get a cavity search. So your theory that their workload will "dramatically increase" simply isn't correct.
And if it "only" catches one terrorist per decade, that's still a potential of hundreds or even thousands of lives saved, not to mention millions of dollars in lost revenue from people who cancel travel plans after planes blow up in the air because a terrorist figured out an ingenious new way to smuggle explosives on board.
In recent years we've seen numerical giants like 3/1/4, 6/6/6 and 1/2/3, but now really, what do any of us have to look forward to? Is our future dull and meaningless without cool numbers in dates? Oh the humanity of it all...
3/1/2104, 6/6/2106, and 1/2/2103. Humanity will be OK.
I think that something does need to be done about all of the misleading porn sites out there.
I couldn't agree with you more. For example, just the other day, I clicked on a link that said "Girl-on-Girl XXX Porn! Real Lesbian Sex!!", but I'm pretty sure it was just actresses playing lesbians. I mean, they were more interested in making sure their hair was out of the camera than they were in the other chick. What a ripoff!
And what's up with all these "Free Porn" sites that only have censored clips and then make you pay for the good stuff? Hello, Congress! Are you listening?!
I joined a local XP User Group in May of this year.
Desperation leads some people to do strange things.
I read that more along the lines of a meth users group. The kind where you have to stand up at the first meeting and admit in front of everyone, "my name is Kevin, and I'm a Windows XP user."
Why would you expect any different, not just from microsoft but from ANY company out to make money? Why make it easier to use your competitors' products?
Does your Ford come with an instructon book to tell you how to fit a Nissan engine? No it doesn't because there's no good business case for them to do that.
Because using your monopoly position to shut out competitors is called "anti-competitive behavior", is illegal, and has been getting Microsoft into lots of trouble lately.
Your attempt at an analogy with Ford/Nissan is completely irrelevant. An OS requires a computer to run on, while a vehicle is its own self-contained system. No, my Ford doesn't come with instructions on how to install a Nissan engine, but it also doesn't search my driveway for Nissans and disable them either.
A local entrepeneur... was distributing for free a CD with FireFox, Open Office, SpyBot, Gimp and Trillian.... he said he passes out about 200 CD's a day on Saturday and Sunday.... seems like a good way to make a bit of $$$ for a kid, and at the same time help spread the love
Not to rain on your rose-colored parade, but I bet 180 of those 200 CDs go straight to the trash or sit on a shelf and never get looked at again. Of the remaining 20, maybe half of those result in any one of those apps being actually being installed and maybe half of that end up being used on a regular basis. Maybe one of them actually sends the kid some money, but I think I'm being a bit generous with my numbers here.
Passing out CDs, Spread Firefox campaigns, NYT ads etc. are all great, but they can't compete with pre-installed, default software. People just don't have the inclination to try this stuff out and are too scared to fundamentally change the way their computer works. They don't connect the fact that their computer runs 10x worse than when they got it to the fact that they're using a horribly flawed web browser. Malware is something that "just happens" when you use the Internets.
The only way Firefox can continue to grow its market share is by OEMs installing it and setting it as the default. Maybe Google can help some in this arena to spend some cash to get OEMs to install Firefox (with Google homepage of course). Of course I'm not saying anything that Mitchel Baker et. al. don't already know, and my fingers are crossed that we'll continue to see such wins for Firefox in the future.
Pine may be nice for those of you who like a polished, modern interface, but I've found that it takes away too much flexibility for me.
That's why my email client is still telnet and has been for years. I speak SMTP and POP3 directly. Of course CRAM-MD5 logins can be a bit tricky sometimes but once you learn it becomes second nature.
I download music from the internet quite frequently, if I like the song I have downloaded I will usually buy the album if I don't like it I delete it, does this mean I am commiting a crime?
No, being full of BS isn't a crime. Sure ya delete 'em all. Sure.
Thanks for the email addresses. I will be writing a (polite) email to both these gentlemen, suggesting that in order to make reparations for wasting the time of the CentOS team, they should consider a donation to http://www.centos.org/donate/.
I've used CentOS for a couple years now to run various webservers. I've donated a couple times in the past, but this episode has just inspired me to send a little extra $$$ their way. Just seeing the sorts of things a successful FOSS project must put up with is making me feel generous today.
In fact, I'm also sending emails to Mr. Taylor at "citymgr@cityoftuttle.org" and the Mayor at "mayor@cityoftuttle.org" suggesting that in order to pay for the waste of time of the CentOS team in handling this, their town should make a donation as well to http://www.centos.org/donate/ .
Re:Summary gets anarchism wrong
on
Unusual Open Source
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Someone seriously needs to fix that site's FAQ. I honestly tried to figure out what "anarchism" means but instead left with a splitting headache.
If I were trying to make a FAQ as unreadable as possible, here are some techniques I would use:
Make the text as tiny as possible.
Make the onhover event for each paragraph set its text to be bold and bright blue. This has the added bonus of making all other text on the page jump around constantly.
Make each FAQ entry about a dozen paragraphs long, and filled with alternating italic and bold text and plenty of cross-references thrown in for good measure.
Seriously, the entire page screams "go away". Was this website developed via anarchy?
That's why we have database abstraction layers. There will never be a unified SQL syntax until all databases have exactly the same features.
A solution to this would be a standardized way to add nonstandard features, similar to mimetypes which begin with "x-". But don't hold your breath on that one.
Slashdot Mirror
$1.5 billion does seem a bit high. If I were the CEO of NewsCorp, I'd make YouTube a counteroffer: $1 billion, plus a tank full of sharks with laser beams.
Not only is it not interesting to them, it's not necessary. When I first started learning computers, you couldn't do anything without doing some programming yourself. Computer magazines came with programs printed in them that we typed in by hand. Who wants to do that today with the Internets?
I would argue, though, that this "problem" isn't even a problem at all. Who cares if most people can't write computer programs? When cars first came out, they came in kits you had to put together and always tinker with. Now most people couldn't describe how an engine or transmission works. But really, who cares?
Only people who are interested in how cars work tinker with them. Only people who are interested in how computers work tinker with them. That's progress in my opinion, not a problem to be solved.
If only we could harness the fusion potential of common household garbage, everyone knows it easily generates 1.21 gigawatts.
How long do you think it will be before that changes? It wasn't too long ago that there was no such thing as a portable native .mp3 player. If the format becomes popular, the hardware will support it. (Of course I still doubt that would hurt album sales, since the audio quality on YouTube is horrible.)
I dunno, but this talk of "mirrors" and "sponges" has me really confused. I wish they would describe it in simpler terms, such as trucks and tubes.
The TSA already has various means of determining which passengers will be more thoroughly searched. This is simply another tool to be used in those heuristics. TFA says that this technology will enhance, not replace, existing technology.
Airport security already has a seemingly insurmountable task of finding the handful of bad guys out of those millions who travel. Every tool they can add to their arsenal to help in this job is a welcome one. But it's not like a false positive on one test automatically means you get a cavity search. So your theory that their workload will "dramatically increase" simply isn't correct.
And if it "only" catches one terrorist per decade, that's still a potential of hundreds or even thousands of lives saved, not to mention millions of dollars in lost revenue from people who cancel travel plans after planes blow up in the air because a terrorist figured out an ingenious new way to smuggle explosives on board.
3/1/2104, 6/6/2106, and 1/2/2103. Humanity will be OK.
I couldn't agree with you more. For example, just the other day, I clicked on a link that said "Girl-on-Girl XXX Porn! Real Lesbian Sex!!", but I'm pretty sure it was just actresses playing lesbians. I mean, they were more interested in making sure their hair was out of the camera than they were in the other chick. What a ripoff!
And what's up with all these "Free Porn" sites that only have censored clips and then make you pay for the good stuff? Hello, Congress! Are you listening?!
Because using your monopoly position to shut out competitors is called "anti-competitive behavior", is illegal, and has been getting Microsoft into lots of trouble lately.
Your attempt at an analogy with Ford/Nissan is completely irrelevant. An OS requires a computer to run on, while a vehicle is its own self-contained system. No, my Ford doesn't come with instructions on how to install a Nissan engine, but it also doesn't search my driveway for Nissans and disable them either.
Not to rain on your rose-colored parade, but I bet 180 of those 200 CDs go straight to the trash or sit on a shelf and never get looked at again. Of the remaining 20, maybe half of those result in any one of those apps being actually being installed and maybe half of that end up being used on a regular basis. Maybe one of them actually sends the kid some money, but I think I'm being a bit generous with my numbers here.
Passing out CDs, Spread Firefox campaigns, NYT ads etc. are all great, but they can't compete with pre-installed, default software. People just don't have the inclination to try this stuff out and are too scared to fundamentally change the way their computer works. They don't connect the fact that their computer runs 10x worse than when they got it to the fact that they're using a horribly flawed web browser. Malware is something that "just happens" when you use the Internets.
The only way Firefox can continue to grow its market share is by OEMs installing it and setting it as the default. Maybe Google can help some in this arena to spend some cash to get OEMs to install Firefox (with Google homepage of course). Of course I'm not saying anything that Mitchel Baker et. al. don't already know, and my fingers are crossed that we'll continue to see such wins for Firefox in the future.
Henry's Python Programming Guide isn't nearly as funny as Monty's.
(wait for it...) *rim hat*
...to the term DMZ.
Pine may be nice for those of you who like a polished, modern interface, but I've found that it takes away too much flexibility for me.
That's why my email client is still telnet and has been for years. I speak SMTP and POP3 directly. Of course CRAM-MD5 logins can be a bit tricky sometimes but once you learn it becomes second nature.
No, being full of BS isn't a crime. Sure ya delete 'em all. Sure.
Thanks for the email addresses. I will be writing a (polite) email to both these gentlemen, suggesting that in order to make reparations for wasting the time of the CentOS team, they should consider a donation to http://www.centos.org/donate/.
I've used CentOS for a couple years now to run various webservers. I've donated a couple times in the past, but this episode has just inspired me to send a little extra $$$ their way. Just seeing the sorts of things a successful FOSS project must put up with is making me feel generous today.
In fact, I'm also sending emails to Mr. Taylor at "citymgr@cityoftuttle.org" and the Mayor at "mayor@cityoftuttle.org" suggesting that in order to pay for the waste of time of the CentOS team in handling this, their town should make a donation as well to http://www.centos.org/donate/ .
Someone seriously needs to fix that site's FAQ. I honestly tried to figure out what "anarchism" means but instead left with a splitting headache.
If I were trying to make a FAQ as unreadable as possible, here are some techniques I would use:
Seriously, the entire page screams "go away". Was this website developed via anarchy?
That's why we have database abstraction layers. There will never be a unified SQL syntax until all databases have exactly the same features.
A solution to this would be a standardized way to add nonstandard features, similar to mimetypes which begin with "x-". But don't hold your breath on that one.
"LAMP Lights the Way"?! Was Slashdot acquired by C|Net?
For the love of all that's holy, please drop the hackish high-school-newsletter headlines.
Yeah, it's all hilarious until the robot gets pissed and starts firing its lasers.
"Don't kick robots", that's my motto...
Considering the desktop browser is now free (as in beer) and the mobile browser isn't, I'd say that's a pretty safe assumption.
@ AC and Erebus: please post pictures of your handsome selves for comparison.
They would probably learn their lesson better if they had to call back everyone they had hassled and apologize.
http://news.com.com/Writing+the+fastest+code%2C+by +hand%2C+for+fun/2100-1022_3-5972844.html?tag=nefd .top