You are right but what you have identified is a problem. That problem is IMO the lack of independent thought. Anonimity gives non-independent thinkers a problem. They don't know who to trust and they fuck up all the time. This will eventually (if it is not "solved" by some other means) force independent thought which is a good outcome in itself.
I'm personally glad about all this. I don't understand why you see it as a problem.
If people keep spreading lies (which they will) then the outcome will be that people recieving advice get fed up with it and will actually have to think for themselves a bit and make a few checks instead of blindly soldiering on doing what they have been told by someone just because they sounded authoritative at the time.
This is a good thing; it will encourage independent thinking.
Who knows.. once people stop blindly believing rambling idiots and learn to think for themselves, maybe they will start to question some of the more experienced liars around on the internet. You know who I mean. The ones who ARE who they say they are, but because of their popularity, idiots just blindly believe everything they say as well.
No. This is not a problem. It is part of the solution to one.
The kind of bandwidth apps use today amazes me when I think that only a few years ago when I was at university, us irc users we're constantly moaned at for hogging all the bandwidth.
I wonder if we will ever reach a point where no (ab)use of available bandwidth will be criticised simply because it will hardly even be noticable?
No, you're not missing anything. At LAST! somebody who understands the importance of proper abstraction. The mistake, it seems is not one by nvidia or ati, but Microsoft. If directx was designed soundly it should be possible for the card manufacturers to both support the same API versions.
I was getting worried - the majority of posters so far seem to be nutcases.
I was going to buy the first edition some time ago, but I couldn't find it in the local book store and I don't like to buy books of this nature without having a quick read first.
The online availability of this edition solves this for me. I spent 10 minutes reading the html version before I realised its exactly the book I need, and the next five minutes ordering it online.
Well done the authors and may you sell many more copies for having the insight to make it freely available online.
Its not about how often I will need to modify it, but how often anyone will. And you can bet someone will, and they might release a patch that I can use. It's not neccesarily intuitive, but this is why free software works! The cathedral and the bazaar, remember?
If only companies were less scared of giving their users some control over the code they buy, we could all benefit. (yes, that includes Borland)
When was the last time you modified gcc and redistributed your own version?
I modified it today.
I have never distrubited my own version, but if my patch was any use at all to anyone except me, I would want to distribute it.
In any case, you are missing my point. The right to do something is important whether or not you exercise that right. I have never modified the linux kernel, but if I didn't have the right to, then others would not have that right either and they are the ones that need it for ME to have better kernels released.
Borland are a business, the "gcc team and many others" are not.
Do you think the team work in just their spare time? Go and find out who the major contributers are and look up who they work for. Then tell me it's not a business.
you don't have the right to make the same decision on Borland's behalf
I'm not trying to. I'm saying I don't want them deciding what license I use. There was no suggestion from me they Borland should release THEIR code under the LGPL.
What if I wish to modify and redistribute my own version of kylix? I have paid for it and I still don't even have a copy of the source, let alone the right to modify and redistribute it.
Why should Borland devote their time and money developing tools to allow you to produce closed-source software without paying a penny for the privilege?
For exactly the same reasons that the GCC team and many others do, perhaps?
And don't give me that "but I want to produce BSD-licensed software"
What about "but I want to produce LGPL-licensed code" ??
> Why on Earth would I want to run Linux on my PS2?
Just off the top of my head, I would say there is a lot you can do. eg, many open source linux games can now be ported to the PS much more easily since all the neccesary linux libs etc will be available.
Also off the top of my head: With just linux, a framebuffer driver for the PS, an opendivx codec and a bit of work, it shouldn't be too hard to get a bootable linux based cd whose sole purpose is to play back the divx thats also recorded to the cd. In other words, an alternative to DVD that plays on any PS and is easily copied and distributed. This would be ideal for people wanting to send copies of their summer party video to their friends, none of whom own a pc, but all who have playstations.
When someone says that linux runs on the PS, don't automatically think that they are talking about a complete GNU/Linux system together with all the usual shells and servers etc. That will probably not be the case. I expect a bootable linux CD could be set up to go straight into a game from init. The user may not even know they were running linux at all.
This could be the start of lots of free-software games releases ported to the PS.
How can a license "try" to "infect" things? Does it have a mind of its own?
and "Forced infectious freedom?" who is forcing you to release your code under the GPL exactly?
I agree with you about the market forces choosing, but thats exactly what IS happening NOW! and they seem to favour the GPL over *BSD style licences so far judging by the rate of code released under each.
Now that I have disagreed with most of what you said, I must add that I personally prefer BSD style licenses for my own code but I am respectful of the choice of others (and yes it was a choice, dont give me any more of that "viral" crap) to use the GNU GPL, often because of their distrust of many large corporations who might "steal" their code otherwise.
If I had not been bought that zx spectrum when I was about 9 years old, there is no way I would be employed as a programmer today - and I really mean that. I have had no formal computing education (frankly, it seemed boring as a school subject - I preferred maths and physics acadamically) and most of the basic knowledge that I built upon later came from experimenting with zx basic and z80 assembler.
I have to say though that I certainly do not believe that computers made me more intelligent, but rather they provided something constructive and rewarding for me to apply my intelligence to. To the untrained eye, that could look very much like it increased my intelligence, but the two are very different.
Along the same lines, I have been thinking for a while about a single simple API with multiple backends so you can write an app once and it will either target curses, gtk+, qt, win32 etc.
Obviously I'm talking about seriously simple GUIs here with nothing much more than a few input fields and some validation. No cross-widget realtime updating or drag & drop etc.
Maybe it wouldn't be much use to most ppl, but these are often the kind of simple apps I find myself writing. I think configuration tools would be a good example that could gain from this. (also, I have just thought, how about a HTML backend !?)
I guess my point is that people seem to be choosing ever growing widget sets and committing themselves to an API which is often way more complex than they need. If some ultra-simple, multi-targetted API was available people might run your app in future in ways you didn't possibly imagine.
Maybe I'll start designing it myself some time soon....
I got sick of my video collection, which is all VHS because each video is so big. I have started to convert some of them to VCDs. This means I can have the convenience of the smaller size, and I don't have to worry about when my video recorder finally breaks down. (also, who knows how much longer VHS recorders will be available)
I can only do this because their is no content scrambling system on VHS.
What happens in 10 years when I have built up a collection of hundreds of DVD movies and I want to copy them to another new format for similar reasons? (eg, my new portable movie player that I can take on planes with me and carries 100+ movies at once)
I'll tell you what happens. I use DeCSS to remove the stupid scrambling system and I copy it to the other medium in question. If someone would like to explain how thats not fair use, I'm listening.
claiming the research paper is a circumvention device
NO!
The paper is (among other things) a description of how to go about making a circumvention device. Not a device in itself. Big difference. cf. "bombs" vs "list of bomb ingredients."
I agree actually, but some would say if you're the kind of person that turns kernel options on and off without reading all the text first and understanding all of it then you shouldn't be turning kernel options on and off - leave it to the distributions (who afaik all have ecn off by default)
Also, have you submitted a patch to fix the documentation?
home made bombs can kill a classroom. whats more the attacker doesnt even have to be there the time. what do you want to do? ban all household chemicals which could possibly be used to make a bomb?
The examples you gave are the conditioning of an individual to behave in a certain way because they see others behaving the same way.
Using your examples of muslim women and swearing etc, people behave that way because people around them behave that way.
Quite how you link playing a game with violence in it to actual violence is unclear. Muslims don't respect women more because they played a game about respecting women. Kids dont kill people because they played a game about it either.
If however, kids say others killing people in real life that would of course make them more likely to copy that behaviour.
Here's another example:
If the people a kid spends most of their time with (ie, parents) clearly demonstrate that they don't give a fuck about the kid then that conditioning will teach the child to behave in the same way to others. In extreme cases this can easliy end up with somebody getting shot. I expect when that heppend the parents would know deep down that it was their fault, but probably live in denial and try to blame others and convince the world it wasn't them via the publicity of a lawsuit against games companies.
I have seen that link made also, but I don't see it. A manifesto is simply a declaration of principles. I fail to see how someone who declares their principles now is somehow comminust simply because they use the same english word that Marx used when he declared his.
And "quite a few similarities" doesn't convince me either. What similarities?
Communism and capitalism don't mix (hence the failure of a capitalist firm in the world of Linux)
Not this crap again!!
Linux is successful because of its openness via the GPL. This is possible under any system of government that permits copyright protection. (required for the GPL to work)
How exactly then is linux communist?
I am sick of this pathetic non-sensical connection between people choosing to release something with a liberal license and communism. Change the fucking record or else say something new to qualify this nonsense.
Slashdot Mirror
You are right but what you have identified is a problem. That problem is IMO the lack of independent thought. Anonimity gives non-independent thinkers a problem. They don't know who to trust and they fuck up all the time. This will eventually (if it is not "solved" by some other means) force independent thought which is a good outcome in itself.
I'm personally glad about all this. I don't understand why you see it as a problem.
If people keep spreading lies (which they will) then the outcome will be that people recieving advice get fed up with it and will actually have to think for themselves a bit and make a few checks instead of blindly soldiering on doing what they have been told by someone just because they sounded authoritative at the time.
This is a good thing; it will encourage independent thinking.
Who knows.. once people stop blindly believing rambling idiots and learn to think for themselves, maybe they will start to question some of the more experienced liars around on the internet. You know who I mean. The ones who ARE who they say they are, but because of their popularity, idiots just blindly believe everything they say as well.
No. This is not a problem. It is part of the solution to one.
"take a stand" and "workplace monitoring" are both fairly vague terms. I believe this is NOT sensationalism and that what was said was correct.
If anything it was perhaps overly ambiguous or too vague, but correct nontheless IMO.
The kind of bandwidth apps use today amazes me when I think that only a few years ago when I was at university, us irc users we're constantly moaned at for hogging all the bandwidth.
I wonder if we will ever reach a point where no (ab)use of available bandwidth will be criticised simply because it will hardly even be noticable?
... to name but a few.
Where are they?
That list looked more to me like the best games in the last 10 years, not of all time.
No, you're not missing anything. At LAST! somebody who understands the importance of proper abstraction. The mistake, it seems is not one by nvidia or ati, but Microsoft. If directx was designed soundly it should be possible for the card manufacturers to both support the same API versions.
I was getting worried - the majority of posters so far seem to be nutcases.
the set is descrete. they are a string of integers.
I was going to buy the first edition some time ago, but I couldn't find it in the local book store and I don't like to buy books of this nature without having a quick read first.
The online availability of this edition solves this for me. I spent 10 minutes reading the html version before I realised its exactly the book I need, and the next five minutes ordering it online.
Well done the authors and may you sell many more copies for having the insight to make it freely available online.
Its not about how often I will need to modify it, but how often anyone will. And you can bet someone will, and they might release a patch that I can use. It's not neccesarily intuitive, but this is why free software works! The cathedral and the bazaar, remember?
If only companies were less scared of giving their users some control over the code they buy, we could all benefit. (yes, that includes Borland)
When was the last time you modified gcc and redistributed your own version?
I modified it today.
I have never distrubited my own version, but if my patch was any use at all to anyone except me, I would want to distribute it.
In any case, you are missing my point. The right to do something is important whether or not you exercise that right. I have never modified the linux kernel, but if I didn't have the right to, then others would not have that right either and they are the ones that need it for ME to have better kernels released.
Borland are a business, the "gcc team and many others" are not.
Do you think the team work in just their spare time? Go and find out who the major contributers are and look up who they work for. Then tell me it's not a business.
you don't have the right to make the same decision on Borland's behalf
I'm not trying to. I'm saying I don't want them deciding what license I use. There was no suggestion from me they Borland should release THEIR code under the LGPL.
"you can do what you wish" ?!?!
Hardly.
What if I wish to modify and redistribute my own version of kylix? I have paid for it and I still don't even have a copy of the source, let alone the right to modify and redistribute it.
No thanks, I think I'll stick with gcc.
Why should Borland devote their time and money developing tools to allow you to produce closed-source software without paying a penny for the privilege?
For exactly the same reasons that the GCC team and many others do, perhaps?
And don't give me that "but I want to produce BSD-licensed software"
What about "but I want to produce LGPL-licensed code" ??
> Why on Earth would I want to run Linux on my PS2?
Just off the top of my head, I would say there is a lot you can do. eg, many open source linux games can now be ported to the PS much more easily since all the neccesary linux libs etc will be available.
Also off the top of my head: With just linux, a framebuffer driver for the PS, an opendivx codec and a bit of work, it shouldn't be too hard to get a bootable linux based cd whose sole purpose is to play back the divx thats also recorded to the cd. In other words, an alternative to DVD that plays on any PS and is easily copied and distributed. This would be ideal for people wanting to send copies of their summer party video to their friends, none of whom own a pc, but all who have playstations.
When someone says that linux runs on the PS, don't automatically think that they are talking about a complete GNU/Linux system together with all the usual shells and servers etc. That will probably not be the case. I expect a bootable linux CD could be set up to go straight into a game from init. The user may not even know they were running linux at all.
This could be the start of lots of free-software games releases ported to the PS.
*sigh*
How can a license "try" to "infect" things? Does it have a mind of its own?
and "Forced infectious freedom?" who is forcing you to release your code under the GPL exactly?
I agree with you about the market forces choosing, but thats exactly what IS happening NOW! and they seem to favour the GPL over *BSD style licences so far judging by the rate of code released under each.
Now that I have disagreed with most of what you said, I must add that I personally prefer BSD style licenses for my own code but I am respectful of the choice of others (and yes it was a choice, dont give me any more of that "viral" crap) to use the GNU GPL, often because of their distrust of many large corporations who might "steal" their code otherwise.
If I had not been bought that zx spectrum when I was about 9 years old, there is no way I would be employed as a programmer today - and I really mean that. I have had no formal computing education (frankly, it seemed boring as a school subject - I preferred maths and physics acadamically) and most of the basic knowledge that I built upon later came from experimenting with zx basic and z80 assembler.
I have to say though that I certainly do not believe that computers made me more intelligent, but rather they provided something constructive and rewarding for me to apply my intelligence to. To the untrained eye, that could look very much like it increased my intelligence, but the two are very different.
Along the same lines, I have been thinking for a while about a single simple API with multiple backends so you can write an app once and it will either target curses, gtk+, qt, win32 etc.
Obviously I'm talking about seriously simple GUIs here with nothing much more than a few input fields and some validation. No cross-widget realtime updating or drag & drop etc.
Maybe it wouldn't be much use to most ppl, but these are often the kind of simple apps I find myself writing. I think configuration tools would be a good example that could gain from this. (also, I have just thought, how about a HTML backend !?)
I guess my point is that people seem to be choosing ever growing widget sets and committing themselves to an API which is often way more complex than they need. If some ultra-simple, multi-targetted API was available people might run your app in future in ways you didn't possibly imagine.
Maybe I'll start designing it myself some time soon....
It depends where "here" is. You could have been a bit more specific. What continent/country/county/state do you live in?
I got sick of my video collection, which is all VHS because each video is so big. I have started to convert some of them to VCDs. This means I can have the convenience of the smaller size, and I don't have to worry about when my video recorder finally breaks down. (also, who knows how much longer VHS recorders will be available)
I can only do this because their is no content scrambling system on VHS.
What happens in 10 years when I have built up a collection of hundreds of DVD movies and I want to copy them to another new format for similar reasons? (eg, my new portable movie player that I can take on planes with me and carries 100+ movies at once)
I'll tell you what happens. I use DeCSS to remove the stupid scrambling system and I copy it to the other medium in question. If someone would like to explain how thats not fair use, I'm listening.
claiming the research paper is a circumvention device
NO!
The paper is (among other things) a description of how to go about making a circumvention device. Not a device in itself. Big difference. cf. "bombs" vs "list of bomb ingredients."
I agree actually, but some would say if you're the kind of person that turns kernel options on and off without reading all the text first and understanding all of it then you shouldn't be turning kernel options on and off - leave it to the distributions (who afaik all have ecn off by default)
Also, have you submitted a patch to fix the documentation?
home made bombs can kill a classroom. whats more the attacker doesnt even have to be there the time. what do you want to do? ban all household chemicals which could possibly be used to make a bomb?
You seem to be confusing games with reality.
The examples you gave are the conditioning of an individual to behave in a certain way because they see others behaving the same way.
Using your examples of muslim women and swearing etc, people behave that way because people around them behave that way.
Quite how you link playing a game with violence in it to actual violence is unclear. Muslims don't respect women more because they played a game about respecting women. Kids dont kill people because they played a game about it either.
If however, kids say others killing people in real life that would of course make them more likely to copy that behaviour.
Here's another example:
If the people a kid spends most of their time with (ie, parents) clearly demonstrate that they don't give a fuck about the kid then that conditioning will teach the child to behave in the same way to others. In extreme cases this can easliy end up with somebody getting shot. I expect when that heppend the parents would know deep down that it was their fault, but probably live in denial and try to blame others and convince the world it wasn't them via the publicity of a lawsuit against games companies.
I have seen that link made also, but I don't see it. A manifesto is simply a declaration of principles. I fail to see how someone who declares their principles now is somehow comminust simply because they use the same english word that Marx used when he declared his.
And "quite a few similarities" doesn't convince me either. What similarities?
Communism and capitalism don't mix (hence the failure of a capitalist firm in the world of Linux)
Not this crap again!!
Linux is successful because of its openness via the GPL. This is possible under any system of government that permits copyright protection. (required for the GPL to work)
How exactly then is linux communist?
I am sick of this pathetic non-sensical connection between people choosing to release something with a liberal license and communism. Change the fucking record or else say something new to qualify this nonsense.