If one state representative, now a congressman, is responsible for this, lets kick him out first before we go through out the baby with the bath water.
this is hardly journalism. www.therawstory.com is obviously a left wing biased publication and I would not trust it further than I would Rush Limbaugh's website. However, there needs to be a full investigation. I would like to see a little more than one person's testimony befor curcifying this guy. If the request for developing this software took place in a meeting, who else was there and what do they have to say about this?
It is a super small alien space ship manned by super intelligent aliens no bigger than ants. They failed to judge their trajecotry correctly and slammed into the lamp post on the pier.
Let us all bow our heads in silence as we remember these small but brave travelers.
I think you got my idea wrong. For one thing, the first thing we should be doing is looking for ways to commercially exploit space. Mining on the moon jumps to mind right away as a possibility. Manufacturing in microgravity also comes to mind. There are a number of companies that are used to spending years if not decades to see results from thier efforts a good example is pharamecutical companies. This is also where the government can help subsidize the work.
No, companies are not going to be able to work on space if there is no return foreable in the moderately near future ( 10 years, let's say ).
Perhaps, the technology is not at a level that would allow industry to exploit space in a reasonable time frame, but some day the lead will need to pass from the government to private industry. A great example is in the taming of the west: First Louis and Clark were commissioned by governemnt to explore the west. Similarly the Apallo and SpaceShuttle missions of the last few decades have been funded by government. But then it was the railroad companies that really opened up the west by building a railroad. If I am not mistaken, the railroad companies got various forms of help from the government, and that is the sort of model I am advocating.
I have mixed feelings about this sort of funding. Personally, I think if the governement wants to help spur space exploration it should spend some of that money in funding incentives to coperations to engage in space related industries. Something similar to the X Prize for various accomplishments. NASA has done some amazing things and they should be applauded but I think it is time for them to take a more sheperding role.
What's next, shut down access to book 'cause people might read controvesial ideas? Start reading the mail so that we can make sure no one is talking about ideas we don't like? Jam all radio transmissions to make sure no one is communicating anything we don't agree with?
I think this will only be true for shops that would have choosen Solaris anyway. The draw of open source is more than just cheap software. It has to do with familiarity and the availability of expert administratiors, developers, etc. Solaris will still have the same number of developers and, especially, administrators for awhile.
"Whether solar activity is a dominant influence in these [climate] changes is a subject of intense debate," says Paula Reimer, a researcher at Queen's University Belfast who wrote an analysis of the new study for Nature. Why? Because "the exact relationship of solar irradiance to sunspot number is still uncertain."
This is exactly my point. We don't know enough to go taking the kind of hit this treaty would cause to our economy.
I am suggesting that while we should take measures that will reduce the output of greenhouse gasses, which we are doing, we should not sign on to an unfair treaty that puts us at such a dissadvantage to the "developing" nations like China without extremly hard scientific evidence. The fact that there is still debate and new information is becomming available means that the question has not been answered to the level required, in my opinion.
then it would be a good thing that we did not sign on to this restrictive treaty. Some data is suggesting that the other planets in our solar system are experiencing global warming. Could this be due to a cyclical increase in the output of the Sun? I know, that many scientists are not convinced that the sun's warming cycle could cause all of the warming that we have seen, but this new information needs to be taken into account.
It all really depends on your application. Database independence should only be a goal if you may want to deploy on another database. If, however, you are constructing an applications that will only be used internally and your corp has already made a huge investment in one database or another then you should use the db to it's fullest capability.
could be the answer. The problem Sowell points out stems, I think, from the mindset of the average software engineer. Put Simply: "If you want to do something new, add a function to do it once, and then you can use that whenever you need to do that again." This is an extreemly powerful concept that when extrapolated and compined with other ideas results in Component/Object orriented designs, modularity, and code reuse. The problem is that average people don't think that way.
The idea that open source can fill this bill is laughable. Not that I am against open source. And I encourage them to give it a try, which I am sure they are, but I have not seen a single truely innovative UI out of an open source product yet.
The fact is, UI design is not easy and it should not be left up to amatuers. And yes, most software engineers are amatuers when it comes to UI design. In fact most of the top developer's I know admit that they suck at UI design and look forward to input from someone with that particular skill. That is not to say that engineers are incapable of good UI design, they just need a completely different set of skills from what they use in thier normal design and programming duties.
A good UI designer would need programming skills, creative skills, a knowledge of ergonomics, and an understaning of how people want to use the product. This is best discovered through a process at least similar to the Use Case process.
I am not expert on optics or resolving power but I am thinking that the distances involved are very important here. The reason that slight fluctuations caused by the atmosphere is so important to astronomers is that they are trying to view things that are 1 - 1 Billion light-years away whereas satillite imagery is looking at things that are a mere 200 miles away. Big difference.
Again, this is another example of the lack of critical thinking. The only people in this society that are truely trained to think critically are scientists with post-gradulate degrees. I am an amatuer compared to them and it shows. We need to get this training done at a much lower level in the education system. Kindergarten maybe?:)
No one ever said it did. However, it is the burden of the claimant to present the evidince. I can't remember who exactly said this first but it is a favorite maxim of James Randi: Extrodinary claims require extrodinary evidence.
I don't know how you can tie in Ron Brown's death and critical thinking. The truth is that if there was good evidence of foul play the opposite side would jump on it.
True, critical thinking would be very useful in examining the claims and policies of our elected officials. Is Bush really responsible for the, so called, jobless recovery? Are the Bush tax cuts really the cause of the recent econimic upturn? Both sides make claims that need to be examined with the light of reason but most people will fail to do so and just pick the side they already believe is right.
This is precisely what I ment when I said that muddy headed thinking is responsible for most of the world's ills. People are stupid and will believe things either because they wish them to be true or because they fear them to be true ( that is not mine, it is Terry Goodkind's).
I never said that it did not work. It probably does but it is also very dangerous for people with respritory problems. The sellers of this ozone generating product made outrageous health claims and would tell people that it was completely safe even at it's highest setting. That is where the psuedo science comes in.
I have to agree. That book actually changed my life. Before reading The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark I was still holding out hope for the UFOs in Roswell and the face on mars. The stories always made me a little uneasy about the evidence but I still tought, wouldn't it be neat if it were true. After reading the book I came to the conclusion that the universe without UFOs and Faces on Mars was still really neat. In fact, it is down right facinating.
... not just facts and figures. The thing that people need are active BS detectors. This article hits that point right on the head.
The trouble with psuedo-science is that it sounds good to the untrained mind. But the thing I love the most is when a purveyor of psuedo science says the me something like, "You need to be more open minded to understand this". I have a relative that was trying to sell me a "Ozone Generator" and air purifier ( filter ) for my home. I had one of these units in my home as a trial ( I paid no money ). I checked out the supposed "science" behind the device and found that there was ample evidence that high concentrations of ozone are actually dangerous to people especially asthmatics. Since my wife has had asthma in the past, I became very concerned. I called my relative and told him I would be returning the device and that he should think twice about making outrageous unsubstatiated claims of scientific evidence where none existed. He had the gall to tell me I would understand the "science" if I were more "open minded".
It is muddy headed thinking like that that results in most of the worlds troubles.
The WINE web site goes a long way towards making the case for the API solution. Obviously, the VM solution seems to be easier to accomplish, would a hybrid solution give us a better result?
I am sorry to break this to you, but DeVry has a really bad reputation in the engineering community. I, personally, would never hire a DeVry graduate without some really glowing referals from someone I know and trust and niether would most of the engineers I know. I have worked with a few DeVry grads and not one of them demonstrated the skills to really do well in programming.
To be fair, that does not mean that you are like those people I have worked with and I may have been extremly unlucky in the samples that I have encountered.
The SCIENCE of programming requires math. The art of programming may not. There is a distinction. That is why the lawyer in the next office over from me was able to put together a fairly good system to manaage his office and case load in a 5GL but couldn't truley understand the difference between a quick sort and a bubble sort.
Of course, almost no one writes sorting algorithms any more. If you are writing a program that utilizes mathmatics to accomplish a goal ( e.g. the matrix algebra used in 3D graphics development ) it is not the programming that requires the math it is the problem space. The thing to remember is that, in a way, when you are studying computer science you are not learning how to program you are learning how to learn to program. Now and Information Systems degree would be more about learning to program and leaving it at that.
I can't believe Microsoft would be behind this sort of thing. They would probably fail any security certification process today.
I read the summary and it seems that they are not asking for any more than incentives and government sponsership of industry certification bodies.
I wonder what the ramifications for adoption of OpenSource technology could be. The OpenSource community will have to lobby hard to make sure the requirements will not put a financial burden on software development. One solution would be for the companies makeing money by supporting OpenSource software to pay for certifyting the software and then they could benifit from the certification as a marketing advantage.
It's the same reason Fox News and the Israelis call Palestinian bombers "homicide bombers" instead of the more accepted term "suicide bomber".
This is totally off topic, but in what twisted reality is it considered more acceptable to give these murderers some kind of credit by calling them "suicide bomber" instead of "homicide bomber"? I say call things what they are. The people are murderers, so call them that. The people who "file share" are thieves, so call them that.
"This is our first co-ordinated effort to take this campaign over the range of countries where file stealing is a problem," said Allen Dixon, IFPI's general counsel and executive director.
Maybe I was asleep, but since when did copyright infringements become known as "file stealing"!?
Based on the current copyright laws any "copy" that you make, not matter what form it takes, is still covered under the copyright and therefore the property of the copyright holder. You might have a license to make a copy for personal use but you do not own the file that you copied it into. Therefore it is "file stealing".
These cartels have had it too good for too long.. they're trying to sell us both media, and a license, then claim the license is non-transferrable and the media is non-replaceable.
In effect, you're being sold a hunk of plastic along with a very limited set of rights as to what you can do with your hunk of plastic.
While the "hunk of plastic" is certainly part of the COGS for a CD the purchase price is really just you license fee for being able to listen to the music. The media is replaceable if you copy the data to a back up CD before it is destroyed. The priciples of fair use definately give you the right to backup the licensed content.
This business model is now crumbling thanks to the Internet, and I say good riddance to them and their Executive Directors.. go back to the dirty holes you crawled out from, and make room for real musicians, that make music for the love of it.. they've have no trouble embracing the 'net as a distribution mechanism.
Even some of the "real" musicians that make music for the love of it want get paid for it. The only way for them to do so is to have some sort of control over the content. That control can be expressed in law or in restrictions in the media itself. The former is punative and latter preventative. Which would you choose? Let them violate your rights and catch them later or don't let them violate your rights in the first place. Attempting to maintain control over their IP is an obvious action to take.
You might be right that the industry is changing and that the record companies will be going by the wayside. If that makes you happy, fine. But that does not give anyone the right to steal IP from people who own it.
Since I am a software engineer I like to draw examples from the Open Source movement. Some of the same people that act like stealing music is justified because of the "evil" record company's behavior would probably vehmently argue for the defense of the GPL were it to be violated. The GPL is strong because copyright law is strong, any errosion of the copyright law in the music industry will affect the GPL as well.
We can't have it both ways, either IP is protected or it is not.
Re:Let's have a little poll.
on
Testing Relativity
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· Score: 3, Insightful
lol, not what I meant. Testing the theory we are not:). Finding out what people's gut tells them based on what they know, we are. The science will always win the debate because it never lies. Now, scientists on the other hand do.
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If one state representative, now a congressman, is responsible for this, lets kick him out first before we go through out the baby with the bath water.
this is hardly journalism. www.therawstory.com is obviously a left wing biased publication and I would not trust it further than I would Rush Limbaugh's website. However, there needs to be a full investigation. I would like to see a little more than one person's testimony befor curcifying this guy. If the request for developing this software took place in a meeting, who else was there and what do they have to say about this?
Let us all bow our heads in silence as we remember these small but brave travelers.
I think you got my idea wrong. For one thing, the first thing we should be doing is looking for ways to commercially exploit space. Mining on the moon jumps to mind right away as a possibility. Manufacturing in microgravity also comes to mind. There are a number of companies that are used to spending years if not decades to see results from thier efforts a good example is pharamecutical companies. This is also where the government can help subsidize the work. No, companies are not going to be able to work on space if there is no return foreable in the moderately near future ( 10 years, let's say ). Perhaps, the technology is not at a level that would allow industry to exploit space in a reasonable time frame, but some day the lead will need to pass from the government to private industry. A great example is in the taming of the west: First Louis and Clark were commissioned by governemnt to explore the west. Similarly the Apallo and SpaceShuttle missions of the last few decades have been funded by government. But then it was the railroad companies that really opened up the west by building a railroad. If I am not mistaken, the railroad companies got various forms of help from the government, and that is the sort of model I am advocating.
I have mixed feelings about this sort of funding. Personally, I think if the governement wants to help spur space exploration it should spend some of that money in funding incentives to coperations to engage in space related industries. Something similar to the X Prize for various accomplishments. NASA has done some amazing things and they should be applauded but I think it is time for them to take a more sheperding role.
What's next, shut down access to book 'cause people might read controvesial ideas? Start reading the mail so that we can make sure no one is talking about ideas we don't like? Jam all radio transmissions to make sure no one is communicating anything we don't agree with?
I think this will only be true for shops that would have choosen Solaris anyway. The draw of open source is more than just cheap software. It has to do with familiarity and the availability of expert administratiors, developers, etc. Solaris will still have the same number of developers and, especially, administrators for awhile.
I am suggesting that while we should take measures that will reduce the output of greenhouse gasses, which we are doing, we should not sign on to an unfair treaty that puts us at such a dissadvantage to the "developing" nations like China without extremly hard scientific evidence. The fact that there is still debate and new information is becomming available means that the question has not been answered to the level required, in my opinion.
then it would be a good thing that we did not sign on to this restrictive treaty. Some data is suggesting that the other planets in our solar system are experiencing global warming. Could this be due to a cyclical increase in the output of the Sun? I know, that many scientists are not convinced that the sun's warming cycle could cause all of the warming that we have seen, but this new information needs to be taken into account.
It all really depends on your application. Database independence should only be a goal if you may want to deploy on another database. If, however, you are constructing an applications that will only be used internally and your corp has already made a huge investment in one database or another then you should use the db to it's fullest capability.
The idea that open source can fill this bill is laughable. Not that I am against open source. And I encourage them to give it a try, which I am sure they are, but I have not seen a single truely innovative UI out of an open source product yet.
The fact is, UI design is not easy and it should not be left up to amatuers. And yes, most software engineers are amatuers when it comes to UI design. In fact most of the top developer's I know admit that they suck at UI design and look forward to input from someone with that particular skill. That is not to say that engineers are incapable of good UI design, they just need a completely different set of skills from what they use in thier normal design and programming duties.
A good UI designer would need programming skills, creative skills, a knowledge of ergonomics, and an understaning of how people want to use the product. This is best discovered through a process at least similar to the Use Case process.
Again, this is another example of the lack of critical thinking. The only people in this society that are truely trained to think critically are scientists with post-gradulate degrees. I am an amatuer compared to them and it shows. We need to get this training done at a much lower level in the education system. Kindergarten maybe? :)
I don't know how you can tie in Ron Brown's death and critical thinking. The truth is that if there was good evidence of foul play the opposite side would jump on it.
True, critical thinking would be very useful in examining the claims and policies of our elected officials. Is Bush really responsible for the, so called, jobless recovery? Are the Bush tax cuts really the cause of the recent econimic upturn? Both sides make claims that need to be examined with the light of reason but most people will fail to do so and just pick the side they already believe is right.
This is precisely what I ment when I said that muddy headed thinking is responsible for most of the world's ills. People are stupid and will believe things either because they wish them to be true or because they fear them to be true ( that is not mine, it is Terry Goodkind's).
I never said that it did not work. It probably does but it is also very dangerous for people with respritory problems. The sellers of this ozone generating product made outrageous health claims and would tell people that it was completely safe even at it's highest setting. That is where the psuedo science comes in.
I have to agree. That book actually changed my life. Before reading The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark I was still holding out hope for the UFOs in Roswell and the face on mars. The stories always made me a little uneasy about the evidence but I still tought, wouldn't it be neat if it were true. After reading the book I came to the conclusion that the universe without UFOs and Faces on Mars was still really neat. In fact, it is down right facinating.
The trouble with psuedo-science is that it sounds good to the untrained mind. But the thing I love the most is when a purveyor of psuedo science says the me something like, "You need to be more open minded to understand this". I have a relative that was trying to sell me a "Ozone Generator" and air purifier ( filter ) for my home. I had one of these units in my home as a trial ( I paid no money ). I checked out the supposed "science" behind the device and found that there was ample evidence that high concentrations of ozone are actually dangerous to people especially asthmatics. Since my wife has had asthma in the past, I became very concerned. I called my relative and told him I would be returning the device and that he should think twice about making outrageous unsubstatiated claims of scientific evidence where none existed. He had the gall to tell me I would understand the "science" if I were more "open minded".
It is muddy headed thinking like that that results in most of the worlds troubles.
The WINE web site goes a long way towards making the case for the API solution. Obviously, the VM solution seems to be easier to accomplish, would a hybrid solution give us a better result?
To be fair, that does not mean that you are like those people I have worked with and I may have been extremly unlucky in the samples that I have encountered.
The SCIENCE of programming requires math. The art of programming may not. There is a distinction. That is why the lawyer in the next office over from me was able to put together a fairly good system to manaage his office and case load in a 5GL but couldn't truley understand the difference between a quick sort and a bubble sort. Of course, almost no one writes sorting algorithms any more. If you are writing a program that utilizes mathmatics to accomplish a goal ( e.g. the matrix algebra used in 3D graphics development ) it is not the programming that requires the math it is the problem space. The thing to remember is that, in a way, when you are studying computer science you are not learning how to program you are learning how to learn to program. Now and Information Systems degree would be more about learning to program and leaving it at that.
What is your favorite ST movie or episode? My favorite movie is "Rath of Kahn" my favorite episode is "The Menagerie"
I can't believe Microsoft would be behind this sort of thing. They would probably fail any security certification process today.
I read the summary and it seems that they are not asking for any more than incentives and government sponsership of industry certification bodies.
I wonder what the ramifications for adoption of OpenSource technology could be. The OpenSource community will have to lobby hard to make sure the requirements will not put a financial burden on software development. One solution would be for the companies makeing money by supporting OpenSource software to pay for certifyting the software and then they could benifit from the certification as a marketing advantage.
You might be right that the industry is changing and that the record companies will be going by the wayside. If that makes you happy, fine. But that does not give anyone the right to steal IP from people who own it.
Since I am a software engineer I like to draw examples from the Open Source movement. Some of the same people that act like stealing music is justified because of the "evil" record company's behavior would probably vehmently argue for the defense of the GPL were it to be violated. The GPL is strong because copyright law is strong, any errosion of the copyright law in the music industry will affect the GPL as well.
We can't have it both ways, either IP is protected or it is not.
lol, not what I meant. Testing the theory we are not :). Finding out what people's gut tells them based on what they know, we are. The science will always win the debate because it never lies. Now, scientists on the other hand do.