He gives up way more than is necessary for problems that are already solved. Remember his embarrassing iPod complaint? "We have a serious problem. Whenever I try to pitch Linux to anyone under 30, the question I get is: 'Will it work with my iPod?," except that iPods work perfectly fine with Linux.
And guess who just recently joined the board of Linspire who thinks that Linux market share percentage is the only goal worth following? Thanks for another useful contribution to the community, ESR!
Do they explain where all the people living in the city of Nod came from? Or where Cain's wife came from? (Hint: she wasn't an ancestor of Adam and Eve)
I bet he didn't even try Craigslist. What he should have done was hold the books "hostage": give a deadline before he burns them for people to come grab them (for free).
That article is 3 years old. I think it's more likely they just rummaged through their patent bin and picked out anything that sounded kinda similar to something Linux does without really checking to see if it infringes.
Mod parent -1, Wrong. That study not only 1) says the number of patents is 283, not 235, but 2) isn't talking about just Microsoft patents, that study was talking about all software patents, and 3) that study came out 3 years ago.
The U of C hunt can never (and should never) attract professionals from across the country because it's about students having fun:) So you're right, it is a creativity of a different kind. I think it's just as challenging as the MIT game because you have to actually build and do things.
We're about teams creating a shopping cart go-kart in the shape of a Wacky Racer, building a functioning pinball table from scratch, giving blood, drinking and partying on Friday, going to a quiz game where you have to recite pi, list the constitutional amendments AND answer baseball trivia, begging a building manager to let you flick some lights on and off in their building to spell out "SH", and finishing up your sculpture of the alien from Alien, in less than 4 days. Most people don't sleep.
The MIT puzzle is about solving incredibly convoluted puzzles, like one where the solution is "find the RL Stein books these pictures are from, then figure out that the symbols we gave you are from a palm pilot, then find out which key that punctuation is on on a keyboard, then take that number of the title, and a synonym of the resulting word is the solution." I'm sure people don't sleep there either, but they're thinking and not creating. That's what I mean by "creative."
It's like comparing a crossword puzzle to... fuck I dunno. Comparing it to the scav hunt, really. And to be honest, the MIT puzzle does sound like a lot of fun. I think the reason for the difference is that U of C students have to sit inside and think and read and be theoretical all day while you bastards at MIT are making piano playing robots or whatever. The respective hunts both seem like reactions to that.
The creativity lies not only in the solution to the puzzle (there are many different kinds of puzzles, from solving secret codes to figuring out cryptic clues on a road trip), but in how to interpret the problem itself. There aren't any instructions on a lot of the Scavhunt items, either. Also, it allows people to be creative in a lot of different ways: music, acting, art, ninjas, etc. It's very interesting how the two contests show the vastly different characters of each school.
However, I've often wanted to check on certain diseases or disorders on Wikipedia only to be met with a bunch of biology speak about "protein chains" and "neuro-inhibitors" and other techspeak with the complete absence of any information that a layman could find useful. Usually they don't even have a link to more useful info. This is a problem, especially if people want to get some basic info, or just read up on a disease they heard about in the news.
No one's saying that you'd be cheating yourself by going to wikipedia, but sometimes the articles are so dense you don't have any idea what they're talking about. It's useful to allow science to be penetrable; this causes more interest in the subject rather than people give up because they don't know where to get started.
The point of the U of C Scavenger Hunt is not to go find things and bring them back. That would be exceedingly boring. The important thing for each item is that the solution be interesting. That means that would be great if you bring back a vintage theremin from 1960, or if you built one yourself. Even better would be to bring in a real theremin being helf by Brian Wilson. The main point of the Hunt is creativity. U of C is not MIT.
How about they fix their Spam filter or at least allow me to block a lot more domains? A mail provider with approved spam just isn't the way to do things.
I think it's more important to point out as an example of how innocent people can be fingered for horrible crimes. The problem with the US today is not that we are a police state just yet, but rather that most people these days don't think they are going to be affected if we do start taking away their liberties. "I haven't done anything wrong, what do I have to worry about?"
Basically, you have to worry about when step 3 becomes "Police ransack his entire home, take his computers and lock him up for a couple days," and the general public thinks it just won't happen to them if we give police that power.
Slashdot Mirror
So are you raising a ruckus now?
It may not be legal for them to do that, but bureaucracy at UIC is a completely horrible mess of incompetent staff with no accountability. Good luck.
It's on Google Video too
He gives up way more than is necessary for problems that are already solved. Remember his embarrassing iPod complaint? "We have a serious problem. Whenever I try to pitch Linux to anyone under 30, the question I get is: 'Will it work with my iPod?," except that iPods work perfectly fine with Linux.
And guess who just recently joined the board of Linspire who thinks that Linux market share percentage is the only goal worth following? Thanks for another useful contribution to the community, ESR!
Cain was expelled and married before Seth was born (Genesis 4:23-24).
Do they explain where all the people living in the city of Nod came from? Or where Cain's wife came from? (Hint: she wasn't an ancestor of Adam and Eve)
I bet he didn't even try Craigslist. What he should have done was hold the books "hostage": give a deadline before he burns them for people to come grab them (for free).
8 is more than 5!! Looks like I won't be using MySQL!
Well I apologize for that; but don't take it too seriously, it's just slashdot man ;)
That article is 3 years old. I think it's more likely they just rummaged through their patent bin and picked out anything that sounded kinda similar to something Linux does without really checking to see if it infringes.
Mod parent -1, Wrong. That study not only 1) says the number of patents is 283, not 235, but 2) isn't talking about just Microsoft patents, that study was talking about all software patents, and 3) that study came out 3 years ago.
n ges+283+patents/2100-7344_3-5291403.html
http://news.com.com/Group+Linux+potentially+infri
When are they going to sue the wget developers?
Lousy Ferg-breath, always stealing the spotlight. I bet he made his sister program a goofy video game for his company too.
...for any developer of Sendmail or Apache or BIND sneaky enough to slip in a new security hole.
That was my bright idea. Fortunately I used my invention to tell me joining Y Combinator was not a good idea (hint: cyborgs)
The U of C hunt can never (and should never) attract professionals from across the country because it's about students having fun :) So you're right, it is a creativity of a different kind. I think it's just as challenging as the MIT game because you have to actually build and do things.
We're about teams creating a shopping cart go-kart in the shape of a Wacky Racer, building a functioning pinball table from scratch, giving blood, drinking and partying on Friday, going to a quiz game where you have to recite pi, list the constitutional amendments AND answer baseball trivia, begging a building manager to let you flick some lights on and off in their building to spell out "SH", and finishing up your sculpture of the alien from Alien, in less than 4 days. Most people don't sleep.
The MIT puzzle is about solving incredibly convoluted puzzles, like one where the solution is "find the RL Stein books these pictures are from, then figure out that the symbols we gave you are from a palm pilot, then find out which key that punctuation is on on a keyboard, then take that number of the title, and a synonym of the resulting word is the solution." I'm sure people don't sleep there either, but they're thinking and not creating. That's what I mean by "creative."
It's like comparing a crossword puzzle to... fuck I dunno. Comparing it to the scav hunt, really. And to be honest, the MIT puzzle does sound like a lot of fun. I think the reason for the difference is that U of C students have to sit inside and think and read and be theoretical all day while you bastards at MIT are making piano playing robots or whatever. The respective hunts both seem like reactions to that.
The creativity lies not only in the solution to the puzzle (there are many different kinds of puzzles, from solving secret codes to figuring out cryptic clues on a road trip), but in how to interpret the problem itself. There aren't any instructions on a lot of the Scavhunt items, either. Also, it allows people to be creative in a lot of different ways: music, acting, art, ninjas, etc. It's very interesting how the two contests show the vastly different characters of each school.
However, I've often wanted to check on certain diseases or disorders on Wikipedia only to be met with a bunch of biology speak about "protein chains" and "neuro-inhibitors" and other techspeak with the complete absence of any information that a layman could find useful. Usually they don't even have a link to more useful info. This is a problem, especially if people want to get some basic info, or just read up on a disease they heard about in the news.
No one's saying that you'd be cheating yourself by going to wikipedia, but sometimes the articles are so dense you don't have any idea what they're talking about. It's useful to allow science to be penetrable; this causes more interest in the subject rather than people give up because they don't know where to get started.
If I recall correctly, doesn't each puzzle have a unique solution? Hardly what I'd call "creative"...
A lot of people compare the U of C Scavhunt to a similar event at MIT. I forget what it's called, though.
The point of the U of C Scavenger Hunt is not to go find things and bring them back. That would be exceedingly boring. The important thing for each item is that the solution be interesting. That means that would be great if you bring back a vintage theremin from 1960, or if you built one yourself. Even better would be to bring in a real theremin being helf by Brian Wilson. The main point of the Hunt is creativity. U of C is not MIT.
ROUS's were on the list in 2001.
How about they fix their Spam filter or at least allow me to block a lot more domains? A mail provider with approved spam just isn't the way to do things.
I think it's more important to point out as an example of how innocent people can be fingered for horrible crimes. The problem with the US today is not that we are a police state just yet, but rather that most people these days don't think they are going to be affected if we do start taking away their liberties. "I haven't done anything wrong, what do I have to worry about?"
Basically, you have to worry about when step 3 becomes "Police ransack his entire home, take his computers and lock him up for a couple days," and the general public thinks it just won't happen to them if we give police that power.