Two things come to my mind when I think of Linux in India:
1. What does Bill Gates think of this? He's been donating millions of dollars to India as part of his Bill Gates Foundation philanthropy project, and IIRC some (most?) of it was under the guise of AIDS relief. Being the pessimest that I am, I always felt that Gates pumped so much money into India to prime the tech workers over there for taking over US jobs. Who knows, maybe Gates knew a long time ago that every US programming/tech support job would get moved offshore, and prepared for it by assuring himself that India knew How Microsoft Plays Ball (tm). So with Indians now embracing Linux, are they preparing to ditch MS in favor of other technologies?
On a related note, does that mean that now I have to worry about being beat out of a linux sys admin job by the ever-growing fleet of L-1's? Cnn.com has a good yet depressing look at this today, here.
I kind of pride myself on not just being another VB.NET hack or MS2000 Server clone out there looking for jobs. I'd become even more angry at the world if these jobs became a thing of the past (at least here in MN) as well.
Tech support and customer service from big compaines is worthless. Just two weeks ago, the AC adapter for my Dell Inspiron 8100 had to be replaced; the cord was unravelling, and the laptop would only get power randomly. I called Dell, and even though I knew EXACTLY what needed to be replaced, I had to answer a barrage of questions for over 45 minutes about my laptop (mostly totally unrelated to the problem at all), and that was only AFTER I was on hold for 20 minutes. That's over an hour of frustration for a very menial problem.
As soon as I realized I was going nowhere with the lady on the other end (she was from India), I told her that I had a degree in CS, I work in IT myself, and that I knew exactly what needed to be replaced. It didn't matter, she kept reading from her script and became even bitchier.
Personally, I bought my Dell over two years ago because their warantees and customer support was supposed to be top-notch, at least at that time. I hate to sound racist, but as soon as all the companies started shipping all their call centers to Bangalore and other places in the middle east, things went to shit quickly.
All I know is that from now on, all computers I'll ever personally work with will be ones I build myself. Dealing with these companies is a total fucking nightmare, and just isn't worth it.
And this is one of those times. Honestly, yes the kid probably didn't make the BEST decision in his life by posting *links* to bomb-making HOWTOs and related "terrorism" stuff. If you want to criticize the US and enlighten people about subjects like police brutality, IMO a well-written essay with lots of evidence is probably a more effective course of action than building a Draino bomb and screaming "FUCK THE POLICE!" (coming straight out 'da underground...).
However, from the article it sounded like he didn't try to actually make a bomb. Instead he just posted some hyperlinks. The fact that he got arrested for posting LINKS to material like that is beyond scary. I'm not one of those "information wants to be free at all costs" zealots, but I mean this is shit that any college chem major could figure out on their own. The government shouldn't have a right to arrest and convict this kid just because of his website, no matter HOW offensive or big of a threat the US gov't perceives it.
Grassy ass, my friend! I actually was pulling that quote from the top of my head, being that I haven't seen Mallrats in ages. Regardless, Kevin Smith is definitely one of my favorite writers in Hollywood (although I have mixed feelings about his ability to direct movies)!
I thought this was an interesting article, and it's nice to see that Disney was able to save a pretty decent chunk of change by running Linux and wine instead of Windows on their desktops. I'd still give my left testicle to be able to play in the Disney/Pixar/etc. animation studios and computing centers...talk about horsepower!
On a related note, I'm still kind of surprised that Adobe wouldn't port Photoshop over to Linux even for a company with as much clout as Disney. Seriously, I realize it's a LOT of work to port an app that massive, but if basically every animator who runs linux wants it, why not? Catering to your customers is definitely part of a good business model. Since Adobe's management switched over not too far back though, I think some of the crazy innovations might be slower-coming these days. Guess that's what happens when you replace someone with vision (Adobe founder) with a Marketing drone (current CEO, IIRC).
What a great read (I type this as I reimage a laptop full of MS goodies, wondering if this customer REALLY needs MS Streets 2003)! Although no big corporation is immune from making bad marketing decisions and mistakes, it IS fun to see the Evil Empire folley here and there. After all, who didn't think stuff like the Microsoft Home campaign was a bit obsessive?
At least we don't have to worry about this kind of marketing from MS today...oh wait. Nevermind.
Honestly, this is a good thing IMO. Sitting in front of a t.v. is a totally passive event; the only user-interaction is when the person changes channels...and even then it's usually just to another channel playing commercials.
The web has the potential to be a very powerful medium. Literally everything you'd ever want to know (from movie reviews to why the sky is blue) is only one click away. I know whenever I have a question, the first place I turn to is google. Kids figured out a while back that it's more fun to have control over the material you're sitting in front of, as opposed to say, watching another episode of Dharma and Greg.
The only downside to this is that advertisers figured out that a majority of the people in the world use this fancy new "intraweb" thingy, and decided to litter it with their banners and spam. If you can sidestep that little roadblock however, the web is still a wonderful thing.
I was going to mod you down, but couldn't help myself...
podBiking? Get real, my friend. If you're dumb enough to go biking on public roads for 2 hours a day listening to your iPod, don't be surprised when someone like me accidentally swipes you off the road in my '84 Cutlass hoopty. Honestly. There's absolutely no place for people to be biking while listening to music. Nada. Since/.'ers seem to love analogies, podBiking would be the close equivalent of being on a motorcycle while listening to music at full blast and talking on a cell phone. Dangerous, stupid, and setting yourself up for failure.
And just because you don't like mountain bikes, doesn't mean they're for "sissies". I mountain bike on singletrack TRAILS, where mountain bikes are SUPPOSED to be ridden, and it's great and at least as exhausting as road biking. Trust me. I've done both for a looong time.
However, your point about not stuffing yourself is a good one. There's a world of difference between eating and being content, and eating and being stuffed. Hence why more frequent smaller meals are better for you than 3 pig-fest buffets. The diabetic diet works for a reason.
Look at the population density in certain parts of the island.
You hit on a very good point...in terms of pure area, you're not really looking at a huge plot of land in Japan. The cost of implementing something similar here in the States would be astronomically larger. However, that can't stop me from dreaming!;)
Assuming that the claim it TRUE and filesharing is actually down from last week, and it's solely because of the RIAA's threats, then it's only a matter of time before they go up again. Think of Napster. When it went belly-up, people stopped sharing for a few seconds until a better alternative came along...mainly Kazaa/Grokster/Morpheus. Then sharing resumed, bigger and better than ever!
As one/.'er has already pointed out in a shameless plug for udpp2p (looks interesting, actually), the next step in p2p is straight-up anonymous filetransfers. It makes sesne, and it's inevitable...only a matter of time before someone codes up a decent client. And when that happens, you bet I'll be one of the first standing on their tiptoes, trying to see the RIAA's face and how they respond to that.
Personally I haven't used p2p, especially for music, in a while. If I need to get my fix though, there's always alternative routes to getting what you want...hotline/IRC/FTP sites still exist and flourish. It may not be as easy, but beggars can't be choosers it seems.
This article reports on something most of us techies/geeks deal with on a very regular basis...think of it this way: How many times have your friends/family/customers come up and asked you what a term (RAM, for example) means? Definitely not new news.
The tech world is not the only world where people get lost with the lingo, however...ever walked into a mechanic's place after getting your car looked at and been overwhelmed by car terms? Or how about going to the doctor's office and wondering if they're speaking English?
One important point to remember is not everyone is as clued in to the wonderful world of technology as we are...so if someone is confused by the terminology, don't be an arrogant ubergeek. Just explain it in terms they understand...remember, anaolgies are your friend!
This quote from the article really surprised me:
" C/C++ is no longer a viable development language
I am not a very active coder, nor will I ever be. Coding is just something that does not come naturally to me. However, I thought that for the most part, C/C++/Java were still the big "players" in the application development world (scripting's a different story). So I would like to know what this fellow suggests for a good language to start projects in?
There are all these laws and all this hype about enforcing these computer crime laws - what must an end user do to get some enforcement done?
Honestly, unless you're a big corporation (or at least a company with some legal weight), there isn't much you can do. Sounds like you persued some of the right avenues to go through, but from what I've seen, read, and heard, individual civilian complaints don't bring a lot of action. If you were the FBI and had very limited staff resources, and you were presented with the task of either:
helping a sole individual who had his box cracked, or
a company like eBay, who hypothetically just had their credit card db broken into and copied,
which would you go for?
Maybe I just have a pessimestic attitude towards our beautiful US government. It seems that the average joe doesn't have a lot of recourse againt stuff like this though. Hopefully our fellow/.'ers will provide stores proving me wrong. That might instill a bit of faith in my weary bones.
Honestly, this shouldn't come as a big shock to anyone. What would shock me though is if people actually started using MSN's search engine over google. Google is the current king, and for good reason: it rocks. Extremely fast, no bloat, and (at least from personal experience) the results are right on the money. Call me a pessimest, but I doubt MS will be able to successfully incorporate all those qualities into a search engine, let alone a free one.
This quote from the article raised a few red flags in my mind though:
Microsoft is also developing search technology for the next version of its Windows operating system, code-named Longhorn, that could further its ambitions to take on Google. The search technology, borrowed from the company's SQL Server database, is expected to make it easier to find documents locally, on individual PCs, and across the Internet by linking to MSN's search services.
Seriously, does anyone else see future security holes in this? Because I sure as hell do. Think of a misconfigured Longhorn box, open to the net, letting ANYONE browse through their entire computer. Think those Quicken docs are safe? How about your stored emails? Not that you can't already find this stuff on KaZaa et. al, but I see a more widespread problem here.
I can't recall an interview that came back with such well thought out answers. Major kudos!
Oh, you're just saying that because your question got answered and the rest of ours didn't...;)
1) Guideposts? - by TopShelf
Having obtained financing for the project, how does that impact the future direction of development? How do you balance the interests of developers, users and sponsors to choose which updates to pursue?
Honestly though, I agree. This was a good interview, and I found most of the answers satisfying (with the exception of the whole Linux = ecosystem skewed analogy). I'm an ext3 man myself...mostly by convenience, since I run RH on about 1/2 of my linux boxen and it's enabled by default. However, I definitely plan on giving Reiserfs a shot one of these days though even though I don't expect to see a huge difference (vs. ext3 on a single-user, low-access system). Maybe if I was running a huge db farm, it'd be different.
An interesting point he brought up was in answer to the fella who is contemplating going back to get his MSci and focus on file systems. Hans told him to basically save his money and hang out in bookstores instead for 4 years, spending his time developing his own gig (a shitty parapharse, I apologize). Hans' answer especially hit home to me, because I've been contemplating grad school as well as of late. However, I know for a fact that I've done way more learning (at least CS-related) since I graduated and got OUT of undergrad than I ever did slaving through a Programming Languages course (Sorry Prof. Allen, Scheme will never be fun no matter what you say). Does anyone else feel like they've learned more on their own than in school?
I thought the article was pretty decent, and hit upon some of Sun's current obsticles that they are facing. The one that in hindsight seems to be the most obvious is the (relatively) rapid acceptance of Linux as a server OS.
Sun makes nice gear, there's no doubt about that. If you got a rediculous amount of money to drop on some big iron, stuff like the Sunfire 15K is enough to make any true geek drool. For that market, I think Sun actually stands a decent chance of survival...when you're talking about F50 companies and governments, price isn't really an issue. Besides, Sun has a pretty strong track record in this arena.
Where they're going to get killed (actually, where they already are getting killed) is in the small-to-medium server market. Honestly, why would a company/institution with limited resources spend almost exponentially more money on small servers when they could strap together some x86 boxen and run a free OS on them? Support might be a reason to stick with Sun (I can't speak from experience), but I would imagine that companies like Dell would price their Intel-based servers (with full support) at a lower price than say, Sun's LX50?
This is not a head-to-head comparison, so don't throw prices out saying how Sun makes a few cheaper machines than other companies. That's not the point. My point is hindsight's 20-20. It would have been hard to predict that Linux on cheap off-the-shelf x86 gear would have been a serious threat to Sun back in, say, 1998. Now Sun's major decision is if they should adapt their business model to be more flexible, or to fight it out in the trenches and hope for the best.
Either way, they make some pretty sweet gear and even if it is expensive beyond reason, I'd kill for some of their toys.
Even though I couldn't RTFA since it's/.'ed right now, this is a topic that's been brought up in more than once it seems. Personally, I learned on my first "real" computer, an Apple IIgs. It was simple, easy to understand (even for an 8 year-old), and intuitive.
So what do kids have today? Well count current desktops out of the question. I'm sorry, but there's no way in hell a child will stumble onto his dad's development box and start messing around in C or Java or whatever (and if he's rich,.NET stuff). Just won't happen. Sure, there might be a prodigy here or there that can somehow pick it up, but in general I wouldn't count on it.
The one area I see kids tinkering around a lot these days is calculators. Some of my friends are teachers, and it's amazing what some of these kids are doing with TI-series calculators. Shit, I couldn't BELIEVE how cool it was the first time I played Tetris on my TI-81 (or 85, can't remember)! All you need to learn is some BASIC stuff and you're set. Granted we probably won't see the next Apache-replacement written on one of these, but you never know;)
Just plain wrong. All the kid did was build a search engine, cataloging what was available on his campus network. Pretty ambitious for a freshman IT major, actually...considering when I was a freshman I barely had time to sleep, let alone code for fun. And what did the RIAA do? Take his life savings (literally), even though they acknolwedged that he DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG!!!
My favorite quote from the article: "They agreed to allow Jesse to deny their allegations. They agreed to dismiss the case and all allegations against him," Andy said. "Basically they agreed that he didn't do anything wrong, but [they're] taking his 12 grand."
Think about that next time you buy a CD and give these greedy pigs another $18.
Is there a country were people will work for free?
Does Russian Vodka count? Seriously though, this is interesting as it's always fun to see the current King Of The Hill get booted off by somebody who works harder or cheaper than the current "King". Honestly, I'm not going to feel too bad for anyone in India who loses their job because of some big company's management decision. All I can say is, "Welcome to my world, Assad."
On a side note, at least in the gray-to-blackhat community, the Russians and company have definitely made their presence felt from what I've hear/read/seen/dreamed.
Although there's no way to totally duplicate what happened to the shuttle, shooting a piece of foam at 500+ miles an hour shows what kind of damage something as seemingly as harmless as a Nerf football can do if it's going fast enough.
Granted, I'm no physics expert, but after hearing that something tore off of the shuttle during take-off and nailed itself I felt like the damage caused by that could have been disasterous. At least now NASA's performing demonstrations showing what kind of force the shuttle actually had to put up with.
The decline is attributed to the BSA's enforcement techniques...
Come on, is the decline really due to their *cough* extortion *cough*, I mean, enforcement techniques, or to the fact that businesses are becoming clueful to the dirty pool that these bastards play?
Honestly, I know that software piracy does happen, but after working for places like my last employer (a BIG HMO here in Minnesota) I have a hard time believeing those numbers. Evertime a piece of licensed software went on a pc, we had to run it past our licensing department. Didn't matter if it was a $30 copy of WinZip or some incredibly expensive imaging software. And if the BSA DID come to our company, the IT department would have had enough of a clue to meet them at the front doors with a team of security guards and something even more intimidating (at least to me): a team of lawyers. "Got a warrant? Then piss off" was the frame of mind we had.
It's hard to find pirated software if you can't make it past the front door.
Honestly, I just came across Tucker Max's website a few weeks ago by pure chance, and I have to admit...the kid knows how to push the limits. He's no dumbass off the street who just decided to throw up a website bashing his ex-girlfriend. Tucker Max graduated from Duke Law school and made an archive of sorts of all of his premiscuous adventures around the country. Debauchery galore, it's actually a pretty interesting read if you're into mysogonistic humor (so I'm appreciate vulgar stories...sue me).
Regardless, it's a fine line sometimes between what's libel and what isn't. I'm a huge fan of First Ammendment rights, and even if it comes at the cost of someone's pride, then so be it.
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1. What does Bill Gates think of this? He's been donating millions of dollars to India as part of his Bill Gates Foundation philanthropy project, and IIRC some (most?) of it was under the guise of AIDS relief. Being the pessimest that I am, I always felt that Gates pumped so much money into India to prime the tech workers over there for taking over US jobs. Who knows, maybe Gates knew a long time ago that every US programming/tech support job would get moved offshore, and prepared for it by assuring himself that India knew How Microsoft Plays Ball (tm). So with Indians now embracing Linux, are they preparing to ditch MS in favor of other technologies?
On a related note, does that mean that now I have to worry about being beat out of a linux sys admin job by the ever-growing fleet of L-1's? Cnn.com has a good yet depressing look at this today, here. I kind of pride myself on not just being another VB.NET hack or MS2000 Server clone out there looking for jobs. I'd become even more angry at the world if these jobs became a thing of the past (at least here in MN) as well.
Just some thoughts.
As soon as I realized I was going nowhere with the lady on the other end (she was from India), I told her that I had a degree in CS, I work in IT myself, and that I knew exactly what needed to be replaced. It didn't matter, she kept reading from her script and became even bitchier.
Personally, I bought my Dell over two years ago because their warantees and customer support was supposed to be top-notch, at least at that time. I hate to sound racist, but as soon as all the companies started shipping all their call centers to Bangalore and other places in the middle east, things went to shit quickly.
All I know is that from now on, all computers I'll ever personally work with will be ones I build myself. Dealing with these companies is a total fucking nightmare, and just isn't worth it.
However, from the article it sounded like he didn't try to actually make a bomb. Instead he just posted some hyperlinks. The fact that he got arrested for posting LINKS to material like that is beyond scary. I'm not one of those "information wants to be free at all costs" zealots, but I mean this is shit that any college chem major could figure out on their own. The government shouldn't have a right to arrest and convict this kid just because of his website, no matter HOW offensive or big of a threat the US gov't perceives it.
Now, back to slacking off at work...
Grassy ass, my friend! I actually was pulling that quote from the top of my head, being that I haven't seen Mallrats in ages. Regardless, Kevin Smith is definitely one of my favorite writers in Hollywood (although I have mixed feelings about his ability to direct movies)!
On a related note, I'm still kind of surprised that Adobe wouldn't port Photoshop over to Linux even for a company with as much clout as Disney. Seriously, I realize it's a LOT of work to port an app that massive, but if basically every animator who runs linux wants it, why not? Catering to your customers is definitely part of a good business model. Since Adobe's management switched over not too far back though, I think some of the crazy innovations might be slower-coming these days. Guess that's what happens when you replace someone with vision (Adobe founder) with a Marketing drone (current CEO, IIRC).
At least we don't have to worry about this kind of marketing from MS today...oh wait. Nevermind.
The web has the potential to be a very powerful medium. Literally everything you'd ever want to know (from movie reviews to why the sky is blue) is only one click away. I know whenever I have a question, the first place I turn to is google. Kids figured out a while back that it's more fun to have control over the material you're sitting in front of, as opposed to say, watching another episode of Dharma and Greg.
The only downside to this is that advertisers figured out that a majority of the people in the world use this fancy new "intraweb" thingy, and decided to litter it with their banners and spam. If you can sidestep that little roadblock however, the web is still a wonderful thing.
podBiking? Get real, my friend. If you're dumb enough to go biking on public roads for 2 hours a day listening to your iPod, don't be surprised when someone like me accidentally swipes you off the road in my '84 Cutlass hoopty. Honestly. There's absolutely no place for people to be biking while listening to music. Nada. Since /.'ers seem to love analogies, podBiking would be the close equivalent of being on a motorcycle while listening to music at full blast and talking on a cell phone. Dangerous, stupid, and setting yourself up for failure.
And just because you don't like mountain bikes, doesn't mean they're for "sissies". I mountain bike on singletrack TRAILS, where mountain bikes are SUPPOSED to be ridden, and it's great and at least as exhausting as road biking. Trust me. I've done both for a looong time.
However, your point about not stuffing yourself is a good one. There's a world of difference between eating and being content, and eating and being stuffed. Hence why more frequent smaller meals are better for you than 3 pig-fest buffets. The diabetic diet works for a reason.
You hit on a very good point...in terms of pure area, you're not really looking at a huge plot of land in Japan. The cost of implementing something similar here in the States would be astronomically larger. However, that can't stop me from dreaming! ;)
As one /.'er has already pointed out in a shameless plug for udpp2p (looks interesting, actually), the next step in p2p is straight-up anonymous filetransfers. It makes sesne, and it's inevitable...only a matter of time before someone codes up a decent client. And when that happens, you bet I'll be one of the first standing on their tiptoes, trying to see the RIAA's face and how they respond to that.
Personally I haven't used p2p, especially for music, in a while. If I need to get my fix though, there's always alternative routes to getting what you want...hotline/IRC/FTP sites still exist and flourish. It may not be as easy, but beggars can't be choosers it seems.
The tech world is not the only world where people get lost with the lingo, however...ever walked into a mechanic's place after getting your car looked at and been overwhelmed by car terms? Or how about going to the doctor's office and wondering if they're speaking English?
One important point to remember is not everyone is as clued in to the wonderful world of technology as we are...so if someone is confused by the terminology, don't be an arrogant ubergeek. Just explain it in terms they understand...remember, anaolgies are your friend!
I am not a very active coder, nor will I ever be. Coding is just something that does not come naturally to me. However, I thought that for the most part, C/C++/Java were still the big "players" in the application development world (scripting's a different story). So I would like to know what this fellow suggests for a good language to start projects in?
Honestly, unless you're a big corporation (or at least a company with some legal weight), there isn't much you can do. Sounds like you persued some of the right avenues to go through, but from what I've seen, read, and heard, individual civilian complaints don't bring a lot of action. If you were the FBI and had very limited staff resources, and you were presented with the task of either:
helping a sole individual who had his box cracked, or
a company like eBay, who hypothetically just had their credit card db broken into and copied,
which would you go for?
Maybe I just have a pessimestic attitude towards our beautiful US government. It seems that the average joe doesn't have a lot of recourse againt stuff like this though. Hopefully our fellow /.'ers will provide stores proving me wrong. That might instill a bit of faith in my weary bones.
This quote from the article raised a few red flags in my mind though:
Seriously, does anyone else see future security holes in this? Because I sure as hell do. Think of a misconfigured Longhorn box, open to the net, letting ANYONE browse through their entire computer. Think those Quicken docs are safe? How about your stored emails? Not that you can't already find this stuff on KaZaa et. al, but I see a more widespread problem here.
Oh, you're just saying that because your question got answered and the rest of ours didn't... ;)
Honestly though, I agree. This was a good interview, and I found most of the answers satisfying (with the exception of the whole Linux = ecosystem skewed analogy). I'm an ext3 man myself...mostly by convenience, since I run RH on about 1/2 of my linux boxen and it's enabled by default. However, I definitely plan on giving Reiserfs a shot one of these days though even though I don't expect to see a huge difference (vs. ext3 on a single-user, low-access system). Maybe if I was running a huge db farm, it'd be different.
An interesting point he brought up was in answer to the fella who is contemplating going back to get his MSci and focus on file systems. Hans told him to basically save his money and hang out in bookstores instead for 4 years, spending his time developing his own gig (a shitty parapharse, I apologize). Hans' answer especially hit home to me, because I've been contemplating grad school as well as of late. However, I know for a fact that I've done way more learning (at least CS-related) since I graduated and got OUT of undergrad than I ever did slaving through a Programming Languages course (Sorry Prof. Allen, Scheme will never be fun no matter what you say). Does anyone else feel like they've learned more on their own than in school?
Just a thought...
Sun makes nice gear, there's no doubt about that. If you got a rediculous amount of money to drop on some big iron, stuff like the Sunfire 15K is enough to make any true geek drool. For that market, I think Sun actually stands a decent chance of survival...when you're talking about F50 companies and governments, price isn't really an issue. Besides, Sun has a pretty strong track record in this arena.
Where they're going to get killed (actually, where they already are getting killed) is in the small-to-medium server market. Honestly, why would a company/institution with limited resources spend almost exponentially more money on small servers when they could strap together some x86 boxen and run a free OS on them? Support might be a reason to stick with Sun (I can't speak from experience), but I would imagine that companies like Dell would price their Intel-based servers (with full support) at a lower price than say, Sun's LX50?
This is not a head-to-head comparison, so don't throw prices out saying how Sun makes a few cheaper machines than other companies. That's not the point. My point is hindsight's 20-20. It would have been hard to predict that Linux on cheap off-the-shelf x86 gear would have been a serious threat to Sun back in, say, 1998. Now Sun's major decision is if they should adapt their business model to be more flexible, or to fight it out in the trenches and hope for the best.
Either way, they make some pretty sweet gear and even if it is expensive beyond reason, I'd kill for some of their toys.
So what do kids have today? Well count current desktops out of the question. I'm sorry, but there's no way in hell a child will stumble onto his dad's development box and start messing around in C or Java or whatever (and if he's rich, .NET stuff). Just won't happen. Sure, there might be a prodigy here or there that can somehow pick it up, but in general I wouldn't count on it.
The one area I see kids tinkering around a lot these days is calculators. Some of my friends are teachers, and it's amazing what some of these kids are doing with TI-series calculators. Shit, I couldn't BELIEVE how cool it was the first time I played Tetris on my TI-81 (or 85, can't remember)! All you need to learn is some BASIC stuff and you're set. Granted we probably won't see the next Apache-replacement written on one of these, but you never know ;)
My favorite quote from the article: "They agreed to allow Jesse to deny their allegations. They agreed to dismiss the case and all allegations against him," Andy said. "Basically they agreed that he didn't do anything wrong, but [they're] taking his 12 grand."
Think about that next time you buy a CD and give these greedy pigs another $18.
Does Russian Vodka count? Seriously though, this is interesting as it's always fun to see the current King Of The Hill get booted off by somebody who works harder or cheaper than the current "King". Honestly, I'm not going to feel too bad for anyone in India who loses their job because of some big company's management decision. All I can say is, "Welcome to my world, Assad."
On a side note, at least in the gray-to-blackhat community, the Russians and company have definitely made their presence felt from what I've hear/read/seen/dreamed.
Granted, I'm no physics expert, but after hearing that something tore off of the shuttle during take-off and nailed itself I felt like the damage caused by that could have been disasterous. At least now NASA's performing demonstrations showing what kind of force the shuttle actually had to put up with.
Come on, is the decline really due to their *cough* extortion *cough*, I mean, enforcement techniques, or to the fact that businesses are becoming clueful to the dirty pool that these bastards play?
Honestly, I know that software piracy does happen, but after working for places like my last employer (a BIG HMO here in Minnesota) I have a hard time believeing those numbers. Evertime a piece of licensed software went on a pc, we had to run it past our licensing department. Didn't matter if it was a $30 copy of WinZip or some incredibly expensive imaging software. And if the BSA DID come to our company, the IT department would have had enough of a clue to meet them at the front doors with a team of security guards and something even more intimidating (at least to me): a team of lawyers. "Got a warrant? Then piss off" was the frame of mind we had.
It's hard to find pirated software if you can't make it past the front door.
Regardless, it's a fine line sometimes between what's libel and what isn't. I'm a huge fan of First Ammendment rights, and even if it comes at the cost of someone's pride, then so be it.
Anyone else suprised?