Reality Distortion Field The "power" of Steve Jobs to convince those around him of any truth he wishes them to see.
Though, the Newton really was a failure. It did many things right, but it was too bulky and costly: the Palm Pilot was less sophisticated, but it really matched what consumers needed.
I see a lot of people saying this is ok because the roads need to be maintained. But raising the gas tax will do that. The problem is that because certain people use gas guzzling cars, they would pay a disproportionately high amount for road repair (that is, they do $10 damage while paying $20, whereas an efficient car also do $10 damage, but only pays $5).
So what? The people with gas guzzling cars do a disproportional amount of damage to the environment and our lungs. In fact there are all sorts of warnings about how lead from gas basically drops the IQ of city kids by 10 points or something. Encouraging them to get more environmentally friendly cars is good. And once everyone has fuel efficient cars, the gas tax will be "fair".
Also, the gas tax avoids privacy issues, and is way less expensive to implement.
In an old SNL skit, Tom Hanks played the president of the "Guy who played Mr. Belvedere" fan club. The fans needed a secret way to refer to the Belvedere actor, so they called him "Broktune". Skit listing
No, the assumption is that if a bad guy can do it, he will. And unless you've high for the last several years, you'll notice that that is indeed the case. With the internet being used for handling lots of money, there is even more reason for the bad guys to exploit holes. That's why security experts try to break the system any way they can: so that the system can be protected before bad guys exploit it, or before too much damage has been done by a bad guy who fails to announce his activities to the admins.
You remind me of this part of the Hitchhikers Guide text adventure: To not get eaten by this big beast, you had to cover your eyes. The beast would realize that you couldn't see it, so it would reason that it couldn't see you, and therefore you weren't there. Do you honestly think black hat hackers are going to fall for that?
History ought to
have taught us to be wary of this Frankenstein-style hubris, but we live in a time when
the inventors and purveyors of technology bristle with arrogance and greed as well as
well as creativity and enterprise.
History has shown the dumbness of failing to pursue technology and trade (China was the ultimate nation in the world until they shut out all outside contact for quite some time). It has shown that every group that learned how to smelt a better metal/allow would conquer all groups who were using an inferior metal,
But where has history shown that pursuing technology without much thought has led to disaster? Let's see... there's Frankenstein (oops, literary example), Atlantis (oops, myth. If historical, we don't know why it really fell), Butlerian Jihad (oh wait, that only hurt the purveyors of technology because an organized mob of luddites destroyed everything. Oh, and it's literary)..
Now, history does show the destruction of technologically advanced peoples. There was Rome--but it got beaten because of political rot, not technology. Germans got beaten in spite of their technology--but the whole world was ganging up on them, and they instigated battles on too many fronts. So I guess they died of hubris--but again political, not technological hubris.
But what about pollution, global warming, and rapid use of unreplenishable resources? Well, we're working on correcting those issues. So far they haven't destroyed us.
Now there are small-scale tragedies that have resulted from the free use of technology. Like Asbestos workers, Marie and Pierre Curie, etc... But there were many deaths that have resulted from blatant unwillingness to pursue science/technology--like all those poor people who were denied water and fresh air when they were sick, and bled by leeches. So I think history kind of balances it out...
So Jon, I ask you, where is this historical evidence you allude to?
Yes, Arnold was a luddite. He was anti-cloning, anti-genetic foods, anti-realdolls, anti-virtual girlfriends, etc. Everything but anti-remote helicopters.
However, there are movies where the movie can convey a message different than the opinion of the main character. Or at least it can deal with the issues in a balanced enough way that viewers can draw their own conclusions. Just because this was an action movie, doesn't mean it wasn't a thinking movie.
The fact that the villain was out to make money wasn't the problem. The problem was that he a) cloned some people without informed consent, and b) added defects so that he could control those people. The speech about the ability to save one person with a transplant, but not be able to save another because of the cloning laws made sense. (even if he was using it to convert the SecState). Also, his bribing of politicians seemed to be somewhat ok because the laws were evil--clones could be legally killed on sight. That is a basic violation of human rights.
Arnold backed down from his position during the movie. The first step was when the real luddite killed his friend (who was actually a clone of his friend). He had been completely fooled. He realized that these clones had souls. Of course the final step was when he himself turned out to be a clone.
His change was evidenced by his buying of cloned pets. He said that he changed his mind about a few things.
Another good Arnold "thinker" disguised as an action movie is Total Recall.
You fool... The whole POINT of starship troopers is that the humans are the BAD guys. Did you read it, or
just watch the film? Heinlein was obviously being too clever for you. He was damning the fascism you
mention, not endorsing it.
Actually, ST the book is quite for all those ideas of only ex-military people voting. Paul Vernhoven basically decided it was a really bad idea, and created a brilliant (though often panned) movie that point by point addressed the issues in the book.
For instance, in the movie, the asteroid wasn't necessarily bug-sent--note how two anti-government pleasure places get destroyed. hmmm... And then there's the Mormon's who get killed by the bugs. Ok, everyone raise there hands who really believe that the government didn't slaughter the Mormons...
Oh, and offtopic, Total Recall the movie was far better than Philip K. Dick's short story that inspired it. The short story merely was ironic and humorous, the movie dealt with complex issues.
Actually, the funny thing is the professor tries to create a government that basically does nothing but argue all the time (that is after the part where he stacks the "elected" people so that everyone will vote the way he wants them to). He wants the individual to have complete freedom.
However, the book says that the government actually came up with some pretty good ideas for the constitution and actually functioned well (which is not what the professor wanted).
In the book, each of the four main revolutionaries had their own reason for joining, and their own goals. But once the revolution got started, it went it's own way to, and not everyone's goals were entirely met. But that's ok, because a democracy cannot meet everyone's goals, or even one person's goals completely.
Science is based on the idea that you can test a hypothesis. Anything that can't really be tested one way or another falls under the concept of philosophy.
Now, natural selection is real. It has been tested and shown to work. Steller evolution is real--we can look at stars in various stages of development, and are pretty confidant that we know the various stages of stars.
The big bang has much evidence to support it. So it is probably real. (Even though we really can't directly test it, there is a lot of evidence in support of it.)
However, evolution of species remains a philosophy. Never have the missing links been discovered. Never has one species been shown to evolve to another (though plenty have gone extinct). There are some jumps which are highly improbable (the eye?).
Scientists tend to disagree with the methodology of creationists ("we already know the answer, now lets find proof. Anything contrary can be explained away."), and have observed that religion has gotten in the way of science. However, that does not make creation any more or less valid that evolution of the species. (btw, many creationists believe that God created all life on earth, but started with a pre-existing earth and stars.) By ignoring all other options, the evolution "scientists" (perhaps more appropriately "philosophers") are doing the same thing they accuse religion of. They tend to obscure the fact that evolution of the species doesn't really have any scientific proof by pointing to natural selection, which does.
Oh, and how is the "Gaia hypothesis" scientific *at all*? That is more of a primitive "earth mother" religion than science...
I know this opinion will be unpopular on slashdot.. but...
You work for them! They should be able to hold you accountable for everything you do while at work. You say that you think you have the write to have regular mail go by without interception... If they wanted to look at office communication to/from you, they could legitimately do so.
Now, if they tried to extend this to (non-DOE) computers/accounts that you use when you aren't at work, then of course that's Bad. But anything you do at work should be monitorable.
They could use one from the BSD variant.
on
QNX Crypt Cracked
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· Score: 2
First, copyrights only apply to implementations, not to algorythms. That's why Solaris, *BSD, and Linux can all use the same algorythm.
But, if the QNX people were really lazy, they could have just grabbed crypt function from one of the BSD source trees and used it. (remember, the BSD license doesn't not dissallow the use of their code in a closed-source system like the GPL does.)
This is probably an unpopular opinion on slashdot... But I partially agree with the use of profiling--engineers use similar techniques to diagnose stuff (you just don't automatically assume everything flagged is an error). Anyways, here's my letter:
---------- Just to let you know where I'm coming from: I am a self-professed geek who reads Slashdot, blah, blah... But I do believe in profiling as a diagnostic tool: if 10% of people who where red clothes and drink pepsi end up killing people, then you keep tabs on all those people (but don't arrest them just because they fit the profile).
I do have a couple of concerns/suggestions. Maybe before schools could be allowed into this program, the teachers and some of the administration would have to go through a (small) training program that educates them about how to treat an anonymous tip. (Like, don't assume automatic guilt, but do call student in, maybe search locker, etc). In addition, you can educate the schools on dealing with people who excarbate the problems (like the stereotypical "Jock" who spends his whole high school raping women and beating up "geeks"). After all, if it turns out that most school shootings are perpetuated by people that have been beaten up at school, preventing beatings of the people reported would also reduce shootings.
As time goes on your educational program can evolve as you have more experience in the area.
Add an abuse-reporting hotline (or make it an extension of the same one). Students can report school abuses to the information provided by Pinkerton. Maybe also add a way that students can report students who consistently beat them/others.
Also, there are plenty of existing counseling hotlines. Maybe you could have pointers to them on your websites for students who *are* depressed and carry guns:-)
Finally, maybe set up a watch-dog group. These guys wouldn't have to have any real power (you don't want the likes of Katz to be able to shut you down instantly, or be able to force you into moves desigend to bankrupt the program), but they could point out to you actual/potential problems. It would naturally be an unpaid board.
Well, thanks for listening and showing a willingness to address concerns,
All she would say is that Kubrick "smelled good" and that, at her request, he'd given her a lock of his hair in an as-yet-unopened envelope, her intention being to clone him.
So our wish may soon become reality.:-) (btw, she was joking for you serious types)
Many people have said "hurray for Apple", and "Yes, they do have a unique design." Yes... Apple does. And they do have a right to copyright their design, etc...
Trademark law is designed to allow brands to have something distinct so that clones can't fool a consumer into thinking he/she is getting the real product. This is similar to the idea behind not allowing people to wear police uniforms; technically I can wear whatever I want, but wearing a police uniform would make people think I have certain powers/rights that I don't.
So the question is, not "did eMachines steal the look and feel of the iMac", but "do the eMachines look enough like the iMac to confuse consumers into thinking that they are purchasing an iMac, or looking at an iMac when they really are looking at an eOne.". I think that the eOne is distinct enough to not fool consumers (although clearly the iMac looks better). It does take advantage of the consumer desire for an all-in-one, stylized computer. Nothing wrong with that.
Here's some pictures of the eOne, compared with this picture of an iMac. Again, I think they're different enough that the average consumer won't think it's an iMac. Which would make this not a trademark violation.
Now, to address some other issues: people seem to think this is equivalent to trying to protect the "beige case" design. It is not. That is so generic that no one associates it with any specific company. However, if someone came out with a translucent cobalt-blue cube computer, they should get smacked down because people will confuse it with the Cobalt Cube.
For something that I think is trademark violation, check this pilot look-a-like out...
In addition to tech people, we are humans. Some of us are US citizens. If Linux was the primary OS of the Death Star, would I suddenly support the Death Star? And if the Alliance used only Windows, would I fail to support the Alliance?
The point is I want my vote to go to a candidate who has real policies that I can agree with (as well as perhaps some that I don't), rather than someone who wants to please so many people that he/she doesn't have any policies at all.
Screw that, McCain's still my man. Give em hell, John!
Mine too. He's honest and willing to fighgt, and seems reasonably intelligent. I'm not normally one who cares about military careers, etc... but he really did show himself to be incredibally brave and principled.
According to their web page, it's going to be released under the GPL. I like Gnome (and to a lesser extent KDE). However neither appears to be made with the rigid quality control (as in ease-of-use, not stability) found in Apple products.
Some of this will take a few court cases to decide. But someone who looks up values from CRC should be able to use them individually in a report. Or even put a table of a few values in...
However, if you take a significant portion of the work and either add value (by reformatting it, or relating it to other data), or just straight copy, you will have to pay a licensing fee. But some of the proposed laws have provisions to ensure a fair fee. This seems somewhat fair, as it does take quite a bit of work to put something like this together.
Now, something that wasn't addressed too clearly, but I'm fairly certain would be legal, would be to reverse engineer the database. So, with the CRC book, you could take a list of all the facts they have, then determine the values of each without using the handbook. That should be a legal way to do it.
I too have a problem with the GPL with regards to Collectives. My problem is specifically in reference to the recent Slashdot thread on Secure Computing and their secure version of Linux. Specifically, they are going to put patented code into Linux. This would make distribution of the modified code illegal because the GPL definitely forbids distribution that doesn't grant rights equally and freely to all users.
I wrote RMS about this, and this is the reply I got:
ME: However, my question is this: say a government employee decided to release this software to the general public, could he/she do so? And how?
RMS:In general, I think that use of a package within a company or an agency is not distribution to the staff, so legally speaking the employees have not received the program under the GPL and don't have a right to redistribute it to you.
I do not like this, in spirit, but I cannot say it is illegal.
ME: 2) Secure Computing is incorporating patented technology into Linux. If source did get out, could any end user use it, or would it only be legal for those who licensed the patent technology?
RMS: Its release would not be lawful at all, I think. To release the program, having obtained a patent license which doesn't apply to all subsequent users, would definitely violate the GPL. Thus, the NSA could not release this if they wanted to.
I agree with RMS that normally a corporation letting its employees use software does not count as distribution. However, in this case we have a different situation... Secure Computing (which is completely seperate from the NSA), is being hired by the NSA to make a special version of Linux for them. Therefore, I think you do have to count this as distribution, and as Fare said, it must be distribution to the individuals in the corporation (NSA), not to NSA as a group.
If we allow this, then what is to prevent Secure Computing from selling this modified version of Linux to other companies as well? All they have to do is make sure never to sell to an individual (because an individual can request code, but the corporation won't), and they're fine.
Which is a huge gaping hole! Licenses must apply to individuals. How can a company ask for source code?
Clarke is one of my favorite authors
on
Childhood's End
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· Score: 1
Many people have pointed out that Clarke isn't very good at characterization--he's an idea man. Well, that may be true, but the same can be said about Jules Verne.
The thing I like about Childhood's End is the really clever ideas in it. The people in the book give up on religion and anything not "reasonable", and go over to rationality and "science" only. And that is their undoing. Clarke is pointing out that True science doesn't condemn religion or the paranormal (though it may discount it); it condemns what is proven false.
Clarke is also a very good futurist. Right after WWII he kept petitioning congress to put orbitting radios in space (communications satellites). He was consistently laughed down. So he wrote a story in which the Russians listened to him, and through very subtle propaganda would be able to win the US over. (This story is a short, and is in the anthology Nine Billion Names of God)
Anyways, the comparison to Bradbury and Heinlein is ridiculous. Bradbury was always too much in love with writers and writing (like JonKatz with technology:-) ). Heinlein was usually very preachy about his moral ideas, and didn't let the story flow freely (although I do like a few of his stories). And Asimov was always caught up in the game of Logic. So though Clarke is flawed, so are all the others.
Apple may have spent many man hours doing this, but intentionally or unintentionally, they copied the look from some old Kaleidoscope schemes... So I feel no sympathy for them.
Maybe another slashdotter can remember the series of schemes that were jeweled? I can't remember the names.
You are very right that look-and-feel is losing grounds for a suit--artists can't sue for that...
But... assuming it is. When MacOS 7 was out, a program was released called kaleidoscope that allowed people to retheme the MacOS. There were some themes done that Aqua looks suspiciously like... So Apple should be sued... I can't find links to them right... But they had that whole crystal/jeweled look.
(Disclaimer: I didn't go to MacWorld, myself, this info is second hand) My boss was describing some of the new functionality of Aqua... and it sounded a lot like stuff in the Unix world... (although I suppose they could have gotten a lot from NeXt)
At any rate, Apple shouldn't be so uptight. Good design is good design and should be copied. No one can copyright an idea... that's what patents are for:-) But, then again, no one can patent a visual design.
Not only does she dress well, but she has an awesome comic as well. After Y2K is the funniest comic I've seen. It is in color (and usually animated), and appears daily. Unfortunately there's no award for "Person that keeps hackers spirits up so they can continue coding."
(btw, I am a guy). First, I didn't go into computers because I was a social outcast; I went into computers because I enjoyed them. I have always been interested in the way things work more than in relating to groups of people. And I'm not sure that's why there are fewer women in computing.
In my experience I've known very few women who were good with computers or who had the right mindset to work with computers well... but I haven't known that many guys like that either. However, as a guy I was encouraged in my computing experiments--guys would approve, and women would say things like ``You're so smart.'' (obviously not the geek women women who I wanted:-) ).
There were a lot of guys (mostly Jock-types), who thought they knew everything. So they would be very assertive in their knowledge of computers and science. If I corrected them, it was fine (because everyone knew that I was a nerd and knew what I was talking about (besides they were stronger, so admitting my superiority in this one area was ok). However, if a girl corrected them, they would reassert their correctness (wrong though it might be) until the girl backed down or gave up trying to correct them (this was especially true if the girl was pretty--which most geek women I've known are).
Most of the geek women I've known have gone into education or communication. I think some of them would have gone into computers if there was more encouragement (not to boost their self-esteem, but to show them that they would be accepted and be able to make a contribution without a lot of battles).
Because of this filtering that goes on, the geek women that have gone into computing and engineering are either REALLY good, or trying to prove a point. I can't respect the ones that are just trying to prove a point.
Oh, and for you geek women: you are awesome, and generally very attractive to us geek guys (or at least, I am very attracted to geek women). So I probably try to prove myself more to the women, and so come off a bit patronizing. I don't mean this, and I'm sure that a lot of geek guys are like this. So if there's something about our behavior that bothers you, just say something. You'll probably get a quick quip dismissing it, but then say ``No, really... I mean it.'' and I would be more than happy to accommodate.
In other words, us guys make mistakes; give us room:-)
Boy, I feel like Jon Katz now:-)
Sounds like "Childhood's End"
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Darwin's Radio
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· Score: 1
This sounds a lot like Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End. Except that in his book our next evolutionary step was to become some sort super-energy organism (but only one composed of many humans). It dealt with the fact that the parents of these evolved children were the last "humans" ever...
Anyways, if you're into the whole "evolving in one step" thing, I strongly recommed Childhood's End.
Slashdot Mirror
Though, the Newton really was a failure. It did many things right, but it was too bulky and costly: the Palm Pilot was less sophisticated, but it really matched what consumers needed.
So what? The people with gas guzzling cars do a disproportional amount of damage to the environment and our lungs. In fact there are all sorts of warnings about how lead from gas basically drops the IQ of city kids by 10 points or something. Encouraging them to get more environmentally friendly cars is good. And once everyone has fuel efficient cars, the gas tax will be "fair".
Also, the gas tax avoids privacy issues, and is way less expensive to implement.
In an old SNL skit, Tom Hanks played the president of the "Guy who played Mr. Belvedere" fan club. The fans needed a secret way to refer to the Belvedere actor, so they called him "Broktune". Skit listing
No, the assumption is that if a bad guy can do it, he will. And unless you've high for the last several years, you'll notice that that is indeed the case. With the internet being used for handling lots of money, there is even more reason for the bad guys to exploit holes. That's why security experts try to break the system any way they can: so that the system can be protected before bad guys exploit it, or before too much damage has been done by a bad guy who fails to announce his activities to the admins.
You remind me of this part of the Hitchhikers Guide text adventure: To not get eaten by this big beast, you had to cover your eyes. The beast would realize that you couldn't see it, so it would reason that it couldn't see you, and therefore you weren't there. Do you honestly think black hat hackers are going to fall for that?
But where has history shown that pursuing technology without much thought has led to disaster? Let's see... there's Frankenstein (oops, literary example), Atlantis (oops, myth. If historical, we don't know why it really fell), Butlerian Jihad (oh wait, that only hurt the purveyors of technology because an organized mob of luddites destroyed everything. Oh, and it's literary)..
Now, history does show the destruction of technologically advanced peoples. There was Rome--but it got beaten because of political rot, not technology. Germans got beaten in spite of their technology--but the whole world was ganging up on them, and they instigated battles on too many fronts. So I guess they died of hubris--but again political, not technological hubris.
But what about pollution, global warming, and rapid use of unreplenishable resources? Well, we're working on correcting those issues. So far they haven't destroyed us.
Now there are small-scale tragedies that have resulted from the free use of technology. Like Asbestos workers, Marie and Pierre Curie, etc... But there were many deaths that have resulted from blatant unwillingness to pursue science/technology--like all those poor people who were denied water and fresh air when they were sick, and bled by leeches. So I think history kind of balances it out...
So Jon, I ask you, where is this historical evidence you allude to?
However, there are movies where the movie can convey a message different than the opinion of the main character. Or at least it can deal with the issues in a balanced enough way that viewers can draw their own conclusions. Just because this was an action movie, doesn't mean it wasn't a thinking movie.
The fact that the villain was out to make money wasn't the problem. The problem was that he a) cloned some people without informed consent, and b) added defects so that he could control those people. The speech about the ability to save one person with a transplant, but not be able to save another because of the cloning laws made sense. (even if he was using it to convert the SecState). Also, his bribing of politicians seemed to be somewhat ok because the laws were evil--clones could be legally killed on sight. That is a basic violation of human rights.
Arnold backed down from his position during the movie. The first step was when the real luddite killed his friend (who was actually a clone of his friend). He had been completely fooled. He realized that these clones had souls. Of course the final step was when he himself turned out to be a clone.
His change was evidenced by his buying of cloned pets. He said that he changed his mind about a few things.
Another good Arnold "thinker" disguised as an action movie is Total Recall.
For instance, in the movie, the asteroid wasn't necessarily bug-sent--note how two anti-government pleasure places get destroyed. hmmm... And then there's the Mormon's who get killed by the bugs. Ok, everyone raise there hands who really believe that the government didn't slaughter the Mormons...
Oh, and offtopic, Total Recall the movie was far better than Philip K. Dick's short story that inspired it. The short story merely was ironic and humorous, the movie dealt with complex issues.
However, the book says that the government actually came up with some pretty good ideas for the constitution and actually functioned well (which is not what the professor wanted).
In the book, each of the four main revolutionaries had their own reason for joining, and their own goals. But once the revolution got started, it went it's own way to, and not everyone's goals were entirely met. But that's ok, because a democracy cannot meet everyone's goals, or even one person's goals completely.
Now, natural selection is real. It has been tested and shown to work. Steller evolution is real--we can look at stars in various stages of development, and are pretty confidant that we know the various stages of stars.
The big bang has much evidence to support it. So it is probably real. (Even though we really can't directly test it, there is a lot of evidence in support of it.)
However, evolution of species remains a philosophy. Never have the missing links been discovered. Never has one species been shown to evolve to another (though plenty have gone extinct). There are some jumps which are highly improbable (the eye?).
Scientists tend to disagree with the methodology of creationists ("we already know the answer, now lets find proof. Anything contrary can be explained away."), and have observed that religion has gotten in the way of science. However, that does not make creation any more or less valid that evolution of the species. (btw, many creationists believe that God created all life on earth, but started with a pre-existing earth and stars.) By ignoring all other options, the evolution "scientists" (perhaps more appropriately "philosophers") are doing the same thing they accuse religion of. They tend to obscure the fact that evolution of the species doesn't really have any scientific proof by pointing to natural selection, which does.
Oh, and how is the "Gaia hypothesis" scientific *at all*? That is more of a primitive "earth mother" religion than science...
You work for them! They should be able to hold you accountable for everything you do while at work. You say that you think you have the write to have regular mail go by without interception... If they wanted to look at office communication to/from you, they could legitimately do so.
Now, if they tried to extend this to (non-DOE) computers/accounts that you use when you aren't at work, then of course that's Bad. But anything you do at work should be monitorable.
But, if the QNX people were really lazy, they could have just grabbed crypt function from one of the BSD source trees and used it. (remember, the BSD license doesn't not dissallow the use of their code in a closed-source system like the GPL does.)
This is probably an unpopular opinion on slashdot... But I partially agree with the use of profiling--engineers use similar techniques to diagnose stuff (you just don't automatically assume everything flagged is an error). Anyways, here's my letter:
:-)
----------
Just to let you know where I'm coming from: I am a self-professed geek who
reads Slashdot, blah, blah... But I do believe in profiling as a
diagnostic tool: if 10% of people who where red clothes and drink pepsi
end up killing people, then you keep tabs on all those people (but don't
arrest them just because they fit the profile).
I do have a couple of concerns/suggestions. Maybe before schools could be
allowed into this program, the teachers and some of the administration
would have to go through a (small) training program that educates them
about how to treat an anonymous tip. (Like, don't assume automatic guilt,
but do call student in, maybe search locker, etc). In addition, you can
educate the schools on dealing with people who excarbate the problems
(like the stereotypical "Jock" who spends his whole high school raping
women and beating up "geeks"). After all, if it turns out that most school shootings are perpetuated by people that have been beaten up at
school, preventing beatings of the people reported would also reduce
shootings.
As time goes on your educational program can evolve as you have more
experience in the area.
Add an abuse-reporting hotline (or make it an extension of the same one).
Students can report school abuses to the information provided by
Pinkerton. Maybe also add a way that students can report students who
consistently beat them/others.
Also, there are plenty of existing counseling hotlines. Maybe you could
have pointers to them on your websites for students who *are* depressed
and carry guns
Finally, maybe set up a watch-dog group. These guys wouldn't have to have
any real power (you don't want the likes of Katz to be able to shut you
down instantly, or be able to force you into moves desigend to bankrupt
the program), but they could point out to you actual/potential problems.
It would naturally be an unpaid board.
Well, thanks for listening and showing a willingness to address concerns,
Yes, check a recent Leelee Sobieski interview out. For those too lazy to check the link out:
So our wish may soon become reality. :-) (btw, she was joking for you serious types)
Trademark law is designed to allow brands to have something distinct so that clones can't fool a consumer into thinking he/she is getting the real product. This is similar to the idea behind not allowing people to wear police uniforms; technically I can wear whatever I want, but wearing a police uniform would make people think I have certain powers/rights that I don't.
So the question is, not "did eMachines steal the look and feel of the iMac", but "do the eMachines look enough like the iMac to confuse consumers into thinking that they are purchasing an iMac, or looking at an iMac when they really are looking at an eOne.". I think that the eOne is distinct enough to not fool consumers (although clearly the iMac looks better). It does take advantage of the consumer desire for an all-in-one, stylized computer. Nothing wrong with that.
Here's some pictures of the eOne, compared with this picture of an iMac. Again, I think they're different enough that the average consumer won't think it's an iMac. Which would make this not a trademark violation.
Now, to address some other issues: people seem to think this is equivalent to trying to protect the "beige case" design. It is not. That is so generic that no one associates it with any specific company. However, if someone came out with a translucent cobalt-blue cube computer, they should get smacked down because people will confuse it with the Cobalt Cube.
For something that I think is trademark violation, check this pilot look-a-like out...
The point is I want my vote to go to a candidate who has real policies that I can agree with (as well as perhaps some that I don't), rather than someone who wants to please so many people that he/she doesn't have any policies at all.
Mine too. He's honest and willing to fighgt, and seems reasonably intelligent. I'm not normally one who cares about military careers, etc... but he really did show himself to be incredibally brave and principled.
So I'm really looking forward to this.
However, if you take a significant portion of the work and either add value (by reformatting it, or relating it to other data), or just straight copy, you will have to pay a licensing fee. But some of the proposed laws have provisions to ensure a fair fee. This seems somewhat fair, as it does take quite a bit of work to put something like this together.
Now, something that wasn't addressed too clearly, but I'm fairly certain would be legal, would be to reverse engineer the database. So, with the CRC book, you could take a list of all the facts they have, then determine the values of each without using the handbook. That should be a legal way to do it.
I wrote RMS about this, and this is the reply I got:
I agree with RMS that normally a corporation letting its employees use software does not count as distribution. However, in this case we have a different situation... Secure Computing (which is completely seperate from the NSA), is being hired by the NSA to make a special version of Linux for them. Therefore, I think you do have to count this as distribution, and as Fare said, it must be distribution to the individuals in the corporation (NSA), not to NSA as a group.If we allow this, then what is to prevent Secure Computing from selling this modified version of Linux to other companies as well? All they have to do is make sure never to sell to an individual (because an individual can request code, but the corporation won't), and they're fine.
Which is a huge gaping hole! Licenses must apply to individuals. How can a company ask for source code?
The thing I like about Childhood's End is the really clever ideas in it. The people in the book give up on religion and anything not "reasonable", and go over to rationality and "science" only. And that is their undoing. Clarke is pointing out that True science doesn't condemn religion or the paranormal (though it may discount it); it condemns what is proven false.
Clarke is also a very good futurist. Right after WWII he kept petitioning congress to put orbitting radios in space (communications satellites). He was consistently laughed down. So he wrote a story in which the Russians listened to him, and through very subtle propaganda would be able to win the US over. (This story is a short, and is in the anthology Nine Billion Names of God)
Anyways, the comparison to Bradbury and Heinlein is ridiculous. Bradbury was always too much in love with writers and writing (like JonKatz with technology :-) ). Heinlein was usually very preachy about his moral ideas, and didn't let the story flow freely (although I do like a few of his stories). And Asimov was always caught up in the game of Logic. So though Clarke is flawed, so are all the others.
Maybe another slashdotter can remember the series of schemes that were jeweled? I can't remember the names.
But... assuming it is. When MacOS 7 was out, a program was released called kaleidoscope that allowed people to retheme the MacOS. There were some themes done that Aqua looks suspiciously like... So Apple should be sued... I can't find links to them right... But they had that whole crystal/jeweled look.
(Disclaimer: I didn't go to MacWorld, myself, this info is second hand) My boss was describing some of the new functionality of Aqua... and it sounded a lot like stuff in the Unix world... (although I suppose they could have gotten a lot from NeXt)
At any rate, Apple shouldn't be so uptight. Good design is good design and should be copied. No one can copyright an idea... that's what patents are for :-) But, then again, no one can patent a visual design.
Not only does she dress well, but she has an awesome comic as well. After Y2K is the funniest comic I've seen. It is in color (and usually animated), and appears daily. Unfortunately there's no award for "Person that keeps hackers spirits up so they can continue coding."
In my experience I've known very few women who were good with computers or who had the right mindset to work with computers well... but I haven't known that many guys like that either. However, as a guy I was encouraged in my computing experiments--guys would approve, and women would say things like ``You're so smart.'' (obviously not the geek women women who I wanted :-) ).
There were a lot of guys (mostly Jock-types), who thought they knew everything. So they would be very assertive in their knowledge of computers and science. If I corrected them, it was fine (because everyone knew that I was a nerd and knew what I was talking about (besides they were stronger, so admitting my superiority in this one area was ok). However, if a girl corrected them, they would reassert their correctness (wrong though it might be) until the girl backed down or gave up trying to correct them (this was especially true if the girl was pretty--which most geek women I've known are).
Most of the geek women I've known have gone into education or communication. I think some of them would have gone into computers if there was more encouragement (not to boost their self-esteem, but to show them that they would be accepted and be able to make a contribution without a lot of battles).
Because of this filtering that goes on, the geek women that have gone into computing and engineering are either REALLY good, or trying to prove a point. I can't respect the ones that are just trying to prove a point.
Oh, and for you geek women: you are awesome, and generally very attractive to us geek guys (or at least, I am very attracted to geek women). So I probably try to prove myself more to the women, and so come off a bit patronizing. I don't mean this, and I'm sure that a lot of geek guys are like this. So if there's something about our behavior that bothers you, just say something. You'll probably get a quick quip dismissing it, but then say ``No, really... I mean it.'' and I would be more than happy to accommodate.
In other words, us guys make mistakes; give us room :-)
Boy, I feel like Jon Katz now :-)
Anyways, if you're into the whole "evolving in one step" thing, I strongly recommed Childhood's End.