Maybe you missed something here? It didn't look like racist comments here. I live in Washington state. We have a lot of migrant workers. It's a fair assumption that the Mexicans that you see around where I live are illegal immigrants.
You can argue that is a sad state of affairs or any number of other things, but racist it is not.
Your comment is interesting, but even good programmers tend not to do this during code review. And... the reasons are good.
Unless you are a teacher... It is a waste of time. They should know better, or at the very least be able to figure it out based on the red mark that is left where the offending code resides.
Most of the problems with maintenaince are in the "grammer" of the code. Examples, use a switch statement here instead of 23 if statements. Use an enum instead of 23 constant declarations. Refactor that code into a group of methods. Most algorithms are straightforward and simple. Otherwise they should be flagged themselves and not understandable and therefore bad.
When it is prudent, it generally should have been done earlier then at code review. You are basically talking about architectural changes when you make a comment about problems x, y, and z that are related to the code that you implement having adverse affects on other code or components. (This is a problem with the OSS model in general. Generally, there is no architecture meetings, and such... just submit your patch and hope that it goes in. The road map is kind of an amalgamation of different patches from people that care about their pet projects only, instead of a list of distinct improvements.)
I'll try to give a reasonable response, though I find your arguments aggravating, I do believe that you are trying to be respectful.
I think you've missed part of the point. The point is not that it's okay to "steal" a product, but that there is a feeling of being cheated on the part of the consumer which drives people to make copies of a work they should pay for. They feel justified because - unlike just about every other industry they come in contact with - the primary reason for the price is the monopoly the content holders have. They can make the discs $1000, without retribution or fear of competition - there is no alternative vendor for Dido.
One counterpoint here is that justification does not make a thief not a criminal.
Most discs don't cost $1000 and where they do it is because there is only one vendor. That vendor is typically a monopoly on that area because no one else wants to put in the R&D cost that allows them to enter a market where a competitor already has a superior product for a reasonable price.
I've written and worked on several pieces of software that range in cost form the low range all of the way up to the high range. Fewer copies get sold at the high range, and it typically costs much, much more to produce the software that costs a fortune.
The people that need that type of property should either pay for it or do without it.
In a civilized society, we (the general populace) expect that the price of the goods has a relationship to the cost of production. That means the cost of all of the production - including reasonable overhead, product development, and recurring costs. CDs don't appear to be priced that way, and the consumers resent it. Since there is no legitimate competition, an illigtimate market has emerged.
Music CD's cost between 5 and 20 dollars. It's not a good argument that they are so far out of people's reach that they can't afford it. Personally, I agree that the music industry is over capitalized, and that those artists should get back to their roots and people should play music for free. Damn near anyone can create music. But still that belief is beside the point. I don't copy music to anywhere that is not mine, and I don't give it away to all my friends.
Besides that the music industry subsidizes all kinds of options for people that can't afford CDs. There's radio, MTV, and all kinds of other avenues like that, without breaking the law.
Since these people do work for money, they should get money for the work they do. They should not get robbed by everyone that downloads 2000 songs cause they can't afford a CD. The music industry is going to go up in flames unless something changes drastically. There is a cause and effect here, and the result isn't going to be cheaper CDs.
There will always be those who are in it just to get around the system, but the vast majority of those who copy music do it because the cost of the product has been set artificially high. Based on what we (think we) know about the industry, we're the ones getting robbed every time we go to a music store.
That's not true at all. People who copy music instead of paying for it are cheap ass, everything is entitled to them lowlifes that don't want to work a job to earn what they've got. Seriously, $10 for a CD. The packaging cost s 1$ or 2$. The CD costs a nickel. The retail markup is double the wholesale. The production costs are a 1$ or 2$ each. The artist gets a small percentage of that. There really isn't much money lining someone's pockets here.
For what it's worth I happen to work in an IP field, and my works are protected by copyright.
For what it's worth, I agree with some of your sentiment, and I also own a lot of IP. I don't know good solutions, and I wish I did.
Hmm, actually there are entire languages that have built in features to avoid this problem. It is indeed a known problem, and it is indeed very old. Whoever wrote the article saying that this was new as a security issue, is quite misinformed. Actually, since they are writing an article, that makes them an idiot too. Too many journalist idiots out there that don't ask more than 1 person a question before taking it at down as factual. I don't know any programmer that would have said, "Oh, dangling pointers, memory leaks, and bad code... those aren't security problems." Unless of course, they are joking.
I find the implication here rather appalling. Basically, you are saying that once costs are covered, then it is ok to steal the end product.
ie.) Once the auto manufacturer's make back their investment and cost of materials, then all cars of that type should be free.
ie.) Once that store owner makes his initial investment back, the rest of the stuff in the store should be free for the remainder of the year.
The problem here is that there are all kinds of costs, and failures that come before a success. Those need to be covered too. I hate it when people imply that digital and intellectual work is so valueless that they feel entitled to copy it for their own purposes. (If you paid for your copy, then copy it to whatever you want. Just don't give it to all your friends.)
For all the ignorant people out there, I hope that you personally gain perspective on what this kind of theft feels like.
The guy that funded the prize, had also given money to the company that won (before they won -- meaning for R&D). That's not a real contest. That's a tax write off.
I'm not sure it's worth that kind of time commitment just for a million bucks a year. But, on the other hand, I have to agree with your points. They are the same reasons that I'm successful, and they mostly match my sentiments.
The hardest working people are the ones that make the most financial success. My dad was a janitor when I was a little kid. He worked harder than anyone I've ever met. He is now (20 or 30 years later) more financially successful then you and me put together.
Hard work gets you there. It's no mystery to me. What is a mystery to me is that so many other people never figure that out.
My goal is to surpass that success, with lots of work, and then to try and catch myself at some point before it overrules the second half of my life too. I'll hire help. It'll get me there easier than it did for him.
I agree with your destinction between computer science and computer engineering. I just wanted to add a little more emphasis to the Computer Science end of things being more useless.
It's kind of like all that Math that you learned in HighSchool and College. Yep, I've used that like 10 times since then. And I bet that most people fit into that category too.
On rare occasion, I get to design a new algorythm. Mostly it is just compositing, or some small tweak to an existing idea. It's the sum of the parts that makes the application interesting. After the design is complete, it's mostly mechanical labour and work.
In my opinion, it's just sad that more people don't have the education to perform that skill well. It's not that hard of a skill. It's just not reinforced during school very much.
Let's analyze that with an anology. I think it is akin to a mechanice who reads about engines in a book, changes some parts around for a few months in great big hurry, and then reads some more about engines for 3 more years without touching an engine again during that whole time.
Hmm, and you clicked on it and posted in it. Though apparently, I'm just as much of a sucker. The funny part is that people are meta-moderating here too.
Hey mods, I've always wanted a +5 Funny... and that would be fitting here, since this isn't funny at all... unless of course it really does get modded +5 funny... then... that would be funny.
China is very friendly with the U.S. We owe them like a trillion dollars. On top of that we are their biggest consumer. As long as the stand to benefit that greatly from us, they will continue to do so. But ignoring that, China also has no real insertion capability. Basically, no air craft carriers, or real naval threat to speak of. On top of that, they might have a large army, but they are currently under-trained and have not been involved in a war for quite a while. Their technology currently lags, behind just about everyone and that is meaningful.
Of course things change. I'll just wait and read what the slashdot future beholds.
Dude, those planes carry full on CRAY (or other brand) super computers in them. They need them for communication, weapons, enemy identification, and geographic location. That's their purpose. Communications aren't done through simple radio communication. It's encrypted and probably bounces off of satellites. Also, I bet those buggers are slighly harder to fly with no computers working onboard.
Not to worry though, they likely have the best pilots in the world flying billion dollar planes. Pilots like that, could probably fly a piece of cardboard over the Atlantic ocean.
Actually, you are wrong. Software patents are in essence a little different than normal patents in this way. It really is about how it gets done, and the idea is secondary with Software.
I don't have a College degree in computer science and I just accepted a six figure salary for the largest Software company in the world. It's the 10 years of experience that did it. A degree would have prolonged that occurance by about 4 to 6 years. On a side note, I am proud to say that I had around 10 such offers in the same range in the last couple of weeks. (One tip: location matters... Live where the demand for your skill set is highest.)
Here is what a degree and certifications, and so forth means to me, when I look for candidates.
Instead of throwing the resume in the garbage if they don't have experience, I'll interview the candidate if they have a high level degree, and/or a bunch of certifications.
My final decision will be based on what you know, or more so based on what you can prove that you know during an interview... in essence do you remember all of the stuff they tried to pound into your head while you were in school.
Job experience is better, because it is harder to forget something that caused you to suffer through a task. That is opposed to cramming for 40 minutes to get an A on a test.
Even with all that being said, I think education is really important. If you have the time and the money, most accredited colleges are created equal. Choose one that you like and go there.
Whiner: Oh, my new operating system requires more hardware.... whaaa
Whiner: I can't believe my new operating system has new stuff in it, and (oh no) new marketing.... whaa
Whiner: [insert old version of anything here] was better, and I can't handle change if it means any kind of trade off.
Soon, enough 2gb of memory is going to be the minimum installed on a machine, and you'll be able to upgrade to 256gb of ram pretty soon.
The oink comment was still hilarious, though.
Pertaining to the memory model hogging all the memory for cache... it is the reason that I use XP instead of Linux. And, it is the reason that I won't use Vista until after service pack one. It's a stupid model that is just dying to be resource hungry. Stupid mistakes in memory usage can no longer be easily tracked... "Oh, don't worry, it's just the memory manager!"... Yeah Right!
It's an idea that sounds good in theory, but should not be implemented. It's just asking for problems. The system will be less robust, and by virtue of that, security, performance, and correctness will be hurt.
Sometimes, the old ways are the best ways, and so along that vein... I agree with the Original Poster. Don't mess with something that is basically already working great. It would be like making Windows free, or charging for Linux, or using a camera instead of a windshield to see the road while you are driving.
Windows Vista uses the same boot-time prefetching as Windows XP did if the system has less than 512MB of memory, but if the system has 700MB or more of RAM, it uses an in-RAM cache to optimize the boot process.
Okay, so I just wanted to nitpick a sentence here. What happens between 512 and 700. I presume it does the same thing at XP would have. But this sentence is confusing, and perhaps implies that perhaps Ms. PacMan will get launched in this scenario.
Overall though, an interesting series. Kudos to the author.
I mean my geographic area.
My expertise covers a wide spectrum.
My email address is bradsnobar@netscape.net
Send me an email, and I'll send you a résumé,
or I can just help you write up some good descriptions for some ads.
The disease does not cause immediate blindness. I can still see fine, except in some situations that are fairly easy to avoid. I'm slowly going blind, and will be blind in about 30 years from now.
I'm looking for a Software job (10 years experience, Expert in several areas), and the only good ones in my area are at Microsoft.
I have an interview for Wednesday. I'll have to live away from my home for a period of months, and I'm going to miss seeing my wife, and my cat for a lot of that time. On top of that, I have to talk to recruiters whome I can't always tell if they are telling me the truth or not.
It's no excuse really, but it puts me in a bad mood. Its kind of a hot button for me. Being lied to, being stolen from, and a few other things really make me edgy. I probably should not have posted a comment.
Besides that, just being edgy like that makes it worse for me. Typically, I'm in a pretty good mood most of the time.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you missed something here? It didn't look like racist comments here. I live in Washington state. We have a lot of migrant workers. It's a fair assumption that the Mexicans that you see around where I live are illegal immigrants.
You can argue that is a sad state of affairs or any number of other things, but racist it is not.
Maintenaince is an important factor I'm sure. If someone is sick or not, people don't care about that. How is saying that trolling around?
One counterpoint here is that justification does not make a thief not a criminal. Most discs don't cost $1000 and where they do it is because there is only one vendor. That vendor is typically a monopoly on that area because no one else wants to put in the R&D cost that allows them to enter a market where a competitor already has a superior product for a reasonable price. I've written and worked on several pieces of software that range in cost form the low range all of the way up to the high range. Fewer copies get sold at the high range, and it typically costs much, much more to produce the software that costs a fortune. The people that need that type of property should either pay for it or do without it.
Music CD's cost between 5 and 20 dollars. It's not a good argument that they are so far out of people's reach that they can't afford it. Personally, I agree that the music industry is over capitalized, and that those artists should get back to their roots and people should play music for free. Damn near anyone can create music. But still that belief is beside the point. I don't copy music to anywhere that is not mine, and I don't give it away to all my friends. Besides that the music industry subsidizes all kinds of options for people that can't afford CDs. There's radio, MTV, and all kinds of other avenues like that, without breaking the law. Since these people do work for money, they should get money for the work they do. They should not get robbed by everyone that downloads 2000 songs cause they can't afford a CD. The music industry is going to go up in flames unless something changes drastically. There is a cause and effect here, and the result isn't going to be cheaper CDs. That's not true at all. People who copy music instead of paying for it are cheap ass, everything is entitled to them lowlifes that don't want to work a job to earn what they've got. Seriously, $10 for a CD. The packaging cost s 1$ or 2$. The CD costs a nickel. The retail markup is double the wholesale. The production costs are a 1$ or 2$ each. The artist gets a small percentage of that. There really isn't much money lining someone's pockets here.
For what it's worth, I agree with some of your sentiment, and I also own a lot of IP. I don't know good solutions, and I wish I did.
Hmm, actually there are entire languages that have built in features to avoid this problem. It is indeed a known problem, and it is indeed very old. Whoever wrote the article saying that this was new as a security issue, is quite misinformed. Actually, since they are writing an article, that makes them an idiot too. Too many journalist idiots out there that don't ask more than 1 person a question before taking it at down as factual. I don't know any programmer that would have said, "Oh, dangling pointers, memory leaks, and bad code... those aren't security problems." Unless of course, they are joking.
Paul Allen
I find the implication here rather appalling. Basically, you are saying that once costs are covered, then it is ok to steal the end product.
ie.) Once the auto manufacturer's make back their investment and cost of materials, then all cars of that type should be free.
ie.) Once that store owner makes his initial investment back, the rest of the stuff in the store should be free for the remainder of the year.
The problem here is that there are all kinds of costs, and failures that come before a success. Those need to be covered too. I hate it when people imply that digital and intellectual work is so valueless that they feel entitled to copy it for their own purposes. (If you paid for your copy, then copy it to whatever you want. Just don't give it to all your friends.)
For all the ignorant people out there, I hope that you personally gain perspective on what this kind of theft feels like.
The guy that funded the prize, had also given money to the company that won (before they won -- meaning for R&D). That's not a real contest. That's a tax write off.
I'm not sure it's worth that kind of time commitment just for a million bucks a year. But, on the other hand, I have to agree with your points. They are the same reasons that I'm successful, and they mostly match my sentiments.
The hardest working people are the ones that make the most financial success. My dad was a janitor when I was a little kid. He worked harder than anyone I've ever met. He is now (20 or 30 years later) more financially successful then you and me put together.
Hard work gets you there. It's no mystery to me. What is a mystery to me is that so many other people never figure that out.
My goal is to surpass that success, with lots of work, and then to try and catch myself at some point before it overrules the second half of my life too. I'll hire help. It'll get me there easier than it did for him.
Just wanted to point out that 100watt bulb times the 30 bulbs in your house probably accounts probably half your power bill every month.
I agree with your destinction between computer science and computer engineering. I just wanted to add a little more emphasis to the Computer Science end of things being more useless.
It's kind of like all that Math that you learned in HighSchool and College. Yep, I've used that like 10 times since then. And I bet that most people fit into that category too.
On rare occasion, I get to design a new algorythm. Mostly it is just compositing, or some small tweak to an existing idea. It's the sum of the parts that makes the application interesting. After the design is complete, it's mostly mechanical labour and work.
In my opinion, it's just sad that more people don't have the education to perform that skill well. It's not that hard of a skill. It's just not reinforced during school very much.
Let's analyze that with an anology. I think it is akin to a mechanice who reads about engines in a book, changes some parts around for a few months in great big hurry, and then reads some more about engines for 3 more years without touching an engine again during that whole time.
I think it's sad. What do you think?
These things are all available. You just need to pay for them. That means if you want more stuff and/or more features, then cough up the cash.
Hmm, and you clicked on it and posted in it. Though apparently, I'm just as much of a sucker. The funny part is that people are meta-moderating here too.
Hey mods, I've always wanted a +5 Funny... and that would be fitting here, since this isn't funny at all... unless of course it really does get modded +5 funny... then... that would be funny.
Oh, I know this... let me guess the first one... I bet it was the Pthreads rule the world commission!
China is very friendly with the U.S. We owe them like a trillion dollars. On top of that we are their biggest consumer. As long as the stand to benefit that greatly from us, they will continue to do so. But ignoring that, China also has no real insertion capability. Basically, no air craft carriers, or real naval threat to speak of. On top of that, they might have a large army, but they are currently under-trained and have not been involved in a war for quite a while. Their technology currently lags, behind just about everyone and that is meaningful.
Of course things change. I'll just wait and read what the slashdot future beholds.
Dude, those planes carry full on CRAY (or other brand) super computers in them. They need them for communication, weapons, enemy identification, and geographic location. That's their purpose. Communications aren't done through simple radio communication. It's encrypted and probably bounces off of satellites. Also, I bet those buggers are slighly harder to fly with no computers working onboard.
Not to worry though, they likely have the best pilots in the world flying billion dollar planes. Pilots like that, could probably fly a piece of cardboard over the Atlantic ocean.
His algorythm is "in place"
radix is not
I agree though that the concepts for both algorithms are very similar.
Actually, you are wrong. Software patents are in essence a little different than normal patents in this way. It really is about how it gets done, and the idea is secondary with Software.
I just wanted to second some of these opinions.
School doesn't make you successful. You do.
I don't have a College degree in computer science and I just accepted a six figure salary for the largest Software company in the world. It's the 10 years of experience that did it. A degree would have prolonged that occurance by about 4 to 6 years. On a side note, I am proud to say that I had around 10 such offers in the same range in the last couple of weeks. (One tip: location matters... Live where the demand for your skill set is highest.)
Here is what a degree and certifications, and so forth means to me, when I look for candidates.
Instead of throwing the resume in the garbage if they don't have experience, I'll interview the candidate if they have a high level degree, and/or a bunch of certifications.
My final decision will be based on what you know, or more so based on what you can prove that you know during an interview... in essence do you remember all of the stuff they tried to pound into your head while you were in school.
Job experience is better, because it is harder to forget something that caused you to suffer through a task. That is opposed to cramming for 40 minutes to get an A on a test.
Even with all that being said, I think education is really important. If you have the time and the money, most accredited colleges are created equal. Choose one that you like and go there.
Ha, ha, ha, .... Ha, ha, ha, ha
... Yeah Right!
... I agree with the Original Poster. Don't mess with something that is basically already working great. It would be like making Windows free, or charging for Linux, or using a camera instead of a windshield to see the road while you are driving.
Whiner: Oh, my new operating system requires more hardware.... whaaa
Whiner: I can't believe my new operating system has new stuff in it, and (oh no) new marketing.... whaa
Whiner: [insert old version of anything here] was better, and I can't handle change if it means any kind of trade off.
Soon, enough 2gb of memory is going to be the minimum installed on a machine, and you'll be able to upgrade to 256gb of ram pretty soon.
The oink comment was still hilarious, though.
Pertaining to the memory model hogging all the memory for cache... it is the reason that I use XP instead of Linux. And, it is the reason that I won't use Vista until after service pack one. It's a stupid model that is just dying to be resource hungry. Stupid mistakes in memory usage can no longer be easily tracked... "Oh, don't worry, it's just the memory manager!"
It's an idea that sounds good in theory, but should not be implemented. It's just asking for problems. The system will be less robust, and by virtue of that, security, performance, and correctness will be hurt.
Sometimes, the old ways are the best ways, and so along that vein
Windows Vista uses the same boot-time prefetching as Windows XP did if the system has less than 512MB of memory, but if the system has 700MB or more of RAM, it uses an in-RAM cache to optimize the boot process.
Okay, so I just wanted to nitpick a sentence here. What happens between 512 and 700. I presume it does the same thing at XP would have. But this sentence is confusing, and perhaps implies that perhaps Ms. PacMan will get launched in this scenario.
Overall though, an interesting series. Kudos to the author.
I mean my geographic area. My expertise covers a wide spectrum. My email address is bradsnobar@netscape.net Send me an email, and I'll send you a résumé, or I can just help you write up some good descriptions for some ads.
What good is the already crappy machine going to be without web access?
The disease does not cause immediate blindness. I can still see fine, except in some situations that are fairly easy to avoid. I'm slowly going blind, and will be blind in about 30 years from now.
I'm looking for a Software job (10 years experience, Expert in several areas), and the only good ones in my area are at Microsoft.
I have an interview for Wednesday. I'll have to live away from my home for a period of months, and I'm going to miss seeing my wife, and my cat for a lot of that time. On top of that, I have to talk to recruiters whome I can't always tell if they are telling me the truth or not.
It's no excuse really, but it puts me in a bad mood. Its kind of a hot button for me. Being lied to, being stolen from, and a few other things really make me edgy. I probably should not have posted a comment.
Besides that, just being edgy like that makes it worse for me. Typically, I'm in a pretty good mood most of the time.
Anyways, thanks for asking.