Would you really want your military systems to blue screen or dump core right in the middle of a firefight?
Mission critical military applications are not written the same way as bloated consumer based applications. Your argument may be valid, but your example is a little too much.
I think this is just a PR move. Everytime they enact a new law somewhere, even if the law is ineffective, they're maintaining their argument against "piracy" in view of the public. I'm not sure if this will work here, but if you repeat something to the American people frequently enough, you can change their minds.
A lot of lives would have been saved if a plane would have at least a small database of known mountains in the flight path. Why don't our planes avoid mountains automatically?
What do you mean by a lot of lives would have been saved? Do you have an approximate number in mind? Before 9-11, how many people died of plane crashes every year? And out of those people how many died because of a mountain/obstacle as opposed to a mechanical failure or bad landing or a bad take off or a bad whatever?
You're reading too much into my example. I am not saying that they were targeting any particular people(except motorists). I am saying that citations became a problem because they became a core revenue-raising mechanism for some cities. I was talking about Berkeley, California. We have plenty of crimes, plenty of poor people, and plenty of affluent people? Here, the cops issuing the tickets are not the same ones who deal with crime. Recently, the City had a budget shortfall just because people organized to break all the meters and the meter maids couldn't issue as many citations as they used to (obviously there is the cost of replacing the meters, but that's besides the point). Technically, this shouldn't have happened, it's illegal for Cities to count on citation money before that money is collected. Apparently, someone foresaw that this could become a problem and made a law against it (although it's probably not a very good law because Cities are ignoring it).
Another example is Fairfield, CA, there the tax base is too small to support the kind of city budget the City Council dreamed about. The solution, make the outside people pay for the upkeep of the town, except there since noone goes into Fairfield and parks there illegally, they have to go to the little stretch of Freeway they own and issue speeding tickets to anyone who goes over 55 mph.
Simplistic example, run a K-12 classroom as a pure Democracy.
Scarry example indeed, you can not have a democracy if one hundred percent of the population is not working and supporting itself. A true democracy would require at least one kid to be working full time in order to support the others.
You know why? There's no SPACE on the shelves. Many, many public libraries are filled almost to overflowing.
In my city, they started giving out parking tickets because there was no SPACE on the streets. Now, the revenue from giving out those citations has become an integral part of the City Budget. Technically, they're not supposed to do this, but they are anyway -- the windfall from fining people is too big a revenue to ignore. So now, if the meter maids don't write up a certain number of citations, it means they'll have to cut back, fire people, and reduce salaries. I think that's what the parent meant when he talked about "commercial pressures". If the job or the salary of a library employee is on the line, you can be sure there will be considerable pressure by that same employee to sell the most valuable and the most marketable book as quickly as possible. Mark my words, it may not be that way today, but it will evolve to be that way 10 or 20 years from now.
Unfortunately, not funding government doesn't mean it can or will become more efficient with the money it does have.
From my personal standpoint, Barnes & Noble and Borders are better than my public library. If I could vote to have my tax dollars go to the those stores, I would. My public library is just black hole where huge amounts of tax money disappear.
Food will not be the limiting factor to human population growth - water will.
No, not water. Some people will still be watering their lawns when other people are dying of thirst. Water distribution, food distribution, and population distribution -- distribution will be the limiting factor to human population growth.
I agree with your main point, but you're forgetting one thing. The faculty at MIT does not want to turn out programmers, it only wants to turn out researchers. I would say they're probably the least qualified people to design a good user-friendly system for the public. For instance, for a long time, MIT stubbornly refused to change their official site to adapt to the new evolving html standard. Apparently some MIT faculty had authored some of the original html standards and they stubbornly refused to upgrade the site with the times. I remember the background was the default gray, the pictures had borders, and the layout was bizarre. It was so bad, some student set up an alternative unofficial web site, and most people visited that one instead.
Assuming their parol allows it, this will mean that those sex offenders will move to States and Counties that have no such registry. I think that's the intended effect here.
Cops in the suburbia of Northern California are already arresting homeless people and giving them one-way bus tickets to San Francisco and Berkeley. This scheme is just more of the same.
You're crazy if you think drugs are like lamps.People go into hock buying the latest snake-oil-cure-all for any one of a number of ailments. Do you really want drug companies to even be able to market drugs whose safety and efficacy has not been ascertained ?
As much as I hate to agree with this point, I sort of agree with it. People have become far too complacent and dependent on others to do their thinking for them. It may make some people feel better to say "let all the stupid people die", but this solution is obviously never going to see the light of day.
Either you're naive, or you're hypocritical.[That's it call me names, we all know that's the best way to win an argument]
Are we not on slashdot here? Are we not on the site where Bill Gates himself is heralded as the sole responsible for all the security issues out there? For example the power failures?[Yes, here at Slashdot, we are tens of thousands of posters and we all have the same opinion.]
Beyond being either naive or a hypocrite, you're also a simpleton...[Again, thanks for reminding me of my flaws. I needed that. And obviously, it's making your argument that much stronger.]You probably don't see the problems associated with working under the table and such, [Actually, I don't like people working under the table. If it were up to me, if the work was productive and if it was not hurting anyone, I would want the government to support it.]and quite frankly I don't care if you don't. Have a happy life. I won't see you in it. [Bye Bye once again.]
"I think you've quite unwittingly stepped on the most crucial point: two kids who are learning to program are doing just that! Learning how to program. I don't see any doctors learning how to operate go do surgery for bounty money. So why are you treating software *any* different?"
Because when a mistake is made by a surgeon it kills someone and when a mistake is made by some kids programming it certainly doesn't kill anyone and it certainly will be checked if and before it gets back to the code base. Sheesh. This is certainly a poor analogy on your part.
"If you treat software as a per-bounty-contribuable-pass-time-that-anyone-can- pick-up, you lose the argument defacto when the day comes regarding discussions about how software writers should be held accountable (Microsoft? Ring a bell?) when they don't take the job of software engineering seriously."
What do you mean by accountable? Do you mean financially liable? Aren't you just setting up a straw argument here anyway? If you want software which is written by accountable people, you sign and you pay for a minimum of Level of Service. If you don't want to pay for that level of service, then you don't. It's your choice.
"How many bridges do we see built around for bounty money?"
Ditto about this being a poor analogy.
"My point can not be clearer:"
That's unfortunate, because I still can't understand it.
"I will definitely not take one of these bounty contracts out... I've given my 2 cents enough already. "
I won't take it either, but that shouldn't stop some kid who needs the extra income and the reputation to go ahead and take it. Bye bye.
Slashdot Mirror
Mission critical military applications are not written the same way as bloated consumer based applications. Your argument may be valid, but your example is a little too much.
I think this is just a PR move. Everytime they enact a new law somewhere, even if the law is ineffective, they're maintaining their argument against "piracy" in view of the public. I'm not sure if this will work here, but if you repeat something to the American people frequently enough, you can change their minds.
What would have the ticket been about? Speeding? Going the wrong way? Was he/she drunk? What ticket did you want them to issue?
What do you mean by a lot of lives would have been saved? Do you have an approximate number in mind? Before 9-11, how many people died of plane crashes every year? And out of those people how many died because of a mountain/obstacle as opposed to a mechanical failure or bad landing or a bad take off or a bad whatever?
Another example is Fairfield, CA, there the tax base is too small to support the kind of city budget the City Council dreamed about. The solution, make the outside people pay for the upkeep of the town, except there since noone goes into Fairfield and parks there illegally, they have to go to the little stretch of Freeway they own and issue speeding tickets to anyone who goes over 55 mph.
Been done before.
Scarry example indeed, you can not have a democracy if one hundred percent of the population is not working and supporting itself. A true democracy would require at least one kid to be working full time in order to support the others.
In my city, they started giving out parking tickets because there was no SPACE on the streets. Now, the revenue from giving out those citations has become an integral part of the City Budget. Technically, they're not supposed to do this, but they are anyway -- the windfall from fining people is too big a revenue to ignore. So now, if the meter maids don't write up a certain number of citations, it means they'll have to cut back, fire people, and reduce salaries. I think that's what the parent meant when he talked about "commercial pressures". If the job or the salary of a library employee is on the line, you can be sure there will be considerable pressure by that same employee to sell the most valuable and the most marketable book as quickly as possible. Mark my words, it may not be that way today, but it will evolve to be that way 10 or 20 years from now.
From my personal standpoint, Barnes & Noble and Borders are better than my public library. If I could vote to have my tax dollars go to the those stores, I would. My public library is just black hole where huge amounts of tax money disappear.
Now that we have Barnes & Noble and Borders, we don't need public libraries as much as we needed them before.
Not everyone shares the assumptions you're making. Some of us still remember the hundreds of doomsday scenarios of the past.
No, not water. Some people will still be watering their lawns when other people are dying of thirst. Water distribution, food distribution, and population distribution -- distribution will be the limiting factor to human population growth.
Yes, whoever modded it up is watching American news and little else.
I think he was talking about the mechanical complexity, not the electronic complexity.
I agree with your main point, but you're forgetting one thing. The faculty at MIT does not want to turn out programmers, it only wants to turn out researchers. I would say they're probably the least qualified people to design a good user-friendly system for the public. For instance, for a long time, MIT stubbornly refused to change their official site to adapt to the new evolving html standard. Apparently some MIT faculty had authored some of the original html standards and they stubbornly refused to upgrade the site with the times. I remember the background was the default gray, the pictures had borders, and the layout was bizarre. It was so bad, some student set up an alternative unofficial web site, and most people visited that one instead.
Speaking of which, I'm not from there, but when I retire, I'll go to South America.
Like it or not, globalization is here to stay. Better take advantage of Globalization, than to become a victim of it.
We never had cheaper goods and we never had so much choice. What are you talking about?
Give me specific examples and may be I'll tell you why those things are getting more expensive.
Cops in the suburbia of Northern California are already arresting homeless people and giving them one-way bus tickets to San Francisco and Berkeley. This scheme is just more of the same.
http://squeak.org/ Yes it's its own OS.
This is especially true for American school textbooks. I was educated in France and our books were nowhere as thick and as detailed as your textbooks.
As much as I hate to agree with this point, I sort of agree with it. People have become far too complacent and dependent on others to do their thinking for them. It may make some people feel better to say "let all the stupid people die", but this solution is obviously never going to see the light of day.
Are we not on slashdot here? Are we not on the site where Bill Gates himself is heralded as the sole responsible for all the security issues out there? For example the power failures? [Yes, here at Slashdot, we are tens of thousands of posters and we all have the same opinion.]
Beyond being either naive or a hypocrite, you're also a simpleton... [Again, thanks for reminding me of my flaws. I needed that. And obviously, it's making your argument that much stronger.] You probably don't see the problems associated with working under the table and such, [Actually, I don't like people working under the table. If it were up to me, if the work was productive and if it was not hurting anyone, I would want the government to support it.] and quite frankly I don't care if you don't. Have a happy life. I won't see you in it. [Bye Bye once again.]
http://bestbookbuys.com (compares prices for books accross most online bookstores)
http://consumerreports.com (untainted consumer information, subscription required)
http://edmunds.com (a good read before you buy a car)
http://insweb.com (cheap online insurance agency with a number of insurance providers)
http://www.ftc.gov (to learn your rights as a consumer or as a business)
http://forums.ebay.com/db1/forum.jsp?forum=107 (scams performed on Ebay -- good read for Ebay newcomers)
http://resellerratings.com (to check the track record of electronics resellers, some of the cheapest electronics resellers are one-fly-night operations that take your money one day, go bankrupt the next, and restart the day after under a new name)
http://pricewatch.com or http://pricescan.com (compares prices on pc hardware and electronics)
http://techbargains.com
http://bottomdollar.com
Because when a mistake is made by a surgeon it kills someone and when a mistake is made by some kids programming it certainly doesn't kill anyone and it certainly will be checked if and before it gets back to the code base. Sheesh. This is certainly a poor analogy on your part.
"If you treat software as a per-bounty-contribuable-pass-time-that-anyone-can- pick-up, you lose the argument defacto when the day comes regarding discussions about how software writers should be held accountable (Microsoft? Ring a bell?) when they don't take the job of software engineering seriously."
What do you mean by accountable? Do you mean financially liable? Aren't you just setting up a straw argument here anyway? If you want software which is written by accountable people, you sign and you pay for a minimum of Level of Service. If you don't want to pay for that level of service, then you don't. It's your choice.
"How many bridges do we see built around for bounty money?"
Ditto about this being a poor analogy.
"My point can not be clearer:"
That's unfortunate, because I still can't understand it.
"I will definitely not take one of these bounty contracts out... I've given my 2 cents enough already. "
I won't take it either, but that shouldn't stop some kid who needs the extra income and the reputation to go ahead and take it. Bye bye.
Same thing for me and I'm using Firebird.