Today's hackers (or "crackers" if you prefer) are mostly motivated by challenge and ego
Have you ever met a matematician? Because the sentence above seems to be a pretty accurate description of most I met... ...and I am sure that goes for the chums at Bletchley Park too. Saving their country was probably just a perk to them. (Albeit a really nice one.)
I'm not the parent to your comment, but come on, when someone is looting your store, you don't have to "know them personally" to decide that action against them is necessary.
I agree, but if someone is looting your store in plain sight, it's not prejudice anymore, you now know that this specific person is looting you! And since you have caught him red handed you're in your full right to take whatever action is permitted by law. (And I assume that this in the US would probably involve guns.)
I don't really have a problem with that, it's treating someone like a criminal without proof I don't like. (You know, driving while black type "offences")
If you don't know someone personally, or at least by references fro others about this specific person. Then everything you think you know about that person is streotypes and prejudice. We all have them, all of us. Just deal with it! But it's a bit easier if one is aware of them, becasue a lot of the time they are oh-so-wrong, both positive and negative stereotypes.
Is software piracy that much worse than discharging toxic substances into waterways (max fine $125,000)? Misbranding a drug in interstate commerce (max fine $100,000)?
What can I say? The system is severely fcked! How can one(1) lousy illegal copy of MSDOS be worse (fine $150,000) than discharging toxic substances into waterways? This just goes to prove that both stupidity and greed have no upper limit...
But he did say his goal wrt Linux is to take over the world, or not?
I think Linus wants Linux to conquer the world on it's own merits. I can respect that.
...but sometimes it would be helpful if he spoke out on politics. Or maybe not. A truly neutral "leder" might be one of Linux greatest strength. No user has to fear that Linus will shaft them to further some political agenda.
If the political situation in the US is your concern, you should be buying Red Hat (and other US open source companies) products by the truckload so they have the resources to fight back.
Yes I should, and I would too, if I was american, or richer. But we have starving distributions in europe too. So I buy boxed sets from Mandrake instead. Call me evil if you like, but I only have this much money, and I prefer to support something closer to home.
And speaking of low standards I find it disturbing that you call me a facist because I don't use your favourite distro. You're very close to invoking Godwin's Law here...
By all means, go out and buy a truckload of RedHat7.3, it's more power to you. But don't tell me what to do, OK?
I won't use Redhat, or for that matter any linux distribution based in the US. It doesn't matter if they are good (and Redhat is) or if they offer me a rebate, or even a free boxed set.
The reason I won't is that I don't trust people like the senator from Disney (Hollings). I think there is a real chance that oss will be outlawed or at least restricted in nasty ways in the US in the next five years. Especially if Linux makes a dent in the desktop market. (Microsoft isn't widly known for it's scruples... and it they start losing serious money and marketshare they might be tempted to side with the **AA's.) And I don't want my distribution to go down in flames because of a bought-and-paid-for law.
So I'll stick to European distributions. (As if my sig didn't give that away already...) At least until such a time as the US lawmakers get their shit together.
Yeah, if someone wants to file a federal lawsuit to stop the count (and it still baffles me that a candidate in a supposedly democratic election actually did this), they have to be really quick about it.;-) They'll probably only have a window of a few seconds...
Next, people avoid doing physical crimes (stealing, shooting, tresspassing etc) if they knew that the person affected has a good chance of being armed. They just move to a place with more gun control, thereby merely displacing crime, not preventing it.
I can see your point. But I don't agree with your conclusion. In the UK (to my knowledge, I
don't live there) the gun control level is the same in the entire country. In the US the level of gun control depends on the state you live in.
Now, lets look at the facts: The US has a lot higher crime rates. Wouldn't this imply that uniform gun control lowers crime, while gun control in some-but-not-all places is a bad thing?
At least, that is the conclusion I would draw from your theory (assuming that it is correct).
"Double check your statistics. I think you'll find that crime in gun-free Europe is actually higher than in the US. Gun control is bad."
I am not out to bash the US, but according to all sources I have found the US hava a higher crime rate, as well as more people in prison than Europe. For example, I found this graphical comparison between the US and the UK, byt Civitas According
to that crime rates are a lot higher in the US and have been since the middle of the sixties. Just check my links...
Anyway, the obvious conclusion would be that gun control is good. However there may be other explanations for the differences. I am no expert on gun control.
But I am a little suspicious of the fact that you have a lot higher crime rate than just about all other western countries.
"Another cause of the problem is there is a heck of a lot more money in the U.S. (both total and per capita) than in any other country - that helps breed greed,"
Oh c'mon! Show me a country with low poverty and I will show you a country with low violent crime. Money doesn't breed crime, but huge differences in living conditions does.
So true. Gates, at least, is a true geek at heart. He may be the Darth Vader of computing. But he could concievably be turned from the dark side.
Bill is a man of many talents, questionable morals, and great luck. And he has actually done a great deal of good to the geek community, even though this is overshadowed by his many horrible misdeeds and underhand tactics. If he gave up his plan for world domination, I personally wouldn't hold a grudge against him. (Though I wouldn't trust him till he had proven himself to be a changed man.)
Too bad this will never happen, but one can dream, yes?
Nah not a bit like Doom. Sounds more like Counter Strike.
Btw. I am a notoriously bad CS player. If you are right I guess it doesn't count the other way around;-) But then again, I wasn't the greatest soldier either...
"He again goes on to say that shooter games are pretty much the same kind of psych conditioning (shooting practice at human-shaped popup targets) used to train American troops. "
This, by the way is the way all organized armies train their soldiers now. It's damn effective (and scary too).
If you practised on a bullseye, you would see a human in your sights the day the real thing went down. You would hesitate, it is the natural and sound thing to do.
But if you are used to human shaped target, what you see that day will just be another target. And you will kill without thinking about it.
I have been trained this way, and I find the whole concept revolting. To make you a killer, they essentially take away your free will. Killing because someone tells you to is not a healthy thing to do IMHO...
As someone who have had (some) military combat training: Combat, and I can't stress that enough, is nothing like DOOM. Not at all. Anyone who have had this type of training, even a few times would agree. There is a world of difference. In a game you don't learn any of the important things, like moving, loading, aiming at still or moving targets, firing effectively from different positions. Finding effective cover (no a soft wall will not protect you from an assault rifle). Taking cover while fired upon. Covering each others butts while on the move, communicating with signs or as few words as possible. And most of all, waiting and being bored, tired, cold and wet for hours on end.
A game teaches you nothing of that, because if they did noone would play them.
Actually you would learn a whole lot more from watching Heat, and that's still not even close.
Sorry for the rant. But about the only thing you could learn from a game is a certain amount of strategy.
To be perfectly honest my job uses MS SQL Server mostly. (We need transactions. Just like your clients do.)
But it is my firm belief that 95% of all applications built that uses Oracle or MS SQL Server don't really need them!
I've seen a lot of small websites and other pitiful applications cough up money for a bad ass database they will never need. And, numericaly speaking, most systems built fall into this category. Small, and not likely to grow anytime soon. Ma & Pa businesses.
This is where oss databases will do to the job just right and a lot sheaper than the big boys. So why not use them? There is a nich for MySQL too. But I never said it was ready for serious mission-critical systems.
"Name 1 OSS database that compares to Oracle in features and power. Some organizations actually need the features that are only provided by products like Oracle, SQL Server or other high end relational databases."
I will not argue with you, because you are absolutely correct. But 95% of all organizations would get along just fine with MySQL.
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Yes!
Think of the children!
You should kick yourself! hard!
I wish I had a chance to talk to one of those "geek heroes".
Probably almost all dead by now...
Today's hackers (or "crackers" if you prefer) are mostly motivated by challenge and ego
Have you ever met a matematician?
Because the sentence above seems to be a pretty accurate description of most I met...
...and I am sure that goes for the chums at Bletchley Park too.
Saving their country was probably just a perk to them.
(Albeit a really nice one.)
I'm not the parent to your comment, but come on, when someone is looting your store, you don't have to "know them personally" to decide that action against them is necessary.
I agree, but if someone is looting your store in plain sight, it's not prejudice anymore, you now know that this specific person is looting you!
And since you have caught him red handed you're in your full right to take whatever action is permitted by law. (And I assume that this in the US would probably involve guns.)
I don't really have a problem with that, it's treating someone like a criminal without proof I don't like.
(You know, driving while black type "offences")
Uhhh...is it a stereotype or just experiance..?
If you don't know someone personally, or at least by references fro others about this specific person. Then everything you think you know about that person is streotypes and prejudice.
We all have them, all of us.
Just deal with it!
But it's a bit easier if one is aware of them, becasue a lot of the time they are oh-so-wrong, both positive and negative stereotypes.
a (potentially) lifetime of use out of a good watch or a gun.
Depends on what you're using it for.
Some uses makes for a very short lifetime...
Is software piracy that much worse than discharging toxic substances into waterways (max fine $125,000)? Misbranding a drug in interstate commerce (max fine $100,000)?
What can I say? The system is severely fcked!
How can one(1) lousy illegal copy of MSDOS be worse (fine $150,000) than discharging toxic substances into waterways?
This just goes to prove that both stupidity and greed have no upper limit...
But he did say his goal wrt Linux is to take over the world, or not?
...but sometimes it would be helpful if he spoke out on politics. Or maybe not. A truly neutral "leder" might be one of Linux greatest strength. No user has to fear that Linus will shaft them to further some political agenda.
I think Linus wants Linux to conquer the world on it's own merits.
I can respect that.
I really love that book...
Reread it just last week.
+1 Well written!
If the political situation in the US is your concern, you should be buying Red Hat (and other US open source companies) products by the truckload so they have the resources to fight back.
Yes I should, and I would too, if I was american, or richer.
But we have starving distributions in europe too. So I buy boxed sets from Mandrake instead.
Call me evil if you like, but I only have this much money, and I prefer to support something closer to home.
And speaking of low standards I find it disturbing that you call me a facist because I don't use your favourite distro.
You're very close to invoking Godwin's Law here...
By all means, go out and buy a truckload of RedHat7.3, it's more power to you. But don't tell me what to do, OK?
I won't use Redhat, or for that matter any linux distribution based in the US. It doesn't matter if they are good (and Redhat is) or if they offer me a rebate, or even a free boxed set.
The reason I won't is that I don't trust people like the senator from Disney (Hollings).
I think there is a real chance that oss will be outlawed or at least restricted in nasty ways in the US in the next five years.
Especially if Linux makes a dent in the desktop market. (Microsoft isn't widly known for it's scruples... and it they start losing serious money and marketshare they might be tempted to side with the **AA's.)
And I don't want my distribution to go down in flames because of a bought-and-paid-for law.
So I'll stick to European distributions. (As if my sig didn't give that away already...)
At least until such a time as the US lawmakers get their shit together.
Yeah, if someone wants to file a federal lawsuit to stop the count (and it still baffles me that a candidate in a supposedly democratic election actually did this), they have to be really quick about it. ;-)
They'll probably only have a window of a few seconds...
But I don't agree with your conclusion.
In the UK (to my knowledge, I don't live there) the gun control level is the same in the entire country.
In the US the level of gun control depends on the state you live in.
Now, lets look at the facts:
The US has a lot higher crime rates.
Wouldn't this imply that uniform gun control lowers crime, while gun control in some-but-not-all places is a bad thing?
At least, that is the conclusion I would draw from your theory (assuming that it is correct).
"Double check your statistics. I think you'll find that crime in gun-free Europe is actually higher than in the US. Gun control is bad."
I am not out to bash the US, but according to all sources I have found the US hava a higher crime rate, as well as more people in prison than Europe.
For example, I found this graphical comparison between the US and the UK, byt Civitas
According to that crime rates are a lot higher in the US and have been since the middle of the sixties.
Just check my links...
Anyway, the obvious conclusion would be that gun control is good. However there may be other explanations for the differences. I am no expert on gun control.
But I am a little suspicious of the fact that you have a lot higher crime rate than just about all other western countries.
"Another cause of the problem is there is a heck of a lot more money in the U.S. (both total and per capita) than in any other country - that helps breed greed,"
Oh c'mon!
Show me a country with low poverty and I will show you a country with low violent crime.
Money doesn't breed crime, but huge differences in living conditions does.
So true.
Gates, at least, is a true geek at heart.
He may be the Darth Vader of computing. But he could concievably be turned from the dark side.
Bill is a man of many talents, questionable morals, and great luck.
And he has actually done a great deal of good to the geek community, even though this is overshadowed by his many horrible misdeeds and underhand tactics.
If he gave up his plan for world domination, I personally wouldn't hold a grudge against him. (Though I wouldn't trust him till he had proven himself to be a changed man.)
Too bad this will never happen, but one can dream, yes?
Nah not a bit like Doom. Sounds more like Counter Strike.
;-) But then again, I wasn't the greatest soldier either...
Btw. I am a notoriously bad CS player.
If you are right I guess it doesn't count the other way around
"Do I enjoy the lack of drug tests that my peers in industry are subjected to? You better believe it! "
;-)
Are you sharing?
"He again goes on to say that shooter games are pretty much the same kind of psych conditioning (shooting practice at human-shaped popup targets) used to train American troops. "
This, by the way is the way all organized armies train their soldiers now. It's damn effective (and scary too).
If you practised on a bullseye, you would see a human in your sights the day the real thing went down.
You would hesitate, it is the natural and sound thing to do.
But if you are used to human shaped target, what you see that day will just be another target. And you will kill without thinking about it.
I have been trained this way, and I find the whole concept revolting.
To make you a killer, they essentially take away your free will.
Killing because someone tells you to is not a healthy thing to do IMHO...
As someone who have had (some) military combat training:
Combat, and I can't stress that enough, is nothing like DOOM.
Not at all.
Anyone who have had this type of training, even a few times would agree.
There is a world of difference. In a game you don't learn any of the important things, like moving, loading, aiming at still or moving targets, firing effectively from different positions. Finding effective cover (no a soft wall will not protect you from an assault rifle). Taking cover while fired upon. Covering each others butts while on the move, communicating with signs or as few words as possible. And most of all, waiting and being bored, tired, cold and wet for hours on end.
A game teaches you nothing of that, because if they did noone would play them.
Actually you would learn a whole lot more from watching Heat, and that's still not even close.
Sorry for the rant.
But about the only thing you could learn from a game is a certain amount of strategy.
Has anybody here played "Comando Libya" on the Commodore 64?
Nuff' said!
To be perfectly honest my job uses MS SQL Server mostly.
(We need transactions. Just like your clients do.)
But it is my firm belief that 95% of all applications built that uses Oracle or MS SQL Server don't really need them!
I've seen a lot of small websites and other pitiful applications cough up money for a bad ass database they will never need.
And, numericaly speaking, most systems built fall into this category. Small, and not likely to grow anytime soon. Ma & Pa businesses.
This is where oss databases will do to the job just right and a lot sheaper than the big boys.
So why not use them?
There is a nich for MySQL too.
But I never said it was ready for serious mission-critical systems.
"Why don't they just make better commercials with continuing stories? "
Ehm, isn't that what the "programs" are, really, think about it...
"Name 1 OSS database that compares to Oracle in features and power. Some organizations actually need the features that are only provided by products like Oracle, SQL Server or other high end relational databases."
I will not argue with you, because you are absolutely correct.
But 95% of all organizations would get along just fine with MySQL.