Flamebait??? ok, let's analize this message to see if it's really flaimbait.
We have seen this before.
umm.. TRUE.
The only way this is ever going to change is if we shut Microsoft down.
Well, this is debatable, but it's certainly within the realm of reason, especially since the DOJ couldn't seem to do anything about it.
Go help a Open Source project anything else is just noise.
Ok, here he is implying that if you don't like something, and you wan't it changed, then it's UP TO YOU TO DO IT. In my humble opinion, this is a sound philosophical standpoint. At least that's what my parrents taught me when they said that wining wouldn't get me anything.
True, "anythingthing else is just noise" may not be entirely accurate. For instance simply boycotting microsoft could be a solution, or purchasing controling sock in Microsoft could be another solution, if you have 100 million gazillion dollars laying around.
What is the world comming to? The word "unemployment" does NOT mean "collecting unemployment reliefe funds from the government". It means a state of not being employed. It scares me that so many people automatically equate unemployment with free money (because, as we all know, slashdotters are die hard communists ). Actually, come to think of it, it's even more scarry that that is actually what he meant.
The physical behavior of a mechanical system is not deterministic...
Software, on the other hand, is completely deterministic.
Shows what you know. Something is only deterministic if you can determine it's behavior. If you knew the exact state of every particle in your physical system, you could easily predict when a particular part will fail in advance. Besides being based on physical systems themselves, many software systems are complex enough so that it is not feasible for a person to determine it's exact behavior in every situation. This particularly applies to failure modes. What do I do if I'm a critical program and some other mp3 player or something ate up all the memory? What do I do if I protected the memory in the first place, but my ram location got hit by a gamma ray or something? How do I detect that? What else could possibly go wrong that I haven't even thought of? How do I protect myself in advance if I can't even conceive the problem. Also, let's not forget that I have 100 or so million distinct states (hell, even 10,000 is bad enough) that will each have an effect on the recovery process (like possibly changing it completely). And lastly, how do I make sure that nothing goes wrong in any of my recovery systems?
Anyway, real software systems are not deterministic.
NEVERTHELESS, just as non-determinism is reduced and overcome in the physical world, so can it be in the software world, and it is not an excuse for writing sloppy software. Given the ratio of hardware/software failures (of which I am aware), and the number of times these failures resulted in total mission failure, I would say that the software engineers are lagging far, far behind the mechanical engineers.
...only bought a Unix license from SCO Group because there's been a prior development project underway...
As a microsoft worker, I happen to be able to verify this statement. Project DestroyLin^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H UnixEvaluation has been going on for years now.
Why do we assume that life on other worlds would have the same requirements as life on earth?
We don't. The fact that we look for life similar to our own is simply because that is the only type of life we know HOW to look for specifically. For any other type of life will we simply have to get lucky and find something that somebody realizes is life. This should not be taken to indicate that we have an ego-centric view of life, it is simply the best we can do. I assure you that the vast majority of people actively leading or participating in the search for et life realize this.
Your misquotation of Schneider total changes what he was trying to say.
I don't understand how this is a misquotation. Considering your expanded version of the quote, several things are clear:
He has some data.
He has drawn some noteworthy conclusion from that data (i.e. there is a risk of potentially disastrous climatic change)
He is not 100 percent certain about the conclusion (he would not talk of failing to mention doubts otherwise). Yes, he may be 99% certain, but not 100%.
He feels that in order to win broadbased support, he must overstate his confidence in his conclusion (he SAYS this explicitly, don't try to hedge here).
Contrapositivly, he feels that if he does NOT overstate his confidence in his conclusion (aka. if he tells the truth AS EVEN HE SEES IT), he will NOT win broadbased support (aka. whoever it is that makes "broadbased support" will disagree with his conclusion, even if they have full access to the data that convinced HIM).
I fail to see how this "misquotation" in any way changes what he is trying to say.
I also agree with the previous poster's very reasonable conclusion that the reason this person would consider lying to us is that he regards himself as smarter than the people he is lying to, and that he does indeed think there is a very low chance that we will discover his lie.
Umm.. are you talking about this particular poster? Or are you refering to the fact that the Slashdot community consists of many people with diverse opinions, some of whom credit [insert organization] and some of whom hate it?
Nevertheless, past life on mars (i.e. dead and something we haven't seen before) should be easily distinguished from anything we bring with us (i.e. living and, for some reason, vaguely familiar).
One interesting point here is that when you buy a piece of software, you actually own the physical media along with instance of software copy contained on that media. You own this and you bought it from the store (not the software maker, normally). The EULA is just granting you a right to distribute a copy of that software to your computer (or whatever it says in the EULA). This is where copyright law comes in. A copyright holder can insist on any type of agreement they want in regards to letting you copy and "redistribute" the material (to your computer). The store is not necessarily involved in this agreement in any way, no matter what the copyright holder claims.
The real problem here is not that stores and/or software makers are keeping you from reading an agreement before you supposedly agree to it (although this is a problem). The real problem is that it is currently considered a copyright violation to use a software product, because this normally involved "redistributing" the product onto your computer (from the physical media). I might also point out that it is not possible to use in any way (other than as an expensive coaster) the instance of the copy that you do in fact own, much less use it for the purpose for which it was intended, without violating copyright law.
Why is it that people forget that religion is the source of revelations such as the earth is FLAT, and the center of the universe?
Actually, given a suitably warped geometric framework, the earth is flat. Also, the rest of the universe can be considered to move around a stationary earth with the same mathematical validity as any other point in the universe.:)
It is also obvious that whenever a pilot becomes overheated, he looses his ability to fly a plane correctly. Notice how he crashes it almost every time this happens.
I suppose you believe that people who can't repair their own vehicles shouldn't be driving, too?
Actually, I think a more appropriate analogy would be, "People who do not know how to drive should not blame the car manufacturer when they run over their grandmother and hit a tree."
But who has a legitimate reason to connect to SMB on a desktop machine via the Internet? Nobody. Ever.
That's funny.. I've used it before. Certainly it isn't the ideal solution for a production system, but I had a one-off and this was the easiest way to get the job done. It would have been a REAL hassle in this case if I had been forced to set up something more traditional.
Remember, preventing people from doing stupid things also prevents them from doing clever things. That is one of the reasons I hate Windows; it tries to guide (read force) your usage to a particular pattern.
Hah!, you were obviously not part of the inner elite circle that everyone knows exists.. or maybe you are part of their insidious propaganda department..
Slashdot Mirror
Flamebait??? ok, let's analize this message to see if it's really flaimbait.
We have seen this before.
umm.. TRUE.
The only way this is ever going to change is if we shut Microsoft down.
Well, this is debatable, but it's certainly within the realm of reason, especially since the DOJ couldn't seem to do anything about it.
Go help a Open Source project anything else is just noise.
Ok, here he is implying that if you don't like something, and you wan't it changed, then it's UP TO YOU TO DO IT. In my humble opinion, this is a sound philosophical standpoint. At least that's what my parrents taught me when they said that wining wouldn't get me anything.
True, "anythingthing else is just noise" may not be entirely accurate. For instance simply boycotting microsoft could be a solution, or purchasing controling sock in Microsoft could be another solution, if you have 100 million gazillion dollars laying around.
flaimbait?? That's just retarded.
What is the world comming to? The word "unemployment" does NOT mean "collecting unemployment reliefe funds from the government". It means a state of not being employed. It scares me that so many people automatically equate unemployment with free money (because, as we all know, slashdotters are die hard communists ). Actually, come to think of it, it's even more scarry that that is actually what he meant.
The physical behavior of a mechanical system is not deterministic ...
Software, on the other hand, is completely deterministic.
Shows what you know. Something is only deterministic if you can determine it's behavior. If you knew the exact state of every particle in your physical system, you could easily predict when a particular part will fail in advance. Besides being based on physical systems themselves, many software systems are complex enough so that it is not feasible for a person to determine it's exact behavior in every situation. This particularly applies to failure modes. What do I do if I'm a critical program and some other mp3 player or something ate up all the memory? What do I do if I protected the memory in the first place, but my ram location got hit by a gamma ray or something? How do I detect that? What else could possibly go wrong that I haven't even thought of? How do I protect myself in advance if I can't even conceive the problem. Also, let's not forget that I have 100 or so million distinct states (hell, even 10,000 is bad enough) that will each have an effect on the recovery process (like possibly changing it completely). And lastly, how do I make sure that nothing goes wrong in any of my recovery systems?
Anyway, real software systems are not deterministic.
NEVERTHELESS, just as non-determinism is reduced and overcome in the physical world, so can it be in the software world, and it is not an excuse for writing sloppy software. Given the ratio of hardware/software failures (of which I am aware), and the number of times these failures resulted in total mission failure, I would say that the software engineers are lagging far, far behind the mechanical engineers.
...only bought a Unix license from SCO Group because there's been a prior development project underway...
As a microsoft worker, I happen to be able to verify this statement. Project DestroyLin^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H UnixEvaluation has been going on for years now.
Why do we assume that life on other worlds would have the same requirements as life on earth?
We don't. The fact that we look for life similar to our own is simply because that is the only type of life we know HOW to look for specifically. For any other type of life will we simply have to get lucky and find something that somebody realizes is life. This should not be taken to indicate that we have an ego-centric view of life, it is simply the best we can do. I assure you that the vast majority of people actively leading or participating in the search for et life realize this.
My favorite part is how this is applicable to both sides of the argument. :)
I don't understand how this is a misquotation. Considering your expanded version of the quote, several things are clear:
- He has some data.
- He has drawn some noteworthy conclusion from that data (i.e. there is a risk of potentially disastrous climatic change)
- He is not 100 percent certain about the conclusion (he would not talk of failing to mention doubts otherwise). Yes, he may be 99% certain, but not 100%.
- He feels that in order to win broadbased support, he must overstate his confidence in his conclusion (he SAYS this explicitly, don't try to hedge here).
- Contrapositivly, he feels that if he does NOT overstate his confidence in his conclusion (aka. if he tells the truth AS EVEN HE SEES IT), he will NOT win broadbased support (aka. whoever it is that makes "broadbased support" will disagree with his conclusion, even if they have full access to the data that convinced HIM).
I fail to see how this "misquotation" in any way changes what he is trying to say.I also agree with the previous poster's very reasonable conclusion that the reason this person would consider lying to us is that he regards himself as smarter than the people he is lying to, and that he does indeed think there is a very low chance that we will discover his lie.
My favoriate quote from the article: the scientist says, "It's unlikely, but it can't be proved impossible."
Umm, ok..on that same note, my ass is the source of all knowledge.
Umm.. are you talking about this particular poster? Or are you refering to the fact that the Slashdot community consists of many people with diverse opinions, some of whom credit [insert organization] and some of whom hate it?
Nevertheless, past life on mars (i.e. dead and something we haven't seen before) should be easily distinguished from anything we bring with us (i.e. living and, for some reason, vaguely familiar).
Can we also say, "clouds" :)
I didn't realize that. Then what is the argument that EULAs are enforcable at all? Or are they?
One interesting point here is that when you buy a piece of software, you actually own the physical media along with instance of software copy contained on that media. You own this and you bought it from the store (not the software maker, normally). The EULA is just granting you a right to distribute a copy of that software to your computer (or whatever it says in the EULA). This is where copyright law comes in. A copyright holder can insist on any type of agreement they want in regards to letting you copy and "redistribute" the material (to your computer). The store is not necessarily involved in this agreement in any way, no matter what the copyright holder claims.
The real problem here is not that stores and/or software makers are keeping you from reading an agreement before you supposedly agree to it (although this is a problem). The real problem is that it is currently considered a copyright violation to use a software product, because this normally involved "redistributing" the product onto your computer (from the physical media). I might also point out that it is not possible to use in any way (other than as an expensive coaster) the instance of the copy that you do in fact own, much less use it for the purpose for which it was intended, without violating copyright law.
yeah.. but they didn't show one. They have a rather silly looking illustration of a black hole.
Why is it that people forget that religion is the source of revelations such as the earth is FLAT, and the center of the universe?
:)
Actually, given a suitably warped geometric framework, the earth is flat. Also, the rest of the universe can be considered to move around a stationary earth with the same mathematical validity as any other point in the universe.
This can give astronomers new insight into the sgates of galaxy formation.
:)
Right, all we have to do is monitor it for a few hundred million years and we'll have the whole story!!
congratulations.. you've been slashmodded.
quite right..
It is also obvious that whenever a pilot becomes overheated, he looses his ability to fly a plane correctly. Notice how he crashes it almost every time this happens.
you mean "get off my simLawn!" :p
In related news, scientists have discovered a direct correlation between perceived music quality and drug quality..
I suppose you believe that people who can't repair their own vehicles shouldn't be driving, too?
Actually, I think a more appropriate analogy would be, "People who do not know how to drive should not blame the car manufacturer when they run over their grandmother and hit a tree."
But who has a legitimate reason to connect to SMB on a desktop machine via the Internet? Nobody. Ever.
That's funny.. I've used it before. Certainly it isn't the ideal solution for a production system, but I had a one-off and this was the easiest way to get the job done. It would have been a REAL hassle in this case if I had been forced to set up something more traditional.
Remember, preventing people from doing stupid things also prevents them from doing clever things. That is one of the reasons I hate Windows; it tries to guide (read force) your usage to a particular pattern.
But claiming it as the End of the World is the purest BS.
You are absolutly right.. except (gasp!) the article isn't saying anything of the sort.. duhh..
just to keep the damned spacecraft working and the data flowing
;)
HAH! what you really meant was SPY data...
Hah!, you were obviously not part of the inner elite circle that everyone knows exists.. or maybe you are part of their insidious propaganda department..