What if technology like that becomes commonplace, where your every whim can be created and seem absolutely real?
Science fiction authors have given us an accurate and prophetic view of just such a future. I speak, of course, of none other than the classic work of hard science fiction, Better than Life.
Just because software environments have become more complex doesn't mean that the opportunity for learning in a simpler environment has vanished. Those old 8-bit micros might not be good for teaching 3D rendering, but they're still good for teaching microprocessor fundamentals. There's no need to go antique shopping on eBay, either: emulators for these simple machines can be found all over the web. How about an Altair, an IMSAI, or a COSMAC ELF for your Windows system? Or emulating an Apple II on OS X? I've even written an ELF emulator for Palm handhelds, and secured permission to publish Tom Pittman's "A Short Course in Programming" to help educate the curious on the good old CDP1802.
The problem isn't that the educational tools of the past have disappeared, it's that there's a wide gulf between learning the fundamentals and writing modern software. What I wonder, however, is just what sort of foundation is really necessary to become a programmer these days. Hardware guys benefit from understanding things like a microprocessor's addressing modes and register usage, as do compiler developers... but to the average programmer, what difference does it make?
I don't think there's any single correct answer, any more than there's one single curriculum that will cover the full breadth of today's software technologies. The challenge of knowing where to start is knowing where you want to end up. Once you know that, the tools and literature needed to acquire that knowledge are all readily available.
Stop calling it 'stealing', it is copyright infringement.
At nits thou dost pick, methinks. Tell me, what is of value: the CD, or the content upon it? And if you steal a physical CD from a store, does the publisher not still have the original copy?
Curiously, the penalty for swiping a CD is leagues lower than trading a song on the internet.
As it should be: let's not confuse illegally obtaining content (through theft or copyright infringement) with illegally republishing it.
People sound so stupid and uneducated when they make posts such as yours.
P2P is here to stay because people don't value the bilboard top $100 as worth $15 a CD, they value it as giving it the time to download the song. It's the same with anything else, entertainment is valued at what the consumer is willing to pay for it, it's the fact that these companies think that they're losing income. NO YOUR NOT, it's not that valuable to us and we're not going to pay for it so quit trying. Is this concept really so hard to understand?
Taking something for less than what the seller offers it for is called "stealing." If you feel something isn't worth paying for, you don't have the right to own it anyway. Is that so hard to understand?
David Brin's Earth also comes to mind as a read on playing with gravity and black holes. The idea of the earth becoming sentient seemed a little silly (if I remember the novel correctly), but it was entertaining nonetheless.
Let's not mistake the decision of the upper management of some large corporation for a good decision, or one with outstanding technical merit. GM does swing a lot of weight and could influence the availability of apps or even the choices of other enterprise customers, but that doesn't mean they've actually made a more informed choice than anyone here --- in fact, I think it's unlikely.
I'm not sure that it matters whether we could ever prove a machine is sentient or not. If we can build a machine with a sophisticated behavior capable of acting semi-autonomously, we're done. At that point it's a machine that does what it's designed for, and pushing any further is pointless, unless you really want a space probe that radios back "I'll transmit that data when I'm damn good and ready, right now I'm enjoying the sunset." I don't want my wash machine to have free will, thank you.
Depending on where you have your domain registered, they may be able to redirect web traffic and email to your.Mac website and email address. I've been using BuyDomains.com for a few years and I've been pretty happy with their service. Web visitors get "frame forwarded", so the illusion of my domain stays pretty much intact, and email forwarding is even simpler. The only real catch I've found is that Google will often index the true underlying address of web pages, and those links may break if I pull up stakes and move the site elsewhere.
This is a simple solution that might be helpful if your needs aren't too sophisticated.
If the challenge is based on an image ("please respond with the fuzzy word in the subject line" or somesuch), where does that leave vision impaired email users? How do they respond to a challenge to get their email delivered?
These clamshell devices really have a hard time finding a niche to fit into. A company I worked for spent significant time and money porting a Windows based product to such a CE platform, and we ended up with an inventory of hardware that nobody wanted, save for the few enthusiastic customers that led us to think there was a real market.
It stinks as a PDA because of the bulk and an inappropriate UI designed for the desktop. It stinks as a subnotebook because the keyboard's too small for proper touch typing and the display strains your eyes when used for more than a few minutes.
These look cool at first site, but are utterly impractical for most real-world use. They're a solution looking for a problem, and not typically finding one.
"It's kind of gross to come along and find all these end users demanding foo, blah, and blargh... Free software is about developers, not users."
I think that for many developers you're correct, and I think that the author of the FreshMeat article is right in believing that this hinders Linux's chances on the desktop. If personal satisfaction is what motivates you to develop, though, I'd like to point out a few things:
Pleasing users can be satisfying. Most of my time is spent developing proprietary software for my employer, but I have released one piece of free software and have at least two more projects in development. I worked hard to get the bugs out of that project prior to release, and it was time well-spent; in two years time, only two small bugs have been found. I've received email from all around the world thanking me for developing that app and making it freely available. It's very encouraging!
If you're any good at all at what you're coding, user demands aren't a problem. Sometimes you just have to say no, either because you don't have the time or because it doesn't fit your vision of what the software needs to be; sometimes the user's ideas can be worth their weight in gold. As for bug reports, if you ship bugs, it's because you screwed up, and the user is perfectly entitled to call you on it. Take the criticism and learn from it and get better at what you're doing. If you can't do that, do everyone a favor and find a new hobby, one that doesn't waste other people's time and effort.
If you must develop software "just for fun," keep it to yourself. Anyone can sing in the shower, but most people who can't carry a tune don't inflict it on others by getting up on stage (drunks at Karaoke bars and reality TV excluded). If you want to be antisocial and treat software development like a single-player video game, then don't bother posting the results of your work. Don't take the stage if you can't sing.
I don't agree with everything in the original article, but the attitude expressed in the parent post is, I fear, too prevalent in open source software. It damages Linux, and it should.
Wow, I'm half of the people using.NET! I didn't realize I was such an early adopter!
On the other hand, my employer is starting to get questions about Linux support from some large customers. One answer is Mono... but my gut tells me that as soon as Microsoft feels secure with the penetration of C# and the.NET framework, they're going to have their lawyers go gunning for anything that will let CIL programs run on non-Windows platforms. I'm not alone in these suspicions.
In the end, it is possible (and a little ironic) that the FUD about.NET's cross-platform future will cause us to abandon.NET for some projects.
"Just having a firewall that does nat translation is a violation of these bills."
Which is why I'm not too worried about them passing as they are. If these were enforced, the ISPs themselves would lose business. And there are exceptions: the Texas bill notes an intent to defraud the service provider, and the Massachusetts bill uses the phrase "without the express consent or express authorization of the communication service provider". My guess is service providers won't be anxious to keep legitimate businesses from using their services. And if my ISP tells me I can't use my wireless router, they'll simply lose my business.
Many bills are stupid in their infancy, but I have some hope that it'll make more sense by adolescence. (Of course, after the DMCA, that may simply be naive, unjustified optimism on my part...)
"Silly straw man" argument how, exactly? It seems to me that, given the choice between content with and without DRM, consumers would place a greater value on content they could use more broadly. Informing the consumer erodes the value of DRM, because it allows consumers to vote with their wallets against DRM.
What's your reasoning? That it's somehow better that consumers don't know what they're buying?
And where's the huge government expense behind the proposed labeling, anyway? As government spending and regulation goes, this is a grain of sand on a very large beach.
This labeling idea is one of the few that may really get the attention of average consumers.
Most people will browse a CD's tracks before buying, and may very well notice the supplemental information. If they read that they can't copy the content to a portable music player, or that it might fail to play in some CD players, it will make them think twice about their purchase. At the very least, they'll get a clear idea of the risk that their money may not be well spent.
Contrast this with the Philips CD logo. Even if it were properly enforced (which it isn't), who looks for that? The average consumer doesn't even know what DRM is or why it might cause them problems. It's much easier to notice a warning label that's been added than a logo that's missing.
You think the labeling represents a big, bureaucratic expense? Keep in mind that this proposal is one of the few that can slow down the push for mandated copy protection standards. How much do you think that will cost?
Contact your legislators and ask them to get behind Wyden's bill; while you're on the site, you might even consider joining the EFF. Wyden's proposal can give some much needed visibility to DRM restrictions --- something the content industry would prefer to slip silently past consumers.
Describes a business model for creating money by (1) registering obfusticated patents...
I wish someone had thought of filing a similar patent before certain bottom-feeders started buying up IP for the sole purpose of suing infringing parties. Alas, now there's too much prior art for any hope of success.
I wrote a review of three wireless cards with the Zaurus last year: Linksys, SMC, and Socket. The Socket did look to be the most promising in terms of battery life, though the range seemed a bit shorter. Of course, at the time the drivers were in pretty bad shape. The SMC was my choice at the time.
The antenna housing on older Linksys cards is something to watch out for --- it completely blocks the stylus silo. (I had a pic up showing that, but the review site seems to have screwed up the links to the photos.) I've heard that this problem has been fixed on newer Linksys cards.
In any case, check out the battery life comparison in that review --- you'll see that active communications (using VNC) really took the punch out of the SL-5500's batteries.
Why do you suppose they didn't compare battery life under similar conditions? Most of the specs for the 5600 look great, and the battery life on its own doesn't look bad either, but this paper gives no basis for comparing the battery life of the 5500 and the 5600.
What sickens me is the ever-increasing intolerance for those expressing differing opinions. Those supporting the war accuse protesters of cowardice or attack their patriotism; those against it accuse supporters of fascism, ignorance, or a lack of compassion. Honestly, if I have to see one more news story about how people are so angry with some comment made by a Dixie Chick I'm gonna... um, turn off the TV.
Anyway, I would hope that the people at your local VFW post understand that they fought for the principles of the U.S. Constitution and its amendments. Free speech is far, far more than just a liberal excuse for scatological performance art.
Just expressing the opinion that those who hold the opinion that people with differing opinions should keep their opinions to themselves, should keep their opinions to themselves.
Some of the CDT's conclusions do seem obvious, but others really contradict prevailing beliefs. For one thing, they found that opting out of future mailings generally didn't result in the email address being sold or shared, thus attracting even greater quantities of spam. It's also surprising that addresses harvested from the web fall into disuse rather quickly, and that the harvesting programs aren't clever enough to overcome very simple obfuscation.
I'm a little sorry that the CDT pointed out that last bit, though; it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to upgrade harvesters to interpret these concealed email addresses. On the other hand, maybe spammers figure that anyone bright enough to use HTML codes or Javascript isn't likely to buy their snake oil.
Slashdot Mirror
Just because software environments have become more complex doesn't mean that the opportunity for learning in a simpler environment has vanished. Those old 8-bit micros might not be good for teaching 3D rendering, but they're still good for teaching microprocessor fundamentals. There's no need to go antique shopping on eBay, either: emulators for these simple machines can be found all over the web. How about an Altair, an IMSAI, or a COSMAC ELF for your Windows system? Or emulating an Apple II on OS X? I've even written an ELF emulator for Palm handhelds, and secured permission to publish Tom Pittman's "A Short Course in Programming" to help educate the curious on the good old CDP1802.
The problem isn't that the educational tools of the past have disappeared, it's that there's a wide gulf between learning the fundamentals and writing modern software. What I wonder, however, is just what sort of foundation is really necessary to become a programmer these days. Hardware guys benefit from understanding things like a microprocessor's addressing modes and register usage, as do compiler developers... but to the average programmer, what difference does it make?
I don't think there's any single correct answer, any more than there's one single curriculum that will cover the full breadth of today's software technologies. The challenge of knowing where to start is knowing where you want to end up. Once you know that, the tools and literature needed to acquire that knowledge are all readily available.
As it should be: let's not confuse illegally obtaining content (through theft or copyright infringement) with illegally republishing it.
Sorry to have offended your intellect!
David Brin's Earth also comes to mind as a read on playing with gravity and black holes. The idea of the earth becoming sentient seemed a little silly (if I remember the novel correctly), but it was entertaining nonetheless.
Let's not mistake the decision of the upper management of some large corporation for a good decision, or one with outstanding technical merit. GM does swing a lot of weight and could influence the availability of apps or even the choices of other enterprise customers, but that doesn't mean they've actually made a more informed choice than anyone here --- in fact, I think it's unlikely.
I'm not sure that it matters whether we could ever prove a machine is sentient or not. If we can build a machine with a sophisticated behavior capable of acting semi-autonomously, we're done. At that point it's a machine that does what it's designed for, and pushing any further is pointless, unless you really want a space probe that radios back "I'll transmit that data when I'm damn good and ready, right now I'm enjoying the sunset." I don't want my wash machine to have free will, thank you.
Depending on where you have your domain registered, they may be able to redirect web traffic and email to your .Mac website and email address. I've been using BuyDomains.com for a few years and I've been pretty happy with their service. Web visitors get "frame forwarded", so the illusion of my domain stays pretty much intact, and email forwarding is even simpler. The only real catch I've found is that Google will often index the true underlying address of web pages, and those links may break if I pull up stakes and move the site elsewhere.
This is a simple solution that might be helpful if your needs aren't too sophisticated.
If the challenge is based on an image ("please respond with the fuzzy word in the subject line" or somesuch), where does that leave vision impaired email users? How do they respond to a challenge to get their email delivered?
These clamshell devices really have a hard time finding a niche to fit into. A company I worked for spent significant time and money porting a Windows based product to such a CE platform, and we ended up with an inventory of hardware that nobody wanted, save for the few enthusiastic customers that led us to think there was a real market.
It stinks as a PDA because of the bulk and an inappropriate UI designed for the desktop. It stinks as a subnotebook because the keyboard's too small for proper touch typing and the display strains your eyes when used for more than a few minutes.
These look cool at first site, but are utterly impractical for most real-world use. They're a solution looking for a problem, and not typically finding one.
- Pleasing users can be satisfying. Most of my time is spent developing proprietary software for my employer, but I have released one piece of free software and have at least two more projects in development. I worked hard to get the bugs out of that project prior to release, and it was time well-spent; in two years time, only two small bugs have been found. I've received email from all around the world thanking me for developing that app and making it freely available. It's very encouraging!
- If you're any good at all at what you're coding, user demands aren't a problem. Sometimes you just have to say no, either because you don't have the time or because it doesn't fit your vision of what the software needs to be; sometimes the user's ideas can be worth their weight in gold. As for bug reports, if you ship bugs, it's because you screwed up, and the user is perfectly entitled to call you on it. Take the criticism and learn from it and get better at what you're doing. If you can't do that, do everyone a favor and find a new hobby, one that doesn't waste other people's time and effort.
- If you must develop software "just for fun," keep it to yourself. Anyone can sing in the shower, but most people who can't carry a tune don't inflict it on others by getting up on stage (drunks at Karaoke bars and reality TV excluded). If you want to be antisocial and treat software development like a single-player video game, then don't bother posting the results of your work. Don't take the stage if you can't sing.
I don't agree with everything in the original article, but the attitude expressed in the parent post is, I fear, too prevalent in open source software. It damages Linux, and it should.On the other hand, my employer is starting to get questions about Linux support from some large customers. One answer is Mono... but my gut tells me that as soon as Microsoft feels secure with the penetration of C# and the
In the end, it is possible (and a little ironic) that the FUD about
Told ya so...
"Silly straw man" argument how, exactly? It seems to me that, given the choice between content with and without DRM, consumers would place a greater value on content they could use more broadly. Informing the consumer erodes the value of DRM, because it allows consumers to vote with their wallets against DRM.
What's your reasoning? That it's somehow better that consumers don't know what they're buying?
And where's the huge government expense behind the proposed labeling, anyway? As government spending and regulation goes, this is a grain of sand on a very large beach.
This labeling idea is one of the few that may really get the attention of average consumers.
Most people will browse a CD's tracks before buying, and may very well notice the supplemental information. If they read that they can't copy the content to a portable music player, or that it might fail to play in some CD players, it will make them think twice about their purchase. At the very least, they'll get a clear idea of the risk that their money may not be well spent.
Contrast this with the Philips CD logo. Even if it were properly enforced (which it isn't), who looks for that? The average consumer doesn't even know what DRM is or why it might cause them problems. It's much easier to notice a warning label that's been added than a logo that's missing.
You think the labeling represents a big, bureaucratic expense? Keep in mind that this proposal is one of the few that can slow down the push for mandated copy protection standards. How much do you think that will cost?
Contact your legislators and ask them to get behind Wyden's bill; while you're on the site, you might even consider joining the EFF. Wyden's proposal can give some much needed visibility to DRM restrictions --- something the content industry would prefer to slip silently past consumers.
I wrote a review of three wireless cards with the Zaurus last year: Linksys, SMC, and Socket. The Socket did look to be the most promising in terms of battery life, though the range seemed a bit shorter. Of course, at the time the drivers were in pretty bad shape. The SMC was my choice at the time.
The antenna housing on older Linksys cards is something to watch out for --- it completely blocks the stylus silo. (I had a pic up showing that, but the review site seems to have screwed up the links to the photos.) I've heard that this problem has been fixed on newer Linksys cards.
In any case, check out the battery life comparison in that review --- you'll see that active communications (using VNC) really took the punch out of the SL-5500's batteries.
Why do you suppose they didn't compare battery life under similar conditions? Most of the specs for the 5600 look great, and the battery life on its own doesn't look bad either, but this paper gives no basis for comparing the battery life of the 5500 and the 5600.
What sickens me is the ever-increasing intolerance for those expressing differing opinions. Those supporting the war accuse protesters of cowardice or attack their patriotism; those against it accuse supporters of fascism, ignorance, or a lack of compassion. Honestly, if I have to see one more news story about how people are so angry with some comment made by a Dixie Chick I'm gonna... um, turn off the TV.
Anyway, I would hope that the people at your local VFW post understand that they fought for the principles of the U.S. Constitution and its amendments. Free speech is far, far more than just a liberal excuse for scatological performance art.
Just expressing the opinion that those who hold the opinion that people with differing opinions should keep their opinions to themselves, should keep their opinions to themselves.
Dang it, I should've kept that to myself.
Some of the CDT's conclusions do seem obvious, but others really contradict prevailing beliefs. For one thing, they found that opting out of future mailings generally didn't result in the email address being sold or shared, thus attracting even greater quantities of spam. It's also surprising that addresses harvested from the web fall into disuse rather quickly, and that the harvesting programs aren't clever enough to overcome very simple obfuscation.
I'm a little sorry that the CDT pointed out that last bit, though; it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to upgrade harvesters to interpret these concealed email addresses. On the other hand, maybe spammers figure that anyone bright enough to use HTML codes or Javascript isn't likely to buy their snake oil.