A breathtaking example of misinformation. I couldn't think of a more effective attack on the rising discontent about China's stance on human rights and freedom.
Socialism is inherently evil because it is a Collectivist ideology which can only work if everyone follows the same path. As we know, people won't do that of their own free will, so they will have to be forced. Enter societies like the Soviet Union or China.
You mean I'm living in a country where I can choose my own path?
(looks around briefly for choices, sees consumer debt, Generica, and industrial stiflement of innovation and personal freedom)
Bullshit. The poster isn't trying to work with anyone. The poster is trying to work against IT. I've seen this before. IT laiason committees, technology committees, "cross sectional", all these are code words for "we are going to deconstruct a centralized IT infrastructure, permanently strip out their chain of command, rape their budget, and throw technology decisions to people who are catastrophically unaware of just how difficult it is to manage an IT department."
I guess sys admins got lazy on testing virus scanner updates before rollouts.
That's very funny. When a ubervirus thrashes a couple of corporate networks to the tune of a billion dollars apiece, we hear "Stupid admins - the patch was available - they weren't keeping up". Now it's "They should have tested before rolling them out." (paraphrased)
It appears, therefore, that using a system that is subject to viruses and security vulnerabilities on the scale of Windows is inherently untenable. We can't even define logically consistent expectations for the administrators of such systems. Can we stop using them now?
I think Ubuntu is just trying to silence critics that say that they've run off and abandoned Debian. I think that delaying the release date is a move to get back to the distro's roots.
I admit I don't know much about the stock market, but if you don't like a company's reporting or business practices, don't you have the choice not to invest in them?
I use Notes with Crossover on a daily basis. I'm told that very many IBMers do the same. It's a hell of a lot more stable in Crossover than it is in Windows.
power seats, crumple zones, fuel injection, automatic transmission, power stearing, fuel economy, aerodynamic body, power windows, power locks
You're kidding, right? Do you think we rode dinosaurs to school back in the 80s? I mean come on - automatic transmission? WTF?
CD Player, Traction control, On-Star
None of which were available in 1986. The two latter options, in particular a fully subscribed On-Star system, are NOT part of an average car in 2006. By your criteria, it could be said that cars have never been as fully equipped as in the 60's, when it was possible to purchase a car with steerable headlines or a gas turbine engine.
A car 20 years ago is much less than what most cars are now. Entertainment is the same. Movies now are much more than what they were 20 years ago.
Really? What real difference is there between a 2006 model car and a 1986 model car? The average car of 1986 isn't that much different than one from 2006.
Re:Neils Ferguson - seems to know his stuff
on
No Backdoor in Vista
·
· Score: 1
Look, Neils doesn't need MS - they need him.
I don't dispute that point. The only problem with it is that it is totally irrelevant to this discussion.
If he codes his part up to his own standards, he is being ethical.
As I thought was abundantly clear in my grandparent post, you cannot be an ethical person if you ignore collective responsibility for the groups with which you associate yourself. If you do IT work for a drug lord, but constrain your activities to removing viruses from his personal computer, you are still complicit for supporting the organization and are therefore responsible, on some level, for its activities. Even though your participation may have no direct impact upon the supply of illegal drugs, the organization may (and probably will) operate more efficiently as a result of your support and involvement.
If Neils' contribution is significant (as you pointed out), then how is it possible for that very same contribution to be ethically insignificant to the greater goals and aspirations of Microsoft as a whole?
In a perfect world, we'd all have the freedom to work for only ethical companies. In this world, children need food, clothing, yadda yadda.
I walked away from a 100k network security job and took a job as a customer relations IT liaison with a manufacturing company making quite a bit less. The reason I did this is because my company was lying to customers and using fear on the part of upper management as a battering ram to destroy the careers of IT people who didn't want our product. I couldn't live with myself working under those conditions, so I changed the conditions. That's what ethical people do. The inability of Neils, you, or anyone else to make that kind of choice does not change what is ethical behavior and what is not.
Re:Neils Ferguson - seems to know his stuff
on
No Backdoor in Vista
·
· Score: 0, Troll
He seems to be ethical.
I have a problem with that statement. If you are an ethical person, does it not logically follow that you be constrained from associating yourself with unethical people? Microsoft is not only provably unethical; they are actually a criminal organization. How can anyone be truly considered to be ethical if they take a job at Microsoft?
Microsoft can't force him to lie for them and since he works in the Netherlands trying to would be most inadvisable.
Microsoft is large enough and the codebase complicated enough that such a back door could be added without Niels being aware of it.
Why do you think the Netherlands are going to affect Microsoft's behavior? They're convicted criminals in the most powerful nation on Earth. I very much doubt that the Netherlands are going to make them clean up their act. Most of the news I see about European software patents seems to support the idea that MS is operating "business as usual" in Europe.
The great firewall of China is not news. Everyone has known about it. Everyone knows that Cisco pretty much built it. How is it that Cisco didn't get this kind of protesting? Lots of American IT vendors have been involved with Chinese censorship from the beginning. Billions have already changed hands.
What's special about Google?
Can it be that this darling business up and comer is just a little too new to the world of big business, and doesn't have the contacts and the lobbyists to protect these sorts of activities yet? Can it be that other more established members of big business are working furiously to hand Google their balls over this thing by engineering a PR disaster?
I've always thought it was a bad thing for American companies to be involved in something like Chinese censorship. I am glad to see this being questioned now. I'm just wondering why suddenly now? Google did not do something new in China. The trail had already been blazed by Cisco and Microsoft and other big dogs.
We all know that there has been a full bore astroturf campaign to get people to distrust Google, particularly here on Slashdot. We know that Microsoft in particular is interested in manipulating the Slashdot community through astroturfing. I admit, a patent lawsuit from some tiny holding company would be more their MO these days, but could all of this be coming from Redmond?
How is that bad? I don't have a manager micro-managing me, and can actually get more work done. I can work days I wouldn't other wise (sick days, etc). I can put in partial days, or even do overtime or on-call shifts a lot easier.
You're looking at it logically and from a task-focused perspective. None of that has anything to do with business. If you aren't in the office, you gradually become nobody. You become increasingly isolated from the political and social core of the company. Soon you become an abstraction with a very huge cost center associated with your pay and benefits. You might actually be the most productive employee in the company. None of that matters, because the people whose asses you are pulling out of the fire won't realize it if you aren't there. As we all know, labor costs in the modern economy are not fixed. A quarter will come along sooner or later where the company does poorly and people get laid off. You are already gone. You aren't in the office every day. Your manager can let you go without creating tremors in the grapevine. No messy security escorting you out, no rumors running around - nice and clean. One day they are paying you, the next day they aren't. Then it's on to the next quarter.
Daniel Robbins has decided to leave Microsoft to pursue his passion for software development with an independent software vendor where he will be focused on building in.NET on Windows.
A pretty transparent parting PR shot if you ask me. It is very unusual for somebody in MS's position to discuss the specific technologies a departing employee plans to use in his new job. It comes across as desperate, inappropriate, and tacky. MS has also been pushing their "passion" marketing campaign, so the use of the word in that statement is suspicious. I doubt they actually know very much about what he'll be doing, and I am certainly not prepared to take them at their word even if they do.
I think the reasons that Robbins gave for leaving are absolutely poisonous to Microsoft. The idea that even with all their money, they can't keep a Linux guy technically challenged strongly undergirds the increasing awareness that Microsoft no longer gets it with regard to where technology is going in the 21st century. From a technical point of view, they are where mainframes were in the late 70s. Well established, deep pockets, strong existing market structure, and completely incapable of the next stage of IT development.
Until this point, the use of the word "hack" in reference to breaking into a computer system was strictly an abstract concept. "Hack" is not something one could be imagined doing with a pringles can. A machete however...
Face it, they're just trying to slow down the DVD pirates and I don't see anything incredibly wrong with that.
Um, no, I don't face it at all. I find your accusation appalling. I don't use Netflix myself, but I know several people who do so heavily, and they don't make copies of the movies. When did tossing around unprovable allegations like that become standard fare when thinking about justice in our society?
Slashdot Mirror
A breathtaking example of misinformation. I couldn't think of a more effective attack on the rising discontent about China's stance on human rights and freedom.
Socialism is inherently evil because it is a Collectivist ideology which can only work if everyone follows the same path. As we know, people won't do that of their own free will, so they will have to be forced. Enter societies like the Soviet Union or China.
You mean I'm living in a country where I can choose my own path?
(looks around briefly for choices, sees consumer debt, Generica, and industrial stiflement of innovation and personal freedom)
Wow! Yay America!
Bullshit. The poster isn't trying to work with anyone. The poster is trying to work against IT. I've seen this before. IT laiason committees, technology committees, "cross sectional", all these are code words for "we are going to deconstruct a centralized IT infrastructure, permanently strip out their chain of command, rape their budget, and throw technology decisions to people who are catastrophically unaware of just how difficult it is to manage an IT department."
I guess sys admins got lazy on testing virus scanner updates before rollouts.
That's very funny. When a ubervirus thrashes a couple of corporate networks to the tune of a billion dollars apiece, we hear "Stupid admins - the patch was available - they weren't keeping up". Now it's "They should have tested before rolling them out." (paraphrased)
It appears, therefore, that using a system that is subject to viruses and security vulnerabilities on the scale of Windows is inherently untenable. We can't even define logically consistent expectations for the administrators of such systems. Can we stop using them now?
I think Ubuntu is just trying to silence critics that say that they've run off and abandoned Debian. I think that delaying the release date is a move to get back to the distro's roots.
It's OK to zero day a vulnerability if you are trying to sell something like TCPA.
I live in Alabama. Unlike most surrounding states, fireworks are legal here (yeehaw!)
/runs off to look into some property near the state line...
I guess this means we'll see game stores next to the fireworks stands at the state line.
Hey, this business plan has an actual item #2!
I admit I don't know much about the stock market, but if you don't like a company's reporting or business practices, don't you have the choice not to invest in them?
I use Notes with Crossover on a daily basis. I'm told that very many IBMers do the same. It's a hell of a lot more stable in Crossover than it is in Windows.
I agree. I'm not knocking the name, I just think it's funny. In point of fact, I think the name XORP rocks. It's funny, but it does rock.
I'm Stinky Wizzleteats. I have a stupid name.
http://slashdot.org/faq/accounts.shtml#ac100
Grep. Gimp. Kugar. Krita. Kexi. LaTex. Tcl. And now, the piece de resistance - xorp.
Why route when you can XORP!
Air bags, Antilock brakes
Available, but not widely so.
power seats, crumple zones, fuel injection, automatic transmission, power stearing, fuel economy, aerodynamic body, power windows, power locks
You're kidding, right? Do you think we rode dinosaurs to school back in the 80s? I mean come on - automatic transmission? WTF?
CD Player, Traction control, On-Star
None of which were available in 1986. The two latter options, in particular a fully subscribed On-Star system, are NOT part of an average car in 2006. By your criteria, it could be said that cars have never been as fully equipped as in the 60's, when it was possible to purchase a car with steerable headlines or a gas turbine engine.
So because you wanted character conflict, Jar Jar was the best character in the Star Wars movies to you.
This is your brain on reality TV. Does anyone have any questions?
A car 20 years ago is much less than what most cars are now. Entertainment is the same. Movies now are much more than what they were 20 years ago.
Really? What real difference is there between a 2006 model car and a 1986 model car? The average car of 1986 isn't that much different than one from 2006.
Look, Neils doesn't need MS - they need him.
I don't dispute that point. The only problem with it is that it is totally irrelevant to this discussion.
If he codes his part up to his own standards, he is being ethical.
As I thought was abundantly clear in my grandparent post, you cannot be an ethical person if you ignore collective responsibility for the groups with which you associate yourself. If you do IT work for a drug lord, but constrain your activities to removing viruses from his personal computer, you are still complicit for supporting the organization and are therefore responsible, on some level, for its activities. Even though your participation may have no direct impact upon the supply of illegal drugs, the organization may (and probably will) operate more efficiently as a result of your support and involvement.
If Neils' contribution is significant (as you pointed out), then how is it possible for that very same contribution to be ethically insignificant to the greater goals and aspirations of Microsoft as a whole?
In a perfect world, we'd all have the freedom to work for only ethical companies. In this world, children need food, clothing, yadda yadda.
I walked away from a 100k network security job and took a job as a customer relations IT liaison with a manufacturing company making quite a bit less. The reason I did this is because my company was lying to customers and using fear on the part of upper management as a battering ram to destroy the careers of IT people who didn't want our product. I couldn't live with myself working under those conditions, so I changed the conditions. That's what ethical people do. The inability of Neils, you, or anyone else to make that kind of choice does not change what is ethical behavior and what is not.
He seems to be ethical.
I have a problem with that statement. If you are an ethical person, does it not logically follow that you be constrained from associating yourself with unethical people? Microsoft is not only provably unethical; they are actually a criminal organization. How can anyone be truly considered to be ethical if they take a job at Microsoft?
Microsoft can't force him to lie for them and since he works in the Netherlands trying to would be most inadvisable.
Microsoft is large enough and the codebase complicated enough that such a back door could be added without Niels being aware of it.
Why do you think the Netherlands are going to affect Microsoft's behavior? They're convicted criminals in the most powerful nation on Earth. I very much doubt that the Netherlands are going to make them clean up their act. Most of the news I see about European software patents seems to support the idea that MS is operating "business as usual" in Europe.
The great firewall of China is not news. Everyone has known about it. Everyone knows that Cisco pretty much built it. How is it that Cisco didn't get this kind of protesting? Lots of American IT vendors have been involved with Chinese censorship from the beginning. Billions have already changed hands.
What's special about Google?
Can it be that this darling business up and comer is just a little too new to the world of big business, and doesn't have the contacts and the lobbyists to protect these sorts of activities yet? Can it be that other more established members of big business are working furiously to hand Google their balls over this thing by engineering a PR disaster?
I've always thought it was a bad thing for American companies to be involved in something like Chinese censorship. I am glad to see this being questioned now. I'm just wondering why suddenly now? Google did not do something new in China. The trail had already been blazed by Cisco and Microsoft and other big dogs.
We all know that there has been a full bore astroturf campaign to get people to distrust Google, particularly here on Slashdot. We know that Microsoft in particular is interested in manipulating the Slashdot community through astroturfing. I admit, a patent lawsuit from some tiny holding company would be more their MO these days, but could all of this be coming from Redmond?
How is that bad? I don't have a manager micro-managing me, and can actually get more work done. I can work days I wouldn't other wise (sick days, etc). I can put in partial days, or even do overtime or on-call shifts a lot easier.
You're looking at it logically and from a task-focused perspective. None of that has anything to do with business. If you aren't in the office, you gradually become nobody. You become increasingly isolated from the political and social core of the company. Soon you become an abstraction with a very huge cost center associated with your pay and benefits. You might actually be the most productive employee in the company. None of that matters, because the people whose asses you are pulling out of the fire won't realize it if you aren't there. As we all know, labor costs in the modern economy are not fixed. A quarter will come along sooner or later where the company does poorly and people get laid off. You are already gone. You aren't in the office every day. Your manager can let you go without creating tremors in the grapevine. No messy security escorting you out, no rumors running around - nice and clean. One day they are paying you, the next day they aren't. Then it's on to the next quarter.
See? Bad.
Daniel Robbins has decided to leave Microsoft to pursue his passion for software development with an independent software vendor where he will be focused on building in .NET on Windows.
A pretty transparent parting PR shot if you ask me. It is very unusual for somebody in MS's position to discuss the specific technologies a departing employee plans to use in his new job. It comes across as desperate, inappropriate, and tacky. MS has also been pushing their "passion" marketing campaign, so the use of the word in that statement is suspicious. I doubt they actually know very much about what he'll be doing, and I am certainly not prepared to take them at their word even if they do.
I think the reasons that Robbins gave for leaving are absolutely poisonous to Microsoft. The idea that even with all their money, they can't keep a Linux guy technically challenged strongly undergirds the increasing awareness that Microsoft no longer gets it with regard to where technology is going in the 21st century. From a technical point of view, they are where mainframes were in the late 70s. Well established, deep pockets, strong existing market structure, and completely incapable of the next stage of IT development.
[ belated and lame attempt to get in on the running joke ]
[ non-sequitur afterthought that might have worked as a post all by itself, but fails when combined with the first statement ]
Apparently they even used bloggers as part of the operation, as relayers of misinformation!
Astroturfers are terroristss.
Until this point, the use of the word "hack" in reference to breaking into a computer system was strictly an abstract concept. "Hack" is not something one could be imagined doing with a pringles can. A machete however...
Face it, they're just trying to slow down the DVD pirates and I don't see anything incredibly wrong with that.
Um, no, I don't face it at all. I find your accusation appalling. I don't use Netflix myself, but I know several people who do so heavily, and they don't make copies of the movies. When did tossing around unprovable allegations like that become standard fare when thinking about justice in our society?