I feel that might very well be the real reason why "bad" boys get more girls. They just go for it, instead of trying to be chivalrous. In other words, if you want something from someone, you could do worse than communicating your desire.
Then again, you have to ask yourself if having more girls (let's make that relationships) is really what you are after. In many cases, the answer is probably a definite "yes", but here are some questions to consider:
- Would you rather have more relationships or better ones?
- Are you really after the kind of person who falls for "bad" behavior?
- Would you really change your behavior to get a relationship, or should people love you as you are?
- Wouldn't you rather write code?
``DRM isnt the super-breakable trick everyone claims here on slashdot.''
You won't hear me claim that it is always easy to break a DRM scheme.
``One could devise a DRM which procesess all state information within a signed VM.''
No. Because that's an implementation detail. You can't force people to use a particular implementation.
Fundamentally, you have a Big Bag Of Bits (usually a file) that has the information in it. Once you figure out how to interpret the bits, you can get the information out. The only way this won't work is if not all the information is there.
Having said that, you _can_ make it very difficult for people to decode the information in the BBOB, without going through a channel controlled by you. One way to achieve that is by using encryption. If the encryption algorithm is good, the information will be almost impossible to decode without the key. If the key is difficult enough to guess, the only feasible way to decode the information is by obtaining the key from you. But even still...if the decryption works once, it will work again, so if people can somehow store the key for later use (e.g. sniff it from the network, extract it from a program,...), the cat is out of the bag again.
Finally, once you have raised the bar for decoding the content so high that nobody is willing or able to crack your scheme...they can still get at the information once your software has decoded it for them. For example, if an ebook reader renders the content...who is to say the rendered content ends up on a screen, and not in a file?
Just like making bits uncopyable is like making water not wet, so is making data unmodifiable. "Lock them for editing" is DRM, and can, has been, and will be circumvented.
While on the subject, what are the relative merits of the various formats? I know PDF from other things, but I know virtually nothing about Ebooks. Can someone enlighten me?
I don't know. If you are willing to break into the school's system to improve your grades, and generally compromise their data, I am not sure it is _they_ turning you into a criminal. I think, if you do that, _you_ are already over the line.
While I feel a certain amount of pity for anyone who has to spend time in prison, I think what he did was really unwise. What he did probably shows a certain skill and adeptness that could be useful, but he could have shown that without actually messing with the data and improving his own scores. By doing the latter, he has firmly crossed the line into malice. You just don't do that.
``Unfortunately most of them are complete bloat (e.g. Swing, NIO, logging...). Each package is like a treatise on OOP and design patterns. When are people going to learn that OOP is just one tool of many?
But Java the *language* is great.''
Err, no. Java, the language, is built around the idea that the only paradigm you'll ever need is classes-and-instances object-orientation. A lot of the ugliness and bloat in the libraries stems from that. The rest is culture - from the start, everything about Java has been heralded as the One True Way and the new way to do things, and it's been the same ever since: whenever a new workaround for some ugliness is invented or ported over from another language, it is heralded as the Great New Thing, and everybody starts using it everywhere, even where it isn't the best way to go. But really, in the end, you can't get around the limitation that Java just doesn't allow for anything that isn't an object with fields and methods (except for the built-in primitives, of course).
``This brings a level of predictability that we just can't get from.NET or Mono. And for huge enterprise apps, that predictability is totally necessary.''
Perhaps, but Java's standard isn't even that high. Many things are unspecified or implementation-dependent, and there can be and have been significant and incompatible changes between releases. I don't think it's actually significantly better than many open source efforts (that is, efforts that originated in the open source community).
Still, a complete, open-source implementation of Java is a great boon. Kudos to everyone who made this happen.
Instead of RAID, I use nightly runs of rdiff-backup. It keeps diffs between runs, so you can restore older versions in case there is something wrong with a newer version. Obviously, this uses some extra space. For me, it's on the order of 50% extra space required for a year's worth of increments. To me, that is definitely worth it.
I have already used my backups to migrate my main partitions to different drives and filesystems, and to go back in time to recover deleted files. I am very happy with the system. Kudos to the developers!
``People drool over git and mercurial like these things are -doing work-.''
But they do. They keep track of what changed, when it changed, what else changed at the same time, how the change was justified, and who changed it, and, very importantly, how things were before the change.
The choice you have is between having this information and not having it, and between various interfaces to the information.
That's as far as the work they do for you is concerned.
On the other side of the balance, you get to choose your limitations and performance impact.
Of the major systems, I find that CVS has both the lowest performance and the worst limitations, Subversion does acceptably on both counts, and Git has great performance and flexibility.
To sum it up, version control systems _do_ actually do work for you, and there are noticeable differences between them that make choosing wisely worthwhile.
I'll add to your post a point that is often missed, so it bears repeating:
Just because git _allows_ you to do distributed development (multiple repositories) doesn't mean you _can't_ have a single main repository. There can still be one "blessed" version of the code, which is backed up and everything else you like to do with your Subversion repository.
However, if you ever want to make a couple of commits while disconnected from the network, or try something out, making multiple commits along the way, until you can make an informed decision about pushing your changes to the main branch or not - with git, you can. So, even if you don't need those capabilities now, choosing git may still be a good idea.
``I mean, OpenBSD has stated in the past that CVS works well enough for them, and the risk of converting the repository is not worth it''
It may be good enough for them, but it's not good enough for me. I don't want to spend half a day upgrading my ports collection through CVS if it's quicker for me to just download the new tarball.
``I never got the (recent?) craze over using the latest SCM of the week''
I think it is recent mainly because Subversion has broken the hegemony of CVS. Of course there is much inertia to switch, and that is a Good Thing. Subversion, however, is easy to pick up and so much better that it actually displaced CVS as the Version Control System Everyone Uses (TM). Inspired by the success of Subversion, everyone with the inclination and a large enough ego started their own "better than CVS" version control system. Some of them are horrible, some of them are shiny commercial crap, some of them are better in theory, but lacking in implementation, and some are actually better. My personal favorite is Git. It works well, is easy to pick up if you already know CVS or Subversion, has a couple of desireable features, and, last but not least, it's FAST. Of course, many people will stick with Subversion, CVS, or whatever Microsoft integrates with their other software.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I have been led to believe that, in many if not all EU countries, downloading music and movies from the Internet is legal. It counts as making a copy for personal use, and, as you mention, you pay a levy on blank media, which is used to compensate the rights holders.
The thing is, when some agency cracks down on at least some of the people who run pirated copies of Windows, those people will be faced with a choice: pay up or cease using Windows. If Windows is required for interoperability with parties you exchange information with, paying for Windows may be your best strategy. So even if there is rampant piracy, as long as there is _some_ incentive to pay for Windows, Microsoft wins. And the combination of lock-in and piracy provides such an incentive.
Well, it's a good question, actually. While VIA has long touted their support for Linux and open source, Real World results have often lagged behind. For example, various Linux drivers they have released have been one or more of buggy, closed source, and tied to forks of popular open-source projects. So, while Linux does actually run on all boards I have tried, not all hardware is _fully_ supported in practice.
``What is the point in shipping it with a PS/2 keyboard and mouse port. Complete waste of time. The space would be far more usefully be taken up with some more USB ports.''
While you are welcome to your opinion, I am very happy with all the legacy ports on the motherboards. That way, I can use all the stuff I already have, instead of having to upgrade everything.
In the Netherlands (which is in Europe), it's not so bad.
Note: various things I've written here don't translate well. I don't use the words for various school types the same way as others, so some names will look funny to your eyes.
There are often several primary schools to choose from. They differ in religious affiliation (the common choices are catholic, protestant, and secular), but also in method (besides "normal" schools, there are also free (as in freedom) schools and Montessori schools) and level of education. Still, they all fit in with the rest of the system, so, by the time you graduate from them, you have at least learned the same basics as others.
High school is where it really gets interesting. There are various levels of high school. The system has undergone some reforms in recent times, but, last time I looked, there were VMBO, HAVO, and VWO, in order of increasing level. So, although it is not politically correct to say this, the most intelligent kids go to VWO, the least intelligent go to VMBO. I could go on and on, but the take home message is that there is a separation there: VMBO is more practically oriented; it teaches you to work, so to speak. VWO is more academically oriented, and is the only one that grants access to university. So the VWO kids don't get bogged down by the VMBO kids who don't understand algebra, and the VMBO kids don't have to learn all the academic stuff they aren't going to need for their jobs anyway.
Just because something happens when you vote in "left wing governments" doesn't mean it doesn't happen when you vote in "right wing governments".
Personally, I think left vs. right is just so much bollocks. Politics is much too complex to be described by a single dimension.
Case in point: there are people who are in favor of less government involvement in people's lives. Less legislation, lower taxes, and less hand-holding; leaving people to fend for themselves. I call this "liberalism". It's considered "right wing", because it is the opposite of "left wing" social-economic politics: the government cares for the people, by redistributing wealth and regulations.
There are also people who are in favor of more government control of people's lives, to keep people on the right path and weed out unwanted people. More legislation, more observation, and higher sentences. I can't think of a good -ism word for this, but "police state" comes to mind (note that neither "liberalism" nor "police state" are meant as value judgments). This is also considered "right wing", because it emphasizes law and order and "proper" behavior - as opposed to "left wing" counter culture, disruptive protests, pot smoking, etc.
So, as you can see, "right wing" is both in favor and against more individual freedom!
You will get abusive laws when you vote for people who make those laws. Sometimes, you know in advance that they will, and sometimes you don't. Lately, governments around the world have ridden the terrorism and copyright scares to introduce the craziest laws. As it happens, the governments I know of that have done this have also been "right wing". However, I think that is really a red herring. Also, I submit that there has been remarkably little opposition from the (supposedly) "left wing" opposition. Or, perhaps I should say "opposition", because they haven't actually done very much in the way of opposing the laws that restrict our freedoms.
I mean, obviously they won't be too happy about this. So you risk them going after you for trying to disrupt their search for criminals. And, actually, that is exactly what you are doing: you are reducing the likelyhood that a system that _could_ find criminals actually finds them. Since they'll be spending the tax euros anyway, you might as well help them maximize the efficiency, rather than minimizing it and getting yourself arrested.
Have you tried Konqueror? I've used it for years, because it is faster, uses less memory, and has a bunch of useful features built-in that Firefox lacks (out of the box), such as web shortcuts (type "g some words" to search on Google, "w something" to search on Wikipedia, etc.) and a good implementation of access keys (press control, every link will get a key displayed next to it, press that key to follow the link).
The problem with Konqueror is website support. It generally works, but there are some sites that don't work in it, but that do work in Firefox. I think this is sometimes because of missing features in Konqueror and sometimes because of bugs in the sites in question.
So, when I heard that Firefox 3 had severely reduced memory usage and increased speed, I was very excited about it. Alas, thanks to it requiring GTK+ 2.10, it will require some duct taping to get it to run on Debian etch, and I'm not willing to put in the effort. I'm sticking with Konqueror for now. Maybe it's a good choice for you, too.
Slashdot Mirror
I feel that might very well be the real reason why "bad" boys get more girls. They just go for it, instead of trying to be chivalrous. In other words, if you want something from someone, you could do worse than communicating your desire.
Then again, you have to ask yourself if having more girls (let's make that relationships) is really what you are after. In many cases, the answer is probably a definite "yes", but here are some questions to consider:
- Would you rather have more relationships or better ones?
- Are you really after the kind of person who falls for "bad" behavior?
- Would you really change your behavior to get a relationship, or should people love you as you are?
- Wouldn't you rather write code?
``DRM isnt the super-breakable trick everyone claims here on slashdot.''
You won't hear me claim that it is always easy to break a DRM scheme.
``One could devise a DRM which procesess all state information within a signed VM.''
No. Because that's an implementation detail. You can't force people to use a particular implementation.
Fundamentally, you have a Big Bag Of Bits (usually a file) that has the information in it. Once you figure out how to interpret the bits, you can get the information out. The only way this won't work is if not all the information is there.
Having said that, you _can_ make it very difficult for people to decode the information in the BBOB, without going through a channel controlled by you. One way to achieve that is by using encryption. If the encryption algorithm is good, the information will be almost impossible to decode without the key. If the key is difficult enough to guess, the only feasible way to decode the information is by obtaining the key from you. But even still...if the decryption works once, it will work again, so if people can somehow store the key for later use (e.g. sniff it from the network, extract it from a program, ...), the cat is out of the bag again.
Finally, once you have raised the bar for decoding the content so high that nobody is willing or able to crack your scheme...they can still get at the information once your software has decoded it for them. For example, if an ebook reader renders the content...who is to say the rendered content ends up on a screen, and not in a file?
Just like making bits uncopyable is like making water not wet, so is making data unmodifiable. "Lock them for editing" is DRM, and can, has been, and will be circumvented.
While on the subject, what are the relative merits of the various formats? I know PDF from other things, but I know virtually nothing about Ebooks. Can someone enlighten me?
``I'm sure you want to see this guy prosecuted too, right?''
Yes.
<whining snipped>
Anything else?
I don't know. If you are willing to break into the school's system to improve your grades, and generally compromise their data, I am not sure it is _they_ turning you into a criminal. I think, if you do that, _you_ are already over the line.
While I feel a certain amount of pity for anyone who has to spend time in prison, I think what he did was really unwise. What he did probably shows a certain skill and adeptness that could be useful, but he could have shown that without actually messing with the data and improving his own scores. By doing the latter, he has firmly crossed the line into malice. You just don't do that.
``Unfortunately most of them are complete bloat (e.g. Swing, NIO, logging ...). Each package is like a treatise on OOP and design patterns. When are people going to learn that OOP is just one tool of many?
But Java the *language* is great.''
Err, no. Java, the language, is built around the idea that the only paradigm you'll ever need is classes-and-instances object-orientation. A lot of the ugliness and bloat in the libraries stems from that. The rest is culture - from the start, everything about Java has been heralded as the One True Way and the new way to do things, and it's been the same ever since: whenever a new workaround for some ugliness is invented or ported over from another language, it is heralded as the Great New Thing, and everybody starts using it everywhere, even where it isn't the best way to go. But really, in the end, you can't get around the limitation that Java just doesn't allow for anything that isn't an object with fields and methods (except for the built-in primitives, of course).
``This brings a level of predictability that we just can't get from .NET or Mono. And for huge enterprise apps, that predictability is totally necessary.''
Perhaps, but Java's standard isn't even that high. Many things are unspecified or implementation-dependent, and there can be and have been significant and incompatible changes between releases. I don't think it's actually significantly better than many open source efforts (that is, efforts that originated in the open source community).
Still, a complete, open-source implementation of Java is a great boon. Kudos to everyone who made this happen.
Instead of RAID, I use nightly runs of rdiff-backup. It keeps diffs between runs, so you can restore older versions in case there is something wrong with a newer version. Obviously, this uses some extra space. For me, it's on the order of 50% extra space required for a year's worth of increments. To me, that is definitely worth it.
I have already used my backups to migrate my main partitions to different drives and filesystems, and to go back in time to recover deleted files. I am very happy with the system. Kudos to the developers!
``People drool over git and mercurial like these things are -doing work-.''
But they do. They keep track of what changed, when it changed, what else changed at the same time, how the change was justified, and who changed it, and, very importantly, how things were before the change.
The choice you have is between having this information and not having it, and between various interfaces to the information.
That's as far as the work they do for you is concerned.
On the other side of the balance, you get to choose your limitations and performance impact.
Of the major systems, I find that CVS has both the lowest performance and the worst limitations, Subversion does acceptably on both counts, and Git has great performance and flexibility.
To sum it up, version control systems _do_ actually do work for you, and there are noticeable differences between them that make choosing wisely worthwhile.
I'll add to your post a point that is often missed, so it bears repeating:
Just because git _allows_ you to do distributed development (multiple repositories) doesn't mean you _can't_ have a single main repository. There can still be one "blessed" version of the code, which is backed up and everything else you like to do with your Subversion repository.
However, if you ever want to make a couple of commits while disconnected from the network, or try something out, making multiple commits along the way, until you can make an informed decision about pushing your changes to the main branch or not - with git, you can. So, even if you don't need those capabilities now, choosing git may still be a good idea.
``I mean, OpenBSD has stated in the past that CVS works well enough for them, and the risk of converting the repository is not worth it''
It may be good enough for them, but it's not good enough for me. I don't want to spend half a day upgrading my ports collection through CVS if it's quicker for me to just download the new tarball.
``I never got the (recent?) craze over using the latest SCM of the week''
I think it is recent mainly because Subversion has broken the hegemony of CVS. Of course there is much inertia to switch, and that is a Good Thing. Subversion, however, is easy to pick up and so much better that it actually displaced CVS as the Version Control System Everyone Uses (TM). Inspired by the success of Subversion, everyone with the inclination and a large enough ego started their own "better than CVS" version control system. Some of them are horrible, some of them are shiny commercial crap, some of them are better in theory, but lacking in implementation, and some are actually better. My personal favorite is Git. It works well, is easy to pick up if you already know CVS or Subversion, has a couple of desireable features, and, last but not least, it's FAST. Of course, many people will stick with Subversion, CVS, or whatever Microsoft integrates with their other software.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I have been led to believe that, in many if not all EU countries, downloading music and movies from the Internet is legal. It counts as making a copy for personal use, and, as you mention, you pay a levy on blank media, which is used to compensate the rights holders.
The thing is, when some agency cracks down on at least some of the people who run pirated copies of Windows, those people will be faced with a choice: pay up or cease using Windows. If Windows is required for interoperability with parties you exchange information with, paying for Windows may be your best strategy. So even if there is rampant piracy, as long as there is _some_ incentive to pay for Windows, Microsoft wins. And the combination of lock-in and piracy provides such an incentive.
Hey, companies already have it tough in France. Let's not make it any more difficult for them.
Well, it's a good question, actually. While VIA has long touted their support for Linux and open source, Real World results have often lagged behind. For example, various Linux drivers they have released have been one or more of buggy, closed source, and tied to forks of popular open-source projects. So, while Linux does actually run on all boards I have tried, not all hardware is _fully_ supported in practice.
``What is the point in shipping it with a PS/2 keyboard and mouse port. Complete waste of time. The space would be far more usefully be taken up with some more USB ports.''
While you are welcome to your opinion, I am very happy with all the legacy ports on the motherboards. That way, I can use all the stuff I already have, instead of having to upgrade everything.
In the Netherlands (which is in Europe), it's not so bad.
Note: various things I've written here don't translate well. I don't use the words for various school types the same way as others, so some names will look funny to your eyes.
There are often several primary schools to choose from. They differ in religious affiliation (the common choices are catholic, protestant, and secular), but also in method (besides "normal" schools, there are also free (as in freedom) schools and Montessori schools) and level of education. Still, they all fit in with the rest of the system, so, by the time you graduate from them, you have at least learned the same basics as others.
High school is where it really gets interesting. There are various levels of high school. The system has undergone some reforms in recent times, but, last time I looked, there were VMBO, HAVO, and VWO, in order of increasing level. So, although it is not politically correct to say this, the most intelligent kids go to VWO, the least intelligent go to VMBO. I could go on and on, but the take home message is that there is a separation there: VMBO is more practically oriented; it teaches you to work, so to speak. VWO is more academically oriented, and is the only one that grants access to university. So the VWO kids don't get bogged down by the VMBO kids who don't understand algebra, and the VMBO kids don't have to learn all the academic stuff they aren't going to need for their jobs anyway.
Just because something happens when you vote in "left wing governments" doesn't mean it doesn't happen when you vote in "right wing governments".
Personally, I think left vs. right is just so much bollocks. Politics is much too complex to be described by a single dimension.
Case in point: there are people who are in favor of less government involvement in people's lives. Less legislation, lower taxes, and less hand-holding; leaving people to fend for themselves. I call this "liberalism". It's considered "right wing", because it is the opposite of "left wing" social-economic politics: the government cares for the people, by redistributing wealth and regulations.
There are also people who are in favor of more government control of people's lives, to keep people on the right path and weed out unwanted people. More legislation, more observation, and higher sentences. I can't think of a good -ism word for this, but "police state" comes to mind (note that neither "liberalism" nor "police state" are meant as value judgments). This is also considered "right wing", because it emphasizes law and order and "proper" behavior - as opposed to "left wing" counter culture, disruptive protests, pot smoking, etc.
So, as you can see, "right wing" is both in favor and against more individual freedom!
You will get abusive laws when you vote for people who make those laws. Sometimes, you know in advance that they will, and sometimes you don't. Lately, governments around the world have ridden the terrorism and copyright scares to introduce the craziest laws. As it happens, the governments I know of that have done this have also been "right wing". However, I think that is really a red herring. Also, I submit that there has been remarkably little opposition from the (supposedly) "left wing" opposition. Or, perhaps I should say "opposition", because they haven't actually done very much in the way of opposing the laws that restrict our freedoms.
But why?
I mean, obviously they won't be too happy about this. So you risk them going after you for trying to disrupt their search for criminals. And, actually, that is exactly what you are doing: you are reducing the likelyhood that a system that _could_ find criminals actually finds them. Since they'll be spending the tax euros anyway, you might as well help them maximize the efficiency, rather than minimizing it and getting yourself arrested.
``I got my free S/MIME certificate from Thawte today, for encryption of email, and so did all my co-workers.''
And, who knows, maybe the Swedish government, too.
Have you tried Konqueror? I've used it for years, because it is faster, uses less memory, and has a bunch of useful features built-in that Firefox lacks (out of the box), such as web shortcuts (type "g some words" to search on Google, "w something" to search on Wikipedia, etc.) and a good implementation of access keys (press control, every link will get a key displayed next to it, press that key to follow the link).
The problem with Konqueror is website support. It generally works, but there are some sites that don't work in it, but that do work in Firefox. I think this is sometimes because of missing features in Konqueror and sometimes because of bugs in the sites in question.
So, when I heard that Firefox 3 had severely reduced memory usage and increased speed, I was very excited about it. Alas, thanks to it requiring GTK+ 2.10, it will require some duct taping to get it to run on Debian etch, and I'm not willing to put in the effort. I'm sticking with Konqueror for now. Maybe it's a good choice for you, too.
I think I have just come up with a new business plan:
... a hacker's dream!
1. Create Linux-based device.
2. Sell without providing source (PROFIT).
3. Wait until GPL violation is discovered.
4. Wait until outcry over GPL violation ensues (PUBLICITY).
5. Provide source code.
6. Linux-based device, with source code
7. ???
8. PROFIT!!!
I suppose the number of downloads does not include people who will install it from Backports once somebody creates a package for Debian stable...