Not that there is anything particularly wrong with having a viewpoint that perhaps GPL-like freedom is not the most important thing to preserve in computing, but Gosling's personal attacks on RMS are a little over the top. He starts off by accusing RMS of redefining "Free" and then proceeds to deconstruct the entire concept of Software Freedom based on the hinge that RMS is essentially a kook.
I respect Gosling as a very intelligent programmer and language designer, but his willingness to engage in personal attacks against others in the Software Community makes me question his personal judgement.
Java does not need to be Free to be useful, but such can be said without resorting to deriding the entire Software Freedom movement, IMO.
It is important that when we wave our flags and cheer when Microsoft is laid low by the latest security flaw that we not close our eyes to the very real vulnerabilities in the Unix/Linux system. No OS can be fully secured, and it is absolutely mandatory that we remain vigilant to the possibility of a heretofore unknown security hole in our systems, regardless of the system OS.
Assuming that Unix/Linux is invulnerable to security holes is deadly. Though the OS may have more security features and "more eyes" on the code than closed source operating systems, we must not rest on our laurels watching Windows implode while our own house is burning.
It seems like replacing your current phone system is going to cost more in the short term than just sticking with what works. Will the IP telephone system cost less in the long run? What is the time frame to break-even? Will your company still be around by that time?
I think Lessig is one of the foremost thinkers when it comes to modern intellectual property law. His thoughts are, of course, more evolutionary than revolutionary and closer to the mainstream concepts of IP rights and responsibilities than many of us are aware. His ideas have great impact on the way many of us think about IP law.
However, his ideas are only effective within the walls of academia. He could actually enact through judicial activism many of the concepts and principles that he believes in if he were an actual judge.
Which begs the question, why would an obviously talented legal thinker be passed over time and again for judicial appointments?
I've got IE configured to present itself to websites as Netscape so I can't check the Windows Update webpage, I have to rely on automatic update to tell me of new patches. For the past couple months there has been nary a one patch, then today a whole handful of them.
What a surprise. My bandwidth was halved by the invisible download.
Whoops. Be right back. Install is finished, gotta reboot.
Clear Channel can then bend over and take it in the ass like they have no the Free Speech issue.
We demonize Clear Channel as this media goliath that can't be hurt or tamed by anything, but the way they are fellating the government lately, it seems like they are willing to do anything with the right incentive.
The question is how to persuade them to support Free Speech and good music.
I see what you're saying about Linux vs. window managers and being separate projects. However, when considering an OS, the UI is a critical component to consider.
I liken it to hamburgers on the Atkins diet. Sure the bun is not the meat, and it's probably better for you to leave the bun and pickles off. But it's just not the same.
I'm not one to fawn over eyecandy, but seeing the WinXP interface side by side with the twm GUI (actually twm inside of XP!), I really see a major lack of user interface design effort on the Linux side.
Even with the KDE shell (via Knoppix), the XP UI is much more polished and 'consumer friendly' than the KDE shell.
Not that the UI is the most important part of Linux, of course. Linux has many more benefits that makes the lack of a polished UI relatively minor, IMO.
A Japanese reporter was able to get an interview with a small Al Queda cell. He asked them how they communicated messages back and forth. The initial way, they said, was over the phone with code words and special phrases. This turned out to be less than adequate and computers, crypto, and the Internet became the primary means of updating Al Queda cells with new information. However, since the fall of Afghanistan the computer systems that Al Queda used at the home base have all been destroyed or confiscated by American troops.
So what do they do now? Courier. Someone physically carries the message from person to person and is capable of destroying himself and the message at any sign of danger.
If your data is so important that you need this level of crypto, try to remember that all it takes is a very determined person to come in and steal the machine. Crypto is one of those feel-good technologies that costs people a lot of money but doesn't really do much for anyone in the end.
The biggest problem is that Java is just another speed bump in the long line of speed bumps called Algol descendents. Its convoluted syntax, unclear precedence rules, and general tendency towards cryptic programs are all problems that originated with Algol back in the 60's and little has been done to improve it. C, C++, Java, C#, they all suck because Algol sucked.
While we could probably debate for days the benefits and pitfalls of a language like LISP, the only good thing we can say about Algol-like languages is that they are pervasive. There are so many alternative languages that new language designers can base their syntaces on that it only shows the lack of creativity and knowledge of language history when language creators use Algol as the base of their languages.
Isn't it about time to really assess whether it is absolutely necessary to provide every employee with their own internet access?
Restricting the internet to a single machine (or battery of machines) that only sent and received external email and forwarded it on to the internal network seems like the absolute maximum internet connection necessary for most businesses.
Surely employees don't have to surf the web at work?
As technology becomes more and more pervasive in our lives we are growing up with a generation of people who don't know what it's like to live without computer assistance. They also are primarily exposed to computers as these large devices that do a whole bunch of things but have a terrible interface. They don't understand that computers can be small, unobtrusive, and do their jobs without the user having any idea they are there.
Automobile control systems are one type of the latter while microwave oven controllers are a type of the former. The car control system works great and for the most part the user can be completely oblivious to its existence. However, the microwave oven control pad is getting more and more complicated every day with too many settings, too many choices, too much interface getting in the way of the user.
When working on your next consumer device (those of you working on that kind of thing), think about making it invisible. That is the key to making it indispensable.
Is America going to be the leader and develop high quality technology that other countries can come begging for, or is it going to sit at Japan's doorstep begging for scraps?
Japan must feel like how I did in Civ2. I was always so far ahead of the rest of the nations because I focused on developing technology while the rest of the world was more interested in building up their militaries.
The post doesn't say it, but it definitely insinuates that the nefarious RIAA and possibly the BSA is behind this latest worm. Unfortunately, that kind of knee-jerk reaction is counterproductive to finding the real virus spreaders.
Someone is obviously trying to implicate the content monopolists in this by targetting the sharing networks. It is highly unlikely that the monopolists are doing this themselves because they have too much to lose by carrying out such an attack.
Someone in the computer community is doing this and is hurting everyone in the process. Sometimes the geek community is its own worst enemy.
While it is indisputable that the technology that is required to travel to Mars and establish a rudimentary colony around the hull of the space craft and any transported plants and animals exists and can be taken to Mars (at great cost), it is highly doubtful that they would be able to bring themselves back from the red planet.
The cost of taking the fuel for the return trip would be absolutely astronomical considering the extensive modifications necessary to ensure that the fuel does not leak over the course of the three year mission.
Besides all that, should we really be sending living organisms to a virtually uncontaminated environment so soon? We have just discovered real evidence of flowing water once existing on the planet, and this in turn could lead to evidence of fossilized microbes and other lifeforms that we would threaten with destruction if we were to introduce Earth microbes that the Martian microbes could not fight.
More study is needed, as is more thought on the impact of colonizing Mars. We will no doubt go there eventually and it may become our home away from home, but sending up a bunch of Russians to tromp around what may be a life-rich planet (under the surface) seems like a mission of putting the cart before the horse.
One of the assumptions of the software and morphing process is that the fossil's original form has lateral symmetry (left and right sides match up), but I wonder how much this can be assumed? While for most bipeds and quadrapeds this holds true, for other forms of life, especially water-based fauna, this assumption cannot be taken as true in all cases.
Cephalopods and flatfish are the most obvious animals that have no lateral symmetry. While it is unlikely that such soft-fleshed/boned animals would survive the fossilization process, other animals lacking lateral symmetry could have made it and befuddle this software.
We geeks are not the most loved of social groups. A lot of this has to do with our condescending attitude towards less intelligent non-geeks, personal hygiene, and general social antipathy. Also evident in geek behavior is a strong misogynistic stream that infuses our vocabulary and humor with words and phrases that degrade women as a social group.
On an individual basis, you'll find that most geeks are not this way and in fact have female friends whom they see as neither a sexual object nor as a lower form of life. Most geeks are also socially adept, physically active, as well as capable of striking up a conversation with members of the opposite sex (or same sex for those who may be homosexual).
However the stereotype remains. I believe that this stereotype is reinforced by comments of this sort that takes a very simple request for "rack mounted computers" and turns it into a joke about female breasts. Not only is the joke unfunny, it is offensive to those of us who work hard in the offline world to build an image of the typical geek as a hard worker, community-minded citizen, and generally good person.
The parent comment took no thinking on the poster's part and was apparently the first thing he thought of when he saw the question. This kind of geek whose thinking has become as anti-women as this is exactly the kind of anti-geek-community person that brings the rest of us down. I ask the moderators to take the long view and think about what kind of image of geekdom they wish to present to the world when they moderate the parent comment.
Thanks for reading this far. I've had to get this off my chest for a long time.
Flying cars. Just give us all our own personal road in the sky to drive as fast and recklessly as we want. The computer can control all the difficult intricacies of pitch, yaw, and all that other boring stuff that would distract us from what matters most, speed.
Also having an autopilot would be nice for those among us who like to nap on the roads.
From a lot of posts here it seems that training for such an event in such a short time can lead to some severe injuries. Seeing as how you were able to run the race in 6 months, I wonder how you managed to avoid the pitfalls that other people seem to have run into.
I'm looking to have fun and get in shape and try to test my limits with this goal. I don't want to end up crippling myself.
Why not start researching realistic methods of destroying/deflecting these menaces before they get the chance to do their damage on us? If we change our mindset from one of reacting to one of being proactive towards the elimination of these threats, we will not only improve our chances of surviving an asteroid attack, we will also be able to reap the scientific technology breakthroughs that came along with such research.
I'm just a lowly slashbot and don't have much say in how things are run at the upper echelons of government, but I think that it goes without saying that anyone who is serious about eliminating these threats needs to focus energies on 1) identifying suspicious threats, and 2) developing and using technologies that will neutralize those threats.
Linux of course costs less
on
Linux in Canada
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· Score: 3, Funny
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Not that there is anything particularly wrong with having a viewpoint that perhaps GPL-like freedom is not the most important thing to preserve in computing, but Gosling's personal attacks on RMS are a little over the top. He starts off by accusing RMS of redefining "Free" and then proceeds to deconstruct the entire concept of Software Freedom based on the hinge that RMS is essentially a kook.
I respect Gosling as a very intelligent programmer and language designer, but his willingness to engage in personal attacks against others in the Software Community makes me question his personal judgement.
Java does not need to be Free to be useful, but such can be said without resorting to deriding the entire Software Freedom movement, IMO.
It is important that when we wave our flags and cheer when Microsoft is laid low by the latest security flaw that we not close our eyes to the very real vulnerabilities in the Unix/Linux system. No OS can be fully secured, and it is absolutely mandatory that we remain vigilant to the possibility of a heretofore unknown security hole in our systems, regardless of the system OS.
Assuming that Unix/Linux is invulnerable to security holes is deadly. Though the OS may have more security features and "more eyes" on the code than closed source operating systems, we must not rest on our laurels watching Windows implode while our own house is burning.
It seems like replacing your current phone system is going to cost more in the short term than just sticking with what works. Will the IP telephone system cost less in the long run? What is the time frame to break-even? Will your company still be around by that time?
I think Lessig is one of the foremost thinkers when it comes to modern intellectual property law. His thoughts are, of course, more evolutionary than revolutionary and closer to the mainstream concepts of IP rights and responsibilities than many of us are aware. His ideas have great impact on the way many of us think about IP law.
However, his ideas are only effective within the walls of academia. He could actually enact through judicial activism many of the concepts and principles that he believes in if he were an actual judge.
Which begs the question, why would an obviously talented legal thinker be passed over time and again for judicial appointments?
I've got IE configured to present itself to websites as Netscape so I can't check the Windows Update webpage, I have to rely on automatic update to tell me of new patches. For the past couple months there has been nary a one patch, then today a whole handful of them.
What a surprise. My bandwidth was halved by the invisible download.
Whoops. Be right back. Install is finished, gotta reboot.
The other half of the world is in night time.
Clear Channel can then bend over and take it in the ass like they have no the Free Speech issue.
We demonize Clear Channel as this media goliath that can't be hurt or tamed by anything, but the way they are fellating the government lately, it seems like they are willing to do anything with the right incentive.
The question is how to persuade them to support Free Speech and good music.
I see what you're saying about Linux vs. window managers and being separate projects. However, when considering an OS, the UI is a critical component to consider.
I liken it to hamburgers on the Atkins diet. Sure the bun is not the meat, and it's probably better for you to leave the bun and pickles off. But it's just not the same.
I'm not one to fawn over eyecandy, but seeing the WinXP interface side by side with the twm GUI (actually twm inside of XP!), I really see a major lack of user interface design effort on the Linux side.
Even with the KDE shell (via Knoppix), the XP UI is much more polished and 'consumer friendly' than the KDE shell.
Not that the UI is the most important part of Linux, of course. Linux has many more benefits that makes the lack of a polished UI relatively minor, IMO.
I give my credit card number to cashiers in plain text all the time. Most likely you do too.
A Japanese reporter was able to get an interview with a small Al Queda cell. He asked them how they communicated messages back and forth. The initial way, they said, was over the phone with code words and special phrases. This turned out to be less than adequate and computers, crypto, and the Internet became the primary means of updating Al Queda cells with new information. However, since the fall of Afghanistan the computer systems that Al Queda used at the home base have all been destroyed or confiscated by American troops.
So what do they do now? Courier. Someone physically carries the message from person to person and is capable of destroying himself and the message at any sign of danger.
If your data is so important that you need this level of crypto, try to remember that all it takes is a very determined person to come in and steal the machine. Crypto is one of those feel-good technologies that costs people a lot of money but doesn't really do much for anyone in the end.
The biggest problem is that Java is just another speed bump in the long line of speed bumps called Algol descendents. Its convoluted syntax, unclear precedence rules, and general tendency towards cryptic programs are all problems that originated with Algol back in the 60's and little has been done to improve it. C, C++, Java, C#, they all suck because Algol sucked.
While we could probably debate for days the benefits and pitfalls of a language like LISP, the only good thing we can say about Algol-like languages is that they are pervasive. There are so many alternative languages that new language designers can base their syntaces on that it only shows the lack of creativity and knowledge of language history when language creators use Algol as the base of their languages.
Isn't it about time to really assess whether it is absolutely necessary to provide every employee with their own internet access?
Restricting the internet to a single machine (or battery of machines) that only sent and received external email and forwarded it on to the internal network seems like the absolute maximum internet connection necessary for most businesses.
Surely employees don't have to surf the web at work?
As technology becomes more and more pervasive in our lives we are growing up with a generation of people who don't know what it's like to live without computer assistance. They also are primarily exposed to computers as these large devices that do a whole bunch of things but have a terrible interface. They don't understand that computers can be small, unobtrusive, and do their jobs without the user having any idea they are there.
Automobile control systems are one type of the latter while microwave oven controllers are a type of the former. The car control system works great and for the most part the user can be completely oblivious to its existence. However, the microwave oven control pad is getting more and more complicated every day with too many settings, too many choices, too much interface getting in the way of the user.
When working on your next consumer device (those of you working on that kind of thing), think about making it invisible. That is the key to making it indispensable.
Is America going to be the leader and develop high quality technology that other countries can come begging for, or is it going to sit at Japan's doorstep begging for scraps?
Japan must feel like how I did in Civ2. I was always so far ahead of the rest of the nations because I focused on developing technology while the rest of the world was more interested in building up their militaries.
The post doesn't say it, but it definitely insinuates that the nefarious RIAA and possibly the BSA is behind this latest worm. Unfortunately, that kind of knee-jerk reaction is counterproductive to finding the real virus spreaders.
Someone is obviously trying to implicate the content monopolists in this by targetting the sharing networks. It is highly unlikely that the monopolists are doing this themselves because they have too much to lose by carrying out such an attack.
Someone in the computer community is doing this and is hurting everyone in the process. Sometimes the geek community is its own worst enemy.
While it is indisputable that the technology that is required to travel to Mars and establish a rudimentary colony around the hull of the space craft and any transported plants and animals exists and can be taken to Mars (at great cost), it is highly doubtful that they would be able to bring themselves back from the red planet.
The cost of taking the fuel for the return trip would be absolutely astronomical considering the extensive modifications necessary to ensure that the fuel does not leak over the course of the three year mission.
Besides all that, should we really be sending living organisms to a virtually uncontaminated environment so soon? We have just discovered real evidence of flowing water once existing on the planet, and this in turn could lead to evidence of fossilized microbes and other lifeforms that we would threaten with destruction if we were to introduce Earth microbes that the Martian microbes could not fight.
More study is needed, as is more thought on the impact of colonizing Mars. We will no doubt go there eventually and it may become our home away from home, but sending up a bunch of Russians to tromp around what may be a life-rich planet (under the surface) seems like a mission of putting the cart before the horse.
One of the assumptions of the software and morphing process is that the fossil's original form has lateral symmetry (left and right sides match up), but I wonder how much this can be assumed? While for most bipeds and quadrapeds this holds true, for other forms of life, especially water-based fauna, this assumption cannot be taken as true in all cases.
Cephalopods and flatfish are the most obvious animals that have no lateral symmetry. While it is unlikely that such soft-fleshed/boned animals would survive the fossilization process, other animals lacking lateral symmetry could have made it and befuddle this software.
We geeks are not the most loved of social groups. A lot of this has to do with our condescending attitude towards less intelligent non-geeks, personal hygiene, and general social antipathy. Also evident in geek behavior is a strong misogynistic stream that infuses our vocabulary and humor with words and phrases that degrade women as a social group.
On an individual basis, you'll find that most geeks are not this way and in fact have female friends whom they see as neither a sexual object nor as a lower form of life. Most geeks are also socially adept, physically active, as well as capable of striking up a conversation with members of the opposite sex (or same sex for those who may be homosexual).
However the stereotype remains. I believe that this stereotype is reinforced by comments of this sort that takes a very simple request for "rack mounted computers" and turns it into a joke about female breasts. Not only is the joke unfunny, it is offensive to those of us who work hard in the offline world to build an image of the typical geek as a hard worker, community-minded citizen, and generally good person.
The parent comment took no thinking on the poster's part and was apparently the first thing he thought of when he saw the question. This kind of geek whose thinking has become as anti-women as this is exactly the kind of anti-geek-community person that brings the rest of us down. I ask the moderators to take the long view and think about what kind of image of geekdom they wish to present to the world when they moderate the parent comment.
Thanks for reading this far. I've had to get this off my chest for a long time.
Apple makes a very capable line of rack-mount servers.
What part of the country are you in?
;-)
The part right next to Tokyo.
How quickly did you up your everyday mileage? I'm taking a look at your log now, so I may find this out in time.
Flying cars. Just give us all our own personal road in the sky to drive as fast and recklessly as we want. The computer can control all the difficult intricacies of pitch, yaw, and all that other boring stuff that would distract us from what matters most, speed.
Also having an autopilot would be nice for those among us who like to nap on the roads.
From a lot of posts here it seems that training for such an event in such a short time can lead to some severe injuries. Seeing as how you were able to run the race in 6 months, I wonder how you managed to avoid the pitfalls that other people seem to have run into.
I'm looking to have fun and get in shape and try to test my limits with this goal. I don't want to end up crippling myself.
Why not start researching realistic methods of destroying/deflecting these menaces before they get the chance to do their damage on us? If we change our mindset from one of reacting to one of being proactive towards the elimination of these threats, we will not only improve our chances of surviving an asteroid attack, we will also be able to reap the scientific technology breakthroughs that came along with such research.
I'm just a lowly slashbot and don't have much say in how things are run at the upper echelons of government, but I think that it goes without saying that anyone who is serious about eliminating these threats needs to focus energies on 1) identifying suspicious threats, and 2) developing and using technologies that will neutralize those threats.
Canadian dollars cost less than American dollars.