Java doesn't let you use primitives (int, short, etc) as classes without wrapping them yourself (lots of overhead).
Integer intObject = new Integer(n); Yeah, tons of overhead there.
Java doesn't let you drop down to native code and turn off the garbage collector if you need to. Or use pointers if you want to talk to the underlying C-based OS.
Umm, heard of JNI? Of course bear in mind that with Java there is more than one underlying OS.
Java doesn't have a "foreach" statement.
Iterator e = list.listIterator(); while (e.hasNext()) { // whatever } Oh no, one extra line. The horror.
Java doesn't have property-handlers (eg. write functions that are treated as member variables - eg: a.setName("MyName") would become: a.Name = "MyName" - but it would still go through a function.
That's ok, I'd really prefer to have some idea of when methods are being called and when they aren't.
Java doesn't have any versioning mechanism (other than the woefully inadequate @deprecated tag.
Ok, you get a point there. Somehow I don't see hordes of programmers switching languages because of versioning issues.
Java doesn't support indexers (methods on a class - say List, which allow you to take the object of type List, and use it like an array
Object foo = list.get(index); Three extra characters, and it's made clear that it's a method invocation rather than an array access. Or if you really want an array, call toArray().
A bunch of the (mostly older) Mac installers insist on rebooting immediately, which I agree is very user-hostile. Even if the app needs something to load at startup it should say something to the effect of "This program will not function properly until you reboot" and let you decide. I've found in most cases when you get the "restart" modal window you can force quit the installer (by holding down Command-Option-Escape) and continue.
While I believe P3P has serious flaws, I mostly agree with your point. A few quotes in particular from the article struck me as very strange:
Central to the legal and ethical norms for privacy protection is the recognition that individuals should not be required to negotiate or choose among Fair Information Practices. Such negotiations would invariably disadvantage those who could not purchase sufficient privacy and would lead to a gradual decline in the level of protection available to the general public.
In other words, web users should not even have the option of providing personal information in exchange for increased access or financial benefit. This is like saying that all cars must have exactly the same safety features because otherwise (in EPIC's words) it would disadvantage those who could not purchase sufficient safety.
The FTC Chairman, in a report released in May 2000, made the point very well that the reason we need privacy laws today is that consumers are too often asked to give up their privacy for some benefit.
Translation: the FTC commissioner knows the value of your personal information better than you do, and for your own good should prevent you from offering this information in exchange for a benefit. If the exchange is made voluntarily, it is no more an invasion of privacy than paying money for a product or service is theft. Both involve two parties exchanging items of value.
There is a huge difference between saying that net users should have some degree of privacy by default (easily achievable by technical means) and the position of many privacy advocates that no transaction involving personal information should be permitted, even if both parties accept the conditions.
There's a difference between using PDF or PostScript as a rendering model and as a file format. As a file format, my major complaint is that it is heavily optimized for printing nicely at the expense of usability when reading it on a computer; for example page breaks, having no control over font sizes, usually being forced to have the document fill the screen to avoid horizontal scrolling. HTML is far better for online material.
That would be standard copyright law, with fair use and none of this shrink-wrap "you didn't buy the software, you bought a license" crap. It would still be illegal to distribute copies, but consumer's rights wouldn't be trampled as they are with the DMCA and various other products of bribing lawmakers.
Regarding #3, you can't stop all piracy without a totalitarian state, and probably not even then.
Witness big media and hollywood that has been hammering "government is bad" into the head of the people for decades, to the point that they will actively vote for scaling down the government, even it it means misery and hardship for them...
If anything, Hollywood propaganda is that corporations (and conservatives) are evil entities determined to destroy the environment and use any illegal means necessary to crush their opponents. See The Insider, Erin Brockovich, Dave, Bob Roberts, or The American President for examples.
The last comment makes no sense whatsoever. The U.S. government currently takes around 48% of all earnings. Scaling down the government and allowing people to keep more of their salary would cause "misery and hardship"?
The problem with this is that doing the privacy yourself restrict your freedom. Lack of laws may cut you off from internet trade. Say you want to buy something and don't want everybody to know. A sextoy perhaps. Can't do that online if the shop is free to sell the details of this transaction.
Which is why it is in the best interests of merchants selling such items to have clear privacy policies. If they don't, they will lose customers. If they violate their stated policies, they can be sued for breach of contract (in addition to receiving tons of very bad publicity, see Doubleclick).
Compare to traditional privacy: What if the law didn't prevent companies from installing video surveillance in your bedroom without you even knowing it? Anybody could become a porn star, or you would have to go on a "bug hunt" whenever you wanted privacy.
No cameras in bedrooms yet, but consider who is it that mandates that all phone conversations must be easily eavesdroppable: the same government that many are holding up as the ideal guardian of privacy.
If you don't like a site's privacy policies, don't buy from them and tell them why. Market forces don't work instantaneously, but eventually they almost always produce better results than one-size-fits-all government regulation.
Re:What disappoints me...
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Mattel Spyware
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· Score: 1
Yes, you need a driver's license to drive on public roads. You don't need a license to drive on your own property or on someone else's private property with their permission. Similarly, if I want to work for a private software company, it should be up to them what qualifications they require. Hopefully these qualifications will be based on merit and not pieces of paper; the best programmer I've known was the only developer at his (large) company without a degree. The argument that we should regulate ourselves before the government does is logically equivalent to "we shouldn't put any controversial content on the Internet, because if we do the government may try to censor it".
You're right about a great many of the things you posted, but I think you're missing part of the point: While the press *has* been privately controlled for centuries, is that good?
Umm, yes? Compared to a state-controlled press (and we know how accurate and impartial government is, see reports of Patriot missile accuracy in the Gulf War and Serb casualty figures in the Balkans), I'll take multiple private news sources.
These "thank goodness for the government" posts don't make a great deal of sense to me. It's because of government that we have rights-destroying legislation like UTICA and DMCA (and remember the CDA). It's because of government that encryption has been kept out of mainstream applications. I could go on, but government is far from the savior many claim it to be.
Yes, OS X will run on any G3 or G4 Mac, including iMacs and the beige G3s. It will most likely run unsupported on some older Macs; for example I have OS X Server running on my G3-upgraded 7500, and I've installed OS X DP3 on a 604e-based 9600.
There's a freeware extension that prevents MacsBug from being disabled at http://www.barebones.com/free/free.html. Works great on my G4.
Re:Privacy is dead: enter the Phoenix
on
The Eroded Self
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· Score: 2
Your sig is rather ironic. You believe that information about explosives (such as might be found in a chemistry textbook) are dangerous and should be banned. The MPAA believes that the DeCSS source is dangerous and should be banned. What makes you more qualified than them to determine what should be legal? Once you open the door to censorship of information it is very difficult to close.
There are hundreds of thousands of worker-owned, worker-run cooperatives in america that do just fine without managers or owners, and instead make decision via consensus or democratic vote (democracy, remember that?)
Ok, then go ahead and work for one of these utopian cooperatives, nobody is stopping you. Nothing in capitalism prevents a group of people from getting together and forming such an organization. As you observed, many people have done exactly that. Of course, these cooperatives tend not to be major players, so perhaps there are benefits to large evil corporations that you're overlooking.
What if it's not their money to begin with? What if they inhereted it?
So if someone gives you a gift, it isn't yours?
When you have nothing to eat, and you have to give up your freedom to work for another person's profit just to survive, *that* is sacrifice.
Even in your cooperatives, you're working primarily for the profit of others.That is, if you produce $50000 worth of labor, you personally will receive only a small part, as it will be distributed among all the workers. I suspect what's really going on here is class envy.
Do you realize that the CEO payscale to worker payscale ratio in the US is 419:1?
And I was right. I've never understood why so many people get so upset when they find out that somebody else makes more than they do.
Do you honestly think that CEO's are 419 times more important than the people who actually create products?
In many cases, yes. See below.
Liability? Haven't you learned anything from open source software? We don't even have to deal with issues of liability, because we write good software! Why? Because we're not motivated by profit, we're motivated by doing things right.
This is ridiculous. Are you trying to claim that no open-source software has ever had serious bugs? Sometimes even smart and careful people make mistakes.
Show me one product that a CEO has ever designed or produced in his time as a CEO.
Steve Jobs. iMac. No, he didn't write every schematic for it, but it was his concept and his vision that made it a reality. The value of Apple's stock has gone from $2 billion to $20 billion, and Steve deserves a large part of the credit for that. With that in mind, he easily deserves to make 419 times what the average employee does.
You failed to notice that I didn't mention the payscale of McDonalds (which isn't $10 everywhere, and even if it is, is still far below a living wage of $16/hr)
"Living wage" has got to be one of the most meaningless political phrases ever. Would I roll over and die if I made $14/hr?
Do you realize that the greatest majority of shoplifters are the elderly?
Possibly because the government told them many decades ago, "don't worry about your retirement, we'll take care of it for you", and then was unable to do so. The best way to insure a comfortable retirement is long-term investing in stocks, i.e. evil corporations.
Re:Ask yourself this: Where did the MP3 come from?
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MP3.com Loses In Court
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· Score: 2
Of course, this assumes you trust the RIAA to present a fair and impartial interpretation of the law. When this topic was last discussed on/. there were a number of counterarguments based on other portions of the Home Recording Act that appears to grant exemptions for copies made for noncommercial use. See the comments in this article referring to Sec. 1008. (Specifically, comment #52, but the link seems to not work for some reason.) At any rate, the RIAA conveniently neglected to address that portion of the act, which leads me to believe that they are a bunch of lying weasels.
Ok, this is way off topic, but I really cannot understand why everyone is convinced that campaign finance reform is such a wonderful thing for democracy. Aside from being a blatant violation of freedom of speech (bills that McCain supports would make it illegal to criticize candidates by name, among other things), think about who it really helps. Incumbents have tons of advantages that challengers can't match: free media publicity, better recognition, free mail, etc. If you could enforce spending limits (and you can't), the beneficiaries would only be the current officeholders.
For the nth time, they had the right to access the network. Nobody had a problem with them walking down to the network drop with their laptops and plugging in a 20 foot cable. So why does using a 300 foot cable constitute a crime? Is it the university's contention that because they did not pay the $24 fee (of course apparently they weren't given the opportunity to) that any means of accessing the net in their room is theft? What if they had used an AirPort? What if they had used a 280 foot cable and sat outside their room?
I can see how stringing a long cable through the halls could be a violation of a dorm policy. So fine them $50 and leave the police out of it. Better yet, have them wire the dorm for everyone, which they would probably be happy to do.
When the constitution was made there was nothing like F22, B52, Abraham M1, nukes, bio weapons, etc... a "well armed militia" is a complete anachronism nowadays.
Which is why the US had no trouble winning the Vietnam War and the Soviets easily crushed the Afghan rebels, right? Rebellions don't happen with the rebels and government forces lining up on a battlefield. With proper tactics, a numerically and technologically inferior force can cause serious problems for a ruling power.
I have no love for the religious right, but from what I've seen attempted censorship is equally popular from left-wingers. Look at campus speech codes that turn students into criminals for making politically incorrect jokes, or the whole John Rocker stupidity. It's not that the left wants to censor less, they just want to censor different things.
Who are they helping, themesleves or the employees? Really, I mean, it is nice to think that Ford is doing this as some sort of service to help out employees and give them something that they might not have access to otherwise, but, in the end, the collaboration, increases in productivity and better means of communication only help to serve Ford.
Capitalism is not a zero-sum game. A benefit to Ford does not imply a loss to its employees. Of course Ford's management is doing this because they believe it is in the company's best interest. It is still possible that it is a benefit to the workers as well.
Your position is only logically consistent if you also support the banning of alchohol and tobacco, which have both been demonstrated to be much more harmful than many currently illegal drugs. I agree with you that in most cases drug use is not wise, which is why I don't use them. But it's the leap from "I believe using drugs is probably not a good idea" to "the government must spend billions to aggressively hunt down people who are not harming anyone except possibly themselves and throw them in prison" that I have a huge problem with.
I've always seen a clear distinction between conservatives (i.e. Republicans) and libertarians, but aside from that you're absolutely correct. I've never understood how both US parties hold opposite and equally inconsistent views on personal and economic freedom. The Democrats will stay out of your bedroom but want everything in your wallet, the Republicans are just the reverse. Logically, the two major parties should be libertarians who consistently advocate freedom, and "communitarians" (or something to that effect) who hold that in most cases government knows best and should have broad powers in all areas to act in the best interests of its citizens. But under our current system if you think taxes are too high, you get lumped in with the abortion-clinic-bombing wackos, and if you disagree with the war on drugs you're obviously a tree-hugging Unabomber syncophant.
1. Absolutely not, as this would mean that there is now a log of everything you do. Anybody think this would not end up being abused?
2. Ok, so why is it acceptable for Johnny to read Aryan Nation propaganda but not see a nipple? One could make a decent case that the former is more likely to be harmful than the latter. The point is that people have wildly divergent concepts of what constitutes "bad" speech and you're never going to reach a consensus on what to ban.
3. The FCC is evil. The only reason they're allowed to get away with their censorship of the airwaves is because of the dubious scarcity argument, which is completely inapplicable to the Internet. And given the inaccuracy of current site-blocking software, I doubt a skin-tone image analyzer would be remotely effective.
4. I agree with you here, the problem is that the slope is far more slippery than most people realize.
What would be acceptable to me: separate browsing stations for children and adults. The adult stations should be unfiltered and should have privacy screens. The children's stations should have a public list of blocked sites. Children with parental permission should be able to use the adult stations. This permission should take the form of a note signed by the parent or something similar, most definitely not a card the kid swipes through a reader (tracking again).
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, tons of overhead there. Umm, heard of JNI? Of course bear in mind that with Java there is more than one underlying OS. Iterator e = list.listIterator();
while (e.hasNext()) {
}
Oh no, one extra line. The horror. That's ok, I'd really prefer to have some idea of when methods are being called and when they aren't. Ok, you get a point there. Somehow I don't see hordes of programmers switching languages because of versioning issues. Object foo = list.get(index);
Three extra characters, and it's made clear that it's a method invocation rather than an array access. Or if you really want an array, call toArray(). If that's the best C# has to offer, don't bother.
A bunch of the (mostly older) Mac installers insist on rebooting immediately, which I agree is very user-hostile. Even if the app needs something to load at startup it should say something to the effect of "This program will not function properly until you reboot" and let you decide. I've found in most cases when you get the "restart" modal window you can force quit the installer (by holding down Command-Option-Escape) and continue.
There is a huge difference between saying that net users should have some degree of privacy by default (easily achievable by technical means) and the position of many privacy advocates that no transaction involving personal information should be permitted, even if both parties accept the conditions.
There's a difference between using PDF or PostScript as a rendering model and as a file format. As a file format, my major complaint is that it is heavily optimized for printing nicely at the expense of usability when reading it on a computer; for example page breaks, having no control over font sizes, usually being forced to have the document fill the screen to avoid horizontal scrolling. HTML is far better for online material.
Regarding #3, you can't stop all piracy without a totalitarian state, and probably not even then.
The last comment makes no sense whatsoever. The U.S. government currently takes around 48% of all earnings. Scaling down the government and allowing people to keep more of their salary would cause "misery and hardship"?
If you don't like a site's privacy policies, don't buy from them and tell them why. Market forces don't work instantaneously, but eventually they almost always produce better results than one-size-fits-all government regulation.
Yes, you need a driver's license to drive on public roads. You don't need a license to drive on your own property or on someone else's private property with their permission. Similarly, if I want to work for a private software company, it should be up to them what qualifications they require. Hopefully these qualifications will be based on merit and not pieces of paper; the best programmer I've known was the only developer at his (large) company without a degree. The argument that we should regulate ourselves before the government does is logically equivalent to "we shouldn't put any controversial content on the Internet, because if we do the government may try to censor it".
Umm, yes? Compared to a state-controlled press (and we know how accurate and impartial government is, see reports of Patriot missile accuracy in the Gulf War and Serb casualty figures in the Balkans), I'll take multiple private news sources.
These "thank goodness for the government" posts don't make a great deal of sense to me. It's because of government that we have rights-destroying legislation like UTICA and DMCA (and remember the CDA). It's because of government that encryption has been kept out of mainstream applications. I could go on, but government is far from the savior many claim it to be.
Yes, OS X will run on any G3 or G4 Mac, including iMacs and the beige G3s. It will most likely run unsupported on some older Macs; for example I have OS X Server running on my G3-upgraded 7500, and I've installed OS X DP3 on a 604e-based 9600.
There's a freeware extension that prevents MacsBug from being disabled at http://www.barebones.com/free/free.html. Works great on my G4.
Your sig is rather ironic. You believe that information about explosives (such as might be found in a chemistry textbook) are dangerous and should be banned. The MPAA believes that the DeCSS source is dangerous and should be banned. What makes you more qualified than them to determine what should be legal? Once you open the door to censorship of information it is very difficult to close.
Ok, then go ahead and work for one of these utopian cooperatives, nobody is stopping you. Nothing in capitalism prevents a group of people from getting together and forming such an organization. As you observed, many people have done exactly that. Of course, these cooperatives tend not to be major players, so perhaps there are benefits to large evil corporations that you're overlooking.
What if it's not their money to begin with? What if they inhereted it?
So if someone gives you a gift, it isn't yours?
When you have nothing to eat, and you have to give up your freedom to work for another person's profit just to survive, *that* is sacrifice.
Even in your cooperatives, you're working primarily for the profit of others.That is, if you produce $50000 worth of labor, you personally will receive only a small part, as it will be distributed among all the workers. I suspect what's really going on here is class envy.
Do you realize that the CEO payscale to worker payscale ratio in the US is 419:1?
And I was right. I've never understood why so many people get so upset when they find out that somebody else makes more than they do.
Do you honestly think that CEO's are 419 times more important than the people who actually create products?
In many cases, yes. See below.
Liability? Haven't you learned anything from open source software? We don't even have to deal with issues of liability, because we write good software! Why? Because we're not motivated by profit, we're motivated by doing things right.
This is ridiculous. Are you trying to claim that no open-source software has ever had serious bugs? Sometimes even smart and careful people make mistakes.
Show me one product that a CEO has ever designed or produced in his time as a CEO.
Steve Jobs. iMac. No, he didn't write every schematic for it, but it was his concept and his vision that made it a reality. The value of Apple's stock has gone from $2 billion to $20 billion, and Steve deserves a large part of the credit for that. With that in mind, he easily deserves to make 419 times what the average employee does.
You failed to notice that I didn't mention the payscale of McDonalds (which isn't $10 everywhere, and even if it is, is still far below a living wage of $16/hr)
"Living wage" has got to be one of the most meaningless political phrases ever. Would I roll over and die if I made $14/hr?
Do you realize that the greatest majority of shoplifters are the elderly?
Possibly because the government told them many decades ago, "don't worry about your retirement, we'll take care of it for you", and then was unable to do so. The best way to insure a comfortable retirement is long-term investing in stocks, i.e. evil corporations.
Of course, this assumes you trust the RIAA to present a fair and impartial interpretation of the law. When this topic was last discussed on /. there were a number of counterarguments based on other portions of the Home Recording Act that appears to grant exemptions for copies made for noncommercial use. See the comments in this article referring to Sec. 1008. (Specifically, comment #52, but the link seems to not work for some reason.) At any rate, the RIAA conveniently neglected to address that portion of the act, which leads me to believe that they are a bunch of lying weasels.
Ok, this is way off topic, but I really cannot understand why everyone is convinced that campaign finance reform is such a wonderful thing for democracy. Aside from being a blatant violation of freedom of speech (bills that McCain supports would make it illegal to criticize candidates by name, among other things), think about who it really helps. Incumbents have tons of advantages that challengers can't match: free media publicity, better recognition, free mail, etc. If you could enforce spending limits (and you can't), the beneficiaries would only be the current officeholders.
I can see how stringing a long cable through the halls could be a violation of a dorm policy. So fine them $50 and leave the police out of it. Better yet, have them wire the dorm for everyone, which they would probably be happy to do.
I have no love for the religious right, but from what I've seen attempted censorship is equally popular from left-wingers. Look at campus speech codes that turn students into criminals for making politically incorrect jokes, or the whole John Rocker stupidity. It's not that the left wants to censor less, they just want to censor different things.
Your position is only logically consistent if you also support the banning of alchohol and tobacco, which have both been demonstrated to be much more harmful than many currently illegal drugs. I agree with you that in most cases drug use is not wise, which is why I don't use them. But it's the leap from "I believe using drugs is probably not a good idea" to "the government must spend billions to aggressively hunt down people who are not harming anyone except possibly themselves and throw them in prison" that I have a huge problem with.
- Yet another mirror.
- $65 to the EFF.
- I will not be purchasing any more DVDs while these legal abuses continue.
These actions won't make much of a difference themselves. But there are more of us than MPAA and DVD-CCA lawyers.I've always seen a clear distinction between conservatives (i.e. Republicans) and libertarians, but aside from that you're absolutely correct. I've never understood how both US parties hold opposite and equally inconsistent views on personal and economic freedom. The Democrats will stay out of your bedroom but want everything in your wallet, the Republicans are just the reverse. Logically, the two major parties should be libertarians who consistently advocate freedom, and "communitarians" (or something to that effect) who hold that in most cases government knows best and should have broad powers in all areas to act in the best interests of its citizens. But under our current system if you think taxes are too high, you get lumped in with the abortion-clinic-bombing wackos, and if you disagree with the war on drugs you're obviously a tree-hugging Unabomber syncophant.
2. Ok, so why is it acceptable for Johnny to read Aryan Nation propaganda but not see a nipple? One could make a decent case that the former is more likely to be harmful than the latter. The point is that people have wildly divergent concepts of what constitutes "bad" speech and you're never going to reach a consensus on what to ban.
3. The FCC is evil. The only reason they're allowed to get away with their censorship of the airwaves is because of the dubious scarcity argument, which is completely inapplicable to the Internet. And given the inaccuracy of current site-blocking software, I doubt a skin-tone image analyzer would be remotely effective.
4. I agree with you here, the problem is that the slope is far more slippery than most people realize.
What would be acceptable to me: separate browsing stations for children and adults. The adult stations should be unfiltered and should have privacy screens. The children's stations should have a public list of blocked sites. Children with parental permission should be able to use the adult stations. This permission should take the form of a note signed by the parent or something similar, most definitely not a card the kid swipes through a reader (tracking again).