We're way offtopic from the article, but you should probably read the Wikipedia article on faithless electors. Faithless electors can face consequences for their actions. So far, there haven't been severe consequences, but then so far a faithless elector has never turned the tide of an election. If that started to happen, it would be likely that political parties, states, and the federal government would make consequences more severe.
People rely on the "grinding" aspect because it's the easiest to develop and balance properly. No doubt. If Blizzard can make obscene amounts of cash using this kind of system, why wouldn't they? But now that market penetration of griding-style MMOs is so large, I think there is significantly more opportunity for a niche intellectual-MMO to really stand out - maybe like Eaku (have you posted any information on it yet?).
and also reinforced to me why game code shouldn't be written in C; at least use C++, people... I've never written game code, but this seems like a no-brainer to me. Honestly, I think that even higher level languages are an even better fit (managed/garbage-collected/etc) in some ways. Certainly, most games really need performance that is largely unavailable with these languages, but not all popular games have to be pretty or state-of-the-art. Also, I assume that servers are often written in a very high-level languages; the guy in this interview seems to be primarily concerned with Java. I strongly suspect that using high-level languages like Java on the server side is already a huge boon to security.
I think you're absolutely right about this. I always dreamed of an MMO that was more focus on player-skill/ingenuity than on the amount of time invested in the particular player. Such a game should passively improve the real-human player by giving him more experience with the gaming system, rather than improving the virtual character by giving him arbitrary levels/gear/money. Such a game would be naturally resistive to exploits and cheats. I would apply the following test to an MMO to see if it meets this qualification;
Take a player who has played the game for a while, is skilled at the game, and is very successful at completing game objectives. Now, have that player start a new game with a brand new character. He should be able to be somewhat competitive with that new character - not nearly as strong without his old level or gear, but still competitive.
Of course, there are plenty of caveats. First, I have had difficulty in imagining an RP system that would have such a large emphasis on creativity and intelligence. Second, it is unlikely that many people would actually have interest in such a game. Unfortunately, I think that most people actually like the grind; and even if they don't have the intellect to keep up in a real game, they can gain satisfaction from countless hours hording gear and currency.
There are a lot of gems on this list. I hate to say it, but I really do love some of the clones out there. I remember playing Freeciv for hours on end back in the day. One clone that caught my attention in this list was Wormux. My friends and I have been addicted to Worms 2 lately (an amazingly fun game), and this looks like an awesome alternative. The best part about choosing a free alternative is not usually the initial cost; it's the fact that the free alternative usually gets better as time goes on, Worms 2 is not like to change any time soon.
I might be willing to acknowledge that, though it really is well outside my area of expertise. On its face though, it does seem possible for a few hundred watts of power to ignite something. As long as the power supply maintains a nominal power consumption, the fuse won't blow. Also, if you are right, there must be a very decent number of improperly-made power supplies out there. On several occasion I have experienced (or have friends who have experienced) power supplies that have literally flamed/sparked/smoked/popped as they died.
these cases are so small and lacking airflow it doesn't really suprise me. The article isn't very clear on what exactly caused the fire in the presario, though it does use "electrical system to malfunction" in the case of the monitor that burned down the business. Suffice it to say, this might not be an issue of ventilation. More likely, they were severe electrical problems in all cases. I would bet money that the cause of the Compaq Presario "bursting into flames" was the power supply, and not a poorly ventilated processor. When they overheat, things just tend to melt. No low-voltage IC should ever "burst into flames", even in a poorly ventilated case. In fact, the poorer the ventilation, the fewer the flames.
This is really late in the game to be posting; I suspect the only person that will read this will be you, but that is just as I would like it. In fact, I would have prefered a PM, but poor slashdot has no such feature.
You raised some interesting points, and I would like to briefly take a look at each of them.
Note that you seem awfully flustered as if you were taking this personally. The thread prior to this was civil and even tempered. Are you Chad Kroeger? If not you should try to be more objective. Slashdot is unapologetically intellectual - embrace that.
Concerning your PS: I understand that you were responding to the majority opinion here and not to me in particular. However, as it turns out, I was really the wrong person to respond to, mostly because I alone of all those posts made no direct qualitative claims about Nickelback or pop music as a whole. I merely made claims about the general perception of Nickelback within my circles of influence. This was done specifically in order to avoid a response like yours (so much for that). I can only assume that you responded to me because I was modded the highest, and therefore gave you the largest opportunity of being read.
Furthermore, I think you are grossly misrepresenting my analysis in particular. First mispresentation: I was joining my parent post in support of many RIAA-affiliated bands. I agreed with him that many great acts have been, are, and will be associated with the RIAA out of necessity. Even many of the obscure ones. Second misrepresentation; As I mentioned before, I made no qualitative claims about Nickelback, Pop, or Radiohead. I merely explained the normal perception around here about these three things.
Now that I have established how my post did not actually explain my personal viewpoints, allow me to do so now. I am convinced that there are objective standards for music, just as there are objective standards for food and beverages (and yes, McDonalds does not fair will with objective analysis). I have no problem with making great allowances for taste; but at the end of the day, I think that some music can objectively be categorized as good music, and some vice versa. Sometimes, I determine a song/artist/album to be 'good', but unpleasing to me. I think that if more people could make that kind of distinction ('I like it' vs 'it is good'), the world would be a better place. As for the standards by which music ought to be judged; I think these are too numerous and complicated to discuss here. However, I can provide at least one metric by which I judge music; originality. This is one of the metrics that Nickelback blatantly fails. They haven't even managed to be original within their own catalog. That's really a cardinal sin when making music. If I wanted to hear the same song again and again, I wouldn't need to buy more than one CD in my lifetime.
I like meatloaf, bubblegum, McDonald's hamburgers, pizza, Mountain Dew, and pop music. It is quite funny that pop music is the only item in this list that doesn't go in your mouth. You should vary your examples more.
Not because it's what's been forced down their throats, but because they didn't study enough to learn that they're not supposed to like it--whatever the fuck that means. Consider the possibility that when people mature in certain kinds of ways, their taste changes without the influence of peer pressure. An apt metaphor: I am told that in my first year of life, I was content to crawl around on the ground as my primary ambulation. At some point, I started walking, and now I much prefer that. I am fairly positive that my preference for walking is not a result of mimicking people around me who walk but rather an objectively better form a travel that I would have eventually reasoned through on my own.
Anyway, this is a discussing worth having. Feel free to email me if you want; just leave the emotion at the proverbial door.
I think you're right that RIAA endorsed labels do have many respectable bands signed, unfortunately. However - and I don't mean to insult your taste here - You should be aware that Nickelback is almost certainly the kind of [RIAA crap] band that the grandparent was talking about. Many people regard them as total sellouts and possessive to no actual talent or creativity, at least in the circles in which I run. There was the Digg story a while back that pointed to this interesting site: evidence of similarities between Nickelback songs. Regardless of whether you like them or not, they are a hit generator, which is exactly the kind of thing that they play on pop/rock radio. Anyway keep up the good analysis; just use better examples like Radiohead (which you also used). They are distributing In Rainbows under a label associated with the RIAA according to RIAA Radar.
A sibling post already mentioned it briefly, but it really should be mentioned more specifically; iTunes-ALAC isn't going be archive-ideal until the DRM is gone. Since at least one record label has talked about removing DRM, this might actually happen. However, I wouldn't count on it.
First off, I haven't heard anything about the other major labels switching any time soon. Maybe they will and maybe they won't.
Moreover, I think that businessmen who are otherwise satisfied with removing DRM on AACs will be more skittish about removing the DRM on lossless; an ALAC/FLAC/Monkey'sAudio DRM-free rip is exactly equivalent to the original [mastered] content. When it gets burned to a CD, even the freedb/cddb repositories will recognize it. These rips, once out in the wild, are a perfect replacement for almost any medium on which the content can be found. That will probably frighten the powers that be.
Firstly, I partially respect your comment in following way; it is true that there are intelligent, very-well educated IT guys. You might be one of them. These, however, are not the norm. Somebody with your background usually becomes an engineer because the pay is better and you wouldn't have to deal with people mentioned by the article. That being said, there are many problems with your post:
OS design and implementation, networking, comp arch, and database engine design - Yes, we've all done that. Its standard coursework for most technology fields. The real question is, Do you put all those things into practice on a daily basis? We are in a field that moves quickly. If you don't update your knowledge by working with it, you lose it.
theoretical coursework - I know this is a low blow, but I have to ask; does this mean that you didn't actually do your coursework? I mean, you claim that it is merely theoretical.
+3 insightful my ass... - Given your cowardice in posting, the spitefulness of your tone, and your shear arrogance, I suspect you would be a frightfully awful IT guy. The IT guy that is so annoying, people choose to be unproductive rather than approach him. Empirical data suggests to me that everybody is wrong at least once, especially in the field of IT. Is it your claim that you have never been wrong? Or merely that it has never been a "whiz kid" you pointed out your error?
they tend to STFU - Yes, I too no longer feel a pressing desire to converse with you.
Yes, I must agree. IT guys are not at the top of the tech food chain; there are plenty of people in other fields who are just as capable if not more at that kind of work. In situations where you're the IT guy butting heads with the whiz kid, one of two things is happening:
1) The whiz kid is advocating a violation of protocol. Often, this is the whiz kid not understanding how things work for the average technology user. In this case, you probably should consider but ultimately reject the opinion of the whiz. In other cases, the opinion should be weighed carefully, keeping in mind that protocol should be adapted once in a while.
2) The whiz kid is telling you how the technology actually works (not how it looks from the perspective of the Windows Management Console). In this case, if you disagree (and/or accuse them of going to hell, as in this article), you have now become the know-it-all, and he is the expert. Show some humility, and try to learn. If he is eventually found to be wrong, your humility will only act as a slap in his face. If he is right, you have potentially avoided losing face.
But Sco (prior to the Darl regime) was an actual company that did engineering. As a company, they didn't have very much trolling experience. I suspect that Microsoft liked them because they were as sympathetic a Linux troll as could be devised. In fact, there were some people, though few and far between, who actually supported SCO. I know because I met some of them (don't worry; I actively and publicly hated these people).
This company on the other hand is not a real company (in the sense that they don't provide goods or services as SCO once did). It is not a sympathetic adversary at all. It is, however, experienced at trolling; apparently it is a subsidiary of Acacia Technologies, a renowned patent troll. Expect them to be actually competent at arguing their case and extorting money (as competent as one can be when defending lies).
It is exactly like that. Except that Microsoft has deep pockets and would be a perfectly suitable candidate.
Patent troll rule #1: Go after the deep pockets.
Patent troll rule #2: Go after the high profile lawsuit. When more notable companies get sued, you get more press, and therefore more respectability when you enter the negotiating table (their bread and butter is settlements).
It should be noted, however, that a very decent amount of Gnome development goes on at Novell, so that target isn't so badly chosen anyway.
some kind of very basic number relating to cores/speed like the 4x2200 for a 4 core, 2.2Ghz chip
Of course, that would insufficient; You would need some other indicator to mention that fact that it is, say, a Wolfdale instead of a Conroe (Wolfdale's being, say, 10% faster). Also imagine that another axis has to be considered; power-efficient, or non-power-efficient. That would make your model name even more complicated: "Conroe4x2200PE". That's quite a mouthful. This is only an example to indicate that specification-based model numbers have a tendency to get prohibitavely complex. The spec-based model number becomes more and more complicated as each axis of of variability is added. So, most companies settle for more arbitrary model numbers (NVidia, ATI, BMW, Lexus, etc).
Consider BMW; for many years, their model numbers were usually of the form *model**displacement**feature* (an incomplete schema would be [3,5,7][15,20,25,30,35,40,50][i,ci]). However, at some point, they realized that there might be several different models with the same engine size, and rather than making the feature indicator more complex, they made displacement inaccurate (sometimes pro-rating it to indicated a higher performance version of an identical displacement engine).
All that to say, I don't think that having arbitrary model number is such a bad state of affairs; just have a publically accessible lookup table that relates a single model number to all the relevant specs. Saying "NVidia 7600GT" is a heck of a lot easier than saying "NVidia 256-128-22.4-6.7-700" (for memory, memory interface, memory bandwidth, fill rate, and vertices-per-second).
While I mostly agree with you, please don't forget independent music store owners. These people were [mostly] not greedy; they just made a living, and the internet age left them behind. They let us listen to music before we bought it, connected us to new music that we would otherwise have been unaware of, and they never tried to sue us. Generally, these people were being screwed by the RIAA's inflated prices just like everybody else. As physical media became less popular and the RIAA refused to lower prices, the independent owners had no choice but to watch their businesses waste away.
There really wasn't anything that anybody could could do; the moment that the internet appeared, their business model was doomed. However, please don't lump these people in with the rest of the truly greedy middlemen; these were honest people, and I for one will miss them.
Grandparent was modded insightful before I posted a reply, and the day is not yet done. Additionally, I never claimed that Slashdot moderation was perfect; only that it is the best on the 'net. Finally, in defense of the person who modded me down, my post was ever-so-slightly trollish (a pro-Slashdot troll?), so I hardly think this instance disproves my assertion. Beyond its trollishness, I maintain that my post is completely true; Slashdot ought to be visited by those who appreciate its strengths - a decent moderation system. One should not come here and post to complain about the speed of submissions; that's just foolish.
This has always been the case. But, sane people don't come to Slashdot to get bleeding edge news. They come to Slashdot for the discussion and the comments. Make all the jokes you like about trolls and idiots and "you must be new here" rhetoric, but Slashdot is still probably the finest moderated discussion system on the net. I mean, compare the comments here to those on Digg. No comparison whatsoever. Digg always attracts the most immature and badly thought through comments on the net. Worst of all, many of the really bad ones manage to survive within viewing threshold. It's a mess.
On the other hand, Slashdot moderation is quite good. You can witness the power of this system yourself as moderators mod your inane comment down below viewing threshold.
How do you know your privacy isn't violated? Whimsically tagging all your stuff with your ID could absolutely invade your privacy. Consider that sometimes people's stuff gets stolen (or otherwise illicitly obtained). Suppose that you, Bill McGonigle, are downloading pornographic AACs as you so often do. Also suppose that a flash drive or CD (or some other non-owner-identifiable media) of yours containing those AACs is stolen. Now, somebody out there knows what you're listening to (the REALLY nasty stuff), and can identify you and possibly blackmail you with your conservative friends.
BTW, I neither know nor care whether this slashdot user does porn; that was for example only.
DISCLAIMER, to all you Apple fanboys, I'm not trying to defame your deity here; I'm merely isolating one statement of the parent's to critique it.
Unless you're actually planning to break the law by sharing the songs, I don't see what the problem is.
Ugh, Terrible Terrible logic. Consider the following statements.
"The government should be allowed to search people's home on a whim, because if they are law abiding citizens, they shouldn't mind the government searching through their stuff." "People should not be allowed to take the fifth because if they are law abiding citizens, they should have not reason to hide information."
Privacy is actually important: saying anything of the form "people don't need privacy 'x' if they don't plan to break the law" is almost always a mistake.
I might agree with you - But you missed my entire point. I did not make any kind of value judgment for or against ISPs. I merely said firstly, that what they are doing is technically legal, and that drawing a parallel between the mafia and ISPs is inequitable. I stand by both points: "Overfishing" or "exploiting" a product is qualitatively different than killing one's business rivals (perhaps the quintessential business technique of the mafia).
In most locales, these are illegal, so the mafia which transacts in them is also illegal. If the mafia limited themselves to transacting these commodities where they were legal, and did not use assault and murder to maintain their business, they would in fact be quite legal.
The internet is mostly legal - and by "extortion", do you perhaps mean withholding their product from people who do not pay for it? Barring what the government determines to be "monopolistic practices", trading in internet bandwidth (a legal commodity) is entirely legal and consistent with other U.S. laws.
Disclaimer: I'm not necessarily against (or for) net neutrality, so don't assume. I just think that drawing these kinds of parallels between ISPs and the mafia is not accurate, and does an injustice to a very complex issue. A better analogy would be Microsoft, who has classically used commodities that it [usually] owns to lord over people in unwholesome ways.
I'm not at linux.com, but I'll give it a go. You're right that this seems a little short, but the Serial has a long and venerable tradition in western literature and journalism. Especially in this case, most people are not inclined to sit down with a tub of popcorn and watch an ogg of Eben Moglen for 10 minutes. On the other hand, 1.5 minute segments are much more digestible. And, if it's good, it's something to look forward to for a few days.
Point taken: we should all take time out to remember. However, maybe you're being hard on Taco? I mean, that's not even a headline; it's the fun tag that is usually ignored by most. And, to be fair, this is an article about a U.S. Military building, so not entirely orthogonal to the spirit of the day. Plus, he still has many hours left in the day to post articles about or mention things more relevant to Memorial day.
So be a little less prickly today. And don't forget to perhaps thank a serviceman who is still living; it isn't the expressed purpose of the day, but I'm sure they would be grateful anyway.
Firstly, don't agree with the grandparent; that was a moronic analysis of libertarianism.
Your idea, however, is very interesting. Theoretically, even a libertarian might not have a problem with it if you just changed the word "state" to "opt-in community". You could have your socialist paradise, and I could have my freedom. But a state is probably far too big a unit. On the one hand, if you're talking about Rhode Island, it isn't a big deal to have single radical policies for the entire state. However, consider states like California and Texas: these places are almost countries unto themselves. Even smaller states like Ohio can be far from homogenous, and are absolutely problematic in your ideal. This simply because it would be nearly impossible to get a nice consensus on most topics (OK, maybe not Texas, but Ohio couldn't get 70% of anything to save their lives).
Not that any of this is accomplishable during this election except for the first step: cripple the federal government and reestablish a Jeffersonian republic - down with Hamilton and his federalists!
Slashdot Mirror
We're way offtopic from the article, but you should probably read the Wikipedia article on faithless electors. Faithless electors can face consequences for their actions. So far, there haven't been severe consequences, but then so far a faithless elector has never turned the tide of an election. If that started to happen, it would be likely that political parties, states, and the federal government would make consequences more severe.
I think you're absolutely right about this. I always dreamed of an MMO that was more focus on player-skill/ingenuity than on the amount of time invested in the particular player. Such a game should passively improve the real-human player by giving him more experience with the gaming system, rather than improving the virtual character by giving him arbitrary levels/gear/money. Such a game would be naturally resistive to exploits and cheats. I would apply the following test to an MMO to see if it meets this qualification;
Take a player who has played the game for a while, is skilled at the game, and is very successful at completing game objectives. Now, have that player start a new game with a brand new character. He should be able to be somewhat competitive with that new character - not nearly as strong without his old level or gear, but still competitive.
Of course, there are plenty of caveats. First, I have had difficulty in imagining an RP system that would have such a large emphasis on creativity and intelligence. Second, it is unlikely that many people would actually have interest in such a game. Unfortunately, I think that most people actually like the grind; and even if they don't have the intellect to keep up in a real game, they can gain satisfaction from countless hours hording gear and currency.
There are a lot of gems on this list. I hate to say it, but I really do love some of the clones out there. I remember playing Freeciv for hours on end back in the day. One clone that caught my attention in this list was Wormux. My friends and I have been addicted to Worms 2 lately (an amazingly fun game), and this looks like an awesome alternative. The best part about choosing a free alternative is not usually the initial cost; it's the fact that the free alternative usually gets better as time goes on, Worms 2 is not like to change any time soon.
I might be willing to acknowledge that, though it really is well outside my area of expertise. On its face though, it does seem possible for a few hundred watts of power to ignite something. As long as the power supply maintains a nominal power consumption, the fuse won't blow. Also, if you are right, there must be a very decent number of improperly-made power supplies out there. On several occasion I have experienced (or have friends who have experienced) power supplies that have literally flamed/sparked/smoked/popped as they died.
You raised some interesting points, and I would like to briefly take a look at each of them.
Note that you seem awfully flustered as if you were taking this personally. The thread prior to this was civil and even tempered. Are you Chad Kroeger? If not you should try to be more objective. Slashdot is unapologetically intellectual - embrace that.
Concerning your PS: I understand that you were responding to the majority opinion here and not to me in particular. However, as it turns out, I was really the wrong person to respond to, mostly because I alone of all those posts made no direct qualitative claims about Nickelback or pop music as a whole. I merely made claims about the general perception of Nickelback within my circles of influence. This was done specifically in order to avoid a response like yours (so much for that). I can only assume that you responded to me because I was modded the highest, and therefore gave you the largest opportunity of being read.
Furthermore, I think you are grossly misrepresenting my analysis in particular. First mispresentation: I was joining my parent post in support of many RIAA-affiliated bands. I agreed with him that many great acts have been, are, and will be associated with the RIAA out of necessity. Even many of the obscure ones. Second misrepresentation; As I mentioned before, I made no qualitative claims about Nickelback, Pop, or Radiohead. I merely explained the normal perception around here about these three things.
Now that I have established how my post did not actually explain my personal viewpoints, allow me to do so now. I am convinced that there are objective standards for music, just as there are objective standards for food and beverages (and yes, McDonalds does not fair will with objective analysis). I have no problem with making great allowances for taste; but at the end of the day, I think that some music can objectively be categorized as good music, and some vice versa. Sometimes, I determine a song/artist/album to be 'good', but unpleasing to me. I think that if more people could make that kind of distinction ('I like it' vs 'it is good'), the world would be a better place. As for the standards by which music ought to be judged; I think these are too numerous and complicated to discuss here. However, I can provide at least one metric by which I judge music; originality. This is one of the metrics that Nickelback blatantly fails. They haven't even managed to be original within their own catalog. That's really a cardinal sin when making music. If I wanted to hear the same song again and again, I wouldn't need to buy more than one CD in my lifetime. I like meatloaf, bubblegum, McDonald's hamburgers, pizza, Mountain Dew, and pop music. It is quite funny that pop music is the only item in this list that doesn't go in your mouth. You should vary your examples more. Not because it's what's been forced down their throats, but because they didn't study enough to learn that they're not supposed to like it--whatever the fuck that means. Consider the possibility that when people mature in certain kinds of ways, their taste changes without the influence of peer pressure. An apt metaphor: I am told that in my first year of life, I was content to crawl around on the ground as my primary ambulation. At some point, I started walking, and now I much prefer that. I am fairly positive that my preference for walking is not a result of mimicking people around me who walk but rather an objectively better form a travel that I would have eventually reasoned through on my own.
Anyway, this is a discussing worth having. Feel free to email me if you want; just leave the emotion at the proverbial door.
I think you're right that RIAA endorsed labels do have many respectable bands signed, unfortunately. However - and I don't mean to insult your taste here - You should be aware that Nickelback is almost certainly the kind of [RIAA crap] band that the grandparent was talking about. Many people regard them as total sellouts and possessive to no actual talent or creativity, at least in the circles in which I run. There was the Digg story a while back that pointed to this interesting site: evidence of similarities between Nickelback songs. Regardless of whether you like them or not, they are a hit generator, which is exactly the kind of thing that they play on pop/rock radio. Anyway keep up the good analysis; just use better examples like Radiohead (which you also used). They are distributing In Rainbows under a label associated with the RIAA according to RIAA Radar.
A sibling post already mentioned it briefly, but it really should be mentioned more specifically; iTunes-ALAC isn't going be archive-ideal until the DRM is gone. Since at least one record label has talked about removing DRM, this might actually happen. However, I wouldn't count on it.
First off, I haven't heard anything about the other major labels switching any time soon. Maybe they will and maybe they won't.
Moreover, I think that businessmen who are otherwise satisfied with removing DRM on AACs will be more skittish about removing the DRM on lossless; an ALAC/FLAC/Monkey'sAudio DRM-free rip is
exactly equivalent to the original [mastered] content. When it gets burned to a CD, even the freedb/cddb repositories will recognize it. These rips, once out in the wild, are a perfect replacement for almost any medium on which the content can be found. That will probably frighten the powers that be.
OS design and implementation, networking, comp arch, and database engine design - Yes, we've all done that. Its standard coursework for most technology fields. The real question is, Do you put all those things into practice on a daily basis? We are in a field that moves quickly. If you don't update your knowledge by working with it, you lose it.
theoretical coursework - I know this is a low blow, but I have to ask; does this mean that you didn't actually do your coursework? I mean, you claim that it is merely theoretical.
+3 insightful my ass... - Given your cowardice in posting, the spitefulness of your tone, and your shear arrogance, I suspect you would be a frightfully awful IT guy. The IT guy that is so annoying, people choose to be unproductive rather than approach him. Empirical data suggests to me that everybody is wrong at least once, especially in the field of IT. Is it your claim that you have never been wrong? Or merely that it has never been a "whiz kid" you pointed out your error?
they tend to STFU - Yes, I too no longer feel a pressing desire to converse with you.
Yes, I must agree. IT guys are not at the top of the tech food chain; there are plenty of people in other fields who are just as capable if not more at that kind of work. In situations where you're the IT guy butting heads with the whiz kid, one of two things is happening:
1) The whiz kid is advocating a violation of protocol. Often, this is the whiz kid not understanding how things work for the average technology user. In this case, you probably should consider but ultimately reject the opinion of the whiz. In other cases, the opinion should be weighed carefully, keeping in mind that protocol should be adapted once in a while.
2) The whiz kid is telling you how the technology actually works (not how it looks from the perspective of the Windows Management Console). In this case, if you disagree (and/or accuse them of going to hell, as in this article), you have now become the know-it-all, and he is the expert. Show some humility, and try to learn. If he is eventually found to be wrong, your humility will only act as a slap in his face. If he is right, you have potentially avoided losing face.
Hah! Indeed
But Sco (prior to the Darl regime) was an actual company that did engineering. As a company, they didn't have very much trolling experience. I suspect that Microsoft liked them because they were as sympathetic a Linux troll as could be devised. In fact, there were some people, though few and far between, who actually supported SCO. I know because I met some of them (don't worry; I actively and publicly hated these people).
This company on the other hand is not a real company (in the sense that they don't provide goods or services as SCO once did). It is not a sympathetic adversary at all. It is, however, experienced at trolling; apparently it is a subsidiary of Acacia Technologies, a renowned patent troll. Expect them to be actually competent at arguing their case and extorting money (as competent as one can be when defending lies).
It is exactly like that. Except that Microsoft has deep pockets and would be a perfectly suitable candidate.
Patent troll rule #1: Go after the deep pockets.
Patent troll rule #2: Go after the high profile lawsuit. When more notable companies get sued, you get more press, and therefore more respectability when you enter the negotiating table (their bread and butter is settlements).
It should be noted, however, that a very decent amount of Gnome development goes on at Novell, so that target isn't so badly chosen anyway.
Gnomes vs Trolls; how cool is this?
Of course, that would insufficient; You would need some other indicator to mention that fact that it is, say, a Wolfdale instead of a Conroe (Wolfdale's being, say, 10% faster). Also imagine that another axis has to be considered; power-efficient, or non-power-efficient. That would make your model name even more complicated: "Conroe4x2200PE". That's quite a mouthful. This is only an example to indicate that specification-based model numbers have a tendency to get prohibitavely complex. The spec-based model number becomes more and more complicated as each axis of of variability is added. So, most companies settle for more arbitrary model numbers (NVidia, ATI, BMW, Lexus, etc).
Consider BMW; for many years, their model numbers were usually of the form *model**displacement**feature* (an incomplete schema would be [3,5,7][15,20,25,30,35,40,50][i,ci]). However, at some point, they realized that there might be several different models with the same engine size, and rather than making the feature indicator more complex, they made displacement inaccurate (sometimes pro-rating it to indicated a higher performance version of an identical displacement engine).
All that to say, I don't think that having arbitrary model number is such a bad state of affairs; just have a publically accessible lookup table that relates a single model number to all the relevant specs. Saying "NVidia 7600GT" is a heck of a lot easier than saying "NVidia 256-128-22.4-6.7-700" (for memory, memory interface, memory bandwidth, fill rate, and vertices-per-second).
While I mostly agree with you, please don't forget independent music store owners. These people were [mostly] not greedy; they just made a living, and the internet age left them behind. They let us listen to music before we bought it, connected us to new music that we would otherwise have been unaware of, and they never tried to sue us. Generally, these people were being screwed by the RIAA's inflated prices just like everybody else. As physical media became less popular and the RIAA refused to lower prices, the independent owners had no choice but to watch their businesses waste away.
There really wasn't anything that anybody could could do; the moment that the internet appeared, their business model was doomed. However, please don't lump these people in with the rest of the truly greedy middlemen; these were honest people, and I for one will miss them.
Grandparent was modded insightful before I posted a reply, and the day is not yet done. Additionally, I never claimed that Slashdot moderation was perfect; only that it is the best on the 'net. Finally, in defense of the person who modded me down, my post was ever-so-slightly trollish (a pro-Slashdot troll?), so I hardly think this instance disproves my assertion. Beyond its trollishness, I maintain that my post is completely true; Slashdot ought to be visited by those who appreciate its strengths - a decent moderation system. One should not come here and post to complain about the speed of submissions; that's just foolish.
This has always been the case. But, sane people don't come to Slashdot to get bleeding edge news. They come to Slashdot for the discussion and the comments. Make all the jokes you like about trolls and idiots and "you must be new here" rhetoric, but Slashdot is still probably the finest moderated discussion system on the net. I mean, compare the comments here to those on Digg. No comparison whatsoever. Digg always attracts the most immature and badly thought through comments on the net. Worst of all, many of the really bad ones manage to survive within viewing threshold. It's a mess.
On the other hand, Slashdot moderation is quite good. You can witness the power of this system yourself as moderators mod your inane comment down below viewing threshold.
How do you know your privacy isn't violated? Whimsically tagging all your stuff with your ID could absolutely invade your privacy. Consider that sometimes people's stuff gets stolen (or otherwise illicitly obtained). Suppose that you, Bill McGonigle, are downloading pornographic AACs as you so often do. Also suppose that a flash drive or CD (or some other non-owner-identifiable media) of yours containing those AACs is stolen. Now, somebody out there knows what you're listening to (the REALLY nasty stuff), and can identify you and possibly blackmail you with your conservative friends.
BTW, I neither know nor care whether this slashdot user does porn; that was for example only.
Unless you're actually planning to break the law by sharing the songs, I don't see what the problem is.
Ugh, Terrible Terrible logic. Consider the following statements.
"The government should be allowed to search people's home on a whim, because if they are law abiding citizens, they shouldn't mind the government searching through their stuff."
"People should not be allowed to take the fifth because if they are law abiding citizens, they should have not reason to hide information."
Privacy is actually important: saying anything of the form "people don't need privacy 'x' if they don't plan to break the law" is almost always a mistake.
I might agree with you - But you missed my entire point. I did not make any kind of value judgment for or against ISPs. I merely said firstly, that what they are doing is technically legal, and that drawing a parallel between the mafia and ISPs is inequitable. I stand by both points: "Overfishing" or "exploiting" a product is qualitatively different than killing one's business rivals (perhaps the quintessential business technique of the mafia).
In most locales, these are illegal, so the mafia which transacts in them is also illegal. If the mafia limited themselves to transacting these commodities where they were legal, and did not use assault and murder to maintain their business, they would in fact be quite legal.
The internet is mostly legal - and by "extortion", do you perhaps mean withholding their product from people who do not pay for it? Barring what the government determines to be "monopolistic practices", trading in internet bandwidth (a legal commodity) is entirely legal and consistent with other U.S. laws.
Disclaimer: I'm not necessarily against (or for) net neutrality, so don't assume. I just think that drawing these kinds of parallels between ISPs and the mafia is not accurate, and does an injustice to a very complex issue. A better analogy would be Microsoft, who has classically used commodities that it [usually] owns to lord over people in unwholesome ways.
I'm not at linux.com, but I'll give it a go. You're right that this seems a little short, but the Serial has a long and venerable tradition in western literature and journalism. Especially in this case, most people are not inclined to sit down with a tub of popcorn and watch an ogg of Eben Moglen for 10 minutes. On the other hand, 1.5 minute segments are much more digestible. And, if it's good, it's something to look forward to for a few days.
Point taken: we should all take time out to remember. However, maybe you're being hard on Taco? I mean, that's not even a headline; it's the fun tag that is usually ignored by most. And, to be fair, this is an article about a U.S. Military building, so not entirely orthogonal to the spirit of the day. Plus, he still has many hours left in the day to post articles about or mention things more relevant to Memorial day.
So be a little less prickly today. And don't forget to perhaps thank a serviceman who is still living; it isn't the expressed purpose of the day, but I'm sure they would be grateful anyway.
Firstly, don't agree with the grandparent; that was a moronic analysis of libertarianism.
Your idea, however, is very interesting. Theoretically, even a libertarian might not have a problem with it if you just changed the word "state" to "opt-in community". You could have your socialist paradise, and I could have my freedom. But a state is probably far too big a unit. On the one hand, if you're talking about Rhode Island, it isn't a big deal to have single radical policies for the entire state. However, consider states like California and Texas: these places are almost countries unto themselves. Even smaller states like Ohio can be far from homogenous, and are absolutely problematic in your ideal. This simply because it would be nearly impossible to get a nice consensus on most topics (OK, maybe not Texas, but Ohio couldn't get 70% of anything to save their lives).
Not that any of this is accomplishable during this election except for the first step: cripple the federal government and reestablish a Jeffersonian republic - down with Hamilton and his federalists!
By the way, I love your sig.