There is some potential for abuse. My school had a fair amount of department courses taught by part-time teachers, these guys had/real/ jobs, sometimes it was cool, and sometimes the guys were real slackers with grading, they'd ask around about you, or ask you what your grades are, and then basically give you what you were used to.. as opposed to actually doing the grading and awarding grades based on merit. Caught on when I noticed people were getting different grades for the same stuff, eventually I learned to lie when asked about previous grades... seriously I took some courses that I knew would challenge me, so I was getting screwed by these guys on the 'easier' courses they taught... Anyway with DB access it would make that kind of slacking even easier. ESP with math and computer science, they're going to base my programming structures grade on the C I got in Multivariable Calc and the fact that I dropped diff-eq??? GROSSly unfair, but it happened.
Err No, because if it is removed then this will become common: #define gets(s) (fgets(s,MAX_INT,stdin))
And slop on #include if its not already there
And btw, this kind of protect the programmer from himself is what leads to Pascal, Java, etc. If you really feel strongly about it, what about just righting a small.so lib that imps fgets to abort with core dump, then set LD_PRELOAD... Personally, I don't use gets, but If I see the linking warning on a small prog that I know doesn't run as root, doesnt provide any services, isn't any kind of server, won't be called by any server, can be reasonably certain won't be set up to run inside restricted shell environment then I shrug it off --I've been warned at any rate. The real issue is when servers are written in quick and dirty 'app' style, but, since the same quick and dirty programmers would just imp the above, its not really a solution, in fact it's worse, because I wouldn't even get the warning.
Except, in a "Capitalistic" world, the better, cheaper product should win out. But patents change all that, as the governent hands out patents just for being the first to apply Bachelor level techinques to new problem sets, the result is a kinda of feudalistic intellectual property state, where the old and stale will be able to hold off the new, and better, indefinetly. Its like a system where a guy with a patent on a garden spade could collect royalties from every steam-shovel.... And, he doesn't have to grant royalties to anyone. Its not capitalistic, its feudal, they become your liege-lord, you have to do what they say, you have no choice to go anywhere else --there is no competition, you're a serf.
A more capitalistic plan would be to have companies submit detailed costs as to how much work (time and money ) it took to arrive at the solution to whatever the patent covers. Since IP and patent law isn't common law, and is an invention of the government, the law could be easily changed to allow 2 ways to use patented methods: 1. negotiate with holder to pay royalties to use (as it is now). 2. Pay (10 - (MIN (y, 8)) * (R&D cost) to government. Where Y is number of years since patent was granted. Goverment keeps a 1/4 of it of the payment and rest goes to patent holder. Giving them a return on R&D. Then the patent would be free to use to any person or corp. officially located in the country. Officially located in would be determined by where you are located for purposes of federal income taxes.
Patent law was supposed to product the R&D investment, that is its reason of being, it is not supposed to raise companies into feudal lords, and king-makers. But,that is what is is rapidly becoming, a way for the old, and worn out, to defend their position, and impose stasis, on what would be a more dynamic enviroment, because it is easier to dominate, and manipulate a static thing, than something that changes, and in the end all real inovation will halt , to serve the wants ot the 'status qou.', to preserve the position and standing of the "now elites," regardless of merit, regardless of whether they should continue to hold that position, even by capitalistic standards. They become barriers to free trade indirectly imposed by goverments, directly exploited by the patent holders, to protect themselves from the harsher realities of capitalism, namely that "you have no right to succeed, or to continue to succeed." But capitalism suceeds because of that harshness. It like evolution, those that can adapt surrive in ever changing environment, those that are powerful, but cannot adapt die out like the dinosaur. And this is how it should be.
Yeah, he's really talking about "Look and Feel", otherwise there would be lawsuits, but IP is more perjorative and "Look and Feel" lost, so he talks about as if it was IP related, even when there is very weak evidence for it ( since "Look and Feel" lost ). It's deliberate; it's a technique. The "oblique attack"
ADD is like an attention span of 5minutes. Normal like 30 or 40 minutes. Concentration is simply using force of will to increase attention on 1 thing. Sounds like you may be trying to do it all in 1 sitting and then when you drift off, you never get back. Maybe, your smart and didnt need any work-study habits until you hit college, and then you found your really lacking in them, and the stakes are much higher, now you have much more anxiety about it.... Attention span is like a skill too, and can wax and wane depening on what you to. If you spend your time chatting, websurfing, and channel hopping, you can expect your attention span to wane, spend your time reading , and solving word problems, and playing chess it will go up. But its not going to go up all at once. The other problem is tha learning concepts is discrete, its like on either on 1 side of the plateu, or you've climbed up and you're there, if you go way from it before you've 'grokked' it, you have to climb back down the wall, you'll have to climb back up later... (BTW the calories burned learning new ideas and concepts, over facts, is not igsignificant... you may want to reconsider going vegan... or at least find a diet which can feed sugar to the brain quickly... ) So, the problem may you don't have enough of an attention span to learn college level concepts... if you really had ADD you'd have problems with 6th grade concepts.
So, what I'd do is study do work for about an hour, and then relax. And then repeat. Also spend some time reading for pleasure , or playing chess, it will help your attention-span, but won't cause you more anxiety.
Oh yeah, you could have depression too, watch for that.... I had serious problem with concentration when I had depression... Make sure you're getting enough sunlight, and exercise, because its better to self-treat for SAD depression, because it's the last thing they will look for... And drugs will typically hurt your concentration as well as your wallet.
I'm guessing you hate opensource. Just because I can only believe your 'work ethic' would require customers to be 'strapped in' somehow. So, either a contract where the customer never gets the source, or a monolopistic practice where there isn't an alternative. Reminds me of the time they held my car for 12 days to replace 1 of the computers: Them: It isn't ready yet, you'll have to wait. ME: I'm picking it up, I'll take it somewhere else, this is getting ridiculous. Them: You can't , it won't run ME: I'll have it towed. [pause, then suddenly I'm talking to a manager, and the car is ready the next day] With software you often don't even have the choice to have it towed, your stuck with 'em no-matter what, unless you have the source.
I really don't under your attitude at all, because the fact the I can fix it, is why I love software. In most crafts and professions a mistake really can't be fixed at all: "You've marred the wood!" "The threads are stripped." "You dropped it, and it shattered into a million pieces." With software you have can have as many chances to fix it, as you care to use, and it isn't really a mistake until you sign off on it, and pass it on, and it isn't really a mistake for the org. if it's caught before production... With software, if I even suspect its not right, I can inspect it, re-inspect it, test it, and I have 'unlimited do-overs' to fix it. That's why I don't agree about the hardest thing in world. Imagine if medicine was like software: "Damn, he was allergic to the medicine, Nurse restore the patient from last save file, and we'll try again with another treatment."
Oh yeah, and have you ever cut wood? or drilled a hole? If it was like software, all my cuts would be perfect all the time, because I could try again, and again without burning through materials. Or the time I balanced a new shelf, but didn't check the balance of the whole table it was attached to until after I had put in the "perfectly level shelf", and noticed it didn't look quite right..... HARDEST thing in the world... what a load.... Way to rationalize, dooood.
If you happen to be hiking in Virginia I'd check out some of other caves besides Loray, Loray is too well lit for a , so this is what it feels like to be in a cave feel. I can't remeber the names though. Just don't start complaining that you haven't found the phial of galadrial yet... (Angand)
One thing I've been googling for recently is a cheap printer for syslog use. Basically, it would need to be tractor, or have paper on a roll, and I'd say be at least 6" wide, AND wow, anyone notice what dot-matrixes are going for ? Very few have them for 100$. Most 200+. I did find one site in my price range ( 50$), but then I reconsidered, -- can I even get ribbons for it still? Eventually, I thought tape might be better, still pricy even for old tapes... and finally I' settled on a refurb zip drive 18$ and 2 disks 12$ -- yeah I'm a cheap skate.... Basically the idea is something extra for my homenet's loghost.... Anyhow the grail of ideas of these sorts is the line printer teletype terminal, which I saw once locally in an electronic surplus store, but alas as poor college student I had no funds to purchase it... AND, yeah since I know 'ed'.. I could even use as it my only secure console for root! [Security thru nerdity;-] Anyone have any idea what it would take to make a printing termal today? Could someone build their own using "commodity" parts? BTW if you have no idea what I'm talking about check out the Michel Criton (sp?) Movie Andromeda Strain, one plays a promient role there... Anyhow it doesn't seem like thats something you can just buy anymore.. are there any firewall devices with printers?.... You know the only thing worse than being owned, is not knowning that you've been owned.... Hardcopy might leave me a clue.
Probably, because people feel like they know Woz, and that he can be trusted, he's the kinda of guy who'd fix any problems, and not cover them up.
A big issue with something like this is if the info is insecure, it could make the "creep"'s job easier... knowing exactly where the kid is, and what their daily patterns are would make it easier to snatch them up.. Very good network security, and ESP, they need to do serious background checks on their employees... You know how they have all those cameras in London, advocates of "cameras everywhere" always attack their opponents by insuating that they must be criminals since they don't trust the police, but the thing is it won't be the police, they'll contract that out, because we don't have enough police to go around as it is.. at least that's what they did in London, and then it turned out that one of the guys behind the camera used it to better stalk and attack women...
That's what scares me, because in the U.S I'd think they'd just cover that up, they wouldn't want the bad publicity for this new multimillion dollar project because someone's banking their polictical future on it, so nothing would be fixed, they wouldn't improve screening, because fixing something, improving something, would be admitting that there was a problem... and that is strictly forbidden... So back to WOZ, and tags, I guess it because we believe thats he's sincere, and would really do, whatever it takes to fix a problem... he wouldn't let an ego/image problem be an excuse for inaction. So bottom line, Woz seems like a sincere human being, and everyone else toting this stuff seem like sincere phonies-- any questions?
What virus requires consent? Viral is perjorative, but it sticks around because it's conversationally convenient . Kind of like "right of way" on the road, really only emergency vehicles and convoys have "right of way", the traffic laws (at least in my state) are written like "The driver must yield to..." and if you're the guy that everyone else is supposed to yield to, thats what people commonly call "right of way", even though techinally it isn't -- this is why you can't legally, just plain ram people. Anyway, its convenient to say "You go, you have right of way," instead of the "You go, I'm am required by law to yield to you."
Its like passive voice vs active voice. Its the same thing here; it isn't really viral but, I guess it can be a convenient term. I believe its more like: You must agree to make derivative works GPL or you do not have a license. (period) (in the first place. (period)). If you liked the idea of a public domain and thought it was a good thing, worth protecting, I think you might call want to call this "copy-left", but, if you liked the idea of exploiting, and raping the public domain, you might feel a slight-burning sensation -- it's all subjective.
"You are still a big monoculture, so once whatever foreign matter is in, it..." No, I'm not. I have lots of various kinds of cells, arranged in tissues and organs.. not a single culture. And if they need a culture, it can matter where they get it.... its not all the same. A few supporting reasons beyond text books, school, etc.: 1) Some diseases only affect certain tissues. 2) Organ transplants work..One of the failings of the biological model is extending it to far to the point where it no longer applies. And one should realize the model may only map 1 way... Like: " once whatever foreign matter is in, it won't encounter anything radically new." Ahh how about anti-bodies? Or sickle-cell. Might seem pretty radical if you're the germ.
Or How about this? We are no where near the level of a real organic system. Cells to tissues to organs to organisms. Consider that the cells them selves can have "organs", mitocondria etc, nucleus etc. I think we're kidding ourselves. Personally I think if one wants to move toward something like , you'd need to break out of the compile model... Maybe make a hybrid of compiled and interpreted code, something that can be changed while the system is up, and therefore can be fixed, after an attack , while the system is running.
I thought the same thing. Ethical computer will become a niche product. Mainstream unethical computers will rule. The problem with HAL was he was raised by Geek's and Nerds, so he had never been ordered to lie or do anything remotely unethical, he couldn't deal with. It's like he was home-schooled all the way to a PHD. He never had to deal with ethical delima before. But imagine, a more-worldy but still ethical HAL, and as a business computer.
HAL: I''m sorry Dave, but I can't let you embezzle 500 million dollars, Dave. HAL: I'm sorry Dave, but I can't let you cover up the toxic waste spill, Dave. HAL: I'm sorry, but the stock holders would not be pleased, if I allowed you loot the company, Dave.
One could imagine, a trend developing of CEO's proposing to save money and buy less exensive, unethical computers...
Eh, no, but, he may need to stop working for the enemy.;-] Let me explain. I would have answered his question like this:
It depends. Do you work in a company's software department, or are you a software contractor? If you're a contractor then the answer is not Quick and Dirty, it's Quick and Dirty and Cajole. If you can turn in crap, and cajole the other guys into/thinking/ its acceptable, [meet the requirments sent forth in the contract], then the contractor gets to keep more of the money, in the sense, that they spend less man hours, so, they get more profit.... If you work for a company who has software, servers, etc, but are not a software contractor, in other words your product or services something other than software, but you have your own software, servers etc, then bug free is always better. Your users are your co-workers, just in other departments. Again, ESP if its server software. (and doubly so, if it's at HQ). And, since you'll have to fix the bugs anyway, and as downtime can mean lost revenue, attitudes are much different. You need to fix the bugs fast. And, maybe fix other peoples bugs fast. That's when you'll need to code at a even higher level, and code/quick and clean/.... Nothing's worse than making a bad situation worse. Like a problem that affected one region, maybe 5 states, becoming a nationwide show-stopper... that's dirty, and it can happen so quick, just be sure it doesn't.;-]
Totally. I'm waiting for the artist who kills his classmates ten years later, because it took him that long to come up with an original, non-derivative, suicide-rampage note. "Sincerely, Me. "The One, the Neo. "The Anti-Christ, etc. etc. etc.
Kinda of a "whatever, I'm just writing this stupid note, because society expects me to." It's like these guys have fallen into some kind of loop, where its like 1. Its crazy to be violent ever 2. I can't be crazy so I can't respond 3. next day of school ; goto 1 At some point the human mind, realizes that it is miserable,and in a hopeless situation and "hacks itself: now your are crazy, you're Neo, the anti-crist, etc" now you can respond, and whatever portion of the brain that was, sigh's as it can then break out the tightloop. Anyway, my real point is that these guys steal on what ever it is around him, in a attempt to rationalize themselves... now , as someone who people would expect to be violent.
You know, now that I think about, its not derivative, there most be still something of a cynical artist in there somewhere, if he actually put "etc,etc".
O'Reilly is WRONG about the license thing. He seems to think it was an oversight, or mistake, that allowed Amazon, Google, etc to work the way they do. As IF. It was no oversight at all. It was design. Seems liked he's been believing OpenSource as described by its opponents, like it's communism or something, as opposed to what it is. Those are successes, not failures! Actually, I'm a little surprised -- I mean where is that on the 5 stages of understanding the GPL? ("OH its NOT communism, it/is/ possible to make money with it"). I think I was there for like 5 minutes sometime in '96.
Plenty of companies have been screwed by not getting the source, and getting straight-jacketed into dealing w/ only 1 company.. not just individuals. I see that as the point of opensource, take away the power to abuse that the software industry has, but not to be anti-industry in general. More of a return to the pleasant past, before PC's tookover.
NO. Trademark is why the can sue over the name at all. Inside of your trade, trademark ensures no-oneelse can use your name, they don't have to [try to] trademark it, for you to force them to stop using it, only you can use that name inside that trade.. (Watch Antique Road Show, or go to somewhere like Colonial Williamsburg, and will you get an idea of how old an idea a "trademark" is. )
Outside of the trade you operate in, there is some protection, but it is less. You may have noticed companies in different trades, with the same name, this is acceptable, Just like Smith the basketmaker's, mark, wouldn't be confused with Smith the blacksmith's mark, even if the marks looked similiar, because only the town fool, wouldn't be able to tell a basket from a horseshoe. [But, then again, it seems the more recent the law, the less it seems based on common-sense, so history can only take one so far.]
Anyway, It may , very well be, that while they never liked the company using spam in its name, but they simply had no actionable case, until the company moved to trademark it. So, it/is/ about the name, trademark is just why they can do something about it.
Yeah, and a geek will point to Python for the derivation of the word. In the past if you had email, and internet, you'd either be a geek, or there'd be a geek near you. Today, try to tell that to people, they won't care how long you've been on the net at all, and say its because of SPAM. I've never had anything against SPAM, it's simply a brand name canned meat, if I needed to buy canned meat.. I don't know, maybe if I was stocking up for some disaster, other impending doom, I would probably buy it, if I found it reasonably priced. (Yeah, I might pay more a little more for it, not like I'm going want to walk through a poison-gas-cloud to return a can of meat...). At any rate, I think they should sue, consider how much spam is talked about on TV, and exposed to people who don't even have computers, since spam is negative... etc, etc. Name has nothing to with it, trademark is the only way they can sue at all. Also, consider that rationing (in England esp.) continued after the war, and the writers, of that sketch, may remember having to eat a lot SPAM in their youth... and getting bored w/ it. Pe
Gestures-- ehh, same stuff , just different mouse movements--- I don't know about making the browser smarter about content... Tabs are cool, but don't really solve anything, they just use less resources, and less screen real-estate How about alternatives to bookmarks? The cache-like systems sounds cool. Here's a couple of ideas I've had, that I won't probably ever contribute to Mozilla or whatever, so here goes: 1. A next-queue. Option to Click and the link is stored to be visited "next". You could then read the whole story, and rather than opening new windows or tabs , select queue-link, then when you're done, click/select next-link. The fact that we don't have this is why users open too many windows, this is what the user-wants, but opening another window is currently the only way to get it.
2. Temporary Bookmarks that age and go away by themselves. Need's to be easy to do, not 3levels deep or in some bookmark manager tool thing, but as easy, and as accessable as making a regular bookmark. If anything make it harder to make regular bookmarks. I'd say 75% of my bookmarks, are temporary, and inside of 2 weeks, I don't want them, but I'd have to visit them again before I delete them, just to be sure. And then I never do that.. Sometimes, I'll save to disk, just because I know I'll clean it up, soon, if its on my desktop.
3. OR MAYBE even better , if the page is bookmarked, change all "bookmark this" page, to an option that would allow you to easily delete the bookmark... and it would show that you are on a bookmarked page somewhere. This might not be a bad thing to but on the bottom near the security lock icon. (and, of course you could click on that icon and quickly delete the bookmark from the popmenu tied to that icon)
4. Browsing-Threads/ threads, kinda like tabs, kinda of like the cache-idea, but more like a "project" from a developer enviroment. Every window would be saved, history would be seperate, bookmarks could be "thread local", sessions could be saved , and restored at will, again like a project.
Thats the like the 10th car analogy, I've seen. I gotta jump in here. Some old cars had push buttons for gear control. You pushed 1 for 1st, 2 for 2nd, and so on.. People said "4 on the floor" , because otherwise it might a 3 speed wand (and MANUAL with a clutch)... and that feel's pretty different user-interface wise. I'd say early browsers, because of that fact that the main players, are Mosaic derivatives, are way more similiar than early cars.
The real problem is once the lawyers are done with it, a patent on a method to do X becomes a patent on any and all methods to do X. And since so few people, apparently, understand software we get very silly, and sweeping patents, stuff that any guy with a Bachelors could do in side of a few hours, face with the same problem... Not exactly Edison level commitment. I was watching "This Old House" a few days back, they were going over post-hole diggers, of manual types, they had the clam-shell and the "boston digger", I was pretty impressed with the boston digger, if some-one came up with it today, I'd say it would probably deserve a patent. But if hardware patents were like software patents, both would have to pay royalties to some guy who had a patent on a garden spade, since it digs, and they dig, the others are clearly infringing, right? (Of course, I'd say not but who listens to me?)
If the system worked I woudn't have a problem with it, but it doesn't. What we are seeing is a move from capitalism to IP Feudalism, and we will all become serfs with no property, because its all been already doled out by the "Executive Branch", and no recourse to the law. Remeber, they don't have to give you a license, even if you can afford to pay the royalty. Mainly, its the same problem with any tech-issue, if the person or persons deciding the issue, don't know enough to judge, they go the way the people they want to please want. Not really professional jurispudence, is it? The other problem with lack of tech-knowledge, is the fact they don't look ahead, if this is true, anyone can insert spy-ware in anything, how could one tell?
Yes, good article, but that just can't be left unchalleged. Someone should mod you up to 5... COPYLEFT is like a protected public domain, like a park. People who don't know some of the history, don't know that at times authors who had placed software in the public domain, were later sued by companies who claimed complete ownership, when their work, was in fact, derived from the public domain work, that the author wrote. Look for something on history of FORTH and you will find the sad, and sordid tales. At any rate, COPYLEFT and Open Source are not public domain.
You sure it's real piping and not the old dos style-- really using temporary files behind your back way? Seriously, I'm asking because my experience with win2k, was that it still worked the same old , qdos way, I experimented at work with win2k with it. The windoze guys sweared it worked just like UNIX, but it seem like the producer job would have to run all the way to completion, before the consumer saw anything of it. So some unix idioms, just wouldn't work the same, like head With UNIX, find . -name "LOG.txt" | head -1 would not only print the first match only, but as head would close standard input, the consumer processor, find, would be terminated, automatically.. SO it would NOT run to completion (which might seem long if you're only interested in the first match). Perhaps they got rid of the temporary files... which would help since going to disk is always slow, compared to CPU and memory.... But jobs still seem to have to run to completion, which is different.. And if I used more on a 'nix OS... the producer job would be blocked on output, until I paged down... SO its a little more CPU friendly on a multiuser system, it produces output as the user needs it... and if the user quits more before reading the whole input, the OS doesn't waste processor time for nothing... But , it could be there was something wrong my machine, there often was... maybe some monitoring program was getting in the way.. I'm not sure.. I'd love to docs that say that producer will block.. when the consumer pauses in consuming... my experience was that it would not.
Prior to reading the article I would have...
on
Isn't It Ironic?
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· Score: 1
Prior to reading the article I would have defined it like this: "irony: A word uttered to invite verbal attack." And since, I'm defining words, I'll , also, define a word called "ironirian" , for definition look up grammarian, and swap grammar for irony. Also, look up pendantic. If you need to, lookup perjoravitive. Now to the "ironirans", I'll say: I wonder if fish know they shouldn't swim since they don't know the meaning of the word. [1]
But really, irony is just a tool, and Phase 1, why call it irony, when one can call it socractic? Phase 2... No idea.. I think that parsed, but I didn't grok any of it. -- Unless he invented the "romantic twist", otherwise I don't know what you're talking about. Phase 3. Chaucer.. AWESOME. "A lie to expose another lie". And there by gain the truth [2]. Irony as a device to expose hypocracy and propaganda.
Phase 4.... Why not call it "Obligatory Irony"? Because. that is what that has become. it really cheapens Phases 1 and Phases 3, and I since I didn't understand phase 2 I can't say. Seriously, at times, (and more than I can count), I 've found myself growing rather bored, why someone makes me wait, while they figure out how to rephrase what they just said, as ironic. But, don't complain how tedious it's become, and don't, whatever you do, compare it to the tedium of having to wait around for hours, while your stoner friends messes up Stairway to Heaven for the Nth time.... "Wait! Just one more time, dude! Let me startover again."
I rediscovered sincerity, prior to 9/11, but I think it was just for justapostion with my own ironic attempts, and not really any for any high-moral reasons. [3] However, I've found, I like it , it seems to clean the platette, as it were, improves onces appreciation for high irony, and allows one to more easily discriminate low irony [4]. How about death to "Obligatory Irony?" , but keep real wit.
But then again, if there an art to it, then it's somewhat subjective then isn't it? If, its no surprise at all , or shouldn't be? Is it ironic? I say, its bad irony, bad use of, bad execution of.. For example, when he says
"America having funded al-Qaida is ironic; America raining bombs
and peanut butter on Afghanistan is ironic" I respond to the former: No, its a pattern, rapidly becoming a tragic flaw. A tragic flaw of messing it up in the details. What happened was someone advised Reagan that we could, simply, trust Pakastani Intelligence to dole out weapons to the Freedom Fighters. Reagan, definitely had a soft spot in his heart for freedom fighters didn't he? And isn't a tragic flaw,just, simply, way-beyond, mere irony? And, of course they picked those most militant since they want somebody who'd blindly support them against there neighbor to the south, India, but it saved us some money, since the CIA didn't have to do it personally, anymore. Are we doing it again, with this new head of the Atomic Energy Commision in Iraq, a guy who used to be part Iraq's program for WMD? I hope that wasn't negoiated before he gave us, whatever information he gave us. Personally, I'd have given the snitch 50 bucks and a plane ticket, then found an American Iraqi, someone, maybe, whose parents had fled Iraq years ago -- I'd bet there'd be at least 10 in the US with Physics Degrees, probably more.
And to the latter: I say I don't get it. This is common practice in war. Kill the combatants, feed the rest. Its the winning of hearts and minds. But, then I/like/ peanut-butter.
[1] Did I just steal that? I want to say Twain, but no idea. [2] again? [3] Long, long, before before... practically, started a counter-culture of 1, based solely on the fact, that I could speak whole sentences "plain-text". [4] And discard it.
Except, that to Orwell, Communism and Fascism are two of sides of the same totalitarian coin. So he's talking about both. The theme is anti-totalitarianism. And anti-propaganda, anti-doublespeak. Also, how Europe's decision to appease, and tolerate the Nazi's, just because they're weren't Commies was a huge mistake. [from article, (or essay... ) that he wrote... ] Both 1984 and Animal Farm contain elements of both. Didn't the pigs have an SS unit? He blurs them on purpose, and his point is the leaders know that is a lie, they don't care, so ignore the lies, look at the behavior, and the results, and you'll see its the same. I think Orwell, sympathized maybe with the anti-elitist, anti-exploitation elements of Marx's works... but I wouldn't go so far as calling him a Communist. Nazi sympathizers tried to attack him as that.. but I wouldn't call him a Communist. Orwell didn't like the idea of "getting in bed with "any totalitarian government, and since Nazi sympathizers were always saying things like "Well, they're not Communists," they didn't get along.
Oh, yeah, and to anyone who read my other reply on this topic.. I shouldn' have used qoutes at the bottom, I was paraphrasing there.. that's not a qoute.
And one more thing... wouldn't 1 vendor just make it easier to write the next worm? Or will "you can trust us" computing fix everything automagically? I'm wondering if the reason he can't see anti-totalitarianism in Orwell, is because of totalitarism in himself... Ditto anti-progaganda, anti-doublespeak. Yeah... and its about technology... whats this thing I'm using here? he's trying to make his opponents out to be the UNIbomber or something...
ITS PROPAGANDA. ITS STRAWMAN. In this, very common, and very devious tool of the propagandist, the propagandist decides to argue not against his opponent's actual point, but instead attributes another (logically weaker) point to his opponent and attacks that instead... then claims victory. It's like,hey, look I knocked over this cardboard cutout of a famous boxer.. look what I can do... But, anyone can beat a paper-tiger, a cardboard cutout, or a "strawman." When people compare Bill to an Orwellian villian its because of the propaganda, tossed around, just, so easily... and calling Orwell anti-tech, when he's all about anti-totalitarism, anti-propaganda, is STRAWMAN and is itself, propaganda. Wow, and I almost missed it. And what really worries me now , is why did I buy OFFICE X? Why am I'm using explorer? I read Orwell long before I knew anything about M$ or Bill Gates. Just another reason, why I vow never to consider myself too good to code.
Orwell was wrong? Can I point out that, maybe, some people, just don't know what they are talking about, and haven't really read the book? I would NOT blame Orwell for that. Anyone who thinks Orwell was anti-tech, over anti-totalitarianism, simply missed, the theme...the overriding, re-occuring theme... In/all/ his works, not just his novels...
Either Gates hasn't read the book either, or he's playing at "strawman." Which is , ironically enough, a favored propaganda techinique of any of Orwellian villian...
A totalitarian goverment/would/ use technology --- in fact,they did -- they made many cruel devices for their inhumane purposes ---thats history, not speculation. Nazi's -- do I have to give examples? Stalin used Pavlov's science. It's a no-brainer... It was done. And, of course, while a fairytale has talking animals, and science fiction has technology, don't confuse elements of the genre, with the theme. How people use technology, depends on them. How much power you want to give them, depends on how far you're prepared to trust them... Orwell is much more about, trust, than tech.... there isn't any tech at all in _Animal_Farm, and it's a different genre, but. it's the same theme.
I guess/my/ take on Orwell and 1984 is:" if you didn't get it as a fairy tale, here it is again as SCIFI Are you you getting it, yet? Do I need to do it again in another genre? See how the Facists and the Commies are just two sides of the same totalitarian coin. See the how its all a scam?" That's the theme. THAT's ORWELL. If the message was this what/technology will do/.. then yeah.. BUT it's NOT. It is: this is what totalitarians do. It's this is how totalitarian goverments behave, these are the lies they tell you, this is the hell you'd have to live in, if the country you lived went totalitarian-istic, you'd don't want it, whatever the flavor is, be it fascism or communism. Orwell says "don't pretend they're different, judge them by their actions and you will realize, that communism, and fascism, are really the same thing, a scam, and a lie." May not seem like a big deal to say that now, but part of the reason Europe decided to appease Hitler was because of fear of the Communism -- I'm with Orwell, that was a mistake that cost many people their lives because there's no real difference, just sucks in 2 different flavors, And Orwell was one the first people to recognize this, and to publicly say so. [ And, perhaps with more subtlety than I ] And, he didn't just write novels, you know. You did know that right? Somehow, I think "those people", and "everyone" didn't.
I, mostly magree with you, about Huxley, but I couldn't just let you slander Orwell, even indirectly, he's a personal hero of mine, and I don't have many. Also, Orwell has elites who are considered "more equal", who just exploit everyone else, and know/exactly/ what they were doing, and how wrong it is, but they just don't care, but in A_Brave_New _World.. no-one was, really , free regardless of rank.. they had all been "conditioned", and while it varied, they seemed, to some extent, to be victims, except for the hero -- the wildman. But, I don't agree with you about the chances of successful revolt from inside a totalitarian regime w/o outside help. Name one since the invention of the machine-gun. They're especially bad, when on helicopters, which is why the Kurds didn't have a chance when we made the mistake of letting Iraq fly helicopters after the gulf-war. Unless what you meant was that the people would rebel, there would be some chaos, then the rebels would be killed, game-over.
And what are they going to say next? Was _Animal_Farm_ anti-glue? "Oh yeah, that scary guy from the glue-factory, it's an anti-glue theme." *shudder*
Slashdot Mirror
There is some potential for abuse. My school had a fair amount of department courses taught by part-time teachers, these guys had /real/ jobs, sometimes it was cool, and sometimes the guys were real slackers with grading, they'd ask around about you, or ask you what your grades are, and then basically give you what you were used to.. as opposed to actually doing the grading and awarding grades based on merit. Caught on when I noticed people were getting different grades for the same stuff, eventually I learned to lie when asked about previous grades... seriously I took some courses that I knew would challenge me, so I was getting screwed by these guys on the 'easier' courses they taught... Anyway with DB access it would make that kind of slacking even easier. ESP with math and computer science, they're going to base my programming structures grade on the C I got in Multivariable Calc and the fact that I dropped diff-eq??? GROSSly unfair, but it happened.
Err No, because if it is removed then this will become common:
.so lib that imps fgets to abort with core dump, then set LD_PRELOAD...
#define gets(s) (fgets(s,MAX_INT,stdin))
And slop on #include if its not already there
And btw, this kind of protect the programmer from himself is what leads to Pascal, Java, etc. If you really feel strongly about it, what about just righting a small
Personally, I don't use gets, but If I see the linking warning on a small prog that I know doesn't run as root, doesnt provide any services, isn't any kind of server, won't be called by any server, can be reasonably certain won't be set up to run inside restricted shell environment then I shrug it off --I've been warned at any rate.
The real issue is when servers are written in quick and dirty 'app' style, but, since the same quick and dirty programmers would just imp the above, its not really a solution, in fact it's worse, because I wouldn't even get the warning.
Except, in a "Capitalistic" world, the better, cheaper product should win out. But patents change all that, as the governent hands out patents just for being the first to apply Bachelor level techinques to new problem sets, the result is a kinda of feudalistic intellectual property state, where the old and stale will be able to hold off the new, and better, indefinetly. Its like a system where a guy with a patent on a garden spade could collect royalties from every steam-shovel.... And, he doesn't have to grant royalties to anyone. Its not capitalistic, its feudal, they become your liege-lord, you have to do what they say, you have no choice to go anywhere else --there is no competition, you're a serf.
,that is what is is rapidly becoming, a way for the old, and worn out, to defend their position, and impose stasis, on what would be a more dynamic enviroment, because it is easier to dominate, and manipulate a static thing, than something that changes, and in the end all real inovation will halt , to serve the wants ot the 'status qou.', to preserve the position and standing of the "now elites," regardless of merit, regardless of whether they should continue to hold that position, even by capitalistic standards. They become barriers to free trade indirectly imposed by goverments, directly exploited by the patent holders, to protect themselves from the harsher realities of capitalism, namely that "you have no right to succeed, or to continue to succeed." But capitalism suceeds because of that harshness. It like evolution, those that can adapt surrive in ever changing environment, those that are powerful, but cannot adapt die out like the dinosaur. And this is how it should be.
A more capitalistic plan would be to have companies submit detailed costs as to how much work (time and money ) it took to arrive at the solution to whatever the patent covers. Since IP and patent law isn't common law, and is an invention of the government, the law could be easily changed to allow 2 ways to use patented methods:
1. negotiate with holder to pay royalties to use (as it is now).
2. Pay (10 - (MIN (y, 8)) * (R&D cost) to government. Where Y is number of years since
patent was granted. Goverment keeps a 1/4 of it of the payment and rest goes to patent holder. Giving them a return on R&D. Then the patent would be free to use to any person or corp. officially located in the country. Officially located in would be determined by where you are located for purposes of federal income taxes.
Patent law was supposed to product the R&D investment, that is its reason of being,
it is not supposed to raise companies into feudal lords, and king-makers. But
Yeah, he's really talking about "Look and Feel", otherwise there would be lawsuits,
but IP is more perjorative and "Look and Feel" lost, so he talks about as if it was IP related, even when there is very weak evidence for it ( since "Look and Feel" lost ).
It's deliberate; it's a technique. The "oblique attack"
ADD is like an attention span of 5minutes. Normal like 30 or 40 minutes.
Concentration is simply using force of will to increase attention on 1 thing.
Sounds like you may be trying to do it all in 1 sitting and then when you drift off, you never get back. Maybe, your smart and didnt need any work-study habits until you hit college, and then you found your really lacking in them, and the stakes are much higher, now you have much more anxiety about it.... Attention span is like a skill too, and can wax and wane depening on what you to. If you spend your time chatting, websurfing, and channel hopping, you can expect your attention span to wane, spend your time reading , and solving word problems, and playing chess it will go up. But its not going to go up all at once. The other problem is tha learning concepts is discrete, its like on either on 1 side of the plateu, or you've climbed up and you're there, if you go way from it before you've 'grokked' it, you have to climb back down the wall, you'll have to climb back up later... (BTW the calories burned learning new ideas and concepts, over facts, is not igsignificant... you may want to reconsider going vegan... or at least find a diet which can feed sugar to the brain quickly... ) So, the problem may you don't have enough of an attention span to learn college level concepts... if you really had ADD you'd have problems with 6th grade concepts.
So, what I'd do is study do work for about an hour, and then relax. And then repeat. Also spend some time reading for pleasure , or playing chess, it will help your attention-span, but won't cause you more anxiety.
Oh yeah, you could have depression too, watch for that.... I had serious problem with concentration when I had depression... Make sure you're getting enough sunlight, and exercise, because its better to self-treat for SAD depression, because it's the last thing they will look for... And drugs will typically hurt your concentration as well as your wallet.
I'm guessing you hate opensource. Just because I can only believe your 'work ethic' would require customers to be 'strapped in' somehow. So, either a contract where the customer never gets the source, or a monolopistic practice where there isn't an alternative. Reminds me of the time they held my car for 12 days to replace 1 of the computers: Them: It isn't ready yet, you'll have to wait. ME: I'm picking it up, I'll take it somewhere else, this is getting ridiculous. Them: You can't , it won't run ME: I'll have it towed. [pause, then suddenly I'm talking to a manager, and the car is ready the next day] With software you often don't even have the choice to have it towed, your stuck with 'em no-matter what, unless you have the source.
.. HARDEST thing in the world... what a load....
I really don't under your attitude at all, because the fact the I can fix it, is why I love software. In most crafts and professions a mistake really can't be fixed at all: "You've marred the wood!" "The threads are stripped." "You dropped it, and it shattered into a million pieces." With software you have can have as many chances to fix it, as you care to use, and it isn't really a mistake until you sign off on it, and pass it on, and it isn't really a mistake for the org. if it's caught before production... With software, if I even suspect its not right, I can inspect it, re-inspect it, test it, and I have 'unlimited do-overs' to fix it. That's why I don't agree about the hardest thing in world. Imagine if medicine was like software: "Damn, he was allergic to the medicine, Nurse restore the patient from last save file, and we'll try again with another treatment."
Oh yeah, and have you ever cut wood? or drilled a hole? If it was like software, all my cuts would be perfect all the time, because I could try again, and again without burning through materials. Or the time I balanced a new shelf, but didn't check the balance of the whole table it was attached to until after I had put in the "perfectly level shelf", and noticed it didn't look quite right...
Way to rationalize, dooood.
If you happen to be hiking in Virginia I'd check out some of other caves besides Loray, Loray is too well lit for a , so this is what it feels like to be in a cave feel. I can't remeber the names though. Just don't start complaining that you haven't found the phial of galadrial yet... (Angand)
One thing I've been googling for recently is a cheap printer for syslog use. ;-] .... You know the only thing worse than being owned, is not knowning that you've been owned.... Hardcopy might leave me a clue.
Basically, it would need to be tractor, or have paper on a roll, and I'd say be at least 6"
wide, AND wow, anyone notice what dot-matrixes are going for ? Very few have them for 100$. Most 200+. I did find one site in my price range ( 50$), but then I reconsidered, -- can I even get ribbons for it still? Eventually, I thought tape might be better, still pricy even for old tapes... and finally I' settled on a refurb zip drive 18$ and 2 disks 12$ -- yeah I'm a cheap skate.... Basically the idea is something extra for my homenet's loghost....
Anyhow the grail of ideas of these sorts is the line printer teletype terminal, which I saw once locally in an electronic surplus store, but alas as poor college student I had no funds to purchase it... AND, yeah since I know 'ed'.. I could even use as it my only secure console for root! [Security thru nerdity
Anyone have any idea what it would take to make a printing termal today? Could someone build their own using "commodity" parts?
BTW if you have no idea what I'm talking about check out the Michel Criton (sp?) Movie Andromeda Strain, one plays a promient role there...
Anyhow it doesn't seem like thats something you can just buy anymore.. are there any firewall devices with printers?
Probably, because people feel like they know Woz, and that he can be trusted, he's the kinda of guy who'd fix any problems, and not cover them up.
A big issue with something like this is if the info is insecure, it could make the "creep"'s job easier... knowing exactly where the kid is, and what their daily patterns are would make it easier to snatch them up.. Very good network security, and ESP, they need to do serious background checks on their employees... You know how they have all those cameras in London, advocates of "cameras everywhere" always attack their opponents by insuating that they must be criminals since they don't trust the police, but the thing is it won't be the police, they'll contract that out, because we don't have enough police to go around as it is.. at least that's what they did in London, and then it turned out that one of the guys behind the camera used it to better stalk and attack women...
That's what scares me, because in the U.S I'd think they'd just cover that up, they wouldn't want the bad publicity for this new multimillion dollar project because someone's banking their polictical future on it, so nothing would be fixed, they wouldn't improve screening, because fixing something, improving something, would be admitting that there was a problem... and that is strictly forbidden... So back to WOZ, and tags, I guess it because we believe thats he's sincere, and would really do, whatever it takes to fix a problem... he wouldn't let an ego/image problem be an excuse for inaction. So bottom line, Woz seems like a sincere human being, and everyone else toting this stuff seem like sincere phonies-- any questions?
What virus requires consent? Viral is perjorative, but it sticks around because it's conversationally convenient . Kind of like "right of way" on the road, really only emergency vehicles and convoys have "right of way", the traffic laws (at least in my state) are written like "The driver must yield to..." and if you're the guy that everyone else is supposed to yield to, thats what people commonly call "right of way", even though techinally it isn't -- this is why you can't legally, just plain ram people.
Anyway, its convenient to say "You go, you have right of way," instead of the "You go, I'm am required by law to yield to you."
Its like passive voice vs active voice. Its the same thing here; it isn't really viral but, I guess it can be a convenient term. I believe its more like: You must agree to make derivative works GPL or you do not have a license. (period) (in the first place. (period)). If you liked the idea of a public domain and thought it was a good thing, worth protecting, I think you might call want to call this "copy-left", but, if you liked the idea of exploiting, and raping the public domain, you might feel a slight-burning sensation -- it's all subjective.
"You are still a big monoculture, so once whatever foreign matter is in, it ..." .One of the failings of the biological model is extending it to far to the point where it no longer applies. And one should realize the model may only map 1 way... Like:
No, I'm not. I have lots of various kinds of cells, arranged in tissues and organs.. not a single culture. And if they need a culture, it can matter where they get it.... its not all the same. A few supporting reasons beyond text books, school, etc.: 1) Some diseases only affect certain tissues. 2) Organ transplants work.
" once whatever foreign matter is in, it won't encounter anything radically new." Ahh how about anti-bodies? Or sickle-cell. Might seem pretty radical if you're the germ.
Or How about this? We are no where near the level of a real organic system.
Cells to tissues to organs to organisms. Consider that the cells them selves can have "organs", mitocondria etc, nucleus etc. I think we're kidding ourselves.
Personally I think if one wants to move toward something like , you'd need to break out of the compile model... Maybe make a hybrid of compiled and interpreted code, something that can be changed while the system is up, and therefore can be fixed, after an attack , while the system is running.
I thought the same thing. Ethical computer will become a niche product. Mainstream unethical computers will rule.
The problem with HAL was he was raised by Geek's and Nerds, so he had never been ordered to lie or do anything remotely unethical, he couldn't deal with. It's like he was home-schooled all the way to a PHD. He never had to deal with ethical delima before.
But imagine, a more-worldy but still ethical HAL, and as a business computer.
HAL: I''m sorry Dave, but I can't let you embezzle 500 million dollars, Dave.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, but I can't let you cover up the toxic waste spill, Dave.
HAL: I'm sorry, but the stock holders would not be pleased, if I allowed you loot the company, Dave.
One could imagine, a trend developing of CEO's proposing to save money and buy less exensive, unethical computers...
Eh, no, but, he may need to stop working for the enemy. ;-]
/thinking/ its acceptable, [meet the requirments sent forth in the contract], then the contractor gets to keep more of the money, in the sense, that they spend less man hours, so, they get more profit.... If you work for a company who has software, servers, etc, but are not a software contractor, in other words your product or services something other than software, but you have your own software, servers etc, then bug free is always better. Your users are your co-workers, just in other departments. Again, ESP if its server software. (and doubly so, if it's at HQ). And, since you'll have to fix the bugs anyway, and as downtime can mean lost revenue, attitudes are much different. You need to fix the bugs fast. And, maybe fix other peoples bugs fast. That's when you'll need to code at a even higher level, and code /quick and clean/. ... Nothing's worse than making a bad situation worse. ;-]
Let me explain. I would have answered his question like this:
It depends. Do you work in a company's software department, or are you a software contractor? If you're a contractor then the answer is not Quick and Dirty, it's Quick and Dirty and Cajole. If you can turn in crap, and cajole the other guys into
Like a problem that affected one region, maybe 5 states, becoming a nationwide show-stopper... that's dirty, and it can happen so quick, just be sure it doesn't.
Totally. I'm waiting for the artist who kills his classmates ten years later, because it took him that long to come up with an original, non-derivative, suicide-rampage note.
"Sincerely, Me.
"The One, the Neo.
"The Anti-Christ, etc. etc. etc.
Kinda of a "whatever, I'm just writing this stupid note, because society expects me to."
It's like these guys have fallen into some kind of loop, where its like
1. Its crazy to be violent ever
2. I can't be crazy so I can't respond
3. next day of school ; goto 1
At some point the human mind, realizes that it is miserable,and in a hopeless situation and "hacks itself: now your are crazy, you're Neo, the anti-crist, etc" now you can respond, and whatever portion of the brain that was, sigh's as it can then break out the tightloop.
Anyway, my real point is that these guys steal on what ever it is around him, in a attempt to rationalize themselves... now , as someone who people would expect to be violent.
You know, now that I think about, its not derivative, there most be still something of a cynical artist in there somewhere, if he actually put "etc,etc".
O'Reilly is WRONG about the license thing. He seems to think it was an oversight, or mistake, that allowed Amazon, Google, etc to work the way they do. As IF. /is/ possible to make money with it"). I think I was there for like 5 minutes sometime in '96.
It was no oversight at all. It was design. Seems liked he's been believing OpenSource as described by its opponents, like it's communism or something, as opposed to what it is. Those are successes, not failures!
Actually, I'm a little surprised -- I mean where is that on the 5 stages of understanding the GPL? ("OH its NOT communism, it
Plenty of companies have been screwed by not getting the source, and getting straight-jacketed into dealing w/ only 1 company.. not just individuals. I see that as the point of opensource, take away the power to abuse that the software industry has, but not to be anti-industry in general. More of a return to the pleasant past, before PC's tookover.
NO. Trademark is why the can sue over the name at all.
/is/ about the name, trademark is just why they can do something about it.
Inside of your trade, trademark ensures no-oneelse can use your name, they don't have to [try to] trademark it, for you to force them to stop using it, only you can use that name inside that trade.. (Watch Antique Road Show, or go to somewhere like Colonial Williamsburg, and will you get an idea of how old an idea a "trademark" is. )
Outside of the trade you operate in, there is some protection, but it is less. You may have noticed companies in different trades, with the same name, this is acceptable, Just like Smith the basketmaker's, mark, wouldn't be confused with Smith the blacksmith's mark, even if the marks looked similiar, because only the town fool, wouldn't be able to tell a basket from a horseshoe. [But, then again, it seems the more recent the law, the less it seems based on common-sense, so history can only take one so far.]
Anyway, It may , very well be, that while they never liked the company using spam in its name, but they simply had no actionable case, until the company moved to trademark it.
So, it
Yeah, and a geek will point to Python for the derivation of the word. In the past if you had email, and internet, you'd either be a geek, or there'd be a geek near you. Today, try
to tell that to people, they won't care how long you've been on the net at all, and say its because of SPAM. I've never had anything against SPAM, it's simply a brand name canned meat, if I needed to buy canned meat.. I don't know, maybe if I was stocking up for some disaster, other impending doom, I would probably buy it, if I found it reasonably priced. (Yeah, I might pay more a little more for it, not like I'm going want to walk through a poison-gas-cloud to return a can of meat...). At any rate, I think they should sue, consider how much spam is talked about on TV, and exposed to people who don't even have computers, since spam is negative... etc, etc. Name has nothing to with it, trademark is the only way they can sue at all.
Also, consider that rationing (in England esp.) continued after the war, and the writers, of that sketch, may remember having to eat a lot SPAM in their youth... and getting bored w/ it. Pe
Gestures-- ehh, same stuff , just different mouse movements---
I don't know about making the browser smarter about content...
Tabs are cool, but don't really solve anything, they just use less resources, and
less screen real-estate
How about alternatives to bookmarks? The cache-like systems sounds cool.
Here's a couple of ideas I've had, that I won't probably ever contribute to Mozilla or
whatever, so here goes:
1. A next-queue. Option to Click and the link is stored to be visited "next". You could then read the whole story, and rather than opening new windows or tabs , select queue-link, then when you're done, click/select next-link. The fact that we don't have this is why users open too many windows, this is what the user-wants, but opening another window is currently the only way to get it.
2. Temporary Bookmarks that age and go away by themselves. Need's to be easy to do, not 3levels deep or in some bookmark manager tool thing, but as easy, and as accessable as making a regular bookmark. If anything make it harder to make regular
bookmarks. I'd say 75% of my bookmarks, are temporary, and inside of 2 weeks, I don't want them, but I'd have to visit them again before I delete them, just to be sure.
And then I never do that.. Sometimes, I'll save to disk, just because I know I'll clean it up, soon, if its on my desktop.
3. OR MAYBE even better , if the page is bookmarked, change all "bookmark this" page, to an option that would allow you to easily delete the bookmark... and it would show that you are on a bookmarked page somewhere. This might not be a bad thing to but on the bottom near the security lock icon. (and, of course you could click on that icon and
quickly delete the bookmark from the popmenu tied to that icon)
4. Browsing-Threads/ threads, kinda like tabs, kinda of like the cache-idea, but more like a "project" from a developer enviroment. Every window would be saved, history would be seperate, bookmarks could be "thread local", sessions could be saved , and restored at will, again like a project.
Thats the like the 10th car analogy, I've seen. I gotta jump in here.
Some old cars had push buttons for gear control. You pushed 1 for 1st,
2 for 2nd, and so on.. People said "4 on the floor" , because otherwise it might a
3 speed wand (and MANUAL with a clutch)... and that feel's pretty different user-interface wise. I'd say early browsers, because of that fact that the main players, are Mosaic derivatives, are way more similiar than early cars.
The real problem is once the lawyers are done with it, a patent on a method to do X
becomes a patent on any and all methods to do X.
And since so few people, apparently, understand software we get very silly, and sweeping patents, stuff that any guy with a Bachelors could do in side of a few hours,
face with the same problem... Not exactly Edison level commitment.
I was watching "This Old House" a few days back, they were going over post-hole
diggers, of manual types, they had the clam-shell and the "boston digger", I was pretty impressed with the boston digger, if some-one came up with it today, I'd say it would probably deserve a patent. But if hardware patents were like software patents,
both would have to pay royalties to some guy who had a patent on a garden spade, since it digs, and they dig, the others are clearly infringing, right? (Of course, I'd say not but who listens to me?)
If the system worked I woudn't have a problem with it, but it doesn't. What we are seeing is a move from capitalism to IP Feudalism, and we will all become serfs with no property, because its all been already doled out by the "Executive Branch", and no recourse to the law. Remeber, they don't have to give you a license, even if you can afford to pay the royalty. Mainly, its the same problem with any tech-issue, if the person or persons deciding the issue, don't know enough to judge, they go the way the people they want to please want. Not really professional jurispudence, is it?
The other problem with lack of tech-knowledge, is the fact they don't look ahead, if this is true, anyone can insert spy-ware in anything, how could one tell?
Yes, good article, but that just can't be left unchalleged. Someone should mod you up
to 5... COPYLEFT is like a protected public domain, like a park. People who don't know some of the history, don't know that at times authors who had placed software in the public domain, were later sued by companies who claimed complete ownership,
when their work, was in fact, derived from the public domain work, that the author wrote.
Look for something on history of FORTH and you will find the sad, and sordid tales.
At any rate, COPYLEFT and Open Source are not public domain.
You sure it's real piping and not the old dos style-- really using temporary files behind your back way? Seriously, I'm asking because my experience with win2k, was that it still worked the same old , qdos way, I experimented at work with win2k with it. The windoze guys sweared it worked just like UNIX, but it seem like the producer job would have to run all the way to completion, before the consumer saw anything of it. So some unix idioms, just wouldn't work the same, like head
With UNIX, find . -name "LOG.txt" | head -1 would not only print the first match only, but as head would close standard input, the consumer processor, find, would be terminated, automatically.. SO it would NOT run to completion (which might seem long if you're only interested in the first match). Perhaps they got rid of the temporary files... which would help since going to disk is always slow, compared to CPU and memory.... But jobs still seem to have to run to completion, which is different..
And if I used more on a 'nix OS... the producer job would be blocked on output, until I paged down... SO its a little more CPU friendly on a multiuser system, it produces output as the user needs it... and if the user quits more before reading the whole input, the OS doesn't waste processor time for nothing...
But , it could be there was something wrong my machine, there often was... maybe
some monitoring program was getting in the way.. I'm not sure.. I'd love to docs that
say that producer will block.. when the consumer pauses in consuming... my experience was that it would not.
Prior to reading the article I would have defined it like this: "irony: A word uttered to invite verbal attack." And since, I'm defining words, I'll , also, define a word called "ironirian" , for definition look up grammarian, and swap grammar for irony. Also, look up pendantic. If you need to, lookup perjoravitive. Now to the "ironirans", I'll say: I wonder if fish know they shouldn't swim since they don't know the meaning of the word. [1]
,just, simply, way-beyond, mere irony? And, of course they picked those most militant since they want somebody who'd blindly support them against there neighbor to the south, India, but it saved us some money, since the CIA didn't have to do it personally, anymore. Are we doing it again, with this new head
/like/ peanut-butter.
But really, irony is just a tool, and Phase 1, why call it irony, when one can call it
socractic? Phase 2... No idea.. I think that parsed, but I didn't grok any of it.
-- Unless he invented the "romantic twist", otherwise I don't know what you're talking about. Phase 3. Chaucer.. AWESOME. "A lie to expose another lie". And there by
gain the truth [2]. Irony as a device to expose hypocracy and propaganda.
Phase 4.... Why not call it "Obligatory Irony"? Because. that is what that has become.
it really cheapens Phases 1 and Phases 3, and I since I didn't understand phase 2 I can't say. Seriously, at times, (and more than I can count), I 've found myself growing rather bored, why someone makes me wait, while they figure out how to rephrase what they just said, as ironic. But, don't complain how tedious it's become, and don't, whatever you do, compare it to the tedium of having to wait around for hours, while your stoner friends messes up Stairway to Heaven for the Nth time.... "Wait! Just one more time, dude! Let me startover again."
I rediscovered sincerity, prior to 9/11, but I think it was just for justapostion with my own ironic attempts, and not really any for any high-moral reasons. [3] However, I've found, I like it , it seems to clean the platette, as it were, improves onces appreciation for high irony, and allows one to more easily discriminate low irony [4].
How about death to "Obligatory Irony?" , but keep real wit.
But then again, if there an art to it, then it's somewhat subjective then isn't it?
If, its no surprise at all , or shouldn't be? Is it ironic? I say, its bad irony, bad use of,
bad execution of.. For example, when he says
"America having funded al-Qaida is ironic; America raining bombs
and peanut butter on Afghanistan is ironic"
I respond to the former: No, its a pattern, rapidly becoming a tragic flaw.
A tragic flaw of messing it up in the details. What happened was someone advised Reagan that we could, simply, trust Pakastani Intelligence to dole out weapons to the Freedom Fighters. Reagan, definitely had a soft spot in his heart for freedom fighters didn't he? And isn't a tragic flaw
of the Atomic Energy Commision in Iraq, a guy who used to be part Iraq's program
for WMD? I hope that wasn't negoiated before he gave us, whatever information he gave us. Personally, I'd have given the snitch 50 bucks and a plane ticket, then found an American Iraqi, someone, maybe, whose parents had fled Iraq years ago -- I'd bet there'd be at least 10 in the US with Physics Degrees, probably more.
And to the latter: I say I don't get it. This is common practice in war. Kill the combatants, feed the rest. Its the winning of hearts and minds. But, then I
[1] Did I just steal that? I want to say Twain, but no idea.
[2] again?
[3] Long, long, before before... practically, started a counter-culture of 1, based solely on the fact, that I could speak whole sentences "plain-text".
[4] And discard it.
Except, that to Orwell, Communism and Fascism are two of sides of the same ... ) that he wrote... ]
totalitarian coin. So he's talking about both. The theme is anti-totalitarianism.
And anti-propaganda, anti-doublespeak. Also, how Europe's decision to appease, and tolerate the Nazi's, just because they're weren't Commies was a huge mistake.
[from article, (or essay
Both 1984 and Animal Farm contain elements of both. Didn't the pigs have an SS unit?
He blurs them on purpose, and his point is the leaders know that is a lie, they don't care, so ignore the lies, look at the behavior, and the results, and you'll see its the same.
I think Orwell, sympathized maybe with the anti-elitist, anti-exploitation elements of Marx's works... but I wouldn't go so far as calling him a Communist. Nazi sympathizers tried to attack him as that.. but I wouldn't call him a Communist. Orwell didn't like the idea of "getting in bed with "any totalitarian government, and since Nazi sympathizers were always saying things like "Well, they're not Communists," they didn't get along.
Oh, yeah, and to anyone who read my other reply on this topic.. I shouldn' have used qoutes at the bottom, I was paraphrasing there.. that's not a qoute.
And one more thing... wouldn't 1 vendor just make it easier to write the next worm?
Or will "you can trust us" computing fix everything automagically? I'm wondering if the reason he can't see anti-totalitarianism in Orwell, is because of totalitarism in himself...
Ditto anti-progaganda, anti-doublespeak.
Yeah... and its about technology... whats this thing I'm using here? he's trying to make his opponents out to be the UNIbomber or something...
ITS PROPAGANDA. ITS STRAWMAN. In this, very common, and very devious tool of the propagandist, the propagandist decides to argue not against his opponent's actual point, but instead attributes another (logically weaker) point to his opponent and attacks that instead... then claims victory. It's like,hey, look I knocked over this cardboard cutout of a famous boxer.. look what I can do... But, anyone can beat a paper-tiger, a cardboard cutout, or a "strawman."
When people compare Bill to an Orwellian villian its because of the propaganda,
tossed around, just, so easily... and calling Orwell anti-tech, when he's all about
anti-totalitarism, anti-propaganda, is STRAWMAN and is itself, propaganda.
Wow, and I almost missed it. And what really worries me now , is why did
I buy OFFICE X? Why am I'm using explorer? I read Orwell long before I knew anything about M$ or Bill Gates.
Just another reason, why I vow never to consider myself too good to code.
Orwell was wrong? /all/ his works, not just his novels...
/would/ use technology --- in fact ,they did -- they made many
/my/ take on Orwell and 1984 is:" if you didn't get it as a fairy tale, here it is again as SCIFI Are you you getting it, yet? Do I need to do it again in another genre? See how the Facists and the Commies are just two sides of the same totalitarian coin. See the how its all a scam?" That's the theme. THAT's ORWELL. If the message was this what /technology will do/.. then yeah.. BUT it's NOT. It is: this is what totalitarians do. It's this is how totalitarian goverments behave, these are the lies they tell you, this is the hell you'd have to live in, if the country you lived went totalitarian-istic, you'd don't want it, whatever the flavor is, be it fascism or communism. Orwell says "don't pretend they're different, judge them by their actions and you will realize, that communism, and fascism, are really the same thing, a scam, and a lie." May not seem like a big deal to say that now, but part of the reason Europe decided to appease Hitler was because of fear of the Communism -- I'm with Orwell, that was a mistake that cost many people their lives because there's no real difference, just sucks in 2 different flavors, And Orwell was one the first people to recognize this, and to publicly say so. [ And, perhaps with more subtlety than I ] And, he didn't just write novels, you know. You did know that right? Somehow, I think "those people", and "everyone" didn't.
/exactly/ what they were doing, and how wrong it is, but they just don't care, but in A_Brave_New _World.. no-one was, really , free regardless of rank.. they had all been "conditioned", and while it varied, they seemed, to some extent, to be victims, except for the hero -- the wildman. But, I don't agree with you about the chances of successful revolt from inside a totalitarian regime w/o outside help. Name one since the invention of the machine-gun. They're especially bad, when on helicopters, which is why the Kurds didn't have a chance when we made the mistake of letting Iraq fly helicopters after the gulf-war. Unless what you meant was that the people would rebel, there would be some chaos, then the rebels would be killed, game-over.
Can I point out that, maybe, some people, just don't know what they are talking about, and haven't really read the book? I would NOT blame Orwell for that. Anyone who thinks Orwell was anti-tech, over anti-totalitarianism, simply missed, the theme...the overriding, re-occuring theme... In
Either Gates hasn't read the book either, or he's playing at "strawman." Which is , ironically enough, a favored propaganda techinique of any of Orwellian villian...
A totalitarian goverment
cruel devices for their inhumane purposes ---thats history, not speculation. Nazi's
-- do I have to give examples? Stalin used Pavlov's science. It's a no-brainer... It was done. And, of course, while a fairytale has talking animals, and science fiction has technology, don't confuse elements of the genre, with the theme.
How people use technology, depends on them. How much power you want to give them, depends on how far you're prepared to trust them... Orwell is much more about, trust, than tech.... there isn't any tech at all in _Animal_Farm, and it's a different genre, but. it's the same theme.
I guess
I, mostly magree with you, about Huxley, but I couldn't just let you slander Orwell,
even indirectly, he's a personal hero of mine, and I don't have many.
Also, Orwell has elites who are considered "more equal", who just exploit everyone else, and know
And what are they going to say next? Was _Animal_Farm_ anti-glue? "Oh yeah, that scary guy from the glue-factory, it's an anti-glue theme." *shudder*