I'm going to relay some advice from an MD friend of mine. Scream your head off.
Your symptoms sound gravely serious, and if anyone is telling you to wait "until Friday" don't take that for an answer.
One thing I had a hard time understanding until I ran into it is the triage system at major medical centers. If you are walking and talking, you are not an emergency, and that is often not cool. When you have unusual amount of self-composure or stoicism it can literally kill you. I've been through this myself, I know what I'm talking about.
If I were you I would get in a car and head straight to Mayo and not stop making a scene until I got the full and undivided attention of an expert. And by that I mean someone who can get you your antibiotics in 5 minutes with a phone call. Don't worry about being a GOMER. It's your life, man.
First distro was slackware, way the heck back when.
Not a religious man, but I hope he's OK, and I'm glad the community is involved and maybe can help.
No expert myself, but it sounds like he needs to drive up to Mayo, kick over the triage desk, and refuse to leave until they cut the red tape for him. His descriptions of his problems make me think nobody should be making this guy wait "till Friday" for anything.
There is no difference. Repeat after the BSA. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE. Your joe schmuck employees == your corporate managment == your entire company.
When it's Microsoft's precious "IP" in question, there are no excuses. This is not speculation, this is not opinion, this is a trail of tears weaving back and forth across the country with literally thousands and thousands of people and business, big and small, who lost a few of their holograms, that can vouch.
When Microsoft has its pet army of jackbooted thugs (the BSA) "auditing" the daylights out of you (or your elementary school, or your police station, or your old folks home) they don't buy this excuse. It doesn't matter if you bought those 5 computers used and the seller didn't give you the stickers. It doesn't matter if some 2 week contractor who didn't even speak English warezed Office _and_ stole a box of white out, it's still your business' problem, guilty until proven innocent, "Civil and Criminal Penalties," $500,000 for each count, etc etc... You're still staring down the barrel of a devastating lawsuit or a "relicensing" on extremely favorable terms...
So yes, duh, absoloutely PLEASE run off and for the record we are not nearly bitter or self-righteous enough.
OK, let's discuss why the civil legal system is a joke about poor people, by rich people.
You have just been fired, so no income. Oh, you haven't been fired yet? Wait till they find out you're suing them.
You are an EA employee, so, young, bright, probably some student loans and not exactly a lot of securities in your portfolio.
Decent attorneys cost $250 and hour and up.
A big, savvy opponent can rack you up a five-figure legal bill before your head even has a chacne to finish spinning. I bet 90% of EA employees couldn't afford to finish a discovery.
Did I mention they probably all signed an employment contract so onerous they will end up owing EA money by the time the lawsuit is over?
You're now an employee with a track record of suing his employers over labor conditions. Good luck ever getting a job in this business again.
So, in response to your theoretically very astute point, I can only say this, if you are still giving out green cards, I want to immigrate to your imaginary country.
Now if there's a government agency that will bestir itself to investigate a major taxpayer over this issue, that's another story. It's been known to happen from time to time, especially if the campaign donation checks don't arrive on time.
I know what those poor bastards are going through. I went through that wringer for 5 years before I got out. At the end of the day, as long as the potential labor pool is so big, it will never change. Not in this country, anyway.
Excuse me? Please, let's argue honestly. I haven't dodged anything. And by the way I am not a "liberal" and (if you really are a conservative as you appear to be) would probably agree with you on social, economic, or even "moral" issues you wouldn't expect - I was just offended by the dishonesty of your comment.
You said
My take on religion is that you can judge the quality of a religion by wether or not it's practioners become better people by following it.
That actually is a dodge.
Look, I'm not fooled by this stuff, and there is no crowd here, no one to convince but yourself. You don't need to argue dishonestly with me. This can just be a friendly, learning process - you don't need to win even if only by appearances.
Let's just be friends, and think of this more like a gentlemanly sport. Let me play devil's advocate. Your method of reasoning is simple, which is why it's popular. You said:
When you lose this big, and this consistently, there is something wrong with your side.
I'm afraid I agree. Christians can whine all they want about quality and becoming better people, but let's face it, Christ is not winning the popularity contest, and they have to start facing tough facts about why.
Well, maybe you're right about Christianity and Buddhism being compatible. I even hear George Bush sometimes asks Buddha for guidance instead of Christ. I will ask my priest more about this, or maybe I will ask some of my friends in the Church group if they think being Born Again doesn't rule out also being Buddhist.
You can judge systems of belief (religious or political) however you want, but if you won't use the standard you just used a minute ago, then you're showing you know there's something wrong with that standard. And you can find a liberal priest who will marry you to a nice Jewish boy, maybe even if you're a boy yourself, but let's not get too uppity about what most Christians think their religion is compatible with. People can take major offense to things like that.
if you guys are so damn smart, then why are you out the presidency, why are you out more senate seats, and why are you out a few more house seats too?
In other words, "if you're right, why am I in charge?"
Well, I guess this does nail the coffin shut on Christ. I was going to say, maybe Buddhists are ignorant or dishonest about God and his Son and his Life, but they can fool people with clever lies. I mean, sure, people even make the case that Communism can't be so much more widely practiced than our system without, ahem, some unethical means, but you've kind of closed the door on that, since - although I'm sure you are actually capable of more nuance than this, and were only joking - you're saying that might makes right.
People may live in horrible conditions and actually be trapped that way and not able to change, but apparently there are no extenuating circumstances. Contests are only won fair and square.
Since Conservatives are gaining ground in American politics, that's proof positive they are not only right, but can't be doing anything unethical or immoral to succeed. Same thing with Kim Jong Il. I mean, if he wasn't right, wouldn't be in charge, same as here, right?
A Communist Party appartchik living in China will say exactly what you are saying to justify Chinese Communism. Both you and that Communist are wrong. Bad things happen all the time. Sometimes they're extraordinarily bad and sometimes they even stay that way for a long time. Muslims ruled a huge chunk of Europe for hundreds of years... If we were alive then instead of now we could be born and die without knowing anything else. They'd probably say the same dumbass justification you just posted while they were taking your daughter as their third wife.
One common reason for bad people winning is information. Both China and the U.S. are now home to a sophisticated propaganda apparatus. In both cases if everyone weren't victimized by misinformation, they would make different decisions - in our case, voting for more honest politicians (notice I said more honest and not more liberal), and in their case progressing farther through the same long struggle for human rights that we did.
What the majority of people believe != the smartest idea.
The majority of people on earth follow Buddhism, instead of Christianity. If you held a world-wide "election" tomorrow, Christ would lose. So that, by this flawed reasoning, would make Christianity "wrong."
There are more Chinese Communists than Americans. The Americans must be doing something wrong, yes?
I am already anticipating what you will say in response to this, and because I am sportsmanlike I will warn you in advance it is a trap for you.
Take the legend of Jesus, if you like. The majority of people in the city were happy to throw a stigmata party.
China, Buddhism, Communism all await your concession speech, oh champion of majority rule.
Do you read much history? Does it give you the impression that the smartest or the best ideas are often shared by the majority of people?
There are ways
on
Press freedom
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Some of them are novel and have not yet been widely understood. We may employ rather modern technology to process, vet, and filter information through mechanisms not so dissimilar to slashdot's, that could make many organized disinformation campaigns more difficult. It is difficult to imagine such as-yet-unseen systems operating in a socially important way, on a large scale, but it was difficult to imagine the internet itself 15 years ago. The idea is simply to augment existing social and democratic conventions with software that can allow them to scale better.
In addition, surveillance society is coming, but not in the way anyone expects. Within a decade or two audio/video recording devices with effectively unlimited recording capacity will be small enough to be a fashion accessory, or for that matter just part of your apparel. Because they can be carried everywhere and recording constantly, they will be; this will change our whole notion of privacy, really change society as we know it. These little bugs will penetrate newsrooms, courtrooms, boardrooms, and back rooms, despite every attempt to keep them out. They will witness protests, halt arguments about facts, and generally improve the quality of and availability of first-generation source material by an order of magnitude. They will, most of all, make organized secrecy conspicuous, especially because "open" companies, and even political candidates, will win in the marketplace.
Democracy will always be threatened, but it can never be entirely stopped until we lose our ability to be creative in protecting it.
I hate to say this, but I am starting to see a pattern here.
Find successful, interesting, or promising open-source/free-software product.
Steal that product's code.
Get your "new" commercial/pseudo-commercial/"subscription coerced" project covered on Slashdot
Profit!!!!
And the sick fact is, this moneymaking scheme works. How much money do you think "CherryOS" has made since/. linked to it? Not much by some standards, but certainly something! Now, how much did they spend to make it? How much profit?
I must have smarter ISPs or something. I've gotten fewer than 5 spams this year, and never more than 50/year across the past decade. That's not to say it isn't a problem- the public has lost an important ability to freely hang out your email address for unsolicited correspondence on topics of interest. But it's not apocalyptic.
You are kind of insinuating I am just unlucky. But this is purely a factor of your address's age and what you've done with it. My address is old (1992) and I haven't kept it secret or changed it. All this means is that it has been published on websites, associated with some usenet posts, and given during purchases to many retailers, some of which are bound to be shady with regards to their privacy policy.
Spam filters are great, right? Half the time you never see the false positivies, so we tend to overestimate their acurracy. But no matter, now they're required for me and millions of other people to use their email every day.
But if you read back I made a point of saying "for many applications." This is because the process is greatly accelerated for many kinds of email addresses - i.e. those which must be published on the web, where they can be picked up by crawlers. I made some money this year helping two major online news sites (who will be comfortably anonymous by virtue of how common this process is) sanitize away every internal email address on their site (i.e. info@ editor@ citydesk@ writerxy@) and replace them with HTML forms because the volume of spam for any non-secret address increases rapidly until it is impossible work to sort through it all without a spam filter.
Hence, for many applications email is becoming useless. And if you check again, you will see that I never claimed this is was apocalyptic - only that it was an example of the problem of scale. Most people didn't think about it until it happened.
Statements like that aren't worth the time to refute.
Certainly, you're not required to. Keep in mind, though: I have backed this statement up carefully and in detail, so I put forth that it is only not worth the time to refute because it is very difficult, if at all possible, to do so.
WHAT encumbered country? They're rare today, and another one dies every few years. It's called WIPO. Even though some Banana Republics will host regenade programmers, executing that code inside WTO nations will earn you a BSA audit, or worse.
You mean what unencumbered country? Most! Europe is currently debating about whether or not to recognize software patents - they currently do not. Similar situation in India. If China does in any real capacity, regardless of what they say officially, it's news to me.
They're not twisted today, and it's theoretically possible for a non-event to "continue". All that happens is they spend $300,000 on legal fees every couple years. No problem for a megacorp, especially in exchange for having destroyed all small/start-up software houses.
1) They are absolutely getting twisted today. Eolas just won a stunning half-billion dollar judgement against Microsoft. That's not "sued for." That's "awarded." Now this caused a lot of heartburn, and already it's falling apart - I'm pretty sure Microsoft has the beans to make it go away. But the point is, look how close they got. There are now three dozen others who saw dollar signs from that headline. How long before one of these plaintiffs succeeds?
2) $300,000 on legal fees does not seem like a sane assessment of patent-related legal costs. Frankly I've been on both sides of litigation, and count many lawyers among my friends. With a good legal team working against you they can tie you up in court procedures till your eyes bleed and your ears fall off. You will spend $300,000 in one month of serious civil litigation. I'll cite Stallman, referenced in this very article in fact: "I heard of one patent case, the defendant I remember was Qu
Let me try to convince you. You actually remind me of someone talking about spam circa 1995. "Oh, sure, it's an annoyance, but it's just a cost of doing business, you'll never stop it, life goes on, etc." Fast forward to today, when I get 200-300 spam a day, phishing is a multi-million dollar industry, and for many applications email is becoming useless.
You have to think 10, 20 years into the future, and consider what the software patent system will look like as it scales. The body of patents will grow and their "legitimacy" will as well. You're right, currently they're hardly ever enforced. But every year we have more software patent action than the year before. Taken to its logical conclusion, this is a system that renders software development as we know it impossible, and it is simply stating the facts that our domestic software industry would indeed wither and die in that scenario. This is hard to refute, because it is impossible to do any uninfringing software development at all. Certainly it would be impossible to compete successfully with developers from any unencumbered country.
The only option is a defensive patent portfolio and a healthy legal department. But even if you say "OK," write off 99% of the companies in the business, kiss innovation goodbye, and welcome the mini-monopolies of the few remaining giant corporations, that doesn't work against outsider or IP-only firms that aren't in your industry, that you can't cross-license with. So even the big firms will continue to get twisted.
It's impossible to safely work under this system. I cannot find anything in what you say that touches this basic point. The best I can make out, you're suggesting that we'll keep this equilibrium, where most patent holders are afraid to ride the pony too hard for fear she'll break a leg, and we'll maintain some kind of status quo. But there is no equilibrium. All that will happen is that, sooner or later, either the law will change, or we'll move further towards the regime's logical conclusion and software development will become something that's done overseas.
Most likely scenario: you'll see software patents seriously overhauled or invalidated altogether within a year a of any giant corporation (like Microsoft or IBM) finally losing patent roulette and being forced to write a 9 or 10 figure royalty check to some tiny upstart.
I read the article. It's basically incoherent, or rather, it doesn't give enough details to even properly evaluate the idea. One thing's for sure. It does not answer any of the major, show-stopping problems with software patents.
If you have a patent office staffed with geniuses, gifted with eidetic memories, even if every patent holder submits open-source code along with the patent, you will still have a body of hundreds of thousands or millions of patents, and hundreds or thousands more each day.
A software developer will have to read the entire patent database, and then stay current with all the new applications. Obviously this is physically impossible. The end result? Every piece of code is a ticking patent timebomb.
"Hello, sir. I see you are violating my patent on dereferencing pointers on Tuesdays. I assure you this was extremely innovative in 1992. My fee is $1,000 per asterisk, of I will see you in court. By the way, a little hint about court: it will scare off your customers, cost you millions in attorneys fees even if you win (and you might lose!), and take ten years. Your choice."
Software patents are purely an anticompetitive tool designed and maintained exclusively for a few large corporations who just happen to have created large, shockingly broad software patent portfolios. It allows them to sue any small competitor out of existence, and threaten even larger competitors. They have already been seriously destructive to our economy, and their effect on innovation, and eventually America's place in the global technology industry, is an ongoing catastrophe.
There is no possible compromise. The system is inherently, obviously broken - a ridiculous legal con game. Software patents must be repealed, or our technology industry will wither and die (and happily be replaced by Europe - or, if Europe isn't smart enough to steer clear of them, in Asia).
...every time some "paranoid" person starts talking about security. You know who I'm talking about.
They're everywhere. Nobody thinks worrying about security is cool or fun, it seems like a waste of money, a sign of mental instability, even a kind of obsessive behavior.
Everyone much prefers to be surprised and wave their hands when things go wrong. "It's out of control. You can't stop hackers/criminals/etc."
People have a terrible problem understanding scale. Nobody understood at Microsoft that the computer wasn't a little house in the country where you could leave the doors unlocked so occupants wouldn't have to fumble with the keys. When engineers there raised the problems they were scoffed at, disciplined. "Keep your priorities straight. Don't be paranoid." Nobody got it when the first spam was sent and we were all outraged... "What's wrong with a little spam?" How about what's wrong with 300 spam a day? It's just the "logical conclusion" - which is not logical anymore to people who don't like to be bothered thinking deeply about their responsibilities.
The many systems our financial institutions use for identifying and tracking "consumers" are ridiculously insecure. And although the victims wail and now are allowed a few minutes a month to tell their horrible tails on 60 minutes, we as a whole seem determined to close our eyes and race grinning into the brick wall of scale again. How many hundreds of thousands of people have to have their lives ruined before colleges stop making everyone spout their social security number like it's their first name, and the mother's maiden name loses its appeal? How long before companies stop letting $5 an hour employees handle "meaningless" data (with literally no background checks or security controls) that is worth millions when properly exploited?
This is a cultural change we need to kick off. We need to take security seriously. It needs to become uncool to roll your eyes and mock the security expert.
Hmm. I'm trying to decipher this. It sounds like you're backing away from the table. But why stop now, IgnoramusMaximus? You've got a heck of a track record already, but I bet you can try for more.
Go for it. Make up a fake quote, and then turn around and deny you did it... all while we can link to the evidence. This should be good. Or are you getting cold feet at this late date?
Heh. Well, read the thread from the top, then you can see for yourself how his rants compare to the truth. This guy writes his own quotes - he's a pathological liar. Wouldn't be surprised if his entire career was fabricated.
It's good that you replied, so I know for sure you read what I'm saying. You'll be thinking about it, I know, whatever front you put up here. Maybe it will be the start of a positive change for you. Your healing process could begin right here, IM.
I don't make up quotes, in a forum where anyone can verify you're a liar when you do. Someone who would do that, rather than admit they were wrong: that's the definition of someone who needs help, professional or otherwise.
Slashdot Mirror
Nasa says 2005 budget could be lowest recorded.
I'm going to relay some advice from an MD friend of mine. Scream your head off.
Your symptoms sound gravely serious, and if anyone is telling you to wait "until Friday" don't take that for an answer.
One thing I had a hard time understanding until I ran into it is the triage system at major medical centers. If you are walking and talking, you are not an emergency, and that is often not cool. When you have unusual amount of self-composure or stoicism it can literally kill you. I've been through this myself, I know what I'm talking about.
If I were you I would get in a car and head straight to Mayo and not stop making a scene until I got the full and undivided attention of an expert. And by that I mean someone who can get you your antibiotics in 5 minutes with a phone call. Don't worry about being a GOMER. It's your life, man.
First distro was slackware, way the heck back when.
Not a religious man, but I hope he's OK, and I'm glad the community is involved and maybe can help.
No expert myself, but it sounds like he needs to drive up to Mayo, kick over the triage desk, and refuse to leave until they cut the red tape for him. His descriptions of his problems make me think nobody should be making this guy wait "till Friday" for anything.
There is no difference. Repeat after the BSA. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE. Your joe schmuck employees == your corporate managment == your entire company.
When it's Microsoft's precious "IP" in question, there are no excuses. This is not speculation, this is not opinion, this is a trail of tears weaving back and forth across the country with literally thousands and thousands of people and business, big and small, who lost a few of their holograms, that can vouch.
When Microsoft has its pet army of jackbooted thugs (the BSA) "auditing" the daylights out of you (or your elementary school, or your police station, or your old folks home) they don't buy this excuse. It doesn't matter if you bought those 5 computers used and the seller didn't give you the stickers. It doesn't matter if some 2 week contractor who didn't even speak English warezed Office _and_ stole a box of white out, it's still your business' problem, guilty until proven innocent, "Civil and Criminal Penalties," $500,000 for each count, etc etc... You're still staring down the barrel of a devastating lawsuit or a "relicensing" on extremely favorable terms...
So yes, duh, absoloutely PLEASE run off and for the record we are not nearly bitter or self-righteous enough.
- You have just been fired, so no income. Oh, you haven't been fired yet? Wait till they find out you're suing them.
- You are an EA employee, so, young, bright, probably some student loans and not exactly a lot of securities in your portfolio.
- Decent attorneys cost $250 and hour and up.
- A big, savvy opponent can rack you up a five-figure legal bill before your head even has a chacne to finish spinning. I bet 90% of EA employees couldn't afford to finish a discovery.
- Did I mention they probably all signed an employment contract so onerous they will end up owing EA money by the time the lawsuit is over?
- You're now an employee with a track record of suing his employers over labor conditions. Good luck ever getting a job in this business again.
So, in response to your theoretically very astute point, I can only say this, if you are still giving out green cards, I want to immigrate to your imaginary country.Now if there's a government agency that will bestir itself to investigate a major taxpayer over this issue, that's another story. It's been known to happen from time to time, especially if the campaign donation checks don't arrive on time.
I know what those poor bastards are going through. I went through that wringer for 5 years before I got out. At the end of the day, as long as the potential labor pool is so big, it will never change. Not in this country, anyway.
Excuse me? Please, let's argue honestly. I haven't dodged anything. And by the way I am not a "liberal" and (if you really are a conservative as you appear to be) would probably agree with you on social, economic, or even "moral" issues you wouldn't expect - I was just offended by the dishonesty of your comment.
You said
My take on religion is that you can judge the quality of a religion by wether or not it's practioners become better people by following it.
That actually is a dodge.
Look, I'm not fooled by this stuff, and there is no crowd here, no one to convince but yourself. You don't need to argue dishonestly with me. This can just be a friendly, learning process - you don't need to win even if only by appearances.
Let's just be friends, and think of this more like a gentlemanly sport. Let me play devil's advocate. Your method of reasoning is simple, which is why it's popular. You said:
When you lose this big, and this consistently, there is something wrong with your side.
I'm afraid I agree. Christians can whine all they want about quality and becoming better people, but let's face it, Christ is not winning the popularity contest, and they have to start facing tough facts about why.
Well, maybe you're right about Christianity and Buddhism being compatible. I even hear George Bush sometimes asks Buddha for guidance instead of Christ. I will ask my priest more about this, or maybe I will ask some of my friends in the Church group if they think being Born Again doesn't rule out also being Buddhist.
You can judge systems of belief (religious or political) however you want, but if you won't use the standard you just used a minute ago, then you're showing you know there's something wrong with that standard. And you can find a liberal priest who will marry you to a nice Jewish boy, maybe even if you're a boy yourself, but let's not get too uppity about what most Christians think their religion is compatible with. People can take major offense to things like that.
if you guys are so damn smart, then why are you out the presidency, why are you out more senate seats, and why are you out a few more house seats too?
In other words, "if you're right, why am I in charge?"
Well, I guess this does nail the coffin shut on Christ. I was going to say, maybe Buddhists are ignorant or dishonest about God and his Son and his Life, but they can fool people with clever lies. I mean, sure, people even make the case that Communism can't be so much more widely practiced than our system without, ahem, some unethical means, but you've kind of closed the door on that, since - although I'm sure you are actually capable of more nuance than this, and were only joking - you're saying that might makes right.
People may live in horrible conditions and actually be trapped that way and not able to change, but apparently there are no extenuating circumstances. Contests are only won fair and square.
Since Conservatives are gaining ground in American politics, that's proof positive they are not only right, but can't be doing anything unethical or immoral to succeed. Same thing with Kim Jong Il. I mean, if he wasn't right, wouldn't be in charge, same as here, right?
A Communist Party appartchik living in China will say exactly what you are saying to justify Chinese Communism. Both you and that Communist are wrong. Bad things happen all the time. Sometimes they're extraordinarily bad and sometimes they even stay that way for a long time. Muslims ruled a huge chunk of Europe for hundreds of years... If we were alive then instead of now we could be born and die without knowing anything else. They'd probably say the same dumbass justification you just posted while they were taking your daughter as their third wife.
One common reason for bad people winning is information. Both China and the U.S. are now home to a sophisticated propaganda apparatus. In both cases if everyone weren't victimized by misinformation, they would make different decisions - in our case, voting for more honest politicians (notice I said more honest and not more liberal), and in their case progressing farther through the same long struggle for human rights that we did.
Let me try to rephrase this.
What the majority of people believe != the smartest idea.
The majority of people on earth follow Buddhism, instead of Christianity. If you held a world-wide "election" tomorrow, Christ would lose. So that, by this flawed reasoning, would make Christianity "wrong."
There are more Chinese Communists than Americans. The Americans must be doing something wrong, yes?
I am already anticipating what you will say in response to this, and because I am sportsmanlike I will warn you in advance it is a trap for you.
Take the legend of Jesus, if you like. The majority of people in the city were happy to throw a stigmata party.
China, Buddhism, Communism all await your concession speech, oh champion of majority rule.
Do you read much history? Does it give you the impression that the smartest or the best ideas are often shared by the majority of people?
Some of them are novel and have not yet been widely understood. We may employ rather modern technology to process, vet, and filter information through mechanisms not so dissimilar to slashdot's, that could make many organized disinformation campaigns more difficult. It is difficult to imagine such as-yet-unseen systems operating in a socially important way, on a large scale, but it was difficult to imagine the internet itself 15 years ago. The idea is simply to augment existing social and democratic conventions with software that can allow them to scale better.
In addition, surveillance society is coming, but not in the way anyone expects. Within a decade or two audio/video recording devices with effectively unlimited recording capacity will be small enough to be a fashion accessory, or for that matter just part of your apparel. Because they can be carried everywhere and recording constantly, they will be; this will change our whole notion of privacy, really change society as we know it. These little bugs will penetrate newsrooms, courtrooms, boardrooms, and back rooms, despite every attempt to keep them out. They will witness protests, halt arguments about facts, and generally improve the quality of and availability of first-generation source material by an order of magnitude. They will, most of all, make organized secrecy conspicuous, especially because "open" companies, and even political candidates, will win in the marketplace.
Democracy will always be threatened, but it can never be entirely stopped until we lose our ability to be creative in protecting it.
You just gave an informed, nuanced, spin-free, opinion about the American healthcare system.
Someone's head might explode.
Really? "Feminists" (as a whole, you imply) are "*silent*" about the treatment of women in Islamic societies (both abroad and here)?
That's the most aburdly wrong thing I've heard all day.
Tell me, did someone give you this idea? Or did you invent this notion yourself?
Both you, and Slashdot, make a good point. Replace 2 with:
2. Violate that product's license.
- Find successful, interesting, or promising open-source/free-software product.
- Steal that product's code.
- Get your "new" commercial/pseudo-commercial/"subscription coerced" project covered on Slashdot
- Profit!!!!
And the sick fact is, this moneymaking scheme works. How much money do you think "CherryOS" has made sinceIf you think about it, it's a badge of honor to be so vituperatively hated by such an obvious asshole.
Congrats, garcia. You must be doing something right.
I must have smarter ISPs or something. I've gotten fewer than 5 spams this year, and never more than 50/year across the past decade. That's not to say it isn't a problem- the public has lost an important ability to freely hang out your email address for unsolicited correspondence on topics of interest. But it's not apocalyptic.
You are kind of insinuating I am just unlucky. But this is purely a factor of your address's age and what you've done with it. My address is old (1992) and I haven't kept it secret or changed it. All this means is that it has been published on websites, associated with some usenet posts, and given during purchases to many retailers, some of which are bound to be shady with regards to their privacy policy.
Spam filters are great, right? Half the time you never see the false positivies, so we tend to overestimate their acurracy. But no matter, now they're required for me and millions of other people to use their email every day.
But if you read back I made a point of saying "for many applications." This is because the process is greatly accelerated for many kinds of email addresses - i.e. those which must be published on the web, where they can be picked up by crawlers. I made some money this year helping two major online news sites (who will be comfortably anonymous by virtue of how common this process is) sanitize away every internal email address on their site (i.e. info@ editor@ citydesk@ writerxy@) and replace them with HTML forms because the volume of spam for any non-secret address increases rapidly until it is impossible work to sort through it all without a spam filter.
Hence, for many applications email is becoming useless. And if you check again, you will see that I never claimed this is was apocalyptic - only that it was an example of the problem of scale. Most people didn't think about it until it happened.
Statements like that aren't worth the time to refute.
Certainly, you're not required to. Keep in mind, though: I have backed this statement up carefully and in detail, so I put forth that it is only not worth the time to refute because it is very difficult, if at all possible, to do so.
WHAT encumbered country? They're rare today, and another one dies every few years. It's called WIPO. Even though some Banana Republics will host regenade programmers, executing that code inside WTO nations will earn you a BSA audit, or worse.
You mean what unencumbered country? Most! Europe is currently debating about whether or not to recognize software patents - they currently do not. Similar situation in India. If China does in any real capacity, regardless of what they say officially, it's news to me.
They're not twisted today, and it's theoretically possible for a non-event to "continue". All that happens is they spend $300,000 on legal fees every couple years. No problem for a megacorp, especially in exchange for having destroyed all small/start-up software houses.
1) They are absolutely getting twisted today. Eolas just won a stunning half-billion dollar judgement against Microsoft. That's not "sued for." That's "awarded." Now this caused a lot of heartburn, and already it's falling apart - I'm pretty sure Microsoft has the beans to make it go away. But the point is, look how close they got. There are now three dozen others who saw dollar signs from that headline. How long before one of these plaintiffs succeeds?
2) $300,000 on legal fees does not seem like a sane assessment of patent-related legal costs. Frankly I've been on both sides of litigation, and count many lawyers among my friends. With a good legal team working against you they can tie you up in court procedures till your eyes bleed and your ears fall off. You will spend $300,000 in one month of serious civil litigation. I'll cite Stallman, referenced in this very article in fact: "I heard of one patent case, the defendant I remember was Qu
Let me try to convince you. You actually remind me of someone talking about spam circa 1995. "Oh, sure, it's an annoyance, but it's just a cost of doing business, you'll never stop it, life goes on, etc." Fast forward to today, when I get 200-300 spam a day, phishing is a multi-million dollar industry, and for many applications email is becoming useless.
You have to think 10, 20 years into the future, and consider what the software patent system will look like as it scales. The body of patents will grow and their "legitimacy" will as well. You're right, currently they're hardly ever enforced. But every year we have more software patent action than the year before. Taken to its logical conclusion, this is a system that renders software development as we know it impossible, and it is simply stating the facts that our domestic software industry would indeed wither and die in that scenario. This is hard to refute, because it is impossible to do any uninfringing software development at all. Certainly it would be impossible to compete successfully with developers from any unencumbered country.
The only option is a defensive patent portfolio and a healthy legal department. But even if you say "OK," write off 99% of the companies in the business, kiss innovation goodbye, and welcome the mini-monopolies of the few remaining giant corporations, that doesn't work against outsider or IP-only firms that aren't in your industry, that you can't cross-license with. So even the big firms will continue to get twisted.
It's impossible to safely work under this system. I cannot find anything in what you say that touches this basic point. The best I can make out, you're suggesting that we'll keep this equilibrium, where most patent holders are afraid to ride the pony too hard for fear she'll break a leg, and we'll maintain some kind of status quo. But there is no equilibrium. All that will happen is that, sooner or later, either the law will change, or we'll move further towards the regime's logical conclusion and software development will become something that's done overseas.
Most likely scenario: you'll see software patents seriously overhauled or invalidated altogether within a year a of any giant corporation (like Microsoft or IBM) finally losing patent roulette and being forced to write a 9 or 10 figure royalty check to some tiny upstart.
I read the article. It's basically incoherent, or rather, it doesn't give enough details to even properly evaluate the idea. One thing's for sure. It does not answer any of the major, show-stopping problems with software patents.
If you have a patent office staffed with geniuses, gifted with eidetic memories, even if every patent holder submits open-source code along with the patent, you will still have a body of hundreds of thousands or millions of patents, and hundreds or thousands more each day.
A software developer will have to read the entire patent database, and then stay current with all the new applications. Obviously this is physically impossible. The end result? Every piece of code is a ticking patent timebomb.
"Hello, sir. I see you are violating my patent on dereferencing pointers on Tuesdays. I assure you this was extremely innovative in 1992. My fee is $1,000 per asterisk, of I will see you in court. By the way, a little hint about court: it will scare off your customers, cost you millions in attorneys fees even if you win (and you might lose!), and take ten years. Your choice."
Software patents are purely an anticompetitive tool designed and maintained exclusively for a few large corporations who just happen to have created large, shockingly broad software patent portfolios. It allows them to sue any small competitor out of existence, and threaten even larger competitors. They have already been seriously destructive to our economy, and their effect on innovation, and eventually America's place in the global technology industry, is an ongoing catastrophe.
There is no possible compromise. The system is inherently, obviously broken - a ridiculous legal con game. Software patents must be repealed, or our technology industry will wither and die (and happily be replaced by Europe - or, if Europe isn't smart enough to steer clear of them, in Asia).
...every time some "paranoid" person starts talking about security. You know who I'm talking about.
They're everywhere. Nobody thinks worrying about security is cool or fun, it seems like a waste of money, a sign of mental instability, even a kind of obsessive behavior.
Everyone much prefers to be surprised and wave their hands when things go wrong. "It's out of control. You can't stop hackers/criminals/etc."
People have a terrible problem understanding scale. Nobody understood at Microsoft that the computer wasn't a little house in the country where you could leave the doors unlocked so occupants wouldn't have to fumble with the keys. When engineers there raised the problems they were scoffed at, disciplined. "Keep your priorities straight. Don't be paranoid." Nobody got it when the first spam was sent and we were all outraged... "What's wrong with a little spam?" How about what's wrong with 300 spam a day? It's just the "logical conclusion" - which is not logical anymore to people who don't like to be bothered thinking deeply about their responsibilities.
The many systems our financial institutions use for identifying and tracking "consumers" are ridiculously insecure. And although the victims wail and now are allowed a few minutes a month to tell their horrible tails on 60 minutes, we as a whole seem determined to close our eyes and race grinning into the brick wall of scale again. How many hundreds of thousands of people have to have their lives ruined before colleges stop making everyone spout their social security number like it's their first name, and the mother's maiden name loses its appeal? How long before companies stop letting $5 an hour employees handle "meaningless" data (with literally no background checks or security controls) that is worth millions when properly exploited?
This is a cultural change we need to kick off. We need to take security seriously. It needs to become uncool to roll your eyes and mock the security expert.
And here you have a pretty good example of his style.
Does have a certain charming bonhomie, doesn't it? He's really on his steadiest ground with insults.
For reference, an explanation of one of his more obvious prevarications.
Hmm. I'm trying to decipher this. It sounds like you're backing away from the table. But why stop now, IgnoramusMaximus? You've got a heck of a track record already, but I bet you can try for more.
Go for it. Make up a fake quote, and then turn around and deny you did it... all while we can link to the evidence. This should be good. Or are you getting cold feet at this late date?
Heh. Well, read the thread from the top, then you can see for yourself how his rants compare to the truth. This guy writes his own quotes - he's a pathological liar. Wouldn't be surprised if his entire career was fabricated.
So, your attempts to change the subject fail, and you are finally going for the double, eh?
You didn't make up the quote? The one right up there, in the parent post?
Clearly, not.
Right.
Quoting and dissecting copious amounts of irrelevant drivel is your occupation around here, not mine.
Mmm hmm.
So, you're not going to justify your latest outrageous accusation... just going to keep calling names?
I guess that's your occupation. That and lying.
It's good that you replied, so I know for sure you read what I'm saying. You'll be thinking about it, I know, whatever front you put up here. Maybe it will be the start of a positive change for you. Your healing process could begin right here, IM.
I don't make up quotes, in a forum where anyone can verify you're a liar when you do. Someone who would do that, rather than admit they were wrong: that's the definition of someone who needs help, professional or otherwise.
Oh, I did that before I posted it.
You almost make it sound as if that list doesn't make a fool of you.
Or perhaps you'd like to go through the list and explain otherwise?