I'm not a lawyer, I'm a software developer. But in all seriousness, it's not a straw man argument: if people use a service like this, it is open to being used in a court. Email is used in course (cf Microsoft), and most people thought email was private (see German legal system and Gmail). Information will be free, and it will be used. By whoever wants to use it...
Sorry, bit pissed. It's a holiday. Cheers!
Sexual harrassment cases?
"Sir, we have evidence that, during a meeting Ms. Hotbabe walked in at 10.35 and your heart rate rose 20 beats a second. Are you seriously suggesting you were not dangerously aroused in her presence?"
"Atkins, you're not stressed and you don't need a holiday. Your figures prove it."
So what does this tell us? That germs are all around us, all the time. Get over it. Exposure to germs and bacteria is essential for maintaining good health over the long term. If you want to be free of germs, live in a bubble.
Absolutely. It's not the same. The article is a little tendentious too. I suspect from the vague wording that California had different laws (the article suggests that law enforcers could not get out there, which is simply ludicrous) to the rest of the US. In which case, they were within the law, which P2P in the US users are plainly not.
"This was the most pleasing part of the trial. Here the users were instructed that they could get help on a particular command with the 'man' command and were given a brief description of how to read them. They particularly liked the clear, consistent layout and references to other useful commands."
I'm sorry but this has got to be bullshit. I'm only now coming to terms with man pages and I still use a script that takes the contents of everyone's.bashrc file and gets me examples of a command's use rather than wade through them.
If the above is true, I wonder if those dudes are available for hire?
I think we techies need to get over even this complaint. If you're trying to do your job under pressure, you don't want to have to read a manual (which isn't usually transparently written/laid out anyway - man pages to a budding coder, anyone?) for something that should be incidental and transparent to your main duties. In fact, it's rather like techies complaining about having to deal with "idiot" bosses. They have different skills to you. Deal. You enjoy tinkering with things and reading manuals and understanding how things work. They can eat expensive dinners and play golf. They don't want to have to understand how everything works - that's what they pay us for.
Seems fair enough: high would be "can the bad guys get in?" and medium would be: "once in, can the bad guys do any damage?" If someone unauthorised/untrusted has user privileges, a lot of damage could still be done, and is worrying in itself.
I'm not sure as to the use of this for general computing, but I can see the virtue of this for things like TV Set Top Boxes, which routinely download applications/middleware/OSes from the broadcast stream/cable.
If you trust the source and the network is secure, what's the problem? It's as safe as running an exe on your windows box...
"Also your analogy, IMO, is a bit off. A neuron cannot do anything by itself, if you want to compare a brain to a neuron, it would be more like VHLL = brain, opcode = neuron. I don't know exactly what a good analogy would be, maybe like those little russian dolls that fit inside each other."
What I was trying to get across was that because something is composed or reduced to something else (eg brain can be reduced to neurons, Java to assembler) does not mean that understanding the latter means understanding the former.
Understanding something in a higher-level way will give you a different viewpoint and powers than at a lower level. Not that either are useless - far from it - but than knowledge of one does not imply knowledge of the other, even if there is a mapping of one to the other. (cf Goedel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter).
Your final statement I completely agree with. It's why algorithms and data structures courses are ultimately the most important courses I took, not Java or even C++.
Interesting what you say about GUI development. I did not know that.
Saying that the difference between OO and assembler is just syntax because one "translates down" into another is like saying that the brain is the same as neurons. They are not the same. They are different *because* in some respects they are both simple and in some respects they are complicated. OO is simple on some levels because much complexity is shielded from you, but in others it is very complicated and subtle when done properly and well.
"they won't be writing moronic loops"
You don't need to know assembler not to write moronic loops.
Picking up new languages quickly comes from two things: knowing what's going on under the hood and experience of others of similar type.
At work here we develop using scripting languages, hiring bright young devs. Beating gratiutously applied OO principles out of them is our main problem. The difference between languages of all kinds is not just syntax: language determines thought processes as well as vice versa.
I stand by my original response: if you know assembler even very well, this does not make you a good and hireworthy developer in all or even most cases.
Seriously, does anyone do GUI development in assembler?
It sort of pisses me off, because I don't want to put gay little buzzwords in my resume like C#, or Java, or.NET. I should be able to put down "Assembler: x86, z80, s/390" and the idiot HR guy should know everything else is a simple matter of syntax.
Nonsense. "Everything else" is not a matter of syntax. What about OO paradigms, for example, or database connections? And if you've only used a lower-level language, your experience and understanding of development will be limited; only the most perverse programmer would develop GUIs in a low-level language.
Obviously being able to code in assembler is an essential skill for anybody who wants to code properly, but if you said that to me in an interview that would put me off you, rather than your lack of knowledge of Java.
The creator of what anti-virus experts say is the fastest spreading virus ever on the Internet signed MyDoom and MyDoom.B with "andy," and left the following message in the latter version: "I'm just doing my job, nothing personal, sorry."
"Our interpretation is that he's apologizing to the general public," Jimmy Kuo, research fellow for anti-virus software maker Network Associates Technology Inc., said. "Our guess is that someone is paying him to write this thing."
Wow, with the skills of inference demonstrated here, I feel safer already...
Fair enough. That particular crit was based on a friend of mine who spends a *lot* of money on high-spec sound equipment and was disappointed by the iPod's low bit rate "given it's one of the most expensive mp3 players around".
Absolutely. Sounds like a waste of money to me when all you're doing is moving data around. Then again, one of the main criticisms of the iPod is that it is style over substance (short battery life, poor sound quality, overpriced), rather like certain films I could think of...
"Eminem allowed Yankovic to redo the track from his hit 8 Mile soundtrack, warning that he would need to hear the final mix before granting video rights."
Actually, I disagree. Reading the posts elsewhere, it seems like as though the Kazaa folks do indeed have a case for infringement of the terms of the license.
I haven't read the terms of the license (who does?) but doesn't it also prevent users from using the software illegally. In that case, can anyone *force* them to sue home users who use the software illegally?
I'm not a fervent supporter of either party in this but if Sharman Networks win this case, my sympathy for the entertainment corporations would increase dramatically...
The law would be a [sic] ass, and not a particularly great one at that.
Me neither. Professor's just don't have the time, energy or, most importantly, motivation to laboriously check every essay.
Although... there could be a market for a plagiarism checker that checks statistically odd collocations of works against google searches... Excuse me, I may be gone for some time.
This revolving door system where the teacher doesn't even know who's in his class, and he doesn't even have the time to read all the essays, well, something is wrong with that
True, but a whole separate issue.
Yes, responsibility and no plagiarism is an important part of a good education, but this itellectual property crap is quite over emphasized these days. None of you know anything completely on your own, just by coming into the world, you're all indebted to the people you've learned from.
There's a difference between intellectual debt and plain plagiarism: one is digesting someone else's work and being influenced by it; the other is cut and paste. The latter is what we're talking about here, so the rest of your post is rendered somewhat redundant. Further, if you are asked to produce an essay, and you simply copy one, even if you copy it out by hand and learn it by heart, then you are not doing what you are asked for.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm resigning from Slashdot. I believe someone working for the military posted from here recently.
I'm not a lawyer, I'm a software developer. But in all seriousness, it's not a straw man argument: if people use a service like this, it is open to being used in a court. Email is used in course (cf Microsoft), and most people thought email was private (see German legal system and Gmail). Information will be free, and it will be used. By whoever wants to use it... Sorry, bit pissed. It's a holiday. Cheers!
Only if she went down- I mean hers, only if hers went down!
Sexual harrassment cases? "Sir, we have evidence that, during a meeting Ms. Hotbabe walked in at 10.35 and your heart rate rose 20 beats a second. Are you seriously suggesting you were not dangerously aroused in her presence?" "Atkins, you're not stressed and you don't need a holiday. Your figures prove it."
So what does this tell us? That germs are all around us, all the time. Get over it. Exposure to germs and bacteria is essential for maintaining good health over the long term. If you want to be free of germs, live in a bubble.
I think you mean our spelling's gone way downhill, and we need spelling lessons.
Absolutely. It's not the same. The article is a little tendentious too. I suspect from the vague wording that California had different laws (the article suggests that law enforcers could not get out there, which is simply ludicrous) to the rest of the US. In which case, they were within the law, which P2P in the US users are plainly not.
I'm sorry but this has got to be bullshit. I'm only now coming to terms with man pages and I still use a script that takes the contents of everyone's .bashrc file and gets me examples of a command's use rather than wade through them.
If the above is true, I wonder if those dudes are available for hire?
I think we techies need to get over even this complaint. If you're trying to do your job under pressure, you don't want to have to read a manual (which isn't usually transparently written/laid out anyway - man pages to a budding coder, anyone?) for something that should be incidental and transparent to your main duties. In fact, it's rather like techies complaining about having to deal with "idiot" bosses. They have different skills to you. Deal. You enjoy tinkering with things and reading manuals and understanding how things work. They can eat expensive dinners and play golf. They don't want to have to understand how everything works - that's what they pay us for.
Seems fair enough: high would be "can the bad guys get in?" and medium would be: "once in, can the bad guys do any damage?" If someone unauthorised/untrusted has user privileges, a lot of damage could still be done, and is worrying in itself.
You are wrong. I don't know this is fact, but knowing this makes its discovery so much easier.
I'm not sure as to the use of this for general computing, but I can see the virtue of this for things like TV Set Top Boxes, which routinely download applications/middleware/OSes from the broadcast stream/cable.
If you trust the source and the network is secure, what's the problem? It's as safe as running an exe on your windows box...
...so when are they going to put these on guns?
What I was trying to get across was that because something is composed or reduced to something else (eg brain can be reduced to neurons, Java to assembler) does not mean that understanding the latter means understanding the former.
Understanding something in a higher-level way will give you a different viewpoint and powers than at a lower level. Not that either are useless - far from it - but than knowledge of one does not imply knowledge of the other, even if there is a mapping of one to the other. (cf Goedel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter).
Your final statement I completely agree with. It's why algorithms and data structures courses are ultimately the most important courses I took, not Java or even C++.
Interesting what you say about GUI development. I did not know that.
You don't need to know assembler not to write moronic loops.
Picking up new languages quickly comes from two things: knowing what's going on under the hood and experience of others of similar type.
At work here we develop using scripting languages, hiring bright young devs. Beating gratiutously applied OO principles out of them is our main problem. The difference between languages of all kinds is not just syntax: language determines thought processes as well as vice versa.
I stand by my original response: if you know assembler even very well, this does not make you a good and hireworthy developer in all or even most cases.
Seriously, does anyone do GUI development in assembler?
Nonsense. "Everything else" is not a matter of syntax. What about OO paradigms, for example, or database connections? And if you've only used a lower-level language, your experience and understanding of development will be limited; only the most perverse programmer would develop GUIs in a low-level language.
Obviously being able to code in assembler is an essential skill for anybody who wants to code properly, but if you said that to me in an interview that would put me off you, rather than your lack of knowledge of Java.
Wow, with the skills of inference demonstrated here, I feel safer already...
Fair enough. That particular crit was based on a friend of mine who spends a *lot* of money on high-spec sound equipment and was disappointed by the iPod's low bit rate "given it's one of the most expensive mp3 players around".
Absolutely. Sounds like a waste of money to me when all you're doing is moving data around. Then again, one of the main criticisms of the iPod is that it is style over substance (short battery life, poor sound quality, overpriced), rather like certain films I could think of...
Rights, not blessing.
Looks like he does have to get permission (as you'd expect). Yahoo news
I haven't read the terms of the license (who does?) but doesn't it also prevent users from using the software illegally. In that case, can anyone *force* them to sue home users who use the software illegally?
I'm not a fervent supporter of either party in this but if Sharman Networks win this case, my sympathy for the entertainment corporations would increase dramatically...
The law would be a [sic] ass, and not a particularly great one at that.
Although... there could be a market for a plagiarism checker that checks statistically odd collocations of works against google searches... Excuse me, I may be gone for some time.
Uh, don't think I said that, did I?
Beta double minus.