I recognize that the original poster already said that wasn't what he was going for, but being someone who works in tech support, I have to disagree with you. A very significant percentage of people (I'd estimate about 75%) are ignorant, stupid, lazy, or a combination (by my definitions, of course). The ignorant won't know about Google and will use what's given to them. Barring someone coming along and saying "hey Google is way better" they won't bother. The stupid won't be able to figure out how to change it (this is not MS's fault, though I'm a Linux fan myself MS does a good job of making things easy, but even MS can't do much for the disturbingly many people who can't figure out how to right-click). The lazy won't bother to change it. Thus MS can leverage their OS monopoly to muscle in on a new market. Which is illegal.
Also, do any of the GUI toolkits work well across platforms? GTK? QT? Wxwindows?
(I know nothing about it, I just wrote my first hello world app in Ruby/GTK, I want to write for Slackware and WinXP, so far my app runs fine in both environments, and I want to know if I can/should continue down this path).
Linux: frequently impolite, frequently effective support from the makers of the product. Microsoft: not a damn thing unless you pay. And who wants to do that?
You can't really blame either of them. Let's face it, tons of users ARE stupid, and wouldn't understand the simplest instructions on the planet. There are those, hopefully like me and you, that read the info and get stuck because the info is insufficient, but I suspect we're squarely in the minority.
I can see the portability, but when it comes to space in the case, it's really getting to the point that buying a cheap, not-very-powerful computer is going to be more cost-effective even than this, let alone the higher-end RAID NAS boxes, also from Thecus. The N4100, for instance, costs easily 3+ times what a Linux box with WAY more capability would.
Yeah, greylisting works great, if the sending mail servers behave too. My employer (a small ISP) uses it, and every now and then a remote server has some weird retry patterns that fuck everything up. Try explaining THAT to a customer.
Software patents AT ALL is a problem. I don't care if it was the first person who patented something like this suing, it's just not good for the end user. Suppose MS patented browser extensions, and then sued Firefox or Opera devs... And they probably will start doing stuff like this in light of this decision. I'm no MS fan, but I was on their side for this case. No good can come of this.
Yeah, except that as another poster pointed out monopolies are often a problem. Where do you go when there is no other ISP?
In my situation (Kitchener, Canada), it's a little weird. Rogers is one option, Bell Sympatico (yes, that's Bell the phone company) is another. Everyone I know who has used Rogers at all dislikes the company. Everyone I know who has used Bell in the last year dislikes the company. There are numerous resellers that fundamentally are just Bell Sympatico. And Bell and Rogers are working together to build a big wireless service. So, despite the appearance of numerous options, there are really only two, which have joined forces for at least one big venture. I'm happy with my reseller, but there is simply no competition. If Bell decides that the resellers aren't desirable for any reason the entire customer base here will get the shaft.
I thought it was in beta so long because it DIDN'T have obvious commercial value. If the commercial value is so obvious, how does Google News make money? Also, wouldn't providing such a service potentially bring more viewers to the news site, thus increasing the value of the copyrighted work?
Lastly, although you're right that indexing is not covered in what you quoted, perhaps they could argue that their purpose is reporting? Shrug.
I agree. I also think that even if this IS the wrong thing to do, it's grey enough that their leadership might just have made an honest mistake. And they've done enough good already that I'd be willing to forgive that. If they do other evil later, then I'll change my mind.
All this is of course to the extent that you can actually consider a corporation good or evil, which is a sketchy idea at best.
Those that have been paying attention have repeatedly heard the same old arguments. "More eyes make more security", "Popularity increases the likelihood of being targeted", and so forth. My question is this: If Windows' undeniable popularity increases its odds of being targeted, how can one make a fair comparison of security between it and less popular OS's?
Free porn and crack sites can be used if you know what you're doing, but if you don't AT THE VERY LEAST know how to format and reinstall Windows it's not worth the risk.
Adding to your singing and dancing comment, for the love of God stay away from any programs offering emoticons, custom cursors, or anything else similar.
And much as I love Linux, I still wouldn't recommend it to anyone that the rest of your comment applies to. Well, maybe Ubuntu.:)
Yes, FreeBSD is an OS. It was a joke about some Slashdot trolls that keep proclaiming one of the BSDs dead (I don't honestly remember if it was FreeBSD or not). Apparently the joke is somehow flamebait. Shrug.
I'm not usually much for conspiracy theories, but this one seems as likely as they come to me. Let's look at the evidence:
1. As you say, what motive would he have to fake it? He HAS to know that others are going to try to reproduce it and crucify him for it. 2. He claimed that he was the victim of a long-planned conspiracy. 3. Cloning is probably one of the technologies that someone has a vested interest in keeping nonexistent, or just to themselves.
Because nobody can clearly define the restriction of obviousness, and even if they could, patent clerks screw up (possibly even more than most people since I hear being a patent clerk is a crappy job).
At this point, I'm pretty much starting to think patent systems always suck. Sure the occasional patent may reward the inventor, but it seems these days they tend more to reward rich investors, patent lawyers, and frivolous filers.
Sigh. The material loss from speaking libel is due to people trusting the speaker. Although trusting a gunner COULD cause problems, it's hardly a common issue. Furthermore, it is not the people trusting the libelous speaker that are hurt, it's a third party. As for the other two, I more or less agree.
It's interesting what you say about material loss. You are probably right that that's the reason, although I still think people need to stop believing everything they hear...
I suppose it is legitimate for you to refer to it as free speech, but i think it is equally legitimate for me to use a stricter definition.
And I can't think of any EXISTING places that offer more freedom of speech (I have heard vague hints that Scandinavia may be good for that, haven't looked into it though). However, I think simply removing the barriers to freedom of speech would improve things.
Yeah. Well, either that or I'd stop going around saying we have free speech.
About the first part: "exploiting trust to mislead people to their detriment or to the detriment of a third party" makes me think of a girl that cheated on me. That was harmful to me, and much more so than anything anyone could say about me. Should the law get involved? Should we just make lying a crime across the board because it hurts people?
I agree that speech can have powerful effects, but I wouldn't classify the speech as the part that does harm. For example:
Libel: It is the actions resulting from the trust of the listeners that damages the person spoken against. Sometimes rightly so, other times not, but I feel the government/courts should not get involved in legislating truth.
Revealing Trade Secrets: I do not believe that ideas should be ownable, so I do not feel that the "theft" of them is doing harm so much as restoring the proper balance.
Hate speech: The emotional damage is done by the emotional view of the hater. Whether a racist says "Good evening, my African American friend" or "I demand the death of all coloreds", the sentiment will still come through. Regulating the language isn't going to help. If someone actually kills a black person after hearing the speech, it is the listener's lack of education and ethics that needs to be addressed. The speaker's message will get through even if you force them not to explicitly say it.
Slashdot Mirror
I recognize that the original poster already said that wasn't what he was going for, but being someone who works in tech support, I have to disagree with you. A very significant percentage of people (I'd estimate about 75%) are ignorant, stupid, lazy, or a combination (by my definitions, of course). The ignorant won't know about Google and will use what's given to them. Barring someone coming along and saying "hey Google is way better" they won't bother. The stupid won't be able to figure out how to change it (this is not MS's fault, though I'm a Linux fan myself MS does a good job of making things easy, but even MS can't do much for the disturbingly many people who can't figure out how to right-click). The lazy won't bother to change it. Thus MS can leverage their OS monopoly to muscle in on a new market. Which is illegal.
How about any of the others? Python? Ruby?
Also, do any of the GUI toolkits work well across platforms? GTK? QT? Wxwindows?
(I know nothing about it, I just wrote my first hello world app in Ruby/GTK, I want to write for Slackware and WinXP, so far my app runs fine in both environments, and I want to know if I can/should continue down this path).
Thanks in advance
In my experience:
Linux: frequently impolite, frequently effective support from the makers of the product.
Microsoft: not a damn thing unless you pay. And who wants to do that?
You can't really blame either of them. Let's face it, tons of users ARE stupid, and wouldn't understand the simplest instructions on the planet. There are those, hopefully like me and you, that read the info and get stuck because the info is insufficient, but I suspect we're squarely in the minority.
I can see the portability, but when it comes to space in the case, it's really getting to the point that buying a cheap, not-very-powerful computer is going to be more cost-effective even than this, let alone the higher-end RAID NAS boxes, also from Thecus. The N4100, for instance, costs easily 3+ times what a Linux box with WAY more capability would.
Yeah, greylisting works great, if the sending mail servers behave too. My employer (a small ISP) uses it, and every now and then a remote server has some weird retry patterns that fuck everything up. Try explaining THAT to a customer.
One wonders how a law like that would get passed in the first place. Could it perhaps be campaign contributions by telcos?
Yeah. The article, on the other hand, does:
"Eolas Chief Operating Officer Mark Swords called on the software maker to purchase a patent license instead of worsening the browsing experience."
Vibrators ALWAYS help. ;)
Software patents AT ALL is a problem. I don't care if it was the first person who patented something like this suing, it's just not good for the end user. Suppose MS patented browser extensions, and then sued Firefox or Opera devs... And they probably will start doing stuff like this in light of this decision. I'm no MS fan, but I was on their side for this case. No good can come of this.
Yeah. It'd also be nice if you could find more than one mini-itx case on the planet that didn't look like pure ass.
Yeah, except that as another poster pointed out monopolies are often a problem. Where do you go when there is no other ISP?
In my situation (Kitchener, Canada), it's a little weird. Rogers is one option, Bell Sympatico (yes, that's Bell the phone company) is another. Everyone I know who has used Rogers at all dislikes the company. Everyone I know who has used Bell in the last year dislikes the company. There are numerous resellers that fundamentally are just Bell Sympatico. And Bell and Rogers are working together to build a big wireless service. So, despite the appearance of numerous options, there are really only two, which have joined forces for at least one big venture. I'm happy with my reseller, but there is simply no competition. If Bell decides that the resellers aren't desirable for any reason the entire customer base here will get the shaft.
I thought it was in beta so long because it DIDN'T have obvious commercial value. If the commercial value is so obvious, how does Google News make money? Also, wouldn't providing such a service potentially bring more viewers to the news site, thus increasing the value of the copyrighted work?
Lastly, although you're right that indexing is not covered in what you quoted, perhaps they could argue that their purpose is reporting? Shrug.
I agree. I also think that even if this IS the wrong thing to do, it's grey enough that their leadership might just have made an honest mistake. And they've done enough good already that I'd be willing to forgive that. If they do other evil later, then I'll change my mind.
All this is of course to the extent that you can actually consider a corporation good or evil, which is a sketchy idea at best.
Are you MAD? That was the greatest midway ride in the history of mankind!!!
Those that have been paying attention have repeatedly heard the same old arguments. "More eyes make more security", "Popularity increases the likelihood of being targeted", and so forth. My question is this: If Windows' undeniable popularity increases its odds of being targeted, how can one make a fair comparison of security between it and less popular OS's?
Free porn and crack sites can be used if you know what you're doing, but if you don't AT THE VERY LEAST know how to format and reinstall Windows it's not worth the risk.
:)
Adding to your singing and dancing comment, for the love of God stay away from any programs offering emoticons, custom cursors, or anything else similar.
And much as I love Linux, I still wouldn't recommend it to anyone that the rest of your comment applies to. Well, maybe Ubuntu.
Yes, FreeBSD is an OS. It was a joke about some Slashdot trolls that keep proclaiming one of the BSDs dead (I don't honestly remember if it was FreeBSD or not). Apparently the joke is somehow flamebait. Shrug.
And let's not forget FreeBSD...
I'm not usually much for conspiracy theories, but this one seems as likely as they come to me. Let's look at the evidence:
1. As you say, what motive would he have to fake it? He HAS to know that others are going to try to reproduce it and crucify him for it.
2. He claimed that he was the victim of a long-planned conspiracy.
3. Cloning is probably one of the technologies that someone has a vested interest in keeping nonexistent, or just to themselves.
But then again, academics are crazy, who knows.
As a Canadian, I'd just like to invite them to send more of these "filles du roy". ;)
Because nobody can clearly define the restriction of obviousness, and even if they could, patent clerks screw up (possibly even more than most people since I hear being a patent clerk is a crappy job).
At this point, I'm pretty much starting to think patent systems always suck. Sure the occasional patent may reward the inventor, but it seems these days they tend more to reward rich investors, patent lawyers, and frivolous filers.
Sigh. The material loss from speaking libel is due to people trusting the speaker. Although trusting a gunner COULD cause problems, it's hardly a common issue. Furthermore, it is not the people trusting the libelous speaker that are hurt, it's a third party. As for the other two, I more or less agree.
It's interesting what you say about material loss. You are probably right that that's the reason, although I still think people need to stop believing everything they hear...
I suppose it is legitimate for you to refer to it as free speech, but i think it is equally legitimate for me to use a stricter definition.
And I can't think of any EXISTING places that offer more freedom of speech (I have heard vague hints that Scandinavia may be good for that, haven't looked into it though). However, I think simply removing the barriers to freedom of speech would improve things.
Yeah. Well, either that or I'd stop going around saying we have free speech.
About the first part: "exploiting trust to mislead people to their detriment or to the detriment of a third party" makes me think of a girl that cheated on me. That was harmful to me, and much more so than anything anyone could say about me. Should the law get involved? Should we just make lying a crime across the board because it hurts people?
I agree that speech can have powerful effects, but I wouldn't classify the speech as the part that does harm. For example:
Libel: It is the actions resulting from the trust of the listeners that damages the person spoken against. Sometimes rightly so, other times not, but I feel the government/courts should not get involved in legislating truth.
Revealing Trade Secrets: I do not believe that ideas should be ownable, so I do not feel that the "theft" of them is doing harm so much as restoring the proper balance.
Hate speech: The emotional damage is done by the emotional view of the hater. Whether a racist says "Good evening, my African American friend" or "I demand the death of all coloreds", the sentiment will still come through. Regulating the language isn't going to help. If someone actually kills a black person after hearing the speech, it is the listener's lack of education and ethics that needs to be addressed. The speaker's message will get through even if you force them not to explicitly say it.