It's in the virus's best interest that the host survive. Therefore, a virus that heals the host rather than harming, is more likely to live and infect more hosts.
This development makes me wonder whether we already have other natural, benign viruses helping us out.
Nerds tend to be suspicious of authority; they also dislike inefficiency. Even if they don't follow the (capital "L") Libertarian ideology, as a general rule they value liberty over equality; efficiency over equity. I suspect that this preference arises because nerds tend to view everything through the metaphor of machinery, and they want government to operate like a well-maintained machine.
Even nerd liberals or nerd conservatives (most of those I know here in the San Francisco Bay Area are the former) tend towards the libertarian side of their ideologies. Nerd liberals tend to be fiscally conservative and civilly libertarian, as liberals go. Nerd conservatives prefer Barry Goldwater to George W. Bush.
Exactly! I ride a bicycle to work every day. This sounds like some sort of horrendous nightmare to me, turning every intersection into a sort of freeway-like wasteland.
We already *have* freeways. Traffic engineers should work on slowing cars on surface streets.
No, they're separate issues. This kind of accusation is exactly why it's so important to make sure we don't conflate one with the other. When I talk to non-geeks about these issues, I'm always careful to point out the distinction and how it's intellectually consistent to support FOSS while not supporting unauthorized downloads of copyrighted music. That is, FOSS is the position, "I created this thing and I want to share it," or, "I want to use this thing that someone shared." Unauthorized music downloads are, "I want to use this thing whether the creator is sharing it or not."
The intellectual consistency between the two positions is strong enough that noone should have to defend their position on the RIAA when defending FOSS.
Yes, and not just shareware and freeware but *any* software that allows multiple copies. Perhaps I'm understanding the reasoning incorrectly, but it seems to indicate that everyone can have only one copy of any piece of software per . . . what? Per computer? Per person? Per CPU?
It seems as though if you take it back far enough (and everything post-1923 is covered by copyright, right?), there are a lot of *really* important pieces of code that you need more than one copy of to run just about anything. Therefore, the logical extension of this argument is ridiculous.
By the argument of this notion, it would be illegal for students to make multiple copies of a piece of code displayed on a chalkboard by a computer science professor, for example.
Having been a nerd at least once in my life, I was curious about this article. I don't agree with a few of the author's statements, for example,
"Being smart doesn't make you an outcast in elementary school."
I definitely got picked on for being a nerd all through elementary school! I agree with the author that junior high is the worst but I guess I was lucky. High school wasn't bad at all. I grew up in the 80s near a college campus with an excellent radio station and picked up a few social queues from college students. I affected some punk rock influence in dress and musical tastes and . . . surprise! Nobody picked on me anymore.
David Sedaris talks about how when he started wearing black and snarling, the mean kids left him alone. He wasn't really any more dangerous than he had been, but the kids didn't know better. It's pretty easy. Just act a *little* menacing and surly and the mean kids will stay away. You can keep playing with computers at home.
Slashdot Mirror
That must be some lifeform.
Quit putting hand puppet shadows on my Internet!
It's in the virus's best interest that the host survive. Therefore, a virus that heals the host rather than harming, is more likely to live and infect more hosts.
This development makes me wonder whether we already have other natural, benign viruses helping us out.
IANAL, but if I can dig up the receipt for my Treo 270 (purchased in May, 2003), I think that might qualify as prior art.
So that's what the cool kids are doing these days? Good grief!
Nerds tend to be suspicious of authority; they also dislike inefficiency. Even if they don't follow the (capital "L") Libertarian ideology, as a general rule they value liberty over equality; efficiency over equity. I suspect that this preference arises because nerds tend to view everything through the metaphor of machinery, and they want government to operate like a well-maintained machine.
Even nerd liberals or nerd conservatives (most of those I know here in the San Francisco Bay Area are the former) tend towards the libertarian side of their ideologies. Nerd liberals tend to be fiscally conservative and civilly libertarian, as liberals go. Nerd conservatives prefer Barry Goldwater to George W. Bush.
Is the estate of John Cage, of course!
Just require a chat channel along with the poker game. If the chat isn't sufficiently "human" sounding, kick out the (presumed) bot.
Exactly! I ride a bicycle to work every day. This sounds like some sort of horrendous nightmare to me, turning every intersection into a sort of freeway-like wasteland.
We already *have* freeways. Traffic engineers should work on slowing cars on surface streets.
No, it's just a typo. :)
It's, "Electrolux," not "Elextrolux."
No, they're separate issues. This kind of accusation is exactly why it's so important to make sure we don't conflate one with the other. When I talk to non-geeks about these issues, I'm always careful to point out the distinction and how it's intellectually consistent to support FOSS while not supporting unauthorized downloads of copyrighted music. That is, FOSS is the position, "I created this thing and I want to share it," or, "I want to use this thing that someone shared." Unauthorized music downloads are, "I want to use this thing whether the creator is sharing it or not."
The intellectual consistency between the two positions is strong enough that noone should have to defend their position on the RIAA when defending FOSS.
Yes, and not just shareware and freeware but *any* software that allows multiple copies. Perhaps I'm understanding the reasoning incorrectly, but it seems to indicate that everyone can have only one copy of any piece of software per . . . what? Per computer? Per person? Per CPU?
It seems as though if you take it back far enough (and everything post-1923 is covered by copyright, right?), there are a lot of *really* important pieces of code that you need more than one copy of to run just about anything. Therefore, the logical extension of this argument is ridiculous.
By the argument of this notion, it would be illegal for students to make multiple copies of a piece of code displayed on a chalkboard by a computer science professor, for example.
Am I just restating the obvious?
Having been a nerd at least once in my life, I was curious about this article. I don't agree with a few of the author's statements, for example, "Being smart doesn't make you an outcast in elementary school." I definitely got picked on for being a nerd all through elementary school! I agree with the author that junior high is the worst but I guess I was lucky. High school wasn't bad at all. I grew up in the 80s near a college campus with an excellent radio station and picked up a few social queues from college students. I affected some punk rock influence in dress and musical tastes and . . . surprise! Nobody picked on me anymore. David Sedaris talks about how when he started wearing black and snarling, the mean kids left him alone. He wasn't really any more dangerous than he had been, but the kids didn't know better. It's pretty easy. Just act a *little* menacing and surly and the mean kids will stay away. You can keep playing with computers at home.