*grins* I'll skip the nitpick of the tech details in your post, because I'm sure there'll be no shortage of people jumping in to pull out their ST Tech Refs out of their bookshelves and quote chapter and verse, and speak to why I think ST gets a free ride from geeks.
Firstly, in anything resembling a recent generation (ie: 90%+ of the population of/.) some form of ST was likely a very early introduction to SciFi to them. It's a base premise for most SciFi geeks, they don't really examine it because they internalized it before their critical thinking skills were up to scratch (this is also why you will see people arguing that TOS was the best trek. You tend to form your critical opinion of something the first time you watch it, if you watch it the first time when you're 8 years old, you're less likely to consider the lack of a recieving teleport station.)
B) frankly Trek at least tries, usually:). Voyager had a hydroponics bay, for instance. Most geeks won't nitpick 2001 ethier, for similar reasons. An effort was made to preserve scientific reality (2001 is probably the best movie I've ever seen for that.)
C) Reality is teaching us that maybe we don't know as much as we thought we did. Teleportation seems much more realistic after the successful teleportation of a photon using quantum entanglement.
D) Trek isn't (mostly) about the tech. It's a vehicle for making observations on the human condition, ethics, etc. It provides a mirror in which we can view ourselves. As a child I learned a lot by watching aliens in TNG and how they viewed our race.
E) Geeks, like everyone else appreciate a bit of optimism in their lives, especially now. At least for me, I'm far more likely to tear apart a planet of the apes, we blew ourselves up, sort of movie then I am a movie where the future seems pretty desirable overall. As a human, I want us to go where Trek is.
Remember, what MS is guilty of is not *having* a monopoly, which is not illegal in the states. They are guilty of using power gained from their monopoly to entend and maintain that monopoly.
The fact that you can buy a car from someone other then Ford, and Ford doesn't say to petrolum manufactures, "If you want your gas to work in Ford cars, it'd better not work in Cevy cars!". This is what MS is guilty of (as decided by a judge.)
Um, then it sounds like a good analogy, since there seems to be a 1:1 corrilation between programmers and musicians.
I'll take this a step further.
When I first saw a computer at age 6 (a Vic 20 in our landlords' basement) I *KNEW* that this was what I wanted to do with my life. Like some people *know* they want to be musicians. It didn't matter to me weather there was any chance of making money out of my choice. For years I ran BBS's, freenets, Public UUCP access points because it was my contribution to society. I *HAD* to use my skills, it would have been akin to walking around with my eyes closed all my life when I could open them, the thought was foriegn to me.
I gave away my talents for years. In 'exchange' I got to hone those talents, and eventually one of the organisations I volenteered for offered me a professional job. I still often volenteer on weekends, because I feel it's my obligation. I can do good with my skillset.
Is this the feeling that people who are talented musicans feel? I hope so.
I'm a sysadmin, but if I was a programmer I would write under the GPL. If there was a reason that I had to licence my work, I would choose a similar license to do so under.
Having stopped at 3 road checks tonight, I'd have willingly submitted to a breathalyzer in my car to have it flash a "driver is clear" signal to the police at the check point and get waved through.
From a practical point of view, this would allow the police to set up more roadblocks because they wouldn't need to check each driver, only those drivers who didn't volentarily choose to take the breathalyzer when they got into the car this evening.
Obviously I am allowed to submit myself to a search. Eventually all sober drivers would as a matter of course turn their breathalyzer on when they get into the car, and the cops just need to sit at the side of the road and pull over cars that don't have the all clear signal broadcasting. Which since it's a roadblock that pulls over all cars without a all clear signal, itn't an unreasonable search (at least in the jurisdiction I live in) and we reach a luddible goal (a drastic reduction in DUIs) without unduely impacting people's rights.
I know, I'm gonna get flamed till I'm golden brown for suggesting this, but think about it for a moment.
Most every other device, object or institution that interacts with the general public has a set of rules, guidelines or industry accepted practices that are enforced.
Any device that emits RF energy must conform to the appropiate licencing requirments in the country it is operated in.
Any device that uses electricity must obtain the appropiate certifications before it can be readily sold (UL or CSA for US/Canada).
Motor vehicals of all shapes sizes and types have to go through a whole battery of tests and certifications before they are allowed on our public roads.
Now look at software. Badly designed software has the ability to do harm (MS Lookout trojans anyone?) So why shouldn't software be subjected to some sort of public examination? I'd be in favor of "crash tests" of software packages by some independant body like we do with vehicals. There is no legislative requirment that I know of that manufacters make 'safe' cars beyond the basics of seatbelts and such, but as a consumer, I look at the crash test results and I'm more likely to buy a car that has a good crash test report then one with an exploding gas tank!
As software becomes are more and more intergal part of our day to day life, I think something like the FCC's rules for software might be required for network connected software: This software must not emit any harmful data into the Internet, but must accept any and all harmful data from the internet. Ie: No more buffer overflows.
Ideally none of this should be required. Unfortunatly no software is an island anymore. Everything interacts, and unless we have some basic rules of the road, chaos will inevitably ensue.
I worked for one of the state level governments in N.A. and had access, and "da-buck-stops-here" responsibility for the IT side of "Archives". Archives is leglislatively required to hold in permenant storage, "All materials relating to the ongoing business of the government". This caused some real problems:
1) we had a case of an outgoing elected official low level formatting their HDD on the way out the door. Had to be sent out to a special data recovery lab. (they can do some amazing things with scanning electron microscopes on half tracks and such)
2) there are stacks and stacks of 8" floppy disks, in formats like IBM DisplayWriter, and other chunks of physical hardware that haven't been seen by mortal man in 20 yrs.
Finding a chunk of info is damn tricky, but after you find it, you have to find something that can read the punchcard/papertape/magtape/floppydisk/harddisk in question. And due to a querk in how the original act was written (keeping in mind that these things were written back when data was carved on rock slates and format isn't a big consideration) we were required to keep it in its original form.
I feel for someone with my job in 50 yrs. I ran away from govt work after that. It was scary!
One plus side. EMP has a hard time taking out papertape!
Agreed totally, you seem to have misunderstood the side of the argument I was on:). My point is that in ethier of those cases the US government would (and did in the case of the US airmen) demand immediate release, loudly, and rightously. Where is this rightousness when it comes to foriegn nationals who are wrongly accused by the US (keeping in mind that I'm speaking of the US in general, and that I realize that the vast majority of/. readers probably think more.
My appologies if my inital post didn't make as much sense as it should have, my blood caffine level was unusually low at the time:).
What bothers me, is let's take the converse situation. A MS employee is giving a talk overseas and is jailed by the local government because MS violates local business practice law.
In fact, we saw something similar just recently. A US spy plane was forced to land in China. Putting aside the morality of spying for a moment, the fact salient fact remains, they were violating Chinese criminal law by spying on them, they landed in the country where they violated the law. They were detained. Did the US say, "oh well, they're right, we did violate the law, and should be punished?" Ya right. Why is it that the US feels free to violate other countries law, but when the reverse happens to them they throw on the cloak of righteous justice?
That's hyprocicy, no matter what language you spell it in.
B) Umm, I would kinda consider a sinking ship, or a dragster whose engine was attached backwards to both be pretty much total failures... _I_ would certinally think they were if I had been on the teams in question. Also the "bombers" episode where it worked out that the bomber to crash closest to the target pretty much took it also seemed like a pretty miserable (if hillarious) failure to me. --
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TV Sci Fi, books, music & IP, oh my!
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Andromeda
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· Score: 2
So I was sitting here reading these messages, 'Androm is a hash of [insert 5 household name scifi shows/books, etc here].' And I thought, 'So? Where's the suprise?'.
In music there is a long tradition of being influenced by other peoples works and doing your own riffs off of an existing work. Noone points a finger and says, "You're ripping off Louis Armstrong!" when they go to listen to a jazz artist.
I vividly recall in school during english class when they explained that every book is based on one of essental conflicts. Man vs Man, Man vs himself, Man vs Nature, or Man vs Machine. (Yes, you can animorphize something else, but it still has man-like qualties, or we would not be able to relate to it. The truly alien is, well, alien.) I was devistated. What point was there in reading books anymore? I mean, they were all the same in the end. Eventually I learned to celebrate the differences in books, even books that were very close to each other had huge differences in the details. And that's one of the reasons I read, to be absorbed into a captivating universe. If I'm lucky, I might see 12 completely origial books in my life (arguably original. I personally believe when something's original enough to be considered a new genre, it's original. I know a lot of lit majors who'd disagree. So be it.) does that mean I should forsake all non orignal books? Of course not. Does that make the orginals better? Nope. I know a lot of people who can't stand Neuromancer (admitably, probably not a lot in this crowd, but still), and by my previous definition it was Original.
The point of this rather roundabout naritive is that something does not have to be totally original to be enjoyable. Take delight in revisiting an old friend, looked at from a slightly different angle.
This is the same problem we have with intelectual propiety. There are a finite number of good ideas in the universe, the longer we go aorund saying, "this good idea is mine!" the smaller the remaining solution space for the function H(idea_number) becomes, the the more likely that n is going to hash close enough to n-1 to infringe. Common sense.
Common sense isn't. -- Voltaire --
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I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
-- Commonly attributed to Voltaire, never proven
When you want to say the very best, say it with Voltaire:). Can't think of a better way to say it. --
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Especially ironic is the fact that the ad was paid for with Tobacco industry money (TheTruth is funded by the Americain Heritage Foundation, that was set up as part of the settlement between the Tobacco industry and the States in 98).
Why, I remember waaay back when the state *did* run the internet. Let's see, it must have been what, 10 years ago. It was an aweful mess. I mean where would we be without the lovely corporations like AOL, Network Solutions, @Home? They are just so much more productive then the National Science Foundation (or for us Canadians, BCNet, OntNet, etc.) Oh yes, thank the gods that now when something goes wrong, I have to track down the little local ISP that owns the domain, find out that they no longer own the domain, but that noone remembered to update the technical contact, or worse get a "Sorry the number you have reached is out of service".
Seriously, having worked professionally in both environments, I found the old regulated system to be much easier on the nerves. Most of the people running them were at least competent, if not outstanding, since there wasn't 100 companies competing for their services. You knew when you called the CAnet NOC that you were gonna get someone with a clue. When was the last time you tried to find someone with a clue in @home land to deal with something like a BGP peering problem?
How do you figure? Baulder's Gate was a critical and market success (the later evidenced by the fact that it's spawned a sequal, an add-on, and 2 branches, one of which has its own sequal. This is not the mark of a game that didn't do well. --
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Actually I just caught a show on Discovery (Canadian) last weekend that covered alternative transportation, that included a section on Hydrogen as a method to power cars.
Someone made an good point that everyone's eyes go wide when you mention H2 as a fuel, as they link it to exploding blimps.
Yet, everytime we get into a car, we step into a small bomb. Gasoline is an extremely explosive fuel as well (of course it is, if it wasn't it would suck as a way to power a car.) and noone ever worries. Why? Well we have developed good saftey systems. How many people have actually seen a car explode in real life, as opposed to on the big screen? Not many I'll wager. Why, because gasoline isn't explosive? Of course not, because we have developed very good systems for keeping it where we want it, in the gas tank. The same will of course be true of hydrogen.
So set aside the blowing up blips for a moment, since if your gas tank blows on impact you're probably not gonna hang around to worry about if it's hydrogen back there or petro, ethier one will burn you good and quick, and look at the other facts.
1) Hydrogen produces relitively harmless byproducts when combined with air, mostly water (H2O), and would therefore resolve the vast majority of the air polution problems associated with vehicals.
2) Hydrogen is relitively plentiful and easy to get at. Water is pretty available, and splits to 2(H), O through a pretty straight forward mechanism, and it seems concievable we could extract Hydrogen out of some of the hydrocarbons as well.
As for the comments that the oil companies have been squashing alternative fuel vehicals, we're starting to see that change now. Many cities run on fuel cells (hydrogen batteries, essentially) and several mainstream auto manufactures have released hybrid cars that are dual petro/elect. I think the days of Opec's stranglehold on the world economy are likely numbered. Better educated consumers are questioning why we're stuck with a technology that has not changed signifigantly since its invention, when even in 8th grade, I could see that hydrogen was a superior solution for a fuel.
Food for thought from an over caffinated mind! --
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As a lab assistant in my college days (back shortly pre-'Internet Time', in 93) I had the dubious honour of hand holding first year students through basic pascal programming assignments. You could tell from day one who was going to make it. The way you did it was say, "OK, tell me, in english how you would accomplish this task..." and outline an analouge of the program they were required to write. The ones who would score A eventually would describe the process in detail using words like "while" and "for" natually. The ones who would score Bs eventually would describe it in fuzzier language, but still get the point across. When you got to the C level, the answers would get closer to "I would just sort them."
In every case I can remember my predictions bore out. I cannot imagine a natural language that would cope well with "Just sort them." as a program.:)
What it will do is allow people who may have poor rote memories and other LDs but have solidly logical minds (there are lots of them out there) play in the same field as programmers (I've since moved to Sys/Network admin/Team leader/manager jobs myself). More power to them. I still seriously doubt that there will be no demand for people who know lower level languages. I mean there's still a demand for good assembly language programmers, especially since they are usually the best C,C++ programmers since they understand the basics so well.
...the systems people were told by their bosses, "don't worry, what do we have that anyone would be interested in stealing?" like all the rest of us have heard?:) --
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Re:Geeks and filesystems.
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MUD Shell
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· Score: 2
Might it not be because computers are complex systems and we therefore need to impose a level of abstraction? You will note that we already have many levels of abstraction between us and the computer, or we'd all be programing using hex editors today.
Metaphors existed long before we came along as a way for people to clutch at the intangable and shape it to a concrete shape that is familar to them.
You might as well say that poets are driven by an obession with emotion and thoughts that they wish to merge external reality with them.
Now most geeks have no problems envisioning abstract concepts (at least as regards the inside of their computer). However, increasingly concrete layers of obstraction in the user interface does make it easier for users. To me this seems like the text based version of the graphics user interface.
Personal, I'll probably always perfer bash to ethier of them, all things being equal, but given some development time I can see this more concrete text based user interface might be very useful to less experienced users in situations where bandwidth counterindicates the use of a GUI. --
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I have once or twice gone to eject the floppy disk from an install, and swore as I realized I'd just depressed the power button.... what follows is a install that proceeds with me firmly holding in the power button so it doesn't actually power down, until I finish the install and can halt the machine:)
So ya, I can see it. Is it really that much of a pain to require a power button relocation to under the pile of paper on top of the box? Not so much:)
I think maybe one of those cool 'fire missile button' covers that the guys in movies always smash before it can slide aside would be much cooler:) --
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Oh COME now, you honestly think the man who stood up for his principles in the face of a jail term (here) is going to buckle under, "at the first hurdle"? I think Philip Zimmerman has more then proved to anyone with the first clue that he is no quiter. If he left NAI (and probably a damn good paycheque:)) it's because he felt he could do more good elsewhere.
The integrety of crypto software is ensured by peer review. It's the only way you can be sure. If it's not peer reviewed, you have to assume it's flawed, it's as simple as that. NAI's decision to not release complete source to their latest version of PGP severely underminds their credability, and if they were unwilling to do so, I don't see that PZ had any choice but to part company with him.
More power to him for voting with his feet. --
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If your school offers one, I heartily recommend taking a scientific ethics course.
It puts your mind into the right frame to question what you're being asked to do.
Speaking as one who has quit two jobs because of faulty ethics on behalf of my employers, I now state up front during the interview process, "Be aware. If you ask me to do something against my sense of ethics, I will quit." In my case this flows natually from the usual, "Why did you leave this job after 6 months?" question:).
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I'd just like to congradulate the folks up in Kodiac on what looks like a flawless launch at this point. I doft my cap to you. Many happy orbits!
*grins* I'll skip the nitpick of the tech details in your post, because I'm sure there'll be no shortage of people jumping in to pull out their ST Tech Refs out of their bookshelves and quote chapter and verse, and speak to why I think ST gets a free ride from geeks.
/.) some form of ST was likely a very early introduction to SciFi to them. It's a base premise for most SciFi geeks, they don't really examine it because they internalized it before their critical thinking skills were up to scratch (this is also why you will see people arguing that TOS was the best trek. You tend to form your critical opinion of something the first time you watch it, if you watch it the first time when you're 8 years old, you're less likely to consider the lack of a recieving teleport station.)
:). Voyager had a hydroponics bay, for instance. Most geeks won't nitpick 2001 ethier, for similar reasons. An effort was made to preserve scientific reality (2001 is probably the best movie I've ever seen for that.)
Firstly, in anything resembling a recent generation (ie: 90%+ of the population of
B) frankly Trek at least tries, usually
C) Reality is teaching us that maybe we don't know as much as we thought we did. Teleportation seems much more realistic after the successful teleportation of a photon using quantum entanglement.
D) Trek isn't (mostly) about the tech. It's a vehicle for making observations on the human condition, ethics, etc. It provides a mirror in which we can view ourselves. As a child I learned a lot by watching aliens in TNG and how they viewed our race.
E) Geeks, like everyone else appreciate a bit of optimism in their lives, especially now. At least for me, I'm far more likely to tear apart a planet of the apes, we blew ourselves up, sort of movie then I am a movie where the future seems pretty desirable overall. As a human, I want us to go where Trek is.
For what it's worth, those are my thoughts.
Minupla
Remember, what MS is guilty of is not *having* a monopoly, which is not illegal in the states. They are guilty of using power gained from their monopoly to entend and maintain that monopoly.
The fact that you can buy a car from someone other then Ford, and Ford doesn't say to petrolum manufactures, "If you want your gas to work in Ford cars, it'd better not work in Cevy cars!". This is what MS is guilty of (as decided by a judge.)
Um, then it sounds like a good analogy, since there seems to be a 1:1 corrilation between programmers and musicians.
I'll take this a step further.
When I first saw a computer at age 6 (a Vic 20 in our landlords' basement) I *KNEW* that this was what I wanted to do with my life. Like some people *know* they want to be musicians. It didn't matter to me weather there was any chance of making money out of my choice. For years I ran BBS's, freenets, Public UUCP access points because it was my contribution to society. I *HAD* to use my skills, it would have been akin to walking around with my eyes closed all my life when I could open them, the thought was foriegn to me.
I gave away my talents for years. In 'exchange' I got to hone those talents, and eventually one of the organisations I volenteered for offered me a professional job. I still often volenteer on weekends, because I feel it's my obligation. I can do good with my skillset.
Is this the feeling that people who are talented musicans feel? I hope so.
I'm a sysadmin, but if I was a programmer I would write under the GPL. If there was a reason that I had to licence my work, I would choose a similar license to do so under.
Cheers,
Min
Having stopped at 3 road checks tonight, I'd have willingly submitted to a breathalyzer in my car to have it flash a "driver is clear" signal to the police at the check point and get waved through.
From a practical point of view, this would allow the police to set up more roadblocks because they wouldn't need to check each driver, only those drivers who didn't volentarily choose to take the breathalyzer when they got into the car this evening.
Obviously I am allowed to submit myself to a search. Eventually all sober drivers would as a matter of course turn their breathalyzer on when they get into the car, and the cops just need to sit at the side of the road and pull over cars that don't have the all clear signal broadcasting. Which since it's a roadblock that pulls over all cars without a all clear signal, itn't an unreasonable search (at least in the jurisdiction I live in) and we reach a luddible goal (a drastic reduction in DUIs) without unduely impacting people's rights.
OK, flame away!
I know, I'm gonna get flamed till I'm golden brown for suggesting this, but think about it for a moment.
Most every other device, object or institution that interacts with the general public has a set of rules, guidelines or industry accepted practices that are enforced.
Any device that emits RF energy must conform to the appropiate licencing requirments in the country it is operated in.
Any device that uses electricity must obtain the appropiate certifications before it can be readily sold (UL or CSA for US/Canada).
Motor vehicals of all shapes sizes and types have to go through a whole battery of tests and certifications before they are allowed on our public roads.
Now look at software. Badly designed software has the ability to do harm (MS Lookout trojans anyone?) So why shouldn't software be subjected to some sort of public examination? I'd be in favor of "crash tests" of software packages by some independant body like we do with vehicals. There is no legislative requirment that I know of that manufacters make 'safe' cars beyond the basics of seatbelts and such, but as a consumer, I look at the crash test results and I'm more likely to buy a car that has a good crash test report then one with an exploding gas tank!
As software becomes are more and more intergal part of our day to day life, I think something like the FCC's rules for software might be required for network connected software: This software must not emit any harmful data into the Internet, but must accept any and all harmful data from the internet. Ie: No more buffer overflows.
Ideally none of this should be required. Unfortunatly no software is an island anymore. Everything interacts, and unless we have some basic rules of the road, chaos will inevitably ensue.
I worked for one of the state level governments in N.A. and had access, and "da-buck-stops-here" responsibility for the IT side of "Archives". Archives is leglislatively required to hold in permenant storage, "All materials relating to the ongoing business of the government". This caused some real problems:
1) we had a case of an outgoing elected official low level formatting their HDD on the way out the door. Had to be sent out to a special data recovery lab. (they can do some amazing things with scanning electron microscopes on half tracks and such)
2) there are stacks and stacks of 8" floppy disks, in formats like IBM DisplayWriter, and other chunks of physical hardware that haven't been seen by mortal man in 20 yrs.
Finding a chunk of info is damn tricky, but after you find it, you have to find something that can read the punchcard/papertape/magtape/floppydisk/harddisk in question. And due to a querk in how the original act was written (keeping in mind that these things were written back when data was carved on rock slates and format isn't a big consideration) we were required to keep it in its original form.
I feel for someone with my job in 50 yrs. I ran away from govt work after that. It was scary!
One plus side. EMP has a hard time taking out papertape!
Agreed totally, you seem to have misunderstood the side of the argument I was on :). My point is that in ethier of those cases the US government would (and did in the case of the US airmen) demand immediate release, loudly, and rightously. Where is this rightousness when it comes to foriegn nationals who are wrongly accused by the US (keeping in mind that I'm speaking of the US in general, and that I realize that the vast majority of /. readers probably think more.
:).
My appologies if my inital post didn't make as much sense as it should have, my blood caffine level was unusually low at the time
What bothers me, is let's take the converse situation. A MS employee is giving a talk overseas and is jailed by the local government because MS violates local business practice law.
In fact, we saw something similar just recently. A US spy plane was forced to land in China. Putting aside the morality of spying for a moment, the fact salient fact remains, they were violating Chinese criminal law by spying on them, they landed in the country where they violated the law. They were detained. Did the US say, "oh well, they're right, we did violate the law, and should be punished?" Ya right. Why is it that the US feels free to violate other countries law, but when the reverse happens to them they throw on the cloak of righteous justice?
That's hyprocicy, no matter what language you spell it in.
Wargames caused me more grief in my early years then I care to remember...
You see, I was 12, and had a modem. Everyone was telling my parents that I was going to start WWIII, because you could hack the military with modems.
Give me a break, please? It's amazing what ppl will believe.
Minupla
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B) Umm, I would kinda consider a sinking ship, or a dragster whose engine was attached backwards to both be pretty much total failures... _I_ would certinally think they were if I had been on the teams in question. Also the "bombers" episode where it worked out that the bomber to crash closest to the target pretty much took it also seemed like a pretty miserable (if hillarious) failure to me.
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So I was sitting here reading these messages, 'Androm is a hash of [insert 5 household name scifi shows/books, etc here].' And I thought, 'So? Where's the suprise?'.
In music there is a long tradition of being influenced by other peoples works and doing your own riffs off of an existing work. Noone points a finger and says, "You're ripping off Louis Armstrong!" when they go to listen to a jazz artist.
I vividly recall in school during english class when they explained that every book is based on one of essental conflicts. Man vs Man, Man vs himself, Man vs Nature, or Man vs Machine. (Yes, you can animorphize something else, but it still has man-like qualties, or we would not be able to relate to it. The truly alien is, well, alien.) I was devistated. What point was there in reading books anymore? I mean, they were all the same in the end. Eventually I learned to celebrate the differences in books, even books that were very close to each other had huge differences in the details. And that's one of the reasons I read, to be absorbed into a captivating universe. If I'm lucky, I might see 12 completely origial books in my life (arguably original. I personally believe when something's original enough to be considered a new genre, it's original. I know a lot of lit majors who'd disagree. So be it.) does that mean I should forsake all non orignal books? Of course not. Does that make the orginals better? Nope. I know a lot of people who can't stand Neuromancer (admitably, probably not a lot in this crowd, but still), and by my previous definition it was Original.
The point of this rather roundabout naritive is that something does not have to be totally original to be enjoyable. Take delight in revisiting an old friend, looked at from a slightly different angle.
This is the same problem we have with intelectual propiety. There are a finite number of good ideas in the universe, the longer we go aorund saying, "this good idea is mine!" the smaller the remaining solution space for the function H(idea_number) becomes, the the more likely that n is going to hash close enough to n-1 to infringe. Common sense.
Common sense isn't. -- Voltaire
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I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. -- Commonly attributed to Voltaire, never proven When you want to say the very best, say it with Voltaire :). Can't think of a better way to say it.
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Especially ironic is the fact that the ad was paid for with Tobacco industry money (TheTruth is funded by the Americain Heritage Foundation, that was set up as part of the settlement between the Tobacco industry and the States in 98).
Teeheehee Oops!
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In case anyone is left wondering, here it is from the horse's mouth: http://www.dal.net
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*sits down at the fire, puts his cane down*
Why, I remember waaay back when the state *did* run the internet. Let's see, it must have been what, 10 years ago. It was an aweful mess. I mean where would we be without the lovely corporations like AOL, Network Solutions, @Home? They are just so much more productive then the National Science Foundation (or for us Canadians, BCNet, OntNet, etc.) Oh yes, thank the gods that now when something goes wrong, I have to track down the little local ISP that owns the domain, find out that they no longer own the domain, but that noone remembered to update the technical contact, or worse get a "Sorry the number you have reached is out of service".
Seriously, having worked professionally in both environments, I found the old regulated system to be much easier on the nerves. Most of the people running them were at least competent, if not outstanding, since there wasn't 100 companies competing for their services. You knew when you called the CAnet NOC that you were gonna get someone with a clue. When was the last time you tried to find someone with a clue in @home land to deal with something like a BGP peering problem?
Minupla
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How do you figure? Baulder's Gate was a critical and market success (the later evidenced by the fact that it's spawned a sequal, an add-on, and 2 branches, one of which has its own sequal. This is not the mark of a game that didn't do well.
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Actually I just caught a show on Discovery (Canadian) last weekend that covered alternative transportation, that included a section on Hydrogen as a method to power cars.
Someone made an good point that everyone's eyes go wide when you mention H2 as a fuel, as they link it to exploding blimps.
Yet, everytime we get into a car, we step into a small bomb. Gasoline is an extremely explosive fuel as well (of course it is, if it wasn't it would suck as a way to power a car.) and noone ever worries. Why? Well we have developed good saftey systems. How many people have actually seen a car explode in real life, as opposed to on the big screen? Not many I'll wager. Why, because gasoline isn't explosive? Of course not, because we have developed very good systems for keeping it where we want it, in the gas tank. The same will of course be true of hydrogen.
So set aside the blowing up blips for a moment, since if your gas tank blows on impact you're probably not gonna hang around to worry about if it's hydrogen back there or petro, ethier one will burn you good and quick, and look at the other facts.
1) Hydrogen produces relitively harmless byproducts when combined with air, mostly water (H2O), and would therefore resolve the vast majority of the air polution problems associated with vehicals.
2) Hydrogen is relitively plentiful and easy to get at. Water is pretty available, and splits to 2(H), O through a pretty straight forward mechanism, and it seems concievable we could extract Hydrogen out of some of the hydrocarbons as well.
As for the comments that the oil companies have been squashing alternative fuel vehicals, we're starting to see that change now. Many cities run on fuel cells (hydrogen batteries, essentially) and several mainstream auto manufactures have released hybrid cars that are dual petro/elect. I think the days of Opec's stranglehold on the world economy are likely numbered. Better educated consumers are questioning why we're stuck with a technology that has not changed signifigantly since its invention, when even in 8th grade, I could see that hydrogen was a superior solution for a fuel.
Food for thought from an over caffinated mind!
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Agreed.
:)
As a lab assistant in my college days (back shortly pre-'Internet Time', in 93) I had the dubious honour of hand holding first year students through basic pascal programming assignments. You could tell from day one who was going to make it. The way you did it was say, "OK, tell me, in english how you would accomplish this task..." and outline an analouge of the program they were required to write. The ones who would score A eventually would describe the process in detail using words like "while" and "for" natually. The ones who would score Bs eventually would describe it in fuzzier language, but still get the point across. When you got to the C level, the answers would get closer to "I would just sort them."
In every case I can remember my predictions bore out. I cannot imagine a natural language that would cope well with "Just sort them." as a program.
What it will do is allow people who may have poor rote memories and other LDs but have solidly logical minds (there are lots of them out there) play in the same field as programmers (I've since moved to Sys/Network admin/Team leader/manager jobs myself). More power to them. I still seriously doubt that there will be no demand for people who know lower level languages. I mean there's still a demand for good assembly language programmers, especially since they are usually the best C,C++ programmers since they understand the basics so well.
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...the systems people were told by their bosses, "don't worry, what do we have that anyone would be interested in stealing?" like all the rest of us have heard? :)
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Might it not be because computers are complex systems and we therefore need to impose a level of abstraction? You will note that we already have many levels of abstraction between us and the computer, or we'd all be programing using hex editors today.
Metaphors existed long before we came along as a way for people to clutch at the intangable and shape it to a concrete shape that is familar to them.
You might as well say that poets are driven by an obession with emotion and thoughts that they wish to merge external reality with them.
Now most geeks have no problems envisioning abstract concepts (at least as regards the inside of their computer). However, increasingly concrete layers of obstraction in the user interface does make it easier for users. To me this seems like the text based version of the graphics user interface.
Personal, I'll probably always perfer bash to ethier of them, all things being equal, but given some development time I can see this more concrete text based user interface might be very useful to less experienced users in situations where bandwidth counterindicates the use of a GUI.
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I have once or twice gone to eject the floppy disk from an install, and swore as I realized I'd just depressed the power button.... what follows is a install that proceeds with me firmly holding in the power button so it doesn't actually power down, until I finish the install and can halt the machine :)
:)
:)
So ya, I can see it. Is it really that much of a pain to require a power button relocation to under the pile of paper on top of the box? Not so much
I think maybe one of those cool 'fire missile button' covers that the guys in movies always smash before it can slide aside would be much cooler
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Oh COME now, you honestly think the man who stood up for his principles in the face of a jail term (here) is going to buckle under, "at the first hurdle"? I think Philip Zimmerman has more then proved to anyone with the first clue that he is no quiter. If he left NAI (and probably a damn good paycheque :)) it's because he felt he could do more good elsewhere.
The integrety of crypto software is ensured by peer review. It's the only way you can be sure. If it's not peer reviewed, you have to assume it's flawed, it's as simple as that. NAI's decision to not release complete source to their latest version of PGP severely underminds their credability, and if they were unwilling to do so, I don't see that PZ had any choice but to part company with him.
More power to him for voting with his feet.
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If your school offers one, I heartily recommend taking a scientific ethics course.
:).
It puts your mind into the right frame to question what you're being asked to do.
Speaking as one who has quit two jobs because of faulty ethics on behalf of my employers, I now state up front during the interview process, "Be aware. If you ask me to do something against my sense of ethics, I will quit." In my case this flows natually from the usual, "Why did you leave this job after 6 months?" question
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