Windows is developed collaboratively with meetings and close contact among the programmers. Linux is developed in a distributed process where anyone with a clue can make significant contributions to the project. One is a steaming pile of horse shit. The other is a robust, stable solution for the computer space.
And the source for your trenchant analysis of Microsoft's programming methodology is . . . ?
The truth is, you don't know. Neither do I. But I'm highly amused by your logical leaps and bounds. Your assessment of Windows as "a steaming pile of horse shit" is your sole assertion to conclude that pairs programming must lead to bad product.
This sort of idiocy is precisely why Linux and open source advocacy fails to convert more developers and end-users. Any methodology is capable of producing bad code; the primary advantage of distributed development is that such code is exposed more quickly and fixed promptly.
Next time try to apply some reason to your arguments.
This has already been decided.
on
Superhero Smackdown
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· Score: 3, Interesting
The Dark Knight Returns tells you all you need to know: Batman well and truly kicks Superman's ass, with an assist from Green Arrow and all sorts of high-tech gear. Then Wayne appears to drop dead from a heart attack.
The motivation for Batman challenging Superman is a bit more complex, but in a nutshell: the Man of Steel is working for the guvmint, and has been used to to stamp out vigilantism of the sort practiced by Wayne and the Green Arrow--in fact, the latter loses one of his arms after Superman rips it off. (Thus his motivation for helping Batman.) So Superman represents an oppressive, Reagan-era government, and Batman of course is the freedom fighter struggling to reclaim the streets. That oversimplifies it a lot, but it does nicely set up the climactic showdown.
Nobody does real work on Windows. Yeah, whatever. And I hear developers just rave about the Java2 SDK for Mac.
If you don't like Windows, fine. I don't like it much, myself, but I have to use it. But if you want to talk out of your ass about who can do real work on what OS, leave it for the comments.
I think it's high time/. allows us to moderate stories as well as comments, so that blatant flamebait such as this never shows up on the home page. Every time an editor posts crap like this the site loses a little more of its credibility.
I am all for making reasonable efforts to provide Web accessibility to as many people as possible. It's just good business sense.
But how far must we go before "reasonable accommodation" means unreasonable allocations of development resources? One of our information designers just completed an accessibility overview of our site using section 508 and WAI guidelines, and the list of accessibility problems was somewhat discouraging: lack of alt attributes in img tags, complex table layouts, incompatible navigational elements--even the language used in our site copy could be regarded as difficult to follow for those with cognitive or reading disabilities. The cost to refactor our site architecture to conform to these guidelines would far outstrip any additional revenue we might gain.
On the other hand, we have a toll-free customer service number, staffed 24 hours a day, that allows you to access all of the products we offer for sale on the Web. So, is that "reasonable accommodation?" Or must we cater to every person with any type of disability, even if such a disability might prevent them from even being able to use the products we offer?
. . . the law enforcement need for the book purchase record in this case was not sufficiently compelling to outweigh the harm that would likely follow from execution of the search warrant, in part because law enforcement officials sought the purchase record for reasons related to the contents of the books that the suspect may have purchased. (emphasis added)
In other words, the police weren't interested in any criminal acts related to the purchase of these books, but rather if there was any content in the books which the prosecution could use to strengthen their case against the defendant.
To draw an Internet analogy, this would be akin to the cops forcing an ISP to turn over their Web proxy logs, in order to determine if a suspected terrorist visited a site on bomb-making, instead of finding hard-copy instructions in the terrorist's apartment (which certainly could be used as circumstantial evidence).
This decision makes a lot of sense. It would be one thing if the suspect had bought a dictionary, then used it to brain a little old lady during a mugging--then the police would have the right to obtain purchase records in order to prove the perp bought the murder weapon. But simply to say that "he bought The Anarchist's Cookbook, therefore he must be guilty"--that is a dangerous assumption, and clearly represents an attack on our rights to free expression.
Finally, a member of the mainstream press who understands the rights of consumers vs. the interests of copyright holders--and can express his argument in language accessible to the average non-geek.
The RIAA doesn't seem to understand that they've created this mess by trying to drag the horse back into the barn and then installing a different lock on the door, without providing an alternative means of access. I still haven't seen a comprehensive plan from record companies that will satisfy consumers' thirst for digital media while adequately protecting their copyrights.
And Universal's copy-protection scheme is a joke. I bought a 5-disc DVD player specifically so that I could replace my CD changer. So I guess Universal's labels can expect not to see another dime from me. Tell me again how that will help increase their sales.
TRUSTe's resolution program will have no legal authority. All it can do is say "Bad Spammer! No Seal of Approval for you!" Big frickin' deal.
Spammers exist because it's so damn cheap to spam. Bulk e-mailers have very little real financial risk, even in states that have enacted anti-spam legislation. And I'm sure TRUSTe will have no power to levy fines or otherwise penalize errant participants in their program. This is so much smoke and mirrors to fool an ignorant public into believing that "certified" spam is any more legitimate than the crap that already piles up in their mailboxes.
Soon we'll come to the point where we must submit a list of trusted addresses to our ISPs' sysadmins, and they'll have to configure their mail servers to block everything not on that list. Until we come up with an enforceable solution for shifting the financial burden of bulk e-mail to the spammers themselves, this plague will continue unabated.
I'm glad the article noted that Chapter 11 does not mean you are going out of business. This is often confused. This merely means you are seeking protection from creditors to buy yourself time to re-organize and create a plan to pay back your debt, and become profitable.
In the tech industry, Chapter 11 frequently does mean the company is about to close its doors for good.
Companies file Chapter 11 in order to buy more time for a last desperate attempt to renegotiate debt or find a buyer or angel investor. If no such relief is forthcoming, the bankruptcy invariably proceeds to liquidation.
The latest example would be Rhythms. They filed Chapter 11, sacked all but a couple hundred employees, waited a week for someone to swoop from the heavens and save them with a few billion dollars, then gave up and sent out the disconnect notices anyway. Rhythms are toast, and so are Loki.
I feel bad for Loki, but there just isn't a large enough market for their products to offset the expense of licensing and porting closed-source software. When Linux approaches, say, Apple's desktop market share, maybe another company can make a go of it.
it is virtually allways used for leisure: Pretending to do work whilst actually swapping sweet-little-nothings with Jane in accounts, or arranging a Q3 duel with DukeQuakem. (if someone actually has an important, legit reason for using a messenger service, please correct me...).
I wouldn't call it important, but we do use IM services at work (but not MSN; mostly AIM, Yahoo!, or Jabber). Not that IM is any quicker or easier than e-mail, but it doesn't clutter up your inbox. And it's nice for people working from home who don't have DSL or a second phone line.
OTOH, it promotes laziness: sometimes it helps to lever your ass up from your desk and go talk to the other person. No wonder so many geeks (me included) are out of shape . . .
For someone who advocates freedom and choice on the "electronic frontier," John Gilmore is sure quick to sacrifice other people's property in the name of a free Internet.
His analogies simply don't wash: the guy on the street corner, and the bulk-mailer leaving ads in my postbox, are bearing nearly all of the transmission costs. That's not how it works on the Internet. Bulk-mailers have no right to consume my resources without compensation. It's really that simple, and I don't understand how pseudo-libertarians and bulk-mail supporters can't grasp this simple concept. And while it would be great if every 'net user understood how to write procmail filters, most don't (and won't), and it's unreasonable to expect them to.
The censorship argument doesn't wash, either. Private networks have the right to decide what data to carry through their wires and servers. Whether they make morally or ethically sound decisions on what to censor can be debated, but their fundamental right to do so cannot be abrogated.
To make matters worse, Gilmore is willfully choosing to remain part of the problem by running his own open relay. He doesn't get that his rights end where others' begin. Maybe he will never get it.
Not a defense of spammers, but rather food for thought:
Most of us have cable of one form or another, which means we pay to receive nominally "free" channels (broadcast network stations). Plus, there's the cost of the electricity that powers our TVs. And of course you just had to drop a few grand on that gorgeous new high-definition set . . .
So, do advertisers have the right to bother us with their messages on our television sets? (Those of you with TiVO can stop snickering now.) After all, we bear some of the cost of transmission of those messages, so in one sense we're paying to be spammed via our TVs.
But most of the cost of transmitting those ads are borne by the advertisers and the stations/cable/satellite companies, and in fact they depend on the revenue generated from ad sales to be able to provide "free" TV, so it balances out. But many users are just consumers on the Internet, much as they are consumers of television: they pay a monthly fee to get email/Web/etc. access, and the ISP and its upstream providers handle the rest. (Well, this is true in the US; it may be very different elsewhere.) And don't think that spammers are sending out their mail for free--there's the cost of their firehose software, access charges, having to change ISPs every other week . . .
So the exercise for the week is: how do you shift the financial burden for sending UCE to the originators?
I say that on a massively distributed system like the Internet, you can't do it, at least not accurately. Some networks will spend more resources to handle spam than others (think AOL vs. your local ISP), but how do you pass those costs back to the originators, and how do you collect such costs?
Since there's no practical way to implement a fair cost structure for UCE, we'd rather make it illegal. Not exactly an elegant solution, and not much of a deterrent, either.
First, it should be noted that a contributing factor to Japan's economic woes is a severe labor shortage, so I'm not surprised KOEI is so paranoid about other companies looking to steal its employees.
In the U.S., however, a lot of us are lucky just to have jobs, at least in the dot-com sector. Not that you should sign your life away just so you can keep up the payments on the Audi and hold on to those stock options (snicker), but let's dispense with the grand delusion that tech workers are in any position to call the shots to their employers.
You agreed to certain terms of employment by accepting a job offer. If your contract prevents you from creating Quake mods during new moons on even-numbered months, then that's what you deal with. My last contract specified that any technology I created that was related to the company's "core business operations" belonged to them, without credit or further compensation, even if I created it on my own time. Sound unfair? Probably. But I agreed to it.
Fortunately, that start-up is dead and almost forgotten, and I ended up at a much better gig. But now tech companies are being asked to do more with fewer resources (i.e., personnel), and cushy HR buzzwords like "self-direction" and "employee enrichment" have been tossed right out the window with company stock prices. Some of us are in survival mode, bucko, and don't really give a damn if we work in Sunnyvale or Siberia, so long as the check doesn't bounce on Friday.
Got a job? Good. Now get back to work.
Before you dismiss this out of 'hand' . . .
on
KDE Gesture Control
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· Score: 5
Sorry, had to get that horrible pun out of my system.
Seriously: while gesture controls may not be ready for prime time just yet, consider that the technology may prove useful for those who communicate best using only their hands. A 17-year-old from Colorado recently won the grand prize at the International Science and Engineering Fair for designing a glove that can interpret the movements of someone "speaking" in American Sign Language (ASL) and then output the communication as text.
So, the hard of hearing could control their computer with ASL commands, or dictate letters the same way the rest of us can with a voice-powered word processor, using beefed-up gesture control technology and, of course, hardware that can reliably interpret their hand movements. It's somewhat tangential to the story, but an intriguing concept nonetheless.
Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but with the recent trend towards huge corporate mergers, does this mean that there is a possibility of all the Baby Bells merging to once again form one Big Daddy Bell?
Highly unlikely, I would think (hope?). Such a mega-merger would never pass muster with the Justice Department, although we are seeing regional mergers that combine long-distance and broadband providers with traditional telcos (think Qwest/U S West).
More importantly, since the breakup of AT&T there have been so many acquisitions and reorganizations by the Baby Bells that their corporate cultures are sufficiently balkanized to preclude even the thought of joining forces again.
They're much more vulnerable to the uncertainties in the broadband market than the big boys.
My ISP, Dimensional Communications, seems to have done better than most other independent providers, at least in its limited service area (basically, the Boulder/Denver/Colorado Springs corridor and a few mountain areas). They jumped on the DSL bandwagon early, offering service from U S West/Qwest and Jato Communications (the latter primarily for business accounts).
Unfortunately, Jato tanked in December and switched off most of their DSL circuits without warning. And since some Dimensional customers used Jato because they couldn't get DSL service from Qwest, they were left without broadband access. For a big ISP, this is a minor inconvenience, since they can usually just switch a customer over to another broadband provider. For a small ISP, such a setback can be disastrous, or even fatal if they're heavily dependent on a single vendor.
They're also at the mercy of monopolistic telcos. DimCom had to threaten legal action, and in fact filed a grievance with the Public Utilities Commission, against U S West in order to get their MegaBit circuit installed. (After all, U S West/Qwest offers its own Internet access; why would it want to provide broadband to a competitor, no matter how small?) It's conceivable that telcos could just sit on service orders from indy ISPs until they wither and die on the vine.
DimCom seems to have survived, however, and their service, from the first moment I signed on (7/97) to this day, has been superb. Even though I'm stuck on a dial-up account, and could move to a provider who offers DSL in my area, service and reliability are a hell of lot more important to me than speed. And aside from the large telcos, I can't think of a single DSL provider that has good long-term survival prospects. I'd rather stick with my trusty 56K modem, and have full net access (with a shell account!), then run at 256Kbps and worry about the circuit disappearing overnight.
And not only has it been lost, but its popular definition has changed to the point where it has little meaning.
Consider my first experience online: AOL. That, by itself, should invite a platoon of flamethrowers to point in my direction. But in 1995, at least, it was possible to find signs of intelligent life on the service, other lusers who were my age or at least acted like it. This was due in large part to having to pay by the hour; most kids got limited access, if any, and had to make the most of it, which left little time for pointless posturing on the message boards (which were heavily moderated anyway). It was then that I discovered Usenet, which has long been treated like Outer Mongolia by AOL, but was the source of some truly inspired writing, arguments, and all-out war. I spent much of my 20 hours a month simply downloading articles from Usenet.
That changed in '96, when AOL moved to unlimited-access. Now parents had a new babysitter, developmentally-stunted college dropouts had a new latrine to piss in, and the collective IQ of the service plummeted. I bailed the very next month for an independent ISP and haven't looked back.
And true flaming--which, despite Katz' assertions, usually attacked the message, not the messenger--has suffered badly as the Internet moves into the mainstream. "I CAUGHT LUXERx AND HIS MOTHER IN A HOT WET 69!!!1!!1!!!" is not a flame. It's the immature bleating of lonely teens who have just figured out how to use a newsreader to crosspost to half the groups in alt.* on Usenet. Real flames are written by people who value subtlety, excellent grammar and precise logic. Often their subjects don't know they are being roasted, even while everyone else in the group is stifling a laugh.
That was flaming then. Now it's just noise, which I can pick up from any high-school student lounge. The freedom and accessibility of the 'net are its blessings--and also its curses, and eventual downfall.
Telcos wouldn't participate in slamming if they lost money at it.
The problem is that FTC rules only allow slammed customers to recover the difference between what they would have paid their preferred provider and what they paid the telco that slammed them. And that only covers the first 30 days after the unauthorized switch.
Bullshit, I say. If I've been slammed, I should owe the slammer zip, zilch, nada. Refund all charges, even if I made 20 three-hour calls to Kazakhstan during that time. Plus they pay to switch me back to my old provider.
Once telcos realize they'll take it in the shorts, they'll drop slamming like the bad habit it is.
I've tried to be careful with my HTML/CSS compliance (at least, it checks out with W3C's validator), so this on again/off again behavior is puzzling.
I don't want to say that old problems are being reintroduced into this release, but it's frustrating to try and support a browser that keeps changing behavior.
1) Group burglarizes an apartment (supposedly one member recently moved out and was "retrieving" personal possessions - I don't recall details). Couple in one car is seen by police, pursued. Woman refuses to pull over when cop flashes his lights; male passenger fires gun at pursuing officer. Later, the woman is in custody when male fatally shoots a cop, then takes his own life.
I'm not sure what the underlying felony was (I though refusal to pull over was a misdemeanor), but she was charged with CAPITAL felony murder. She was ultimately sentenced to life-in-prison, no parole.
This would be the Matthaeus Jaehnig case, from November 1997. The woman convicted of felony murder (not capital murder; they're two different crimes), Lisl Auman, enlisted Jaehnig's and a few others' help in grabbing her belongings from an ex-boyfriend's home. This was reported as a burglary (aka 1st degree criminal trespass, a felony), to which the cops responded. So it wasn't just the burglary, but the resulting flight from the cops that were used as factors in charging Auman with felony murder.
Felony murder law is nothing new; it has its roots in centuries-old British common law (though the UK dropped the statute many years ago). It holds that *anyone* involved in the commission of a felony that results in the death of a person is liable for that death, regardless of whether they were the murderer, or were even present at the time the murder occurred. Auman was already in custody before the cop was killed, but because she "initiated" the burglary and resulting flight, her hands were as bloody as Jaehnig's. As a result, Auman was convicted of first degree murder, and will spend the rest of her life in prison, without the possibility of parole. Did I mention she was just 21 at the time of her conviction?
Of course, the case isn't nearly as black-and-white as I've presented it here; you can go to a website set up by the Auman family to hear the other side.
IANAL, but the second case seems excessive - people die from heart attacks every day, and this sets a dangerous precedence.
Remember the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics? One of the casualties died from a heart attack. I'd say whoever set off the bomb is responsible for that death. There has to be a pretty direct cause-effect relationship between the crime and the death. Actually pulling the trigger is obviously the most direct. Fleeing from police, and putting them in the position of being shot by a lunatic with an automatic assault rifle, is not as direct, but the felony murder statute allows such connections to be made.
Could someone be charged with felony murder if a TV viewer suffers a heart attack after watching live TV coverage? What if a distraught victim subsequently commits suicide?
Last year, the mother of one of the victims of the Columbine massacre killed herself. Just recently, the star basketball player at the school also took his own life. Apparently he was a close friend with a couple of the victims. I won't be overly surprised if his parents sue the parents of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold for wrongful death. Granted, that would be a civil and not a criminal action, but the issue of responsibility remains the same.
My view (and, usually, the law's) is that someone who initiates an action that is the direct cause of a person's death or injury is the person most liable. That would rule out most suicides--provided of course that you can show evidence of other factors that would indicate a person's suicidal intentions.
The woman claimed that she was unable to pull over because the gunman threatened to shoot her if she did - and she had no way of knowing he would ultimately kill a cop.
Prior knowledge is completely irrelevant in a felony murder case. There doesn't even have to be intent--if you're the wheelman in a bank robbery, you certainly have no intention of shooting a guard, but if one of them is killed, you're as guilty as your accomplices.
There are mitigating circumstances that should be considered, but that occurs usually in the sentencing phase, after a conviction. Apparently, in Auman's case, the mitigating factors weren't enough. And, in Colorado, the judge has little leeway in the sentencing guidelines--if it's first degree murder, the two options are death (if it's a capital case) or life without parole.
In case you haven't noticed the trend lately, copyright infringement suits are unpopular with the public. Companies that file them are thought of as "traditional" or "old fashioned" and the suits thus considered petty.
Don't be so sure about that. Amazon is a perfect example of a hip new "dot-com" that isn't above using the legal system to enforce questionable patents. And companies who file such infringement suits don't give a damn about public opinion, because that isn't what decides the case.
This isn't a case of the evils of UCITA. This is a case of jumping to conclusions. If you read the document the restrictions about negative comments, etc., pertain to licensees of Apogee's trademarks.
Fine. So I have a fan site for Duke Nukem, which uses the game's logos/characters/etc. under license. And I also have a discussion forum, where fans can discuss the game all they like.
Am I then responsible (under the terms of Apogee's license as written) for a visitor who posts "DOOK NUKUMMM SUX GEORGE BROUSSARD'S DICK!!!1!!!1!!"? Is my license revoked simply because I choose to allow visitors to disparage Apogee products in the interest of free speech?
Based on the license's remarkably nebulous wording, there isn't any exception made for comments made by non-licensees; so long as the content appears on a licensee-hosted site, you can be held liable.
Apogee's license is poorly written at best, and Scott Miller's flip comments that we are "clueless morons" who simply don't understand licensing laws belie the arrogance of a company which, the last time I checked, hasn't released a decent game in four years. Perhaps their license agreement will be moot, since I (and apparently many others) won't be creating fan sites--or buying their games, for that matter.
There is an underabundance of open source products that the general public would care about.
Perhaps, but only because most of those products aren't running on Joe User's desktop.
Most end-users couldn't care less what happens on the back end when they check e-mail, browse a Web site, grab a file off a remote server, etc. All they know is that their stuff works, which keeps them happy.
Now think of all the networks and Web sites that depend on sendmail or Apache or the Linux kernel or Samba or whatever. Now make all of those open source products disappear. Can you even begin to calculate the disruption to business and 'net communications if we had to depend solely on proprietary Un*x products and (God help us) NT?
Education is the key. Let users know that the products that run on the back end ensure the smooth operation of the products they run on their desktop. Eventually they may come to appreciate the value that open source software brings to their computing experience, and insist on using such products on their desktop as well.
Besides the obvious barbies and board games, what else does MAttel make? I don't particularly want to buy anything they're making, period.
Hope you don't have kids; they'll have to go without a lot of stuff. Besides Barbie, Mattel owns Cabbage Patch Kids, Fisher-Price, Hot Wheels, Tyco RC, Matchbox, and Mattel Interactive (their software division). They also make Sesame Street and Winnie-the-Pooh toys under license. Their Web site has more details.
They're also publicly traded (symbol: MAT) so if you really want to make a statement, make sure you haven't invested in them directly or through managed funds, and encourage others to do the same.
If you read the press release carefully--and it's obvious no one at/. did--Eidos plans to release Daikatana in Q1 of its fiscal year 2001. For Eidos, FY 2001 begins 1 April. Like another week or two is going to make any difference for the Game Whose Hype Will Not Die.
Several gaming news sites have made the same mistake, so it's not just/. But it would be nice if you at least tried to check facts for stories, instead of just throwing shit to the wall in the hope that it might stick.
Hmm a news article about a potential competitor to VA linux was replaced by this article aobut editorial independance... probably just a coincidence.....
Try hitting F5 on your browser, or reading more slowly. The Corel buyout of Inprise is at the top of my/. page currently.
Really, all of you who are bleating about Big Business slowly corrupting the editorial integrity of our little forum here need to gain a sense of perspective, stat. This is the nature of a free-market economy. Do you really think that Malda and Bates would have been able to keep the site running forever on banner ads alone? Or that they could have spent the time needed to improve the site and post stories if they weren't making *some* money at it?
So they agree to sell the site to Andover, provided they retain total editorial control. It's really that simple. VA Linux's buyout of Andover does not change that, unless Malda et al sign a new contract. VA/Andover gets to add a high-profile open-source forum to their stable, and the rest of you are free to continue trashing the company for invading your online Utopia.
If you *really* want a truly independent forum, then grab the new Slash code and start your own damn site, and let's see how long you last with a few stupid ad banners for revenue. Welcome to the new reality of the Internet. Get used to it.
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Windows is developed collaboratively with meetings and close contact among the programmers. Linux is developed in a distributed process where anyone with a clue can make significant contributions to the project. One is a steaming pile of horse shit. The other is a robust, stable solution for the computer space.
And the source for your trenchant analysis of Microsoft's programming methodology is . . . ?
The truth is, you don't know. Neither do I. But I'm highly amused by your logical leaps and bounds. Your assessment of Windows as "a steaming pile of horse shit" is your sole assertion to conclude that pairs programming must lead to bad product.
This sort of idiocy is precisely why Linux and open source advocacy fails to convert more developers and end-users. Any methodology is capable of producing bad code; the primary advantage of distributed development is that such code is exposed more quickly and fixed promptly.
Next time try to apply some reason to your arguments.
The Dark Knight Returns tells you all you need to know: Batman well and truly kicks Superman's ass, with an assist from Green Arrow and all sorts of high-tech gear. Then Wayne appears to drop dead from a heart attack.
The motivation for Batman challenging Superman is a bit more complex, but in a nutshell: the Man of Steel is working for the guvmint, and has been used to to stamp out vigilantism of the sort practiced by Wayne and the Green Arrow--in fact, the latter loses one of his arms after Superman rips it off. (Thus his motivation for helping Batman.) So Superman represents an oppressive, Reagan-era government, and Batman of course is the freedom fighter struggling to reclaim the streets. That oversimplifies it a lot, but it does nicely set up the climactic showdown.
Nobody does real work on Windows. Yeah, whatever. And I hear developers just rave about the Java2 SDK for Mac.
/. allows us to moderate stories as well as comments, so that blatant flamebait such as this never shows up on the home page. Every time an editor posts crap like this the site loses a little more of its credibility.
If you don't like Windows, fine. I don't like it much, myself, but I have to use it. But if you want to talk out of your ass about who can do real work on what OS, leave it for the comments.
I think it's high time
I am all for making reasonable efforts to provide Web accessibility to as many people as possible. It's just good business sense.
But how far must we go before "reasonable accommodation" means unreasonable allocations of development resources? One of our information designers just completed an accessibility overview of our site using section 508 and WAI guidelines, and the list of accessibility problems was somewhat discouraging: lack of alt attributes in img tags, complex table layouts, incompatible navigational elements--even the language used in our site copy could be regarded as difficult to follow for those with cognitive or reading disabilities. The cost to refactor our site architecture to conform to these guidelines would far outstrip any additional revenue we might gain.
On the other hand, we have a toll-free customer service number, staffed 24 hours a day, that allows you to access all of the products we offer for sale on the Web. So, is that "reasonable accommodation?" Or must we cater to every person with any type of disability, even if such a disability might prevent them from even being able to use the products we offer?
An excerpt from the opinion summary:
. . . the law enforcement need for the book purchase record in this case was not sufficiently compelling to outweigh the harm that would likely follow from execution of the search warrant, in part because law enforcement officials sought the purchase record for reasons related to the contents of the books that the suspect may have purchased. (emphasis added)
In other words, the police weren't interested in any criminal acts related to the purchase of these books, but rather if there was any content in the books which the prosecution could use to strengthen their case against the defendant.
To draw an Internet analogy, this would be akin to the cops forcing an ISP to turn over their Web proxy logs, in order to determine if a suspected terrorist visited a site on bomb-making, instead of finding hard-copy instructions in the terrorist's apartment (which certainly could be used as circumstantial evidence).
This decision makes a lot of sense. It would be one thing if the suspect had bought a dictionary, then used it to brain a little old lady during a mugging--then the police would have the right to obtain purchase records in order to prove the perp bought the murder weapon. But simply to say that "he bought The Anarchist's Cookbook, therefore he must be guilty"--that is a dangerous assumption, and clearly represents an attack on our rights to free expression.
Finally, a member of the mainstream press who understands the rights of consumers vs. the interests of copyright holders--and can express his argument in language accessible to the average non-geek.
The RIAA doesn't seem to understand that they've created this mess by trying to drag the horse back into the barn and then installing a different lock on the door, without providing an alternative means of access. I still haven't seen a comprehensive plan from record companies that will satisfy consumers' thirst for digital media while adequately protecting their copyrights.
And Universal's copy-protection scheme is a joke. I bought a 5-disc DVD player specifically so that I could replace my CD changer. So I guess Universal's labels can expect not to see another dime from me. Tell me again how that will help increase their sales.
TRUSTe's resolution program will have no legal authority. All it can do is say "Bad Spammer! No Seal of Approval for you!" Big frickin' deal.
Spammers exist because it's so damn cheap to spam. Bulk e-mailers have very little real financial risk, even in states that have enacted anti-spam legislation. And I'm sure TRUSTe will have no power to levy fines or otherwise penalize errant participants in their program. This is so much smoke and mirrors to fool an ignorant public into believing that "certified" spam is any more legitimate than the crap that already piles up in their mailboxes.
Soon we'll come to the point where we must submit a list of trusted addresses to our ISPs' sysadmins, and they'll have to configure their mail servers to block everything not on that list. Until we come up with an enforceable solution for shifting the financial burden of bulk e-mail to the spammers themselves, this plague will continue unabated.
I'm glad the article noted that Chapter 11 does not mean you are going out of business. This is often confused. This merely means you are seeking protection from creditors to buy yourself time to re-organize and create a plan to pay back your debt, and become profitable.
In the tech industry, Chapter 11 frequently does mean the company is about to close its doors for good.
Companies file Chapter 11 in order to buy more time for a last desperate attempt to renegotiate debt or find a buyer or angel investor. If no such relief is forthcoming, the bankruptcy invariably proceeds to liquidation.
The latest example would be Rhythms. They filed Chapter 11, sacked all but a couple hundred employees, waited a week for someone to swoop from the heavens and save them with a few billion dollars, then gave up and sent out the disconnect notices anyway. Rhythms are toast, and so are Loki.
I feel bad for Loki, but there just isn't a large enough market for their products to offset the expense of licensing and porting closed-source software. When Linux approaches, say, Apple's desktop market share, maybe another company can make a go of it.
it is virtually allways used for leisure: Pretending to do work whilst actually swapping sweet-little-nothings with Jane in accounts, or arranging a Q3 duel with DukeQuakem. (if someone actually has an important, legit reason for using a messenger service, please correct me...).
I wouldn't call it important, but we do use IM services at work (but not MSN; mostly AIM, Yahoo!, or Jabber). Not that IM is any quicker or easier than e-mail, but it doesn't clutter up your inbox. And it's nice for people working from home who don't have DSL or a second phone line.
OTOH, it promotes laziness: sometimes it helps to lever your ass up from your desk and go talk to the other person. No wonder so many geeks (me included) are out of shape . . .
For someone who advocates freedom and choice on the "electronic frontier," John Gilmore is sure quick to sacrifice other people's property in the name of a free Internet.
His analogies simply don't wash: the guy on the street corner, and the bulk-mailer leaving ads in my postbox, are bearing nearly all of the transmission costs. That's not how it works on the Internet. Bulk-mailers have no right to consume my resources without compensation. It's really that simple, and I don't understand how pseudo-libertarians and bulk-mail supporters can't grasp this simple concept. And while it would be great if every 'net user understood how to write procmail filters, most don't (and won't), and it's unreasonable to expect them to.
The censorship argument doesn't wash, either. Private networks have the right to decide what data to carry through their wires and servers. Whether they make morally or ethically sound decisions on what to censor can be debated, but their fundamental right to do so cannot be abrogated.
To make matters worse, Gilmore is willfully choosing to remain part of the problem by running his own open relay. He doesn't get that his rights end where others' begin. Maybe he will never get it.
Not a defense of spammers, but rather food for thought:
Most of us have cable of one form or another, which means we pay to receive nominally "free" channels (broadcast network stations). Plus, there's the cost of the electricity that powers our TVs. And of course you just had to drop a few grand on that gorgeous new high-definition set . . .
So, do advertisers have the right to bother us with their messages on our television sets? (Those of you with TiVO can stop snickering now.) After all, we bear some of the cost of transmission of those messages, so in one sense we're paying to be spammed via our TVs.
But most of the cost of transmitting those ads are borne by the advertisers and the stations/cable/satellite companies, and in fact they depend on the revenue generated from ad sales to be able to provide "free" TV, so it balances out. But many users are just consumers on the Internet, much as they are consumers of television: they pay a monthly fee to get email/Web/etc. access, and the ISP and its upstream providers handle the rest. (Well, this is true in the US; it may be very different elsewhere.) And don't think that spammers are sending out their mail for free--there's the cost of their firehose software, access charges, having to change ISPs every other week . . .
So the exercise for the week is: how do you shift the financial burden for sending UCE to the originators?
I say that on a massively distributed system like the Internet, you can't do it, at least not accurately. Some networks will spend more resources to handle spam than others (think AOL vs. your local ISP), but how do you pass those costs back to the originators, and how do you collect such costs?
Since there's no practical way to implement a fair cost structure for UCE, we'd rather make it illegal. Not exactly an elegant solution, and not much of a deterrent, either.
What other alternatives are there?
First, it should be noted that a contributing factor to Japan's economic woes is a severe labor shortage, so I'm not surprised KOEI is so paranoid about other companies looking to steal its employees.
In the U.S., however, a lot of us are lucky just to have jobs, at least in the dot-com sector. Not that you should sign your life away just so you can keep up the payments on the Audi and hold on to those stock options (snicker), but let's dispense with the grand delusion that tech workers are in any position to call the shots to their employers.
You agreed to certain terms of employment by accepting a job offer. If your contract prevents you from creating Quake mods during new moons on even-numbered months, then that's what you deal with. My last contract specified that any technology I created that was related to the company's "core business operations" belonged to them, without credit or further compensation, even if I created it on my own time. Sound unfair? Probably. But I agreed to it.
Fortunately, that start-up is dead and almost forgotten, and I ended up at a much better gig. But now tech companies are being asked to do more with fewer resources (i.e., personnel), and cushy HR buzzwords like "self-direction" and "employee enrichment" have been tossed right out the window with company stock prices. Some of us are in survival mode, bucko, and don't really give a damn if we work in Sunnyvale or Siberia, so long as the check doesn't bounce on Friday.
Got a job? Good. Now get back to work.
Sorry, had to get that horrible pun out of my system.
Seriously: while gesture controls may not be ready for prime time just yet, consider that the technology may prove useful for those who communicate best using only their hands. A 17-year-old from Colorado recently won the grand prize at the International Science and Engineering Fair for designing a glove that can interpret the movements of someone "speaking" in American Sign Language (ASL) and then output the communication as text.
So, the hard of hearing could control their computer with ASL commands, or dictate letters the same way the rest of us can with a voice-powered word processor, using beefed-up gesture control technology and, of course, hardware that can reliably interpret their hand movements. It's somewhat tangential to the story, but an intriguing concept nonetheless.
Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but with the recent trend towards huge corporate mergers, does this mean that there is a possibility of all the Baby Bells merging to once again form one Big Daddy Bell?
Highly unlikely, I would think (hope?). Such a mega-merger would never pass muster with the Justice Department, although we are seeing regional mergers that combine long-distance and broadband providers with traditional telcos (think Qwest/U S West).
More importantly, since the breakup of AT&T there have been so many acquisitions and reorganizations by the Baby Bells that their corporate cultures are sufficiently balkanized to preclude even the thought of joining forces again.
They're much more vulnerable to the uncertainties in the broadband market than the big boys.
My ISP, Dimensional Communications, seems to have done better than most other independent providers, at least in its limited service area (basically, the Boulder/Denver/Colorado Springs corridor and a few mountain areas). They jumped on the DSL bandwagon early, offering service from U S West/Qwest and Jato Communications (the latter primarily for business accounts).
Unfortunately, Jato tanked in December and switched off most of their DSL circuits without warning. And since some Dimensional customers used Jato because they couldn't get DSL service from Qwest, they were left without broadband access. For a big ISP, this is a minor inconvenience, since they can usually just switch a customer over to another broadband provider. For a small ISP, such a setback can be disastrous, or even fatal if they're heavily dependent on a single vendor.
They're also at the mercy of monopolistic telcos. DimCom had to threaten legal action, and in fact filed a grievance with the Public Utilities Commission, against U S West in order to get their MegaBit circuit installed. (After all, U S West/Qwest offers its own Internet access; why would it want to provide broadband to a competitor, no matter how small?) It's conceivable that telcos could just sit on service orders from indy ISPs until they wither and die on the vine.
DimCom seems to have survived, however, and their service, from the first moment I signed on (7/97) to this day, has been superb. Even though I'm stuck on a dial-up account, and could move to a provider who offers DSL in my area, service and reliability are a hell of lot more important to me than speed. And aside from the large telcos, I can't think of a single DSL provider that has good long-term survival prospects. I'd rather stick with my trusty 56K modem, and have full net access (with a shell account!), then run at 256Kbps and worry about the circuit disappearing overnight.
All hail the little guys!
And not only has it been lost, but its popular definition has changed to the point where it has little meaning.
Consider my first experience online: AOL. That, by itself, should invite a platoon of flamethrowers to point in my direction. But in 1995, at least, it was possible to find signs of intelligent life on the service, other lusers who were my age or at least acted like it. This was due in large part to having to pay by the hour; most kids got limited access, if any, and had to make the most of it, which left little time for pointless posturing on the message boards (which were heavily moderated anyway). It was then that I discovered Usenet, which has long been treated like Outer Mongolia by AOL, but was the source of some truly inspired writing, arguments, and all-out war. I spent much of my 20 hours a month simply downloading articles from Usenet.
That changed in '96, when AOL moved to unlimited-access. Now parents had a new babysitter, developmentally-stunted college dropouts had a new latrine to piss in, and the collective IQ of the service plummeted. I bailed the very next month for an independent ISP and haven't looked back.
And true flaming--which, despite Katz' assertions, usually attacked the message, not the messenger--has suffered badly as the Internet moves into the mainstream. "I CAUGHT LUXERx AND HIS MOTHER IN A HOT WET 69!!!1!!1!!!" is not a flame. It's the immature bleating of lonely teens who have just figured out how to use a newsreader to crosspost to half the groups in alt.* on Usenet. Real flames are written by people who value subtlety, excellent grammar and precise logic. Often their subjects don't know they are being roasted, even while everyone else in the group is stifling a laugh.
That was flaming then. Now it's just noise, which I can pick up from any high-school student lounge. The freedom and accessibility of the 'net are its blessings--and also its curses, and eventual downfall.
Telcos wouldn't participate in slamming if they lost money at it.
The problem is that FTC rules only allow slammed customers to recover the difference between what they would have paid their preferred provider and what they paid the telco that slammed them. And that only covers the first 30 days after the unauthorized switch.
Bullshit, I say. If I've been slammed, I should owe the slammer zip, zilch, nada. Refund all charges, even if I made 20 three-hour calls to Kazakhstan during that time. Plus they pay to switch me back to my old provider.
Once telcos realize they'll take it in the shorts, they'll drop slamming like the bad habit it is.
In PR1, my style sheets didn't work.
In PR2, they seemed to work fine.
In PR3, my style sheets aren't working again.
I've tried to be careful with my HTML/CSS compliance (at least, it checks out with W3C's validator), so this on again/off again behavior is puzzling.
I don't want to say that old problems are being reintroduced into this release, but it's frustrating to try and support a browser that keeps changing behavior.
1) Group burglarizes an apartment (supposedly one member recently moved out and was "retrieving" personal possessions - I don't recall details). Couple in one car is seen by police, pursued. Woman refuses to pull over when cop flashes his lights; male passenger fires gun at pursuing officer. Later, the woman is in custody when male fatally shoots a cop, then takes his own life.
I'm not sure what the underlying felony was (I though refusal to pull over was a misdemeanor),
but she was charged with CAPITAL felony murder. She was ultimately sentenced to life-in-prison, no parole.
This would be the Matthaeus Jaehnig case, from November 1997. The woman convicted of felony murder (not capital murder; they're two different crimes), Lisl Auman, enlisted Jaehnig's and a few others' help in grabbing her belongings from an ex-boyfriend's home. This was reported as a burglary (aka 1st degree criminal trespass, a felony), to which the cops responded. So it wasn't just the burglary, but the resulting flight from the cops that were used as factors in charging Auman with felony murder.
Felony murder law is nothing new; it has its roots in centuries-old British common law (though the UK dropped the statute many years ago). It holds that *anyone* involved in the commission of a felony that results in the death of a person is liable for that death, regardless of whether they were the murderer, or were even present at the time the murder occurred. Auman was already in custody before the cop was killed, but because she "initiated" the burglary and resulting flight, her hands were as bloody as Jaehnig's. As a result, Auman was convicted of first degree murder, and will spend the rest of her life in prison, without the possibility of parole. Did I mention she was just 21 at the time of her conviction?
Of course, the case isn't nearly as black-and-white as I've presented it here; you can go to a website set up by the Auman family to hear the other side.
IANAL, but the second case seems excessive - people die from heart attacks every day, and this sets a dangerous precedence.
Remember the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics? One of the casualties died from a heart attack. I'd say whoever set off the bomb is responsible for that death. There has to be a pretty direct cause-effect relationship between the crime and the death. Actually pulling the trigger is obviously the most direct. Fleeing from police, and putting them in the position of being shot by a lunatic with an automatic assault rifle, is not as direct, but the felony murder statute allows such connections to be made.
Could someone be charged with felony murder if a TV viewer suffers a heart attack after watching live TV coverage? What if a distraught victim subsequently commits suicide?
Last year, the mother of one of the victims of the Columbine massacre killed herself. Just recently, the star basketball player at the school also took his own life. Apparently he was a close friend with a couple of the victims. I won't be overly surprised if his parents sue the parents of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold for wrongful death. Granted, that would be a civil and not a criminal action, but the issue of responsibility remains the same.
My view (and, usually, the law's) is that someone who initiates an action that is the direct cause of a person's death or injury is the person most liable. That would rule out most suicides--provided of course that you can show evidence of other factors that would indicate a person's suicidal intentions.
The woman claimed that she was unable to pull over because the gunman threatened to shoot her if she did - and she had no way of knowing he would ultimately kill a cop.
Prior knowledge is completely irrelevant in a felony murder case. There doesn't even have to be intent--if you're the wheelman in a bank robbery, you certainly have no intention of shooting a guard, but if one of them is killed, you're as guilty as your accomplices.
There are mitigating circumstances that should be considered, but that occurs usually in the sentencing phase, after a conviction. Apparently, in Auman's case, the mitigating factors weren't enough. And, in Colorado, the judge has little leeway in the sentencing guidelines--if it's first degree murder, the two options are death (if it's a capital case) or life without parole.
In case you haven't noticed the trend lately, copyright infringement suits are unpopular with the public. Companies that file them are thought of as "traditional" or "old fashioned" and the suits thus considered petty.
Don't be so sure about that. Amazon is a perfect example of a hip new "dot-com" that isn't above using the legal system to enforce questionable patents. And companies who file such infringement suits don't give a damn about public opinion, because that isn't what decides the case.
This isn't a case of the evils of UCITA. This is a case of jumping to conclusions. If you read the document the restrictions about negative comments, etc., pertain to licensees of Apogee's trademarks.
/. into removing readers' posts for allegedly violating an online EULA?
Fine. So I have a fan site for Duke Nukem, which uses the game's logos/characters/etc. under license. And I also have a discussion forum, where fans can discuss the game all they like.
Am I then responsible (under the terms of Apogee's license as written) for a visitor who posts "DOOK NUKUMMM SUX GEORGE BROUSSARD'S DICK!!!1!!!1!!"? Is my license revoked simply because I choose to allow visitors to disparage Apogee products in the interest of free speech?
Based on the license's remarkably nebulous wording, there isn't any exception made for comments made by non-licensees; so long as the content appears on a licensee-hosted site, you can be held liable.
You think this isn't possible? Try telling that to Microsoft. Or have you already forgotten they've tried to strongarm
Apogee's license is poorly written at best, and Scott Miller's flip comments that we are "clueless morons" who simply don't understand licensing laws belie the arrogance of a company which, the last time I checked, hasn't released a decent game in four years. Perhaps their license agreement will be moot, since I (and apparently many others) won't be creating fan sites--or buying their games, for that matter.
There is an underabundance of open source products that the general public would care about.
Perhaps, but only because most of those products aren't running on Joe User's desktop.
Most end-users couldn't care less what happens on the back end when they check e-mail, browse a Web site, grab a file off a remote server, etc. All they know is that their stuff works, which keeps them happy.
Now think of all the networks and Web sites that depend on sendmail or Apache or the Linux kernel or Samba or whatever. Now make all of those open source products disappear. Can you even begin to calculate the disruption to business and 'net communications if we had to depend solely on proprietary Un*x products and (God help us) NT?
Education is the key. Let users know that the products that run on the back end ensure the smooth operation of the products they run on their desktop. Eventually they may come to appreciate the value that open source software brings to their computing experience, and insist on using such products on their desktop as well.
Besides the obvious barbies and board games, what else does MAttel make? I don't particularly want to buy anything they're making, period.
Hope you don't have kids; they'll have to go without a lot of stuff. Besides Barbie, Mattel owns Cabbage Patch Kids, Fisher-Price, Hot Wheels, Tyco RC, Matchbox, and Mattel Interactive (their software division). They also make Sesame Street and Winnie-the-Pooh toys under license. Their Web site has more details.
They're also publicly traded (symbol: MAT) so if you really want to make a statement, make sure you haven't invested in them directly or through managed funds, and encourage others to do the same.
If you read the press release carefully--and it's obvious no one at /. did--Eidos plans to release Daikatana in Q1 of its fiscal year 2001. For Eidos, FY 2001 begins 1 April. Like another week or two is going to make any difference for the Game Whose Hype Will Not Die.
/. But it would be nice if you at least tried to check facts for stories, instead of just throwing shit to the wall in the hope that it might stick.
Several gaming news sites have made the same mistake, so it's not just
Hmm a news article about a potential competitor to VA linux was replaced by this article aobut editorial independance... probably just a coincidence.....
/. page currently.
Try hitting F5 on your browser, or reading more slowly. The Corel buyout of Inprise is at the top of my
Really, all of you who are bleating about Big Business slowly corrupting the editorial integrity of our little forum here need to gain a sense of perspective, stat. This is the nature of a free-market economy. Do you really think that Malda and Bates would have been able to keep the site running forever on banner ads alone? Or that they could have spent the time needed to improve the site and post stories if they weren't making *some* money at it?
So they agree to sell the site to Andover, provided they retain total editorial control. It's really that simple. VA Linux's buyout of Andover does not change that, unless Malda et al sign a new contract. VA/Andover gets to add a high-profile open-source forum to their stable, and the rest of you are free to continue trashing the company for invading your online Utopia.
If you *really* want a truly independent forum, then grab the new Slash code and start your own damn site, and let's see how long you last with a few stupid ad banners for revenue. Welcome to the new reality of the Internet. Get used to it.