I think that if the power is out, the broadband over the power lines would likely be out well.
Right. So you're taking generally useful infrastructure, making it useful only in times of emergencies that kill the power, and further removing the incentive for folks to actually get involved in investing their time and money into that infrastructure. (Who's going to build a nice ham setup if it's only usable when the power's out? Further, what if the power isn't out in the location where the help you're trying to call is located?)
Mouth breathing was trained out of me at a young age. There was some excuse given about it being health related, though from what I'm seeing here it may have been more a matter of social status.
As opposed to what, people who breath through their ears?
People who breathe through their noses. That said, I (like you) don't see what the relevance is to this discussion -- yes, mouth breathing is suboptimal, but I'd hardly say enough so to constitute an insult.
Are you really trying to say that those who aren't the community figureheads - that aren't frequently in the limelight, that aren't likely to be questioned by industry journalists, who's names aren't widespread, and that actually do much of their work quietly behind the scenes - may put slightly less emphasis on their self-presentation?
Why, no, I'm not.
I'm saying that the people who aren't the figureheads still tend to have excellent communication skills. Perhaps I should have left Linus out, thus giving more attention to James Yonan and Tom Lord -- or perhaps I should have named more of the folks (like Robert Collins) who are heavily involved in writing code for these projects without actually holding a maintainership role.
In any event, though, the people who are competant -- not only the maintainers themselves, but also the individuals who are trusted by them -- are people who think clearly and communicate clearly. The individuals who don't have those abilities tend not to be the ones who do important work behind the scenes, but merely the non-contributing userbase.
Look at Linus Torvalds, James Yonan, Guido van Rossum, Donald Knuth; all of these people have outstanding communication skills. It's merely the wannabes and hangers-on whose skills are inadequate -- and arguably, such individuals aren't really part of the community at all.
Indeed, I distinctly recall it having been noted decades ago that there was a disproportionate number of English majors in the computing community. Perhaps someone will have a source?
Let me draw a parallel here, using a quote from Steve Jobs:
"Well, let's say you can shave 10 seconds off of the boot time. Multiply that by five million users and thats 50 million seconds, every single day. Over a year, that's probably dozens of lifetimes. So if you make it boot ten seconds faster, you've saved a dozen lives. That's really worth it, don't you think?"
Even if the additional workload for a single reader is negligible, remember that you're writing for a crowd. (If that doesn't work, remember that you don't want to look like an idiot in public).
In my humble opinion, any lawsuit that has the words "failing to protect" in its description is automatically bunk.
That's not always true. If you run a mall, a train station, or some other place that's open to the public and you have a wooden deck you don't keep maintained such that one of the boards rots and someone breaks an ankle falling through -- you had a legitimate duty to protect the public from reasonably forseeable safety hazards, and you're going to get to pay medical bills (and then some, maybe, if you knew about the problem and didn't do anything).
In this case, though, I'm inclined to agree with you.
The company is a loser because they paid money for an ad that no one but their own people see.
It's worse than that, see. Let's say you hire people to click on your competitor's ads without buying their product -- and that these ads are on a website you own, so you get paid when folks click on them! You're draining your competitor's advertising budget, and enriching yourself.
You seem to imply that this project will meet that demand
That was an unintentional implication. I don't know what will meet the demand -- though I think orbiting solar collectors are perhaps one of the most promising options (perhaps storing the energy they collect in the form of antimatter -- in this, I largely subscribe to Robert Forward's views), I don't honestly expect to see such a project funded and succesfully implemented on the necessary scale.
Too bad it will be the future generations who'll end up paying for our spending.
Future generations? If you expect to be living around 2020 (according to the oil industry) or 2010-2013 (according to others), we'll be paying ourselves.
Absolutely - which is why they advocate for safe technology (wind and solar power) that is economically and environmentally responsible in the present as opposed to 50 years down the road.
Except that solar and wind simply aren't capable of providing enough power to meet even the inelastic parts of the demand curve.
It's not a problem at all -- it's a feature, not a bug.
If you're running a business with an IT department, or even have a household machine that you're responsible for fixing when someone breaks it, do you want unprivileged users to be able to install software, except for in their own accounts' space?
would you find any city, any neighborhood, any apartment building, any residence without some criminal living in it?
Of course not -- but one could have a good idea what are low-crime areas as opposed to high-crime ones.
[...]hide, cowering in the woods.
Since you're wondering, the thing that gave me a personal interest in this sort of thing is a friend with young children who've been known to disobey orders about checking in, staying within a certain area, etc. Aforementioned friend moved recently, and this sort of information proved useful in avoiding one site that otherwise looked perfect.
I'm perfectly happy to be responsible for my own safety, thank you very much -- I've walked through the "bad parts" of most of the cities I've lived in, and not thought too much of it or ever come out harmed. When one is has children in one's care, though, a certain level of responsibility is in order. I'm not saying it's right or appropriate to raise a child to live in fear of any arbitrary person they don't know, or that it'd be ideal to raise them in a padded cell, but there's a certain level of action that's reasonable and appropriate -- like not moving your family to an area with hundreds of registered sex offenders within a few blocks [as was the case in the home my friend was considering], when instead you could move to an area with just a few [as is the case in the home she's moving into presently].
Reasoned argument is one thing. Calling people names when you don't understand their positions or motivations is another.
Example: Friend of mine has two young children, was looking to move to a new house. Looked up the neighborhoods of the areas she was considering moving to. One house which otherwise looked ideal had literally hundreds of sex offenders within a two-block radius (apartment complexes). She's since chosen a house in an area with a much lower number of such criminals.
As a friend who's concerned about her children's wellbeing, I think was useful and appropriate information for her to have available.
Since it's in many cases illegal to inform people that inquiries are being made about them under PATRIOT, aforementioned people can hardly go mounting judicial challenges, can they?
Sure, the Court tends to rule correctly when it a case gets to it -- but "correctly" these days tends to mean "in line with the intent of Congress". Congress increasingly frequently intends things which arguably aren't compatible with a strict interpretation of Federal powers granted via the Constitution, and the Court frequently grants them those things anyhow. (Consider the CTEA, or the extent of abuse of the interstate commerce clause to legislate things which have only remotely passing relationships with interstate commerce).
Slashdot Mirror
I think that if the power is out, the broadband over the power lines would likely be out well.
Right. So you're taking generally useful infrastructure, making it useful only in times of emergencies that kill the power, and further removing the incentive for folks to actually get involved in investing their time and money into that infrastructure. (Who's going to build a nice ham setup if it's only usable when the power's out? Further, what if the power isn't out in the location where the help you're trying to call is located?)
No, that's if linguists ran the world.
How the hell do you do that?
Mouth breathing was trained out of me at a young age. There was some excuse given about it being health related, though from what I'm seeing here it may have been more a matter of social status.
As opposed to what, people who breath through their ears?
People who breathe through their noses. That said, I (like you) don't see what the relevance is to this discussion -- yes, mouth breathing is suboptimal, but I'd hardly say enough so to constitute an insult.
...but not the way it was *always*. I don't remember exactly when this changed -- somewhere in the 1970s?
Are you really trying to say that those who aren't the community figureheads - that aren't frequently in the limelight, that aren't likely to be questioned by industry journalists, who's names aren't widespread, and that actually do much of their work quietly behind the scenes - may put slightly less emphasis on their self-presentation?
Why, no, I'm not.
I'm saying that the people who aren't the figureheads still tend to have excellent communication skills. Perhaps I should have left Linus out, thus giving more attention to James Yonan and Tom Lord -- or perhaps I should have named more of the folks (like Robert Collins) who are heavily involved in writing code for these projects without actually holding a maintainership role.
In any event, though, the people who are competant -- not only the maintainers themselves, but also the individuals who are trusted by them -- are people who think clearly and communicate clearly. The individuals who don't have those abilities tend not to be the ones who do important work behind the scenes, but merely the non-contributing userbase.
The article is based on a flawed premise.
Look at Linus Torvalds, James Yonan, Guido van Rossum, Donald Knuth; all of these people have outstanding communication skills. It's merely the wannabes and hangers-on whose skills are inadequate -- and arguably, such individuals aren't really part of the community at all.
Indeed, I distinctly recall it having been noted decades ago that there was a disproportionate number of English majors in the computing community. Perhaps someone will have a source?
Slashdot may not be formal writing, but it's still a social congregation -- and, in such a forum, it's better to be a pedant than a halfwit.
In my humble opinion, any lawsuit that has the words "failing to protect" in its description is automatically bunk.
That's not always true. If you run a mall, a train station, or some other place that's open to the public and you have a wooden deck you don't keep maintained such that one of the boards rots and someone breaks an ankle falling through -- you had a legitimate duty to protect the public from reasonably forseeable safety hazards, and you're going to get to pay medical bills (and then some, maybe, if you knew about the problem and didn't do anything).
In this case, though, I'm inclined to agree with you.
The company is a loser because they paid money for an ad that no one but their own people see.
It's worse than that, see. Let's say you hire people to click on your competitor's ads without buying their product -- and that these ads are on a website you own, so you get paid when folks click on them! You're draining your competitor's advertising budget, and enriching yourself.
You seem to imply that this project will meet that demand
That was an unintentional implication. I don't know what will meet the demand -- though I think orbiting solar collectors are perhaps one of the most promising options (perhaps storing the energy they collect in the form of antimatter -- in this, I largely subscribe to Robert Forward's views), I don't honestly expect to see such a project funded and succesfully implemented on the necessary scale.
Too bad it will be the future generations who'll end up paying for our spending.
Future generations? If you expect to be living around 2020 (according to the oil industry) or 2010-2013 (according to others), we'll be paying ourselves.
Absolutely - which is why they advocate for safe technology (wind and solar power) that is economically and environmentally responsible in the present as opposed to 50 years down the road.
Except that solar and wind simply aren't capable of providing enough power to meet even the inelastic parts of the demand curve.
It's not a problem at all -- it's a feature, not a bug.
If you're running a business with an IT department, or even have a household machine that you're responsible for fixing when someone breaks it, do you want unprivileged users to be able to install software, except for in their own accounts' space?
Modern liberals are collectivists
Just as much as modern conservatives are fascists.
Give me good old-fashoned, limited-governent conservatism any day... oh, wait, that's mostly called "libertarianism" now.
[W]ould any sensible convicted fellon actually repeat offend?
I think the answer to this redacted form of your question implies the faulty assumption implicit to the full version.
would you find any city, any neighborhood, any apartment building, any residence without some criminal living in it?
Of course not -- but one could have a good idea what are low-crime areas as opposed to high-crime ones.
[...]hide, cowering in the woods.
Since you're wondering, the thing that gave me a personal interest in this sort of thing is a friend with young children who've been known to disobey orders about checking in, staying within a certain area, etc. Aforementioned friend moved recently, and this sort of information proved useful in avoiding one site that otherwise looked perfect.
I'm perfectly happy to be responsible for my own safety, thank you very much -- I've walked through the "bad parts" of most of the cities I've lived in, and not thought too much of it or ever come out harmed. When one is has children in one's care, though, a certain level of responsibility is in order. I'm not saying it's right or appropriate to raise a child to live in fear of any arbitrary person they don't know, or that it'd be ideal to raise them in a padded cell, but there's a certain level of action that's reasonable and appropriate -- like not moving your family to an area with hundreds of registered sex offenders within a few blocks [as was the case in the home my friend was considering], when instead you could move to an area with just a few [as is the case in the home she's moving into presently].
Reasoned argument is one thing. Calling people names when you don't understand their positions or motivations is another.
Maybe she's in a richer area now
If she could afford to live in a rich area, do you think she'd have considered a poor one?
What good can possibly be done with this information?
Deciding where to move -- or, more to the point, where not to.
Example: Friend of mine has two young children, was looking to move to a new house. Looked up the neighborhoods of the areas she was considering moving to. One house which otherwise looked ideal had literally hundreds of sex offenders within a two-block radius (apartment complexes). She's since chosen a house in an area with a much lower number of such criminals.
As a friend who's concerned about her children's wellbeing, I think was useful and appropriate information for her to have available.
You could always cancel your cable, but how many techies do you know that are going to do that?
Some of us have DSL. Cable? Why buy cable?
[...] i don't think any insurer would touch the thing.
Lloyd's would, but they'd charge you enough to make it worth their while.
Since it's in many cases illegal to inform people that inquiries are being made about them under PATRIOT, aforementioned people can hardly go mounting judicial challenges, can they?
Sure, the Court tends to rule correctly when it a case gets to it -- but "correctly" these days tends to mean "in line with the intent of Congress". Congress increasingly frequently intends things which arguably aren't compatible with a strict interpretation of Federal powers granted via the Constitution, and the Court frequently grants them those things anyhow. (Consider the CTEA, or the extent of abuse of the interstate commerce clause to legislate things which have only remotely passing relationships with interstate commerce).