Why do we keep seeing links and stories from these two? They were great fun as magazines when I was 12, but please!
Perhaps there should be an article category -- "sensationalism/ridiculous speculation" that I can filter out. I can already hear the replies -- "You haven't been on/. long have you?" It's not this isn't news for nerds. Maybe I'm just not as nerdy as I once was, or my brand of nerdism includes a desire for less fanboy-ism.
When I need to go to a new site for a financial transaction (e.g. opening a new bank account), I always get there via a Google search instead of typing it directly. If I enter the address directly and make a subtle typo, I could end up at some scammer's site made to look like the real thing so they can steal my personal info. If I go through Google and make a typo, Google usually suggests the correct name. Even when it doesn't, I can usually tell by the search results that I've made a typo.
What? You don't know how to create or use bookmarks?
If Win7 does not ship on time, they will do just what they did when Vista was delayed: keep shipping the old version. No big revenue stream loss, particularly since people & businesses still need to replace old machines with new. Sure, it looks bad, but when you have a monopoly, what can a customer do.
As long as Dell & the rest of the big companies sell mostly Windows only boxen, the average user has no real choice.
Aside from repeating the old myth that glass can actually sag over hundreds of years, the article says very little. Perhaps a bad summary.
The jist of linked the story is:
A group of scientists in Bristol, Canberra and Tokyo used a material (doesn't say what) analogous to glass, not glass. This material is easier to study. Using this material they claim they were able to understand better what happens on the atomic level as it solidifies, and why it never really becomes a crystal. Nowhere in the article does it explain why this will lead to "metallic glass"
Here is an abstract for the original article. Pretty complex wording, but nothing about metallic glass.
Actually, I'd say that these days, preemptive strikes are _typically_ American.
Sorry... I just get really annoyed when it is stated that something is un-American, and by that it is meant that it is "bad". America and Americans are just as prone to vices and ill will as every other nation on earth. Furthermore, this usage is also a slur against every person who is not American. To people from other nations it sounds ignorant and boorish. It puts your nation in a bad light.
I'm sure to be attacked by people who will point out the arrogant French, the ineffectual/wimpy Canadians, etc. etc.
I'm sure you are correct. My point is that people go around all the time saying that converting formats is piracy, which it is not. It is this kind of thinking which causes people like "DVD Jon" to be prosecuted. From Wikipedia's description of the DeCSS case:
The defense argued that no illegal access was obtained to anyone else's information, since Johansen owned the DVDs himself. They also argued that it is legal under Norwegian law to make copies of such data for personal use.
Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but the point remains.
I found that hacking PDF's is impossible, but eBooks are easy to remove the DRM then convert to PDF so I can read them on my PSP. Because of their rediculous paranoia it actually encourages people to pirate to avoid all of the lame restrictions.
Changing a document (or an audio or video track) to another format is not pirating, even if you circumvent copy protection in the process. If you were to copy the item and then sell it, or make it available via internet that would be copyright infringement.
It seems to me (reading the responses at +2) that sshuber and other posters are experiencing the effects of an economic downturn, while others are not. Having recently returned from a road trip to Washington State (from British Columbia) I only saw a few overt indications economic problems, which is not to say that they don't exist.
However we have all seen troublingreportsoflayoffs in the tech industries. The tech sector does seem to be suffering less in the current situation than say, the real estate or banking industries.
Coming back to the original topic, I am most interested in these questions: Does a slowdown in the tech industry benefit or hurt FOSS projects? Does it free up more talent to work on these projects, or do these people end up purely focused on getting the next job? Do FOSS projects rely too much on corporations that can be kicked out from under them by the economy?
Personally, when I've been unemployed, it has been a blow to my self esteem, and I associate that with being perhaps selfish in that I did not even consider working on FOSS. Not saying that was the best move on my part. Anybody else?
"I" have an iPhone "and a Macbook Pro for that matter" [snip] I may get a 3G iPhone at some point. I probably will, when the old phone is two years old.[snip]
"You" have too much money. Luckily, Apple is helping you with that.
I think it is sort of important to stay out in front of the ever increasing competition in those areas simply so we can show we are more then capable or leading the way.
"We should do it because we should show everyone that we can do it?" I think the US is a world leader in many things, but showing the world how great it is just to prove they are the alpha male seems misguided. Oh sure, the bully with the biggest stick gets the most bowing and scraping from people who are scared of him, but I think this is a way to alienate others.
Why exactly must the US be the leader, in space or any other field. Why not accept that the US is just one nation among many? I like the fact that it is the "International" Space Station, though many partners may be under-contributing or late in their work. Collaborate, co-operate, rather than coerce.
It is a little like being open source rather than closed source. If I understand it correctly*, an open source project team may be like a herd of cats, but the possible good results and the absence of absolute control by any one individual outweighs the dubious advantages of closed source software.
Tony
*Rider: I have not been a part of an open source project, so I am operating from what I have read on Slashdot & OS project web sites.
> Editor's note: This story is written for an American audience, but not only > Americans can see the eclipse. People in Europe and western Africa are also > favored. International maps and timetables may be found here.
Japan is a tougher target than most people realise. They have 40-100 tonnes of plutonium and a vast industial base. If the US abandoned them, they could build enough nukes to level China quite quickly.
I am always amazed to see people so easily suggesting nuclear war. Japan has already been subjected to the A-bomb, and I doubt even 60 years later they will have forgotten what that was like. And that kind of killing -- genocide really -- like, is that a good thing?
Aw come on! You mean you think they came up 9 other examples just so they could slam Vista?
Sure -- some of these were obscure. So people in the US never heard of the Sinclair C5? This is CNET UK we are talking about here.
Making a list of the worst, or the best for that matter, of anything is sure to be controversial. From what I read, the article is intended as humour. And it also provided us an amusing diversion on/. No harm done.
> Man Dies After Getting Stuck in Girlfriend's Cat Door > Report: Mozambican Woman Gives Birth to Baby With Two Heads > Man, Toad Arrested in Drug Bust
It is obvious this Kintli fellow has violated the DMCA... or is it the SPCA... anyway he broke the law by reverse engineering a piece of commercially sold software. Since this was not done for the purpose of interoperability, the law should be called in!
> I think if he checked his facts, he might discover that the world's largest computer hardware > company absolutely *loves* open source.
I imagine that the world's largest auto manufacturer (is that GM or Toyota?) is fairly indifferent to open source. And the world's largest dairy might use completely proprietary software, and not even know open source exists.
But the author is not referring to any of these industries but instead to software.
Microsoft hates open source. Adobe does not hate open source though -- see opensource.adobe.com
He also does a lot less damage when a red neck armed with a pistol is sitting next to him.
Total BS. Someone with a gun just offers an unbalanced person the opportunity to grab it from
them. That's why cops mostly keep theirs in the the holster, under a strap.
There are other nations in this world far more armed to the teeth then Americans (Canadians and Swedes come to mind) that have much reduced levels of gun death.
In Canada, yes there are lots of guns. But people don't go down the street packing. There are more people who hunt -- either for a living or sport. I think that if you could compare the number of hand guns per capita, you would find that Canada comes out way lower than the US.
The problem is deeper then guns, and it sure as hell won't be solved by attempting the utterly futile (and certainly likely to be lethal) act of trying to take away the guns from Americans.
Guns are strictly regulated in Canada.
However I do agree that the problem does go very deep. I think it also relates to the need some people have to carry a gun. Your post displays it clearly. If lots of people carry guns, you think that no one will mess with you, because they fear you have one. I fail to see the connection. In fact I see the opposite -- guns cause fear, fear causes violence. The "bad guy" will fear you to have a gun and therefore make sure they have one and shoot you first.
I think the real motivation behind biofuel, regardless of it's viability, is to reduce dependence on foreign energy sources. Free market? There is no free market in oil -- it is controlled by the governments at it's source, wherever that is.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do we keep seeing links and stories from these two? They were great fun as magazines when I was 12, but please!
Perhaps there should be an article category -- "sensationalism/ridiculous speculation" that I can filter out. I can already hear the replies -- "You haven't been on /. long have you?" It's not this isn't news for nerds. Maybe I'm just not as nerdy as I once was, or my brand of nerdism includes a desire for less fanboy-ism.
When I need to go to a new site for a financial transaction (e.g. opening a new bank account), I always get there via a Google search instead of typing it directly. If I enter the address directly and make a subtle typo, I could end up at some scammer's site made to look like the real thing so they can steal my personal info. If I go through Google and make a typo, Google usually suggests the correct name. Even when it doesn't, I can usually tell by the search results that I've made a typo.
What? You don't know how to create or use bookmarks?
If Win7 does not ship on time, they will do just what they did when Vista was delayed: keep shipping the old version. No big revenue stream loss, particularly since people & businesses still need to replace old machines with new. Sure, it looks bad, but when you have a monopoly, what can a customer do.
As long as Dell & the rest of the big companies sell mostly Windows only boxen, the average user has no real choice.
Aside from repeating the old myth that glass can actually sag over hundreds of years, the article says very little. Perhaps a bad summary.
The jist of linked the story is:
A group of scientists in Bristol, Canberra and Tokyo used a material (doesn't say what) analogous to glass, not glass. This material is easier to study. Using this material they claim they were able to understand better what happens on the atomic level as it solidifies, and why it never really becomes a crystal. Nowhere in the article does it explain why this will lead to "metallic glass"
Here is an abstract for the original article. Pretty complex wording, but nothing about metallic glass.
Actually, I'd say that these days, preemptive strikes are _typically_ American.
Sorry... I just get really annoyed when it is stated that something is un-American, and by that it is meant that it is "bad". America and Americans are just as prone to vices and ill will as every other nation on earth. Furthermore, this usage is also a slur against every person who is not American. To people from other nations it sounds ignorant and boorish. It puts your nation in a bad light.
I'm sure to be attacked by people who will point out the arrogant French, the ineffectual/wimpy Canadians, etc. etc.
So, I guess you'd get upset if I suggested that 'spun' was one of twitter's pseudonyms...
I'm sure you are correct. My point is that people go around all the time saying that converting formats is piracy, which it is not. It is this kind of thinking which causes people like "DVD Jon" to be prosecuted. From Wikipedia's description of the DeCSS case:
Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but the point remains.
Changing a document (or an audio or video track) to another format is not pirating, even if you circumvent copy protection in the process. If you were to copy the item and then sell it, or make it available via internet that would be copyright infringement.
It seems to me (reading the responses at +2) that sshuber and other posters are experiencing the effects of an economic downturn, while others are not. Having recently returned from a road trip to Washington State (from British Columbia) I only saw a few overt indications economic problems, which is not to say that they don't exist.
However we have all seen troubling reports of layoffs in the tech industries. The tech sector does seem to be suffering less in the current situation than say, the real estate or banking industries.
Coming back to the original topic, I am most interested in these questions: Does a slowdown in the tech industry benefit or hurt FOSS projects? Does it free up more talent to work on these projects, or do these people end up purely focused on getting the next job? Do FOSS projects rely too much on corporations that can be kicked out from under them by the economy?
Personally, when I've been unemployed, it has been a blow to my self esteem, and I associate that with being perhaps selfish in that I did not even consider working on FOSS. Not saying that was the best move on my part. Anybody else?
"You" have too much money. Luckily, Apple is helping you with that.
"We should do it because we should show everyone that we can do it?" I think the US is a world leader in many things, but showing the world how great it is just to prove they are the alpha male seems misguided. Oh sure, the bully with the biggest stick gets the most bowing and scraping from people who are scared of him, but I think this is a way to alienate others.
Why exactly must the US be the leader, in space or any other field. Why not accept that the US is just one nation among many? I like the fact that it is the "International" Space Station, though many partners may be under-contributing or late in their work. Collaborate, co-operate, rather than coerce.
It is a little like being open source rather than closed source. If I understand it correctly*, an open source project team may be like a herd of cats, but the possible good results and the absence of absolute control by any one individual outweighs the dubious advantages of closed source software.
Tony
*Rider: I have not been a part of an open source project, so I am operating from what I have read on Slashdot & OS project web sites.
> Editor's note: This story is written for an American audience, but not only
> Americans can see the eclipse. People in Europe and western Africa are also
> favored. International maps and timetables may be found here.
I am always amazed to see people so easily suggesting nuclear war. Japan has already been subjected to the A-bomb, and I doubt even 60 years later they will have forgotten what that was like. And that kind of killing -- genocide really -- like, is that a good thing?
Tony
Aw come on! You mean you think they came up 9 other examples just so they could slam Vista?
/. No harm done.
Sure -- some of these were obscure. So people in the US never heard of the Sinclair C5? This is CNET UK we are talking about here.
Making a list of the worst, or the best for that matter, of anything is sure to be controversial. From what I read, the article is intended as humour. And it also provided us an amusing diversion on
Tony
No, I'm not making this up:
> Man Dies After Getting Stuck in Girlfriend's Cat Door
> Report: Mozambican Woman Gives Birth to Baby With Two Heads
> Man, Toad Arrested in Drug Bust
After all this _is_ FOX News
Tony
It is obvious this Kintli fellow has violated the DMCA
the law by reverse engineering a piece of commercially sold software. Since this was not done for
the purpose of interoperability, the law should be called in!
According to Wikipedia:
> MySQL is owned and sponsored by a single for-profit firm, the Swedish company MySQL AB,
> which holds the copyright to most of the codebase.
So perhaps this is not such altruistic behavior on Krow's part after all.
Geez! Not a single "reckon" in that thar translation!
Do you also go as "Charles Goodwin" or "Free Gamer". The parent was also posted to http://kerneltrap.org/node/14008 , apparently 8 hours earlier.
... almost fooled me.
Rob, are you keeping care record of all our electronic communications so that we/you can sued?
> "Set to be sentenced today, Amero instead entered another not guilty plea."
> I think if he checked his facts, he might discover that the world's largest computer hardware
> company absolutely *loves* open source.
I imagine that the world's largest auto manufacturer (is that GM or Toyota?) is fairly
indifferent to open source. And the world's largest dairy might use completely proprietary
software, and not even know open source exists.
But the author is not referring to any of these industries but instead to software.
Microsoft hates open source. Adobe does not hate open source though -- see opensource.adobe.com
Any other examples?
Tony
He also does a lot less damage when a red neck armed with a pistol is sitting next to him.
Total BS. Someone with a gun just offers an unbalanced person the opportunity to grab it from them. That's why cops mostly keep theirs in the the holster, under a strap.
There are other nations in this world far more armed to the teeth then Americans (Canadians and Swedes come to mind) that have much reduced levels of gun death.
In Canada, yes there are lots of guns. But people don't go down the street packing. There are more people who hunt -- either for a living or sport. I think that if you could compare the number of hand guns per capita, you would find that Canada comes out way lower than the US.
The problem is deeper then guns, and it sure as hell won't be solved by attempting the utterly futile (and certainly likely to be lethal) act of trying to take away the guns from Americans.
Guns are strictly regulated in Canada.
However I do agree that the problem does go very deep. I think it also relates to the need some people have to carry a gun. Your post displays it clearly. If lots of people carry guns, you think that no one will mess with you, because they fear you have one. I fail to see the connection. In fact I see the opposite -- guns cause fear, fear causes violence. The "bad guy" will fear you to have a gun and therefore make sure they have one and shoot you first.
Tony
I think the real motivation behind biofuel, regardless of it's viability, is to reduce dependence on foreign energy sources. Free market? There is no free market in oil -- it is controlled by the governments at it's source, wherever that is.