Yet again, slashdot acts as the fanboys in chief for Google. There is nothing to see here, literally. Google has plonked a few book titles in 'easy to use' clickable links then wrapped them up in a nice webpage. How much has google paid/. editors for these 'news' stories to appear day after day after day.
Reminds me of the old russian saying - "There is no Pravda in Izvestia, and there is no Izvestia in Pravda"
For pity's sake - this 'article' has also been plugged on OSNews. Users there have sensibly concluded that this thing is either straight FUD or a complete troll.
The writer uses no statistics, data or representative sampling. He cannot point to a single concrete example of his central thesis. He seems incapable of understanding the developmental changes which have enabled Linux in the past few years to 'fill the gap' between a user's desire and results. In short, the article bearly passes muster as opinion piece, never mind journalism. Many would say that all of the above marks it as a Troll, with timeshare rights under the FUD-Bridge.
Dupes are bad enough, misleading headlines are even worse. Putting this type of troll-crud onto the front page is a serious dereliction of editorial control by/.
In the context of the parent, 'big' doesn't necessarily mean 'large' or even 'large employer'. What is, methinks, more meant, is that the EU is a classic example of 'big government'. The EU has, in its fairly short existence, managed to attempt to micro-manage every facet of the lives of those who fall under its thrall.
I am regularly consulted by people who are attempting to establish manufacturing and/or services business. Each of them becomes, eventually, bewildered by the morass of regulatory processes, environmental assessments, tax systems, business classifications, waste disposal regulations, employment regulations, discrimination policy advices... I really could go on and on , but there is little point. The simple fact is that the EU seems incapable of preventing itself making yet more regulations to go on top of the already huge pile of them it has created.
The net effect of all of these regulations is to prevent people going into business and to stifle the entrepeneurial spirit. Of course, this nightmarish vista doesn't even scratch the surface of how and why those regulations are promulgated in the first place. Often they are later found to favour one nations producers or systems over another, as in the case of Per Lindstrand and the heliostats (sorry - URL unavailable). In the end there seems to be nothing which can be done by the people or parliaments of Europe to stop this - as seen with the patents directive where the commisison is continually attempting to override national and european parliaments. Europe just isn't working anymore!
The false positives is becoming an increasing problem for me also. I use GMail for mailing-lists, and more of the messages from those lists are now falling foul of the GMail spam-filters. The lists which show particular failures in this regard are debian-user and vim-user.
I had hoped that there would be some way of keeping those messages from the GMail filter, but of course there isn't one. Bizarrely enough, the system was much better at the false-positives, it seems to have gotten worse as the volume of actual spam has mounted. There doesn't appear to be any consistency in those identified as spammers.
I did note, however, in a recent thread on debian-user, that a supposed troll's emails consistently went into the spam-bucket. Perhaps GMail uses other users 'Mark as Spam' returns and automatically assigns spam-values on that basis?
Neal,
In interviews I have read you have stated that during the writing of Cryptonomicon you discarded a third 'future' timeline. Is there any possibility of someday bringing that timeline to light? Do you feel that the contents of that timeline still pass muster given the changes in Cryptography and official power concentration since you wrote the novel?
Well, it probably merits a mention due to the nature of what the guy did. His work was exciting, the results he posted were exciting - exciting enough to dupe a lot of very qualified people. How many times was he published in Nature?
When the falsification claims surfaced there were an awful lot of mightily disappointed (and angry) people out there. Speaking personally, I'm happy that his Doctorate has been stripped, and I'm glad that someone took the time to post it here, as otherwise I don't think I'd have found out about it.
Eight Hundred Million Australian Dollars fine? Gadzooks, have even the EUrocrats given up all faith in the stumble-bum of international currencies?
But seriously folks, the Fine which has been levied has only been done at an early stage, despite some of the premature celebrations. Microsoft will appeal, there will be massive depositions and written submissions etc. and the matter will hang around the EU's 'ahem' Competition Authority like a pair of concrete shoes for a few years.
Finally, after $SUITABLE years have elapsed, the European Council of Ministers, probably Employment Council or some such, will reduce the Fine to some EUR10m or thereabouts, after a closed-door unreportable meeting - following years of extensive lobbying of the Governments in question by Microsoft. That's how things are done in Europe, secretly, without public consultation or justification. See the recent whitewashing of the EU parliament's vote in relation to software patents as an example.
Which point are you making? Seriously?
Drink which tastes like someone didn't filter the mouldy turf out of the water pre-brewing. vs. Drink which tastes like someone just filtered the water thus completing the brewing process.
I can't see either standpoint benefiting from that comparison.
Slashdot Mirror
Yet again, slashdot acts as the fanboys in chief for Google. There is nothing to see here, literally. Google has plonked a few book titles in 'easy to use' clickable links then wrapped them up in a nice webpage. How much has google paid /. editors for these 'news' stories to appear day after day after day.
Reminds me of the old russian saying - "There is no Pravda in Izvestia, and there is no Izvestia in Pravda"
For pity's sake - this 'article' has also been plugged on OSNews. Users there have sensibly concluded that this thing is either straight FUD or a complete troll.
The writer uses no statistics, data or representative sampling. He cannot point to a single concrete example of his central thesis. He seems incapable of understanding the developmental changes which have enabled Linux in the past few years to 'fill the gap' between a user's desire and results. In short, the article bearly passes muster as opinion piece, never mind journalism. Many would say that all of the above marks it as a Troll, with timeshare rights under the FUD-Bridge.
Dupes are bad enough, misleading headlines are even worse. Putting this type of troll-crud onto the front page is a serious dereliction of editorial control by /.
In the context of the parent, 'big' doesn't necessarily mean 'large' or even 'large employer'. What is, methinks, more meant, is that the EU is a classic example of 'big government'. The EU has, in its fairly short existence, managed to attempt to micro-manage every facet of the lives of those who fall under its thrall.
I am regularly consulted by people who are attempting to establish manufacturing and/or services business. Each of them becomes, eventually, bewildered by the morass of regulatory processes, environmental assessments, tax systems, business classifications, waste disposal regulations, employment regulations, discrimination policy advices ... I really could go on and on , but there is little point. The simple fact is that the EU seems incapable of preventing itself making yet more regulations to go on top of the already huge pile of them it has created.
The net effect of all of these regulations is to prevent people going into business and to stifle the entrepeneurial spirit. Of course, this nightmarish vista doesn't even scratch the surface of how and why those regulations are promulgated in the first place. Often they are later found to favour one nations producers or systems over another, as in the case of Per Lindstrand and the heliostats (sorry - URL unavailable). In the end there seems to be nothing which can be done by the people or parliaments of Europe to stop this - as seen with the patents directive where the commisison is continually attempting to override national and european parliaments. Europe just isn't working anymore!
The false positives is becoming an increasing problem for me also. I use GMail for mailing-lists, and more of the messages from those lists are now falling foul of the GMail spam-filters. The lists which show particular failures in this regard are debian-user and vim-user.
I had hoped that there would be some way of keeping those messages from the GMail filter, but of course there isn't one. Bizarrely enough, the system was much better at the false-positives, it seems to have gotten worse as the volume of actual spam has mounted. There doesn't appear to be any consistency in those identified as spammers.
I did note, however, in a recent thread on debian-user, that a supposed troll's emails consistently went into the spam-bucket. Perhaps GMail uses other users 'Mark as Spam' returns and automatically assigns spam-values on that basis?
Neal, In interviews I have read you have stated that during the writing of Cryptonomicon you discarded a third 'future' timeline. Is there any possibility of someday bringing that timeline to light? Do you feel that the contents of that timeline still pass muster given the changes in Cryptography and official power concentration since you wrote the novel?
Well, it probably merits a mention due to the nature of what the guy did. His work was exciting, the results he posted were exciting - exciting enough to dupe a lot of very qualified people. How many times was he published in Nature?
When the falsification claims surfaced there were an awful lot of mightily disappointed (and angry) people out there. Speaking personally, I'm happy that his Doctorate has been stripped, and I'm glad that someone took the time to post it here, as otherwise I don't think I'd have found out about it.
Eight Hundred Million Australian Dollars fine? Gadzooks, have even the EUrocrats given up all faith in the stumble-bum of international currencies?
But seriously folks, the Fine which has been levied has only been done at an early stage, despite some of the premature celebrations. Microsoft will appeal, there will be massive depositions and written submissions etc. and the matter will hang around the EU's 'ahem' Competition Authority like a pair of concrete shoes for a few years.
Finally, after $SUITABLE years have elapsed, the European Council of Ministers, probably Employment Council or some such, will reduce the Fine to some EUR10m or thereabouts, after a closed-door unreportable meeting - following years of extensive lobbying of the Governments in question by Microsoft. That's how things are done in Europe, secretly, without public consultation or justification. See the recent whitewashing of the EU parliament's vote in relation to software patents as an example.
Which point are you making? Seriously? Drink which tastes like someone didn't filter the mouldy turf out of the water pre-brewing. vs. Drink which tastes like someone just filtered the water thus completing the brewing process. I can't see either standpoint benefiting from that comparison.