...However, if you go to the bank and request $10.00 from the ATM and get $100, then clearly there is an issue with the machine. It does not make the money yours. There is a measure of common sense in this equation that people are failing to address. To keep the money, in full knowledge of an error, is theft. It's no different than going to a store and bumping into a candy stand and watching candy bars fall into your cart, knowing you didn't pay for them and keeping them.
I agree that clearly there would appear to be an issue with the machine. I'm not sure if it makes the money yours...I don't know the law well enough to speculate. Your measure of common sense can be applied to either an electronic teller, or to a human one. If a human teller gives you $100 when you request $10, and debits your account for $10 (and there is no other teller to intervene), then the bank has made an error. That doesn't mean that you should have received the money, but I think it's a grey area as far as who it belongs to after the transaction occurs and is accepted by both parties. I already stated that I think the money should be returned, but I'm not addresseing the legality of it because it seems to be a non-trivial case to figure out.
We are not looking at the difference between services and cash. A bank is a business. Its main service is that of accepting, storing, and handing out cash. In both cases, the business should be expected to know what it's doing. In both cases, a customer that got more than they bargained for need not be aware that there was an error.
A customer that got the wrong software and signed off saying "it looks good to me" is going to be left holding the bag...there wouldn't be 2 parties at fault, although the customer might convince the business to make corrections anyway in the interest of PR.
...The situation here is that if I don't check my cash received, then I'm not holding up my end of the responsibility. If the bank's ATM short changed a person, is it the banks fault or your for not checking? It's both. But this is why there is a need for honesty / integrity.
I agree, it would be irresponsible not to check the amount of money you received...that applies regardless of whether you get too much or too little money. I agree that there is a need for honesty/integrity, and I don't think that taking the extra cash is good. That's not the point. Regardless of whether it's irresponsible, in either case (too little or too much cash), it's the teller's job to make sure the correct amount of money is given to the customer. I have to place any "fault" with the teller, whether flesh or silicon...keeping in mind that has nothing to do with what I believe to be right or wrong.
...actually, no, he said that if someone mails something to *you*, it's yours. If it was mailed to your neighbor at the wrong address, then it wasn't mailed to you.
If some company mailed you a generic $20 gift certificate (equivalent to $20 cash) because they thought you should have one (for whatever reason), and then realized that you didn't really fit the criteria for having been sent said certificate, too bad. *that* is what he was saying.
A bank is (presumably) in the business of handling, collecting, and dispersing money in a variety of formats. One would hope that they had things sufficiently under control that they were giving $10.00 to the people who requested $10.00. That's what they are supposed to do.
I'm a guy who works with computers. If I am asked to upgrade somebody's processor to a certain model and don't look carefully and put a better processor in (costing me money), then as soon as I hand that over to the customer and the transaction is complete, I'm stuck. It should be no different with a bank or a casino.
I have no opinion whatsoever on the morality of it. If the person feels they should return the money (a stance I agree with), then fine, but that's not part of the equation of whose fault it is. The fault lies with the business that is not being diligent in handling their primary area of business. It it manifestly the fault of the bank if they give out more money than they are supposed to. They need to correct their mistake and take precautions to prevent it from happening again, rather than skipping over the whole "claiming responsibility" part of things and going straight to the blame game.
Well, again, I get that. It wasn't really unclear what happened, even in Goblet of Fire.
...Suddenly, she introduces a completely new plot device that we've never heard of (not the specific effect) that magically saves Harry skin, for very obscure and strange reasons. It's cheating.
I'd say we had a hint of it from the very beginning, in the fact that Harry survived as an infant. We knew from the end of the first book that there was something unusual between Voldemort and Harry, and regardless of the fact that the killing curse is unstoppable, Harry survived.
Yes, if you disregard the fact that Harry's an odd duck, it doesn't make sense, but the fact that he survived as an infant wouldn't have made sense either, had it happened to a different, random infant halfway through the series. Harry's a superhero in the books, and as a given, I think it makes it hard to know what to expect period.
Going back to your thought about the book (in this case) maintaining a certain internal logic, it seems to, from my point of view. Half of what made the books interesting was the wondering about how Voldemort and Harry were tied together and what would happen when they met each time. The uncertainty about whether Harry would be able to be killed by Voldemort (or could defeat him somehow) was central to the plot of all 7 books, especially since it was evident that Harry was brave, but not especially gifted at magic. The discovery of why he wasn't killed at the end was exposition for me, rather than a Deus Ex.
I do appreciate the historical explanation, though. It's nice to get that type of information.
I think I'm close to understanding your argument (and thank you for actually responding instead of just screaming "I'm right and you're stupid!!!" like so many slashdotters do).
What was the inconsistency that inspired your initial response?
Okay...but "suspension of foreshadowing" (which is a phrase I am unacquainted with) has nothing to do with deus ex. If we're going to argue in a pedantic, specific way about a specific literary crutch, then we should at least do it in a way that makes sense.
You could say that all of her books rely too much on it, but then so do most sci-fi and fantasy books, simply because the worlds that exist in most of them center around fantastic and impossible items and events. Saying that a fantasy book is poorly written because of that is pretty silly.
Your complaint was:
...That's it! The term as applied to plots is completely derogatory: the author uses a mechanism hidden from the audience to make something happen that shouldn't be possible. It's pretty much the worst thing you can say about a plot.
So, bearing in mind that the genre typically requires this type of plot device, why the criticism on that point?
I'm not trying to be difficult, I just want to understand your argument well enough to decide if it seems sensible to me.
I'll be 36 in October...you must not be a fan of sci-fi or fantasy books. Actually, one of the most interesting things I noticed on Friday night/Saturday morning was the huge percentage of people in line that appeared to be in the 17-20 age range.
I guess it makes sense, since most of them were between 7 and 10 when the first book came out. They've been reading the books for over half of their lives, in some cases. In the best of all possible worlds, J.K. Rowling may have inspired some future writers out there to create something as engaging as these books (or Heinlein's, Spider Robinson's, Asimov's, Saberhagen's, Piers Anthony's, Stephen King's, Harry Harrison's...)
If you think the books are stupid, that's fine. Just understand that J.K. Rowling didn't get rich because everybody thinks the books are stupid, and understand that the bookstores and wal-marts weren't full of 10-year-olds.
If you ever come across a book or better yet, a series (I highly recommend any of Spider Robinson's "Callahan" books, BTW) that draws you in and makes you wish you were a part of it, maybe you'll understand the allure here. Not everyone has that much imagination, and not everyone can stand being jeered at by people who are "better" than that, but you don't have to be a completely nutty fan to enjoy a good book.
...the author uses a mechanism hidden from the audience to make something happen that shouldn't be possible...
Umm, isn't the entire series about magic? In my personal experience, allof the spells, and most of the potions aren't possible to create in this world. Why don't we drop the whole "deus ex machina" argument, since this is a fantasy title...suspension of belief is a necessity to enjoy the books at all.
Kathryn Ford of Louisville, Ky., the gambler who alerted the casino, said going after the other patrons was unfair.
When a slot machine jams and gamblers lose money, they don't get it back, she said.
Suppose you were there partaking of the free beverages that the casino offers, and didn't notice the discrepancy between the number of credits on the screen and the amount you put in? There are a lot of ways that you could weight things to determine whose fault it is, but in another situation, you wouldn't expect the patrons to foot the bill for the establishment's mistake.
If I give the guy at the racetrack window a ten and he gives me a ticket that says it was a $100 bet, that's not my fault. A slot machine is essentially an agent of the establishment in question, just like a dealer at a card table, or the guy at the racetrack window. They count your money and either return some of it or not, depending on the outcome of some specific circumstance. The machine counted badly, but that's not the fault of the players...maybe they should fire the machine or the machine's manager.
The casino obviously noticed the problem, and presumably has a way to prevent it from happening again other than litigation, otherwise they'll go broke from court costs. In this case, I'd have to say that the casino should suck it up, learn from the experience, and test their machines better.
True, just saying that given the choice between leaking data all over the place and taking for granted that it's secured by some unassailable algorithm vs. having a fiber-optic cable transmitting the same data, sufficiently security-conscious people aren't going to opt for wireless...especially an unproven wireless technology.
Good encryption means different things to different people, and it also means different things depending on the type of data being transmitted and its value to someone who wants to get their hands on it. Good encryption for me might mean 128-bit SSL when I'm buying a domain name with my personal credit card. It might mean 1024-bit encryption of a classified file on some DoD workstation. You make a good point, I'm just making the counterpoint.
Right...just like they do with WEP.
Yes, you'd have to be stupid not to encrypt wireless traffic. That doesn't make it safe, though, assuming the data is actually worth obtaining.
...actually, FTFEO, it's not just people who are attempting to undermine the Iraqi government, but (rather specifically) people who have been determined:
(i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of...
...(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or
(iii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order...
So, if they think you did or will commit an act of violence, or supported someone who did, or work for or on behalf of someone who did (where the goal of said violence was to undermine the Iraqi govt., then they're gonna freeze your assets. The primary consideration in this order appears to be cutting of funding for acts of violence, not cutting off funding for people who have something against the Iraqi government at all.
I'm not uncomfortable with the scope of this order, which appears much more limited in substance than this article's title would have me believe.
while data centers could install racks of servers without the customary jumble of wires
Somehow I don't see "whole data centers" using a data transmission method where any device can potentially intercept the data going to and coming from any other device. Might make your hosting clients a bit nervous.
So, you got bored of playing *one* game for three weeks straight and decided that meant the console sucked, eh? Yeah, Mii's are kind of silly...except to my kids, who insisted they ahve their own look-alikes as soon as my wife made one for herself.
Leaving the "quitters never win" joke aside for the moment, I was looking forward to Super Mario Universe, but have been surprised at how much fun I have playing Wii Sports with my kids. My son now wants to go *real* bowling. My wife likes the paper mario games, and Super Paper Mario has been fun, too. Granted, that one can be completed, and then it's pretty much over, but Wii Sports, etc (Wii ping-pong is coming Dec 31st...no room for a table, but much love for the game) are always fun.
Maybe you should have tried a few games where multiple players were involved, and the goal was to best each other somehow...
..at least for those of us using Windows XP or (shudder) Vista: Paint.NET is getting better and better (and has an active user community creating plugins, etc). I tried it about 2 years ago and wasn't all that impressed, but as of my latest inspection, it's pretty useful software. Just make sure to check out the forums for effects and tutorials.
I'm having trouble beleiving that you are a brilliant programmer but have no innate talent.
In practice, you either find programmers with innate talent, but no *exposure* to programming who work hard and eventually demonstrate their relative brilliance, or you find programmers with no innate talent, but a desire for compensation or recognition who believe they are brilliant, but are churning out craptastic code.
There are many levels between the two, but as a general rule, you only get good code (brilliant work) out of programmers with a knack for creating it.
A comparable field of work is that of attorneys. If you have an innate ability to look at a situation, discern the most important facts, and make an argument, you may be a brilliant attorney. Lacking that, you may work very hard and choose to focus on a niche area of law in which you have found a particular argument that works out frequently in your favor, but that doesn't make you a brilliant lawyer.
I think most really good programmers are humble in describing their ability to absorb and integrate the concepts necessary to be able to come up with programming solutions. Some don't realize that the same traits that make them respond that way end up leading them to discover things that others might miss.
Time and effort, of course, is a part of becomming a brilliant programmer, but without some inate ability, all the time and effort in the world won't help. So, I would say:
Those people who you hear about who are "naturally talented" fall into one of two categories:
1) They are talented and spent a lot of time and effort turning that talent into a skill.
or
2) They aren't actually talented at anything except selling themselves and a cursory examination of their "talents" will prove this.
No, actually, it's only an open door for a lawsuit for those of us running a non-Novell version of Linux. Gotta love those patent covenants.
Which, incidentally, is the only thing keeping me from using it in a large number of places.
Oh well, someday, either there will be no more Novell, no more Microsoft, or no more patent covenant, and then I can think about using Novell-associated open source technology again.
You know, I write a fair bit of code (mostly ASP[.NET], Java, and PHP), and I was initially interested with mono (say what you want, the.net framework cuts my typical web form development time roughly in half).
Back in the.net 1.1 days, I looked into mod mono and apache to see what the possibilities of asp.net development without microsoft were. I decided to wait and revisit it when.net 2.0 came along (took a while for mono to catch up to that).
In the meantime, Novell got a serious case of stupid, and forced me to decide that I'd stay as far away from Novell technology as possible until their patent extortion^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hlicense deal with Microsoft went away.
It really pissed me off that a company that spent so much time trying to "get back in the game", so to speak, would just piss it all away like that. Mono is interesting (to me), Novell's SuSE Linux distro was pretty slick (my easiest Xgl/aiglx working setup at the time), but it's all tainted now.
Like the AC said [about Novell], I used to respect you, but not after the deal with Microsoft.
Re:This is actually my HOPE for the future
on
Censoring a Number
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· Score: 1
zero niner foxtrot niner one one zero two niner delta seven fower echo tree fife bravo delta eight fower one fife six charlie fife six tree fife six eight hotel charlie zero
Watchguard's gear is decent for the price (and I think bsd or linux-based)...does arp proxy, vpn, nat, etc. It's been 5-6 years since I've used one, but it was a good fw for a small network to hide behind.
I understand, but I have huge problems with most of the idea. Here's why:
First, we must harken back to the issue of public money going to the telcos to build out high-speed networks. More than a handful of billions of dollars spent there by everyone went straight into the coffers of the telcos, and we haven't seen the fruit from whatever effort may have been made there.
That ties in with the whole tiered-service/degraded service offerings that the big backbone providers seem to think are such a good idea. Yes, the fact that there's not currently a statute prohibiting service degradation hasn't meant a complete slide into pay-through-the-nose type service, but that's primarily because under the current infrastructure, it's more difficult to implement large-scale and fine-grained QOS controls.
What we're talking about now is an institution trying to get funding (private funding) for developing a network that would supplant the existing internet infrastructure (and presumably make use of the same fiber...economical and all) and allow for robust, built-in management of bandwidth, service quality, etc.
Adopting the "internet as tubes" mindset (which this goes a long way towards making a reality), those who own the "pipes" can more easily open or close particular valves.
I rather prefer the "internet as a superhighway" metaphor, even though it may come with its share of traffic jams. Military and emergency service concerns don't especially change my mind...in both instances, a completely separate network seems a better solution. We've all paid for the roads...repeatedly...let's remain agnostic as to just how much traffic of a particular type is allowed on them (or how much a particular user is allowed to use them).
Going from POP/SMTP to HTTP as a user interface for email doesn't change the underlying way that mail gets transmitted from one mail system to another. It was developed because browsers got smart enough to make themselves become reasonable and cross-platform mail clients. I'm all for web interfaces...it's the lowest common denominator for application interfaces these days, but not all new and exciting internet software is sitting in a web page.
The freedom to innovate (especially for those of us who do network programming) that the current internet provides shouldn't be underestimated. There's a lot to be said about being able to expect equal treatment for your brand-new, whiz-bang protocol or application that you just don't see until somebody decides that it should be treated as a second-class citizen (e.g. VOIP).
If I want to be able to let people connect to their inboxes via SMTP, POP, HTTP, or IMAP, I should be able to (provided I paid for an internet connection). If I want to provide the same via RSS, bittorrent, or gnutellanet, I don't want to be at the mercy of those that I have paid for internet service from. I'm not paying for HTTP, FTP, and GOPHER connectivity, I'm paying for an internet connection.
We've already been moving further and further away from the internet as a peer-to-peer network and towards the internet as Compuserve/Prodigy/AOL for some time. In the interests of making it a worthwhile thing to have in existence at all, I'd just as soon see the internet remain as neutral as possible. If this continues, either BBSes, FIDONet, and ToadNet might be seeing a big resurgence in popularity, or everyone will be trying to figure out how to run new services on top of whichever ones are least likely to be throttled (SMTP over HTTP, Bittorrent over RSS). The network is *supposed* to be dumb, just like a highway.
I liked the whole "economical and profitable" requirement...nothing like mentioning QOS/bandwidth throttling and economic viability in the same paper to get the backbone providers to pony up some research money...so long net neutrality, we'll miss you.
No problem...I didn't know about it either until about 9 months ago when I was in the situation I described (no secondary machine) and had made sure the graphical login would automatically start so rebooting wasn't my friend. I learned lots of interesting things about restarting X and gdm while trying to get beryl/compiz/aiglx/Xgl/desktop effects working on an unsupported ATI card. Ratcheted my "Linux n00b" score down a full point.
If that fails, you can try [ctrl]+[alt]+[f12], get a new tty with [alt]+[f1], and kill X, GDM, and whatever else suits your fancy...sometimes, you don't have another machine, but there are a lot of ways to get out of a borked Xsession
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We are not looking at the difference between services and cash. A bank is a business. Its main service is that of accepting, storing, and handing out cash. In both cases, the business should be expected to know what it's doing. In both cases, a customer that got more than they bargained for need not be aware that there was an error.
A customer that got the wrong software and signed off saying "it looks good to me" is going to be left holding the bag...there wouldn't be 2 parties at fault, although the customer might convince the business to make corrections anyway in the interest of PR.
I agree, it would be irresponsible not to check the amount of money you received...that applies regardless of whether you get too much or too little money. I agree that there is a need for honesty/integrity, and I don't think that taking the extra cash is good. That's not the point. Regardless of whether it's irresponsible, in either case (too little or too much cash), it's the teller's job to make sure the correct amount of money is given to the customer. I have to place any "fault" with the teller, whether flesh or silicon...keeping in mind that has nothing to do with what I believe to be right or wrong.
If some company mailed you a generic $20 gift certificate (equivalent to $20 cash) because they thought you should have one (for whatever reason), and then realized that you didn't really fit the criteria for having been sent said certificate, too bad. *that* is what he was saying.
A bank is (presumably) in the business of handling, collecting, and dispersing money in a variety of formats. One would hope that they had things sufficiently under control that they were giving $10.00 to the people who requested $10.00. That's what they are supposed to do.
I'm a guy who works with computers. If I am asked to upgrade somebody's processor to a certain model and don't look carefully and put a better processor in (costing me money), then as soon as I hand that over to the customer and the transaction is complete, I'm stuck. It should be no different with a bank or a casino.
I have no opinion whatsoever on the morality of it. If the person feels they should return the money (a stance I agree with), then fine, but that's not part of the equation of whose fault it is. The fault lies with the business that is not being diligent in handling their primary area of business. It it manifestly the fault of the bank if they give out more money than they are supposed to. They need to correct their mistake and take precautions to prevent it from happening again, rather than skipping over the whole "claiming responsibility" part of things and going straight to the blame game.
Well, again, I get that. It wasn't really unclear what happened, even in Goblet of Fire.
I'd say we had a hint of it from the very beginning, in the fact that Harry survived as an infant. We knew from the end of the first book that there was something unusual between Voldemort and Harry, and regardless of the fact that the killing curse is unstoppable, Harry survived.
Yes, if you disregard the fact that Harry's an odd duck, it doesn't make sense, but the fact that he survived as an infant wouldn't have made sense either, had it happened to a different, random infant halfway through the series. Harry's a superhero in the books, and as a given, I think it makes it hard to know what to expect period.
Going back to your thought about the book (in this case) maintaining a certain internal logic, it seems to, from my point of view. Half of what made the books interesting was the wondering about how Voldemort and Harry were tied together and what would happen when they met each time. The uncertainty about whether Harry would be able to be killed by Voldemort (or could defeat him somehow) was central to the plot of all 7 books, especially since it was evident that Harry was brave, but not especially gifted at magic. The discovery of why he wasn't killed at the end was exposition for me, rather than a Deus Ex.
I do appreciate the historical explanation, though. It's nice to get that type of information.
I think I'm close to understanding your argument (and thank you for actually responding instead of just screaming "I'm right and you're stupid!!!" like so many slashdotters do).
What was the inconsistency that inspired your initial response?
Okay...but "suspension of foreshadowing" (which is a phrase I am unacquainted with) has nothing to do with deus ex. If we're going to argue in a pedantic, specific way about a specific literary crutch, then we should at least do it in a way that makes sense.
You could say that all of her books rely too much on it, but then so do most sci-fi and fantasy books, simply because the worlds that exist in most of them center around fantastic and impossible items and events. Saying that a fantasy book is poorly written because of that is pretty silly.
Your complaint was:
So, bearing in mind that the genre typically requires this type of plot device, why the criticism on that point?
I'm not trying to be difficult, I just want to understand your argument well enough to decide if it seems sensible to me.
I'll be 36 in October...you must not be a fan of sci-fi or fantasy books. Actually, one of the most interesting things I noticed on Friday night/Saturday morning was the huge percentage of people in line that appeared to be in the 17-20 age range.
I guess it makes sense, since most of them were between 7 and 10 when the first book came out. They've been reading the books for over half of their lives, in some cases. In the best of all possible worlds, J.K. Rowling may have inspired some future writers out there to create something as engaging as these books (or Heinlein's, Spider Robinson's, Asimov's, Saberhagen's, Piers Anthony's, Stephen King's, Harry Harrison's...)
If you think the books are stupid, that's fine. Just understand that J.K. Rowling didn't get rich because everybody thinks the books are stupid, and understand that the bookstores and wal-marts weren't full of 10-year-olds.
If you ever come across a book or better yet, a series (I highly recommend any of Spider Robinson's "Callahan" books, BTW) that draws you in and makes you wish you were a part of it, maybe you'll understand the allure here. Not everyone has that much imagination, and not everyone can stand being jeered at by people who are "better" than that, but you don't have to be a completely nutty fan to enjoy a good book.
Umm, isn't the entire series about magic? In my personal experience, allof the spells, and most of the potions aren't possible to create in this world. Why don't we drop the whole "deus ex machina" argument, since this is a fantasy title...suspension of belief is a necessity to enjoy the books at all.
If I give the guy at the racetrack window a ten and he gives me a ticket that says it was a $100 bet, that's not my fault. A slot machine is essentially an agent of the establishment in question, just like a dealer at a card table, or the guy at the racetrack window. They count your money and either return some of it or not, depending on the outcome of some specific circumstance. The machine counted badly, but that's not the fault of the players...maybe they should fire the machine or the machine's manager.
The casino obviously noticed the problem, and presumably has a way to prevent it from happening again other than litigation, otherwise they'll go broke from court costs. In this case, I'd have to say that the casino should suck it up, learn from the experience, and test their machines better.
True, just saying that given the choice between leaking data all over the place and taking for granted that it's secured by some unassailable algorithm vs. having a fiber-optic cable transmitting the same data, sufficiently security-conscious people aren't going to opt for wireless...especially an unproven wireless technology.
Good encryption means different things to different people, and it also means different things depending on the type of data being transmitted and its value to someone who wants to get their hands on it. Good encryption for me might mean 128-bit SSL when I'm buying a domain name with my personal credit card. It might mean 1024-bit encryption of a classified file on some DoD workstation. You make a good point, I'm just making the counterpoint.
Right...just like they do with WEP.
Yes, you'd have to be stupid not to encrypt wireless traffic. That doesn't make it safe, though, assuming the data is actually worth obtaining.
So, if they think you did or will commit an act of violence, or supported someone who did, or work for or on behalf of someone who did (where the goal of said violence was to undermine the Iraqi govt., then they're gonna freeze your assets. The primary consideration in this order appears to be cutting of funding for acts of violence, not cutting off funding for people who have something against the Iraqi government at all.
I'm not uncomfortable with the scope of this order, which appears much more limited in substance than this article's title would have me believe.
Somehow I don't see "whole data centers" using a data transmission method where any device can potentially intercept the data going to and coming from any other device. Might make your hosting clients a bit nervous.
So, you got bored of playing *one* game for three weeks straight and decided that meant the console sucked, eh? Yeah, Mii's are kind of silly...except to my kids, who insisted they ahve their own look-alikes as soon as my wife made one for herself.
Leaving the "quitters never win" joke aside for the moment, I was looking forward to Super Mario Universe, but have been surprised at how much fun I have playing Wii Sports with my kids. My son now wants to go *real* bowling. My wife likes the paper mario games, and Super Paper Mario has been fun, too. Granted, that one can be completed, and then it's pretty much over, but Wii Sports, etc (Wii ping-pong is coming Dec 31st...no room for a table, but much love for the game) are always fun.
Maybe you should have tried a few games where multiple players were involved, and the goal was to best each other somehow...
..at least for those of us using Windows XP or (shudder) Vista:
Paint.NET is getting better and better (and has an active user community creating plugins, etc). I tried it about 2 years ago and wasn't all that impressed, but as of my latest inspection, it's pretty useful software. Just make sure to check out the forums for effects and tutorials.
Sure it does...you just have to buy it from someone who preconfigured it...just like they did to your TiVo.
(Going off-topic a bit further)
I'm having trouble beleiving that you are a brilliant programmer but have no innate talent.
In practice, you either find programmers with innate talent, but no *exposure* to programming who work hard and eventually demonstrate their relative brilliance, or you find programmers with no innate talent, but a desire for compensation or recognition who believe they are brilliant, but are churning out craptastic code.
There are many levels between the two, but as a general rule, you only get good code (brilliant work) out of programmers with a knack for creating it.
A comparable field of work is that of attorneys. If you have an innate ability to look at a situation, discern the most important facts, and make an argument, you may be a brilliant attorney. Lacking that, you may work very hard and choose to focus on a niche area of law in which you have found a particular argument that works out frequently in your favor, but that doesn't make you a brilliant lawyer.
I think most really good programmers are humble in describing their ability to absorb and integrate the concepts necessary to be able to come up with programming solutions. Some don't realize that the same traits that make them respond that way end up leading them to discover things that others might miss.
Time and effort, of course, is a part of becomming a brilliant programmer, but without some inate ability, all the time and effort in the world won't help. So, I would say:
Those people who you hear about who are "naturally talented" fall into one of two categories:
1) They are talented and spent a lot of time and effort turning that talent into a skill.
or
2) They aren't actually talented at anything except selling themselves and a cursory examination of their "talents" will prove this.
I half agree with you ;)
No, actually, it's only an open door for a lawsuit for those of us running a non-Novell version of Linux. Gotta love those patent covenants.
Which, incidentally, is the only thing keeping me from using it in a large number of places.
Oh well, someday, either there will be no more Novell, no more Microsoft, or no more patent covenant, and then I can think about using Novell-associated open source technology again.
You know, I write a fair bit of code (mostly ASP[.NET], Java, and PHP), and I was initially interested with mono (say what you want, the .net framework cuts my typical web form development time roughly in half).
Back in the .net 1.1 days, I looked into mod mono and apache to see what the possibilities of asp.net development without microsoft were. I decided to wait and revisit it when .net 2.0 came along (took a while for mono to catch up to that).
In the meantime, Novell got a serious case of stupid, and forced me to decide that I'd stay as far away from Novell technology as possible until their patent extortion^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hlicense deal with Microsoft went away.
It really pissed me off that a company that spent so much time trying to "get back in the game", so to speak, would just piss it all away like that. Mono is interesting (to me), Novell's SuSE Linux distro was pretty slick (my easiest Xgl/aiglx working setup at the time), but it's all tainted now.
Like the AC said [about Novell], I used to respect you, but not after the deal with Microsoft.
Well said. You inspired me.
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Watchguard's gear is decent for the price (and I think bsd or linux-based)...does arp proxy, vpn, nat, etc. It's been 5-6 years since I've used one, but it was a good fw for a small network to hide behind.
First, we must harken back to the issue of public money going to the telcos to build out high-speed networks. More than a handful of billions of dollars spent there by everyone went straight into the coffers of the telcos, and we haven't seen the fruit from whatever effort may have been made there.
That ties in with the whole tiered-service/degraded service offerings that the big backbone providers seem to think are such a good idea. Yes, the fact that there's not currently a statute prohibiting service degradation hasn't meant a complete slide into pay-through-the-nose type service, but that's primarily because under the current infrastructure, it's more difficult to implement large-scale and fine-grained QOS controls.
What we're talking about now is an institution trying to get funding (private funding) for developing a network that would supplant the existing internet infrastructure (and presumably make use of the same fiber...economical and all) and allow for robust, built-in management of bandwidth, service quality, etc.
Adopting the "internet as tubes" mindset (which this goes a long way towards making a reality), those who own the "pipes" can more easily open or close particular valves.
I rather prefer the "internet as a superhighway" metaphor, even though it may come with its share of traffic jams. Military and emergency service concerns don't especially change my mind...in both instances, a completely separate network seems a better solution. We've all paid for the roads...repeatedly...let's remain agnostic as to just how much traffic of a particular type is allowed on them (or how much a particular user is allowed to use them).
Going from POP/SMTP to HTTP as a user interface for email doesn't change the underlying way that mail gets transmitted from one mail system to another. It was developed because browsers got smart enough to make themselves become reasonable and cross-platform mail clients. I'm all for web interfaces...it's the lowest common denominator for application interfaces these days, but not all new and exciting internet software is sitting in a web page.
The freedom to innovate (especially for those of us who do network programming) that the current internet provides shouldn't be underestimated. There's a lot to be said about being able to expect equal treatment for your brand-new, whiz-bang protocol or application that you just don't see until somebody decides that it should be treated as a second-class citizen (e.g. VOIP).
If I want to be able to let people connect to their inboxes via SMTP, POP, HTTP, or IMAP, I should be able to (provided I paid for an internet connection). If I want to provide the same via RSS, bittorrent, or gnutellanet, I don't want to be at the mercy of those that I have paid for internet service from. I'm not paying for HTTP, FTP, and GOPHER connectivity, I'm paying for an internet connection.
We've already been moving further and further away from the internet as a peer-to-peer network and towards the internet as Compuserve/Prodigy/AOL for some time. In the interests of making it a worthwhile thing to have in existence at all, I'd just as soon see the internet remain as neutral as possible. If this continues, either BBSes, FIDONet, and ToadNet might be seeing a big resurgence in popularity, or everyone will be trying to figure out how to run new services on top of whichever ones are least likely to be throttled (SMTP over HTTP, Bittorrent over RSS). The network is *supposed* to be dumb, just like a highway.
I liked the whole "economical and profitable" requirement...nothing like mentioning QOS/bandwidth throttling and economic viability in the same paper to get the backbone providers to pony up some research money...so long net neutrality, we'll miss you.
No problem...I didn't know about it either until about 9 months ago when I was in the situation I described (no secondary machine) and had made sure the graphical login would automatically start so rebooting wasn't my friend. I learned lots of interesting things about restarting X and gdm while trying to get beryl/compiz/aiglx/Xgl/desktop effects working on an unsupported ATI card. Ratcheted my "Linux n00b" score down a full point.
If that fails, you can try [ctrl]+[alt]+[f12], get a new tty with [alt]+[f1], and kill X, GDM, and whatever else suits your fancy...sometimes, you don't have another machine, but there are a lot of ways to get out of a borked Xsession