You may wan't to add "background batch processing" to your list, like the business app i'm writing at the moment to process member bonus payments. In Java of course;)
But more seriously, I fall into the right tool for the right job programmer category. Java isn't the be all and end all of programming languages and it has properties that I dislike. But there are some very good tools available now to overcome some of those disadvantages. I find these types of articles quite pointless as they only seem to be used to fan the flames of lanuguage elitism/fanboyism that incite arguments that really don't mean anything at all in the end.
Lets not forget that the boy wonder Wesley Crusher also did some voice recording work to take over Enterprise systems... in Season 1 Episode 2 - The Naked Now.
Plus the possible security exploits that could be exposed should make people pause for thought as well, pause and think about all those people that don't upgrade IE...
I read Snow Crash about 1.5 years ago now and I think its a book that would of been better read when it was released rather than now. I did enjoy it, but it didn't seem quite so revolutionary now as it may of appeared then.
If people who are using a using phones are paying a use tax for wiretapping but are not being tapped should they pay? Just a thought.
What would be better would be rather than having a system that encourages government agencies to not have to bother to do their job properly and wiretap whoever they want at no cost, how bout they pay for this wiretapping out of their own budget. I would suddenly imagine a world where they have to have much better justification for what they are doing, without the incentive to cast a wide net of tapping to get at those nasty criminal types.
Looks like the site has some smarts, I got http://home.comcas.../rhythmandpolice.mp3 instead. And yes I'm glad my browser didn't open it, annoyingly however it got redirected to my download manager:)
All I see is that Nintendo is grabbing the patent so that people won't come along and try to patent what is essentially common sense as far as computers are concerned and try to extort money from the big 3. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo most probably have enough patents of mass destruction that should they wish to patent fight between themselves they would indeed destroy themselves.
I think this whole drivers license showing identity argument has gotten a little out of hand. Licensing people to drive vehicles (vehicles that can be dangerous) is a good thing for society. I view driving as a priviledge not a right.
What I take from John Gilmore arguments, is that people should not be arbitrarily identified just because they are walking down the street or stepping on a plane. In a supposedly "free" societ you don't need a license to walk down a street, and you don't need a license to sit down on a plane and be flown somewhere. There isn't a good enough reason in a "free" society to just ask who you are if you are not doing anything wrong. Asking for ID as you pick up your ticket from the airport that you may of paid for earlier or something I think is reasonable so they can ensure that the ticket is given to the right person and not being stolen. Treating you as a suspected terrorist because you want to board a plane, that is not so reasonable in my books.
If you are driving a car and speeding possibly endangering other lives and the police stop you and want some identification then they seems perfectly reasonable to me. Using these forms of identification to find out who people are when they are not doing anything wrong I don't think is on. But these things are my opinions and are not facts.
I went to the LINX website to get information on their new "initiative" such as how they intend to stop abuse of this system by competitors to a company, what rights of appeal that exist to their arbitrary actions, how do companies accused of spamming get their domains off of blocked lists.
I am in support of initiatives that will help reduce spam, but I do not support initiatives that "feel" like vigilante actions without a right to appeal, and that have steps built in to ensure that the actions they take are quite proper. Perhaps I might write them an email when I have time today to see if they do actually have safeguards built in.
On the LINX website, after I refused their applet permission to run on my Mozilla, Mozilla promptly stopped responding, as if there was a window behind my browser stealing the focus from Mozilla, but I couldn't get behind it to check:(.
I agree that current piracy prevention methods are quite ineffective. I don't think that things are quite to the point, where publishers will run the risk of alienating users that wish to run to only be allowed to do so once the game has reported in. I would imagine many privacy laws in many countries would prohibit such a thing, at least with personally identifiable information. But well I could be wrong.
Its more than me that buys games. Did I say I was the only one? Please don't be so melodramatic. We are talking about game piracy prevention, not terrorism.
Of course games companies have an econimic interest to protect, of course they want to make money, its how games are financed. Publishers too, they have to distribute these things and make a profit. This world that we have created for ourselves requires money. Publisher's should feel threatened, when HL2 launches I'm expecting Steam to show us that game developers like Valve can directly publish their games without the the need of publishers or distributers. In effect they become the publisher and distributors. Of course the finance for game development must come from somewhere and the established developers probably don't have much of a worry when it comes to money, but the smaller developer startups need to get finance from somewhere in such a risky industry.
I personally think that securing software with physical media in the users hand is perfectly ridiculous as a security mechanism. It doesn't work. Securing software where all the keys to its security is in the users hands really, just doesn't work.
Software distribution through the likes of Steam I think would be great. You can get games the moment they are released world wide and you could get rid of the middleman and actually reduce the price of the games as a consequence (though personally I believe they will just rather pad their profits instead).
Many businesses are still stuck in their rut of physical distribution and will need to be dragged into their future kicking and screaming. XBOX live will soon start electronically distributing games. Adminitedly it isn't HL2 but its a start for a BIG name to electronicly distribute. Though Steam was definately there first, and I suppose Valve would be considered BIG too:)
There is nothing I would like more than to start to force publishers to publish in alternative ways rather than the lock-ins they are presently tying us down with (especially in consoles). But just because we wish it to be so and because the internet allows the free distribution of information doesn't mean we automatically inherit a right to have things go our way. As always we must put up a fight to get what we want.
We as consumers have the true power, and if we could get collectivly organised enough to wield that power any company can be brought into line with our expectations (however that is quite a naive view on my part).
The only problem that I have with copy protection schemes at the moment is that I have to put CD's into my DVD/CD drive to play the games that I purchase. I find it very annoying. Having 2 drives, one burner and one DVD/CD drive aleviates this problem somewhat, but still its annoying.
I look after my disks so I don't need to make backups of them. Some of the people complaining about how this software disables their burning applications and such, should probably read the end of the article where it states that those types of applications are only disabled when the game is being played.
Personally I buy all my games, whether I have the ability to copy them or not, because I want to reward those publishes that make good games. The reason because "we" the consumers are being treated as criminals, is because some of the "we" are acting like criminals, so the fact that I have to put up with these ridiculous methods is because of those that are pirating this software. As ineffective as it is, I cant find fault with PC games publishers wanting to do something to protect their investments.
However publishers and consumers alike should both get off of their soap boxes and do something constructive about the problem instead of both sides making ridiculous arguments and counterclaims.
What must be remembered is that dividing broadcast rights up in this manner is the "traditional" way of managing such things. The content owners are used to being able to sell the rights to broadcast again and again to different countries to make as much money as possible.
The age of the internet did blow all this out of the water with its ability to deliver information to anyone that wanted it nomatter where they are. What we are seeing now is content owners trying to reign in this free for all to get the value that they want out of their content, the value that they are "used" to getting.
As always they try to do this after we the consumers have become used to getting what we want, when we want it, from who we want, from where we want. Of course these different ways of doing things are going to clash, from the consumers believing they are being ripped off and from the content owners thinking they are not getting the value out of their content that they deserve.
I have to admit I took a wild guess in the dark. That reason I gave was just one of the things I noticed in the registry when I jaunted past getting rid of some registry nasties (ie Auto run programs that I didn't want running, really is it to much to ask if I want my mouse updating software running in the background everytime I start windows during installation?!? Thankyou logitech!)
Hmm you are right, I did make my statement a little too general, but you can't say you didn't understand what I was trying to say... tut tut.;) I shall rephrase just for you!
What I think is the "real" issue here is many customers that are having firewall related issues with SP2 simply don't know what a firewall is, what it does, and how to use it.
Probably for the same reason that when I ran Doom 3 the spooler service suddenly popped up requesting access to my network. Suffice to say, I went WTF??:)
Yes it was exactly my response. They had games listed that require internet access to play them online like Unreal Tournament.
What I think is the "real" issue here is that customers that have installed SP2 simply don't have a clue about what a firewall is, what it does, and how to use it. The problem is also no doubt being exacerbated by programs that needlessly try to access the network.
But I always take the time to say "shame on you" to programs that needlessly try to access the network when their primary function has absolutely nothing to do with networking, ESPECIALLY when their networking options are turned "off".
Well the obvious ramification is that since MD5 is used as part of the signature algorithm that if it is broken than those things signed with MD5 cannot be trusted. And trust is such a vital foundation to public key cryptography used on the internet, and for verifying the authenticity of downloaded executables, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
But more seriously, I fall into the right tool for the right job programmer category. Java isn't the be all and end all of programming languages and it has properties that I dislike. But there are some very good tools available now to overcome some of those disadvantages. I find these types of articles quite pointless as they only seem to be used to fan the flames of lanuguage elitism/fanboyism that incite arguments that really don't mean anything at all in the end.
Will she get the service plan from Best Buy with that?
Lets not forget that the boy wonder Wesley Crusher also did some voice recording work to take over Enterprise systems... in Season 1 Episode 2 - The Naked Now.
Plus the possible security exploits that could be exposed should make people pause for thought as well, pause and think about all those people that don't upgrade IE...
I read Snow Crash about 1.5 years ago now and I think its a book that would of been better read when it was released rather than now. I did enjoy it, but it didn't seem quite so revolutionary now as it may of appeared then.
What would be better would be rather than having a system that encourages government agencies to not have to bother to do their job properly and wiretap whoever they want at no cost, how bout they pay for this wiretapping out of their own budget. I would suddenly imagine a world where they have to have much better justification for what they are doing, without the incentive to cast a wide net of tapping to get at those nasty criminal types.
Looks like the site has some smarts, I got http://home.comcas.../rhythmandpolice.mp3 instead. And yes I'm glad my browser didn't open it, annoyingly however it got redirected to my download manager :)
Don't worry those background sounds came to 1.04Mb's of mp3's. The slashdot effect should make him overrun his quota quite quickly...
All I see is that Nintendo is grabbing the patent so that people won't come along and try to patent what is essentially common sense as far as computers are concerned and try to extort money from the big 3. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo most probably have enough patents of mass destruction that should they wish to patent fight between themselves they would indeed destroy themselves.
I think I'll stay on the "A console is a fucking computer" side of the fence, thankyou very much.
What I take from John Gilmore arguments, is that people should not be arbitrarily identified just because they are walking down the street or stepping on a plane. In a supposedly "free" societ you don't need a license to walk down a street, and you don't need a license to sit down on a plane and be flown somewhere. There isn't a good enough reason in a "free" society to just ask who you are if you are not doing anything wrong. Asking for ID as you pick up your ticket from the airport that you may of paid for earlier or something I think is reasonable so they can ensure that the ticket is given to the right person and not being stolen. Treating you as a suspected terrorist because you want to board a plane, that is not so reasonable in my books.
If you are driving a car and speeding possibly endangering other lives and the police stop you and want some identification then they seems perfectly reasonable to me. Using these forms of identification to find out who people are when they are not doing anything wrong I don't think is on. But these things are my opinions and are not facts.
I am in support of initiatives that will help reduce spam, but I do not support initiatives that "feel" like vigilante actions without a right to appeal, and that have steps built in to ensure that the actions they take are quite proper. Perhaps I might write them an email when I have time today to see if they do actually have safeguards built in.
On the LINX website, after I refused their applet permission to run on my Mozilla, Mozilla promptly stopped responding, as if there was a window behind my browser stealing the focus from Mozilla, but I couldn't get behind it to check :(.
I agree that current piracy prevention methods are quite ineffective. I don't think that things are quite to the point, where publishers will run the risk of alienating users that wish to run to only be allowed to do so once the game has reported in. I would imagine many privacy laws in many countries would prohibit such a thing, at least with personally identifiable information. But well I could be wrong.
Of course games companies have an econimic interest to protect, of course they want to make money, its how games are financed. Publishers too, they have to distribute these things and make a profit. This world that we have created for ourselves requires money. Publisher's should feel threatened, when HL2 launches I'm expecting Steam to show us that game developers like Valve can directly publish their games without the the need of publishers or distributers. In effect they become the publisher and distributors. Of course the finance for game development must come from somewhere and the established developers probably don't have much of a worry when it comes to money, but the smaller developer startups need to get finance from somewhere in such a risky industry.
I personally think that securing software with physical media in the users hand is perfectly ridiculous as a security mechanism. It doesn't work. Securing software where all the keys to its security is in the users hands really, just doesn't work.
Software distribution through the likes of Steam I think would be great. You can get games the moment they are released world wide and you could get rid of the middleman and actually reduce the price of the games as a consequence (though personally I believe they will just rather pad their profits instead).
Many businesses are still stuck in their rut of physical distribution and will need to be dragged into their future kicking and screaming. XBOX live will soon start electronically distributing games. Adminitedly it isn't HL2 but its a start for a BIG name to electronicly distribute. Though Steam was definately there first, and I suppose Valve would be considered BIG too :)
There is nothing I would like more than to start to force publishers to publish in alternative ways rather than the lock-ins they are presently tying us down with (especially in consoles). But just because we wish it to be so and because the internet allows the free distribution of information doesn't mean we automatically inherit a right to have things go our way. As always we must put up a fight to get what we want.
We as consumers have the true power, and if we could get collectivly organised enough to wield that power any company can be brought into line with our expectations (however that is quite a naive view on my part).
I look after my disks so I don't need to make backups of them. Some of the people complaining about how this software disables their burning applications and such, should probably read the end of the article where it states that those types of applications are only disabled when the game is being played.
Personally I buy all my games, whether I have the ability to copy them or not, because I want to reward those publishes that make good games. The reason because "we" the consumers are being treated as criminals, is because some of the "we" are acting like criminals, so the fact that I have to put up with these ridiculous methods is because of those that are pirating this software. As ineffective as it is, I cant find fault with PC games publishers wanting to do something to protect their investments.
However publishers and consumers alike should both get off of their soap boxes and do something constructive about the problem instead of both sides making ridiculous arguments and counterclaims.
The age of the internet did blow all this out of the water with its ability to deliver information to anyone that wanted it nomatter where they are. What we are seeing now is content owners trying to reign in this free for all to get the value that they want out of their content, the value that they are "used" to getting.
As always they try to do this after we the consumers have become used to getting what we want, when we want it, from who we want, from where we want. Of course these different ways of doing things are going to clash, from the consumers believing they are being ripped off and from the content owners thinking they are not getting the value out of their content that they deserve.
Well the story was last modified on June 8th 2004 which was actually a Tuesday... the second tuesday of the month.
Rumor have circulated about additional changes, but Ward would not deny or confirm them. "We want to encourage our fans to check them out themselves."
I have to admit I took a wild guess in the dark. That reason I gave was just one of the things I noticed in the registry when I jaunted past getting rid of some registry nasties (ie Auto run programs that I didn't want running, really is it to much to ask if I want my mouse updating software running in the background everytime I start windows during installation?!? Thankyou logitech!)
Windows XP keeps a list of programs recently run in the registry I believe... hey you asked! :)
What I think is the "real" issue here is many customers that are having firewall related issues with SP2 simply don't know what a firewall is, what it does, and how to use it.
Probably for the same reason that when I ran Doom 3 the spooler service suddenly popped up requesting access to my network. Suffice to say, I went WTF?? :)
What I think is the "real" issue here is that customers that have installed SP2 simply don't have a clue about what a firewall is, what it does, and how to use it. The problem is also no doubt being exacerbated by programs that needlessly try to access the network.
But I always take the time to say "shame on you" to programs that needlessly try to access the network when their primary function has absolutely nothing to do with networking, ESPECIALLY when their networking options are turned "off".
Agg now I have my MD5's mixed up with SHA-1's! I'm going to sleep...
Well the obvious ramification is that since MD5 is used as part of the signature algorithm that if it is broken than those things signed with MD5 cannot be trusted. And trust is such a vital foundation to public key cryptography used on the internet, and for verifying the authenticity of downloaded executables, etc.