"Ethanol production in the United States does not benefit the nation's energy security, its agriculture, the economy, or the environment."
That short sentence provides hope that the USA will (at last) be a player in the treaty that comes after Kyoto.
In this terrorism-enriched world, the fear of losing "energy security" may provide economic impetus for the US Government to promote efficient alternatives to dependency on oil from the Middle East.
The article describes the irrational disposal of perfectly sound hardware, only the software had become compromised - it's more than "a bit excessive" it's irresponsible and very bad for the environment.
Further, it suggests that the guy who runs this "internet company" doesn't have a clue about computers, so I won't be trusting his company with my business, or my credit card details, any time soon.
The company were obviously going for free publicity by bragging about this behaviour, but they've only managed to do a Gerald Ratner.
Why would you ever give all that personal info to a random website? Even if you're a big Firefox advocate, what possible value does it add to the project to provide them with your home address? At best, you're going to get spammed. at worst, you get your identity stolen. duh.
There could be a plethora of valid reasons; for example, perhaps top advocates had been been offered token gifts such as T-Shirts in recognition of their efforts, so home addresses would be known. Perhaps they'd arranged a regular donation using their credit card, philanthropically helping the open source movement.
I too feel the temptation to belittle the myriad possibilities with a "duh", but if nobody ever give their name, address and credit card number then electronic commerce could't happen. So the issue is one of trust in the third party.
In this case the third party ("Mozilla") and its many sub-sites, has an implicit trust that it has earned because it has been trusted as the middle-man in billions of secure communications over the last 10 years.
This crime reminds us that the reputation and trustworthyness of a company to not misuse our information is still critical, however, their ability to protect and manage it cannot be assumed, and this I fear is what was overlooked in this case.
The worst case scenario, identity theft ("fraud"), can happen to anyone, and making web sites more secure won't stop it. Making financial institutions fiscally responsible for fraudulent card use would reduce it, but there are many ways to amass personal details, and fraud has many guises, so ultimately the best we can hope to do is give details and press submit where necessary, and ensure (hope) that we have adequate measures that can limit the damage of fraud if and when it happens.
"They have paid for them in their tax dollars, which their elected representatives chose to spend, via the BBC, on their creation via recording."
we still use Sterling, not Dollars or Euros
the money is collected through a licence fee, not a direct tax,
our elected representatives have no direct say in BBC funding because it works under a Royal Charter, this keeps it independent of the government, and thus, free to report the government's business without bias.
The BBC has kindly summarised it's next 10 years here.
BBC are reporting theories that suggest the bus bomb may not have been planned i.e. not a suicide bomb, or a plant, but the bomber(s) accidentally blowing themselves up.
A small merc however, the locations also benefitted some of the victims.
The first bomb was very close to the city's major trauma unit. The Major Incident Plan was immediately put into action so doctors, nurses and other first aiders were on the scene very quickly - the first ambulances were dispatched within minutes of the blast.
The last bomb (the one on the bus) was detonated outside a meeting of the British Medical Associateion - the victims had doctors onsite the same minute. Interviewed later on the BBC one doctor said he saw more injuries in three hours today than he saw in a six months working in A&E [aka ER]. It has been suggested that the survival rate for the bus passengers would have been significantly lower without their intervention.
January 1st 2010, 10:00 Write obvious story about how over half of MS customers are still using XP Professional SP3!. Maybe use multiple exclamation marks.
January 1st 2010, 11:00 Write acceptance speech for election to the board of legends who have written similarly obvious stories about Win2K, WinNT4, WinNT3.51, Win98, Win95, Win3.11, Amiga Workbench 1.3, etc...
This was originally an ill-considered and underinformed comment disagreeing strongly with the attitude and social misalignement of the parent comment, however vigilantes have hacked it and altered it's purpose to throw the original comment's cunning and socially wry insight into sharp relief.
The iPlanet deal was described to the UK employees as follows:
the iPlanet engineering and consultancy groups would be spun off to form an independent company owned by both AOL and Sun, or
at the end of the three year deal both companies could walk away with equal rights in the shared codebase.
Critically, AOL suffered accute corporate myopia due to their overinflated shareprice and their concentration on the "who's got the most web portal users" war. They appeared indifferent to the value of the server and professional services businesses of Netscape, so both entry into the deal, and exit from it, were IMO largely mishandled resulting in no significant gain for AOL.
Interestingly the deal was non-exclusive, so AOL could have signed similar deals with other hardware vendors, but failed to capitalize on that possibilitiy.
AOL disposed of part of the resulting code to RedHat, and that's what's been GPL'd.
The development of this server was overseen by several of the original authors of the LDAP RFC's including Howes, Smith and Good.
These guys had a fair amount of experience of the problem that was under investigation, so the engineering team had cogent technical leadership (and as I recall, the engineers themselves were fairly black-belt when it came to coding ability and dedication to the cause).
Additionally, this server is several generations old with significant input from large corporate customers whose almost always demanded 100% availability as their number one priority (and speed as number two).
There are all kinds of things that this release version won't be able to do because it's development has no doubt slowed of late (multi-mastering? management of ephemeral session data? etc?); but what it can do, thanks to the GPL, is provide a fantastic reference implementation for other projects such as OpenLDAP and Samba, and perhaps even a useful set of binaries in it's own right.
To be fair The Ministry of Defence Press Office handled this brilliantly. Any negative comment, or any hint of any negative comment about the troops would not, and could not be made.
They could have brushed it under the carpet, but by commenting positively they have reinforced the morale of the soldiers, and further, reinforced their image as an approachable peacekeeping force, something which has been key to their low engagement rates in southern Iraq.
I was about to ask exactly this question having been investigating a PDA for somebody I know with Multiple Sclerosis who finds the de-facto Palm/PocketPC form-factor of stylus + graffiti too awkward and therefore too slow.
The best combination of size and usability that we have found so far is an old Psion Series 7, often found on auction sites for a few hundred dollars or available in more modern form as the PsionTeklogix Netbook Pro. During a trial lasting several hours (to ensure there was no pressure to perform or make decisions), we found the keyboard was comfortably sized and usable (even a for very tall man with large hands and restricted mobility).
The newer Netbook Pro is Windows CE based and this may be preferable if the user is already with the Windows user interface, it certainly is in our case.
There are probably several other PDA's of similar size and form and we'd be interested to hear any suggestions.
Google has attemped a pre-emptive strike in many of their ventures by running very large scale beta services (distinctly different from beta applications).
The Google Desktop beta focuses directly on Microsoft Desktop products to the exclusion of others in a direct attempt to beat Microsoft to market.
Google are using time-to-market to their advantage. Their services may be duplicable, but their ability to roll out beta's and garner market awareness with great speed is far more difficult to ape.
IM clients also provide more granular control over your status.
A few years ago I saw similar granularity of availability in a Telephone product called TeamPhone, which used a Java applet to enable desktop based call routing (to desk/answerphone/mobile/colleague etc), there wasn't any IM integration at the time, but things may be different now.
Could some big corporation just come along and buy Mozilla out?
IANAL, so I can't comment on the legal feasability of this, however, should it prove to be a possiblity, the code that has been released under the MPL would still be available under that license.
Suppose the incumbent owner could find a way to close the devlopment tree and start to create proprietary software from that point. The last publically available version of the code would still be covered by the license agreement under which it was released so it would very quickly become the starting point for a new open-source project and development would continue unabated.
Hence, commitment to the Mozilla platform (or it's open source competition), may be significantly safer than commiting to a browser with closed source, where development can stagnate or even stall completely. Should critical vulnerabilities emerge in such products you are entirely reliant on the investment of the owning company, and if their focus is elsewhere, patches may not be forthcoming.
You know, for some reason, I feel bad for the IE Developers, who are probably a bunch of well meaning people...
Feeling sad for the developers who work on Internet Explorer is misguided. The developers have a choice, they don't have to work for Microsoft. Redirect your joy-joy feelings towards the people who are making mozilla better.
"As it's already been proved many times that if you make something not possible for someone they will work out a compromise and at least 70% of the time come up with something better and more efficient."
That's hearsay evidence, we can't allow it. Proved by whom and published where? 70%? References please or your post is worthless!
Slashdot Mirror
That short sentence provides hope that the USA will (at last) be a player in the treaty that comes after Kyoto.
In this terrorism-enriched world, the fear of losing "energy security" may provide economic impetus for the US Government to promote efficient alternatives to dependency on oil from the Middle East.
The article describes the irrational disposal of perfectly sound hardware, only the software had become compromised - it's more than "a bit excessive" it's irresponsible and very bad for the environment.
Further, it suggests that the guy who runs this "internet company" doesn't have a clue about computers, so I won't be trusting his company with my business, or my credit card details, any time soon.
The company were obviously going for free publicity by bragging about this behaviour, but they've only managed to do a Gerald Ratner.
There could be a plethora of valid reasons; for example, perhaps top advocates had been been offered token gifts such as T-Shirts in recognition of their efforts, so home addresses would be known. Perhaps they'd arranged a regular donation using their credit card, philanthropically helping the open source movement.
I too feel the temptation to belittle the myriad possibilities with a "duh", but if nobody ever give their name, address and credit card number then electronic commerce could't happen. So the issue is one of trust in the third party.
In this case the third party ("Mozilla") and its many sub-sites, has an implicit trust that it has earned because it has been trusted as the middle-man in billions of secure communications over the last 10 years.
This crime reminds us that the reputation and trustworthyness of a company to not misuse our information is still critical, however, their ability to protect and manage it cannot be assumed, and this I fear is what was overlooked in this case.
The worst case scenario, identity theft ("fraud"), can happen to anyone, and making web sites more secure won't stop it. Making financial institutions fiscally responsible for fraudulent card use would reduce it, but there are many ways to amass personal details, and fraud has many guises, so ultimately the best we can hope to do is give details and press submit where necessary, and ensure (hope) that we have adequate measures that can limit the damage of fraud if and when it happens.
- we still use Sterling, not Dollars or Euros
- the money is collected through a licence fee, not a direct tax,
- our elected representatives have no direct say in BBC funding because it works under a Royal Charter, this keeps it independent of the government, and thus, free to report the government's business without bias.
The BBC has kindly summarised it's next 10 years here.BBC are reporting theories that suggest the bus bomb may not have been planned i.e. not a suicide bomb, or a plant, but the bomber(s) accidentally blowing themselves up.
A small merc however, the locations also benefitted some of the victims. The first bomb was very close to the city's major trauma unit. The Major Incident Plan was immediately put into action so doctors, nurses and other first aiders were on the scene very quickly - the first ambulances were dispatched within minutes of the blast. The last bomb (the one on the bus) was detonated outside a meeting of the British Medical Associateion - the victims had doctors onsite the same minute. Interviewed later on the BBC one doctor said he saw more injuries in three hours today than he saw in a six months working in A&E [aka ER]. It has been suggested that the survival rate for the bus passengers would have been significantly lower without their intervention.
This was originally an ill-considered and underinformed comment disagreeing strongly with the attitude and social misalignement of the parent comment, however vigilantes have hacked it and altered it's purpose to throw the original comment's cunning and socially wry insight into sharp relief.
The iPlanet deal was described to the UK employees as follows:
Critically, AOL suffered accute corporate myopia due to their overinflated shareprice and their concentration on the "who's got the most web portal users" war. They appeared indifferent to the value of the server and professional services businesses of Netscape, so both entry into the deal, and exit from it, were IMO largely mishandled resulting in no significant gain for AOL.
Interestingly the deal was non-exclusive, so AOL could have signed similar deals with other hardware vendors, but failed to capitalize on that possibilitiy.
AOL disposed of part of the resulting code to RedHat, and that's what's been GPL'd.
The development of this server was overseen by several of the original authors of the LDAP RFC's including Howes, Smith and Good.
These guys had a fair amount of experience of the problem that was under investigation, so the engineering team had cogent technical leadership (and as I recall, the engineers themselves were fairly black-belt when it came to coding ability and dedication to the cause).
Additionally, this server is several generations old with significant input from large corporate customers whose almost always demanded 100% availability as their number one priority (and speed as number two).
There are all kinds of things that this release version won't be able to do because it's development has no doubt slowed of late (multi-mastering? management of ephemeral session data? etc?); but what it can do, thanks to the GPL, is provide a fantastic reference implementation for other projects such as OpenLDAP and Samba, and perhaps even a useful set of binaries in it's own right.
(Actually, it says here that the police have it.)
To be fair The Ministry of Defence Press Office handled this brilliantly. Any negative comment, or any hint of any negative comment about the troops would not, and could not be made. They could have brushed it under the carpet, but by commenting positively they have reinforced the morale of the soldiers, and further, reinforced their image as an approachable peacekeeping force, something which has been key to their low engagement rates in southern Iraq.
What makes you so sure it's in the future?
I was about to ask exactly this question having been investigating a PDA for somebody I know with Multiple Sclerosis who finds the de-facto Palm/PocketPC form-factor of stylus + graffiti too awkward and therefore too slow.
The best combination of size and usability that we have found so far is an old Psion Series 7, often found on auction sites for a few hundred dollars or available in more modern form as the PsionTeklogix Netbook Pro . During a trial lasting several hours (to ensure there was no pressure to perform or make decisions), we found the keyboard was comfortably sized and usable (even a for very tall man with large hands and restricted mobility).
The newer Netbook Pro is Windows CE based and this may be preferable if the user is already with the Windows user interface, it certainly is in our case.
There are probably several other PDA's of similar size and form and we'd be interested to hear any suggestions.
Having owned one of these for a few years, may I suggest a few plus points, tailored for slashdotters.
0. the cup holder is large enough for a thermally efficient coffee mug.
1. the boot area is large enough for two laptop rucksacks and an overnight bag, perfect for commuting.
2. the passenger seat can be folded flat, providing enough space to easily transport both a 22" monitor and an Extended ATX case.
3. with the iMove centrepiece, you can plug your iPod into it.
4. the soft top has a remote control.
6. this lanky geek (196cm 98k) finds it spacious - more roomy than say a Ford Mondeo (IIRC called a Galaxy over the pond).
7. it can be powered down in the tiniest of spaces
Google has attemped a pre-emptive strike in many of their ventures by running very large scale beta services (distinctly different from beta applications).
The Google Desktop beta focuses directly on Microsoft Desktop products to the exclusion of others in a direct attempt to beat Microsoft to market.
Google are using time-to-market to their advantage. Their services may be duplicable, but their ability to roll out beta's and garner market awareness with great speed is far more difficult to ape.
10 SWIM AROUND TANK
20 PRINT "I'll DRIVE, YOU OPERATE THE GUN."
A few years ago I saw similar granularity of availability in a Telephone product called TeamPhone, which used a Java applet to enable desktop based call routing (to desk/answerphone/mobile/colleague etc), there wasn't any IM integration at the time, but things may be different now.
IANAL, so I can't comment on the legal feasability of this, however, should it prove to be a possiblity, the code that has been released under the MPL would still be available under that license.
Suppose the incumbent owner could find a way to close the devlopment tree and start to create proprietary software from that point. The last publically available version of the code would still be covered by the license agreement under which it was released so it would very quickly become the starting point for a new open-source project and development would continue unabated.
Hence, commitment to the Mozilla platform (or it's open source competition), may be significantly safer than commiting to a browser with closed source, where development can stagnate or even stall completely. Should critical vulnerabilities emerge in such products you are entirely reliant on the investment of the owning company, and if their focus is elsewhere, patches may not be forthcoming.
Seek, and ye shall find that the BBC are listening.
Feeling sad for the developers who work on Internet Explorer is misguided. The developers have a choice, they don't have to work for Microsoft. Redirect your joy-joy feelings towards the people who are making mozilla better.
That's hearsay evidence, we can't allow it. Proved by whom and published where? 70%? References please or your post is worthless!
Yes, but he's only been spending the year dead for tax purposes, this was always on the cards.