I work for the Information Systems Division of my city's government, and just this week this issue came up for the community centers run by the city. There are 23 sites, most of them have a classroom or 2 with anywhere from 5 to 20 PC's in them.
The other day, one of the guys in charge of running these centers called the PC team to ask about censorware. I wasn't on the other end of the phone, so I don't know what he was responding to(political pressure, parent complaints,...), I'm also not sure where the money to buy this PC's came from.
Anyway, this was the problem: When one of the IS people went to check on some other problem, he found all kinds of objectionable material in the history of the browsers. All of the "Last visited" times were somewhere between 2 and 3 AM, when the centers are closed to the public.
Apparently, some police officers are given keys to the community centers so they can come use the gyms whenever they want, but I guess they have been surfing for porn instead.
So the intent of the censorware was to stop the police from using public PC's for these late night escapades.
If there has ever been a case of a group of people being punished for the action of a few(who happen to be law enforcement officers), then this is it.
PS. This may not actually happen, since the network guys can just block access to the internet overnight, which will solve our particular problem.
It is sad, but there a lot of people in the CS department at my university who are in it for the money. But not me. I am here because I find the subject matter pretty intuitive and fun.(read: not really hard work)
So usually I sit in class and watch the hands go up when the professor asks how many people have enrolled in this class, and pretty much I feel sorry for those people because if they ever graduate, they will never have a job they enjoy!
Of course, the only job I ever had in the industry was a 6-month coop positions with a large, well known technology company, and they basically just subsidized me reading Slashdot for 8 hours a day.
But what will get nominated?...perhaps Linus himself for having invented such a wonderfull product?
Would he get it tatooed on his forehead? Maybe someone should nominate him for knighthood. He already has an "honorary" doctorate, why not call him "Sir Doctor Linus Torvalds"?
(I'm not from the UK, so I'm not sure how blasphemous it would be to suggest such a thing. But if someone knighted Elton John...)
Sort of position piece from IBM - recognizing the importance of open standards, and staking much of their future with Linux. You must be thinking of a different IBM than I am. OK, so Gerstner was saying some stuff about open standards the other day, but "staking much of their future with Linux."? Come on, 300 people? Be serious, this company sells a lot of stuff that will never have anything to do with the success or failure of Linux. And someone should compare the amount IBM is throwing at Linux and how much they are throwing at that whole Monterey thing.
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I work for the Information Systems Division of my city's government, and just this week this issue came up for the community centers run by the city. There are 23 sites, most of them have a classroom or 2 with anywhere from 5 to 20 PC's in them. The other day, one of the guys in charge of running these centers called the PC team to ask about censorware. I wasn't on the other end of the phone, so I don't know what he was responding to(political pressure, parent complaints,...), I'm also not sure where the money to buy this PC's came from. Anyway, this was the problem: When one of the IS people went to check on some other problem, he found all kinds of objectionable material in the history of the browsers. All of the "Last visited" times were somewhere between 2 and 3 AM, when the centers are closed to the public. Apparently, some police officers are given keys to the community centers so they can come use the gyms whenever they want, but I guess they have been surfing for porn instead. So the intent of the censorware was to stop the police from using public PC's for these late night escapades. If there has ever been a case of a group of people being punished for the action of a few(who happen to be law enforcement officers), then this is it. PS. This may not actually happen, since the network guys can just block access to the internet overnight, which will solve our particular problem.
It is sad, but there a lot of people in the CS department at my university who are in it for the money. But not me. I am here because I find the subject matter pretty intuitive and fun.(read: not really hard work)
So usually I sit in class and watch the hands go up when the professor asks how many people have enrolled in this class, and pretty much I feel sorry for those people because if they ever graduate, they will never have a job they enjoy!
Of course, the only job I ever had in the industry was a 6-month coop positions with a large, well known technology company, and they basically just subsidized me reading Slashdot for 8 hours a day.
But what will get nominated? ...perhaps Linus himself for having invented such a wonderfull product?
Would he get it tatooed on his forehead? Maybe someone should nominate him for knighthood. He already has an "honorary" doctorate, why not call him "Sir Doctor Linus Torvalds"?
(I'm not from the UK, so I'm not sure how blasphemous it would be to suggest such a thing. But if someone knighted Elton John...)
Sort of position piece from IBM - recognizing the importance of open standards, and staking much of their future with Linux. You must be thinking of a different IBM than I am. OK, so Gerstner was saying some stuff about open standards the other day, but "staking much of their future with Linux."? Come on, 300 people? Be serious, this company sells a lot of stuff that will never have anything to do with the success or failure of Linux. And someone should compare the amount IBM is throwing at Linux and how much they are throwing at that whole Monterey thing.