I'm vehemently opposed to most any national legislation. One of the things that make the US great, is the (slipping) states rights element of our country. If you don't like how things are in your state...move to one that is more like you!! We're a diverse nation, and different areas have different feelings, needs and beliefs.
Exactly -- if everybody in your state believes that Catholics shouldn't be allowed to have so many kids, then put it on the ballot! Why should the federal government interfere with the rights of individual states?
And how is it the business of the feds if residents of the Northwest don't want to share water fountains with Canadian immigrants? Let them go to California if they don't like it! (Of course, it sucks if you're both gay _and_ Canadian...)
If that's the case, shouldn't the investigation consider _any_ agents whose cover was ultimately compromised, not just Plame herself? (Apparently it's not clear that she fit the applicable definition of covert agent)
I think that if you want to get rid of crunch time, you have to get rid of market pressures... which in essence mean getting rid of capitalism as we know it.
I think you're right about market pressures leading to crunch time, but "getting rid of capitalism as we know it" might be a bit drastic. Legally mandating overtime pay for software developers would go a long way. It's just too easy for companies to bully employees into working those 80 hour weeks. Two employees for the price of one!
Of course, companies would just outsource to more easily exploited labor forces, unless that tactic is somehow prevented as well.
I agree wholeheartedly with your points, with the possible exception of #6. I think what you describe in #5, in the context of Microsoft, is exactly what has happened to Blizzard after being acquired by Vivendi Universal.
A news search on gamasutra.com retrieved the following:
My impression is that the top talent has bailed out of Blizzard, and it's not at all clear that the remaining husk of a studio will have what it takes to compete.
Heh- many times in my career, I've daydreamed of emulating that guy who disappeared, leaving only a note: "I've gone to join a commune in Vermont, where the shortest unit of time is a season"
Merely betting on one's own OS to succeed while hedging one's bet because it might not is cheating? I'll take perspective for $500, Alex.
But which is "one's own OS"? Microsoft and IBM were developing OS/2 in partnership. I kept expecting some mention of OS/2 in Pratley's blog, because to my recollection, this was a huge factor in MS winning the application wars. All the major players in the application market were devoting their resources to OS/2- at the time, it was the best bet to replace DOS.
Finally, the PC would have a serious OS, with memory protection, preemptive multitasking, etc. The real deal, being built by the two biggest companies in the industry. Who wouldn't have bet on it, and started porting applications?
So I guess I think "hedging one's bet" is putting it a bit mildly. They pulled a bait-and-switch which screwed over an entire industry (and of course reaped obscene profits in the process). Personally I might say that was just good business, if the switch had been to some excellent new OS they cooked up in secret. But Microsoft's particular genius seems to lie in understanding just how slow the world is to adapt new technology. (sidenote: I just noticed the irony of my choice of phrase, since MS had been working on OS2/NT (New Technology).) So they built something small and cheap without "real OS" features, and unleashed it on the mass market, most of whom wouldn't know what they were missing.
And to most businesses, it seemed sensible to avoid the cost of the hardware upgrades which probably would have been necessary to run OS/2. In hindsight, there may have been a few hidden costs to the choice of Windows.
If you accept the proposition that OS/2 was, and would have continued to be, a more stable and powerful platform, you might start to think about the number of lost work-hours that Microsoft sentenced humanity to. After a decade, Windows is looking like a "real" OS. The UI is more or less as good as anything else out there, and in the fabled afterlife, the solid NT infrastructure will merge with the friendly mainstream UI. Or at least, that's what I've been hearing for the last decade! arrrgh.
Was Microsoft "cheating"? Were their actions "evil" or just "smart business"? I dunno- is a shark "evil"? Probably not, but when I see a fin I get the f*ck out of the water.
That's my perspective, which you can take for 2 cents, Alex.
Apparently the one form of communication governments and society will fight to protect is spam. Sure, universities and ISPs might block peer-to-peer sharing, shut down encrypted protocols, screen email attachments, etc. But they wouldn't dare infringe on the rights of spammers.
When you put it that way, it sounds like a massive undertaking. So seriously, what are the chances of the OVC system being used anywhere in Novemember? And if they're not in place by November, will the impetus for improved voting systems be gone?
The many eyes detects security issues has been shown to be bs, so how do you know there's no malicious code. A paper trail is a good thing. OSS isn't necessarily the answer though.
1. Of course there's no guarantee that "many eyes" will detect a given security flaw. But it's statistically more likely than "few eyes" finding it.
2. A paper trail is one of the key features of the open source system in question (from OVC). In fact it's more than a "trail", it's the paper vote that counts, not the electronic one.
3. In the case of voting systems, I have to absolutely disagree about open source not necessarily being the right answer. Even if we assume that closed source software would be equally secure from outside attackers, we have to know that we can trust the very people who are building the system to make it fair and impartial. And the only way this is possible is to make the code public to anyone who cares to look.
My experiences have been very similar. As a rule my employer (now ex-employer, because as you suggest, I'm out of a job) would always prefer/reward programmers who produced shoddy work quickly (with some unspecified amount of QA time needed afterward) over programmers who spent more time planning up front (with very few bugs in the implementation).
Hidden costs are a bitch. (Or as Robert Glass puts it more eloquently in Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering, "the hard drives out the soft").
Did the consortium consider anything akin to David Chaum's secret-ballot receipts (previously mentioned on Slashdot)?
The idea seemed kinda brilliant to me (speaking as a complete layman).
It would be very comforting to be able to verify, after the fact, that my personal vote had been counted.
I believe you're correct about the statewide recounts coming back for Gore. But I was pretty sure Bush never wanted any recounts, unless my memory was totally screwy; so I did a quick google search- it was Gore who offered a full state recount, and Bush immediately turned it down:
A senior adviser to the Texas GOP governor said Bush would not accept a statewide recount.
What!? As any child can tell you, fruit tastes good, whereas vegetables are ucky. Therefore, the tomato is a vegetable. (Unless it's used in pizza sauce, at which time it is cast as a fruit)
Remember folks. It was the internet that brought computing to the masses, not Windows. People never had trouble learning DOS before a decent GUI was available, so why should they have trouble with command lines now?
Actually, I would say that it was a GUI (the web) that brought the masses to the internet. FTP and Gopher just weren't doing the trick.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly -- if everybody in your state believes that Catholics shouldn't be allowed to have so many kids, then put it on the ballot! Why should the federal government interfere with the rights of individual states?
And how is it the business of the feds if residents of the Northwest don't want to share water fountains with Canadian immigrants? Let them go to California if they don't like it! (Of course, it sucks if you're both gay _and_ Canadian...)
Al Gore and the Creation of the Internet
If that's the case, shouldn't the investigation consider _any_ agents whose cover was ultimately compromised, not just Plame herself? (Apparently it's not clear that she fit the applicable definition of covert agent)
Yes! 12345 is way more portable.
What's mister smarty-pants gonna do when his phone number changes!? He'll have to set up and memorize a whole new password.
No, Ralph Nader is Jar Jar
I think you're right about market pressures leading to crunch time, but "getting rid of capitalism as we know it" might be a bit drastic. Legally mandating overtime pay for software developers would go a long way. It's just too easy for companies to bully employees into working those 80 hour weeks. Two employees for the price of one!
Of course, companies would just outsource to more easily exploited labor forces, unless that tactic is somehow prevented as well.
I agree wholeheartedly with your points, with the possible exception of #6. I think what you describe in #5, in the context of Microsoft, is exactly what has happened to Blizzard after being acquired by Vivendi Universal.
A news search on gamasutra.com retrieved the following:My impression is that the top talent has bailed out of Blizzard, and it's not at all clear that the remaining husk of a studio will have what it takes to compete.
Heh- many times in my career, I've daydreamed of emulating that guy who disappeared, leaving only a note: "I've gone to join a commune in Vermont, where the shortest unit of time is a season"
But which is "one's own OS"? Microsoft and IBM were developing OS/2 in partnership. I kept expecting some mention of OS/2 in Pratley's blog, because to my recollection, this was a huge factor in MS winning the application wars. All the major players in the application market were devoting their resources to OS/2- at the time, it was the best bet to replace DOS.
Finally, the PC would have a serious OS, with memory protection, preemptive multitasking, etc. The real deal, being built by the two biggest companies in the industry. Who wouldn't have bet on it, and started porting applications?
So I guess I think "hedging one's bet" is putting it a bit mildly. They pulled a bait-and-switch which screwed over an entire industry (and of course reaped obscene profits in the process). Personally I might say that was just good business, if the switch had been to some excellent new OS they cooked up in secret. But Microsoft's particular genius seems to lie in understanding just how slow the world is to adapt new technology. (sidenote: I just noticed the irony of my choice of phrase, since MS had been working on OS2/NT (New Technology).) So they built something small and cheap without "real OS" features, and unleashed it on the mass market, most of whom wouldn't know what they were missing. And to most businesses, it seemed sensible to avoid the cost of the hardware upgrades which probably would have been necessary to run OS/2. In hindsight, there may have been a few hidden costs to the choice of Windows.
If you accept the proposition that OS/2 was, and would have continued to be, a more stable and powerful platform, you might start to think about the number of lost work-hours that Microsoft sentenced humanity to. After a decade, Windows is looking like a "real" OS. The UI is more or less as good as anything else out there, and in the fabled afterlife, the solid NT infrastructure will merge with the friendly mainstream UI. Or at least, that's what I've been hearing for the last decade! arrrgh.
Was Microsoft "cheating"? Were their actions "evil" or just "smart business"? I dunno- is a shark "evil"? Probably not, but when I see a fin I get the f*ck out of the water.
That's my perspective, which you can take for 2 cents, Alex.
I was afraid you'd say something like that. :(
I wonder how many counties will be left by 2006 that haven't already been forced to invest in diebold or similar untrustworthy systems.
Damn, these hypothetical handicapped people are pissing me off! Why must they be so stubborn!?
Both were members of "Skull and Bones"
Apparently the one form of communication governments and society will fight to protect is spam. Sure, universities and ISPs might block peer-to-peer sharing, shut down encrypted protocols, screen email attachments, etc. But they wouldn't dare infringe on the rights of spammers.
So maybe we just need a file-trading system which encodes all transfers as spam?
When you put it that way, it sounds like a massive undertaking. So seriously, what are the chances of the OVC system being used anywhere in Novemember? And if they're not in place by November, will the impetus for improved voting systems be gone?
1. Of course there's no guarantee that "many eyes" will detect a given security flaw. But it's statistically more likely than "few eyes" finding it.
2. A paper trail is one of the key features of the open source system in question (from OVC). In fact it's more than a "trail", it's the paper vote that counts, not the electronic one.
3. In the case of voting systems, I have to absolutely disagree about open source not necessarily being the right answer. Even if we assume that closed source software would be equally secure from outside attackers, we have to know that we can trust the very people who are building the system to make it fair and impartial. And the only way this is possible is to make the code public to anyone who cares to look.
For the answer, read today's slashdot
(The info about India is down towards the bottom of the story summary).
My experiences have been very similar. As a rule my employer (now ex-employer, because as you suggest, I'm out of a job) would always prefer/reward programmers who produced shoddy work quickly (with some unspecified amount of QA time needed afterward) over programmers who spent more time planning up front (with very few bugs in the implementation).
Hidden costs are a bitch. (Or as Robert Glass puts it more eloquently in Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering, "the hard drives out the soft").
Exactly! The bulk of the work of modern software development is carried out by QA testers. ;)
"Umm... we'll take care of that in post-production."
Did the consortium consider anything akin to David Chaum's secret-ballot receipts (previously mentioned on Slashdot)? The idea seemed kinda brilliant to me (speaking as a complete layman).
It would be very comforting to be able to verify, after the fact, that my personal vote had been counted.
We probably need all those symbols as lossy compression, so concepts the size of a planet can fit in our heads.
What!? As any child can tell you, fruit tastes good, whereas vegetables are ucky. Therefore, the tomato is a vegetable. (Unless it's used in pizza sauce, at which time it is cast as a fruit)
Good ole C64.
Still the fastest boot time of any computer I've owned.