If they can't kill it, then they have to resort to "embrace and extend"...
If that's MS's goal, it will backfire on them so hard. MS thinks they're the ones who ``embrace and extend''? HA! OSS has been doing this for years, far more efficiently than MS has.
If MS tries to ``embrace and extend'' OSS, then OSS will end up embracing and extending MS. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
It also sounds like a really bad/. joke, but let's not go there.
Dammit, I really need to error-check what I write. My middle paragraph should be (changes from the original are in bold):
I tried looking up Speakeasy, since I've heard great things about them, but in my area, they only offer IDSL. For those of you who don't know, IDSL is almost twice the price of cable or ADSL (IIRC, their IDSL is $80-90/month--Comcast is $52/month, with a $10/month discount if you have cable TV), at almost 1/30 the speed (Comcast has 3Mbps
down, Speakeasy IDSL is 144kbps--not sure about up on either ISP).
Between this and them firing all of TechTV's staff, I see NO REASON why any geek worth his salt should use ANY SERVICE offered by this company.
Because the only ADSL ISPs who have service in my area are AOL and SBC/Yahoo, both of which are far worse than Comcast. Tho with the kind of crap Comcast is pulling, SBC/Yahoo is looking better and better.
I tried looking up Speakeasy, since I've heard great things about them, but in my area, they only offer IDSL. For those of you who don't know, IDSL is almost twice the price of cable or ADSL (IIRC, their IDSL is $80-90/month--Comcast is $52/month, with a $10/month discount if you have cable TV), at almost 1/30 the speed (Comcast has 3Mbps up, Speakeasy IDSL is 144kbps--not sure about down on either ISP).
Yeah, I despise Comcast, but they're the least-worst option in my area.
Additionally, they can also choose to not offer a discount for using your own modem. Pretty much eliminates most reasons to go out and get one..
I'm willing to pay the extra money. For my apartment, I bought a $90 Motorola Surfboard cable modem. Comcast will let a customer rent a modem for a very cheap price. In fact, I think the modem I bought is the same model Comcast uses. I don't care. I'd rather pay the extra money than have Comcast have any control over my equipment.
IIRC, it's more of a rule of thumb than actual law. I first saw it on a sign posted in my uni's library. There were differing amounts for each type of work. For text, it was 1000 words or 10%, whichever is less (IIRC, there was no entry for source code, so I just went with text, and only mentioned 10%, as ``words'' really don't apply to code). I Googled around to confirm the numbers, and found quite a few sites mentioning it.
Again, it seems mostly like a widely-used rule of thumb than actual law, but it seems like a good guideline. And even if it didn't really apply, the other provisions of fair use do.
The problem with this reasoning is that these are "invented facts" as opposed to "discovered facts."
Except that most of the information on the AP CS exams aren't invented facts. They are basing the questions off parts of a standardised language, which they most certainly didn't create. I suppose the exact, verbatim text of the questions might be copyrighted, but that wouldn't apply to the fact that they asked you a question about a certain fact (does anyone even remember the verbatim text of test questions? I know I almost always just remember what a question covered, not the exact wording used).
You might be able to make a case for the Case Study code, since it's not part of the standard, but that's it. And even that's tenuous, what with the Case Study being released to the public and used in CS curriculums all over the US. It's available for download from the College Board site, and I know for a fact that the code came with one of the editions of CodeWarrior.
The only thing the College Board could sue you for regarding the case study would be for republishing verbatim code without their consent, but that wouldn't bar one from talking about the Case Study, only from copying the exact code used. And even there, fair use guidelines apply. I could be wrong about the exact number, but IIRC, fair use allows for up to 10% of the original material to be copied and requires that the work be used for certainpurposes (i.e. comment, criticism, and parody--comment certainly applies here).
It depends on whether or not KDE 3.2, GIMP 2.0, and whatever else they upgraded are worth it. To some people, they are worth it, to others, they're not.
From your point of view, an online purchase may seem to involve something you know (a password) and something you have (the numbers on your credit cards), but from the merchant's point of view they're just taking your word for it because they have no way to validate that the security token you're using is actually in your possession -- hence, credit card fraud.
Of course, just because you have something in your possession doesn't mean you own it. If one were to steal someone's wallet, go to a store, and buy something with the stolen credit card, one has just committed credit card fraud while having the credit card in one's possession.
Unless the ``something you have'' contains a picture of the owner or the like (i.e. something you are), a system that relies on something you have + something you know is just as flawed as a system solely based on something you know. Sure, there's extra effort involved in stealing a credit card, but there's also extra effort involved in guessing a particularly strong password.
I don't see much problem with a limited suspension of due process rights with a theft of this scale, even if it still just boils down to theft.
But what if the guys they catch turn out to not be the real thieves? What happens to the innocent people who'll get screwed over because they're denied due process?
Hmm...I actually use LaTeX far more than I use a regular word processor. That's not good.
I understand why the Knoppix guys did it tho...space on live CDs is a pretty big problem, and I suppose they had no choice if they wanted to upgrade KDE, OpenOffice.org, GIMP, etc.
It irks me, but I can live with it. And it's not like Knoppix is my main distro anyway--I mostly just play around with it and use it as an advocacy tool.
Oh, and your original post, entitled This is why geeks will always be better than you is somehow not belittling others?
Hypocrite.
Did you read the post I was replying to? He, or rather his joke-that-didn't-seem-like-a-joke, belittled people that do things that result in them not getting laid. I was calling him on that, and later apologised (to him, at least) when he said he was joking.
Balance is important in life. I have a passion for computers. I have a passion for cars. Thankfully my passion for computers allows me the luxury of indulging my passion for cars, as well as doing other things such as travel, photography, date women, and generally enjoy live my life as I choose.
If that's what you like, fine. But don't insinuate that everyone should like mainstream things for the sake of balance. I like what I like. If I only like geek things, so be it. That's the way it is and nothing'll change that. If I also like some mainstream things, so be it. That's the way it is and nothing'll change that.
And, for the record, this will be my last reply. I'm sick of this thread.
The guy is not insightful in the least. He's clearly undersexed and very frustrated as a result. (And in denial.)
Wonderful. Your post beautifully highlights what's wrong with society. Well, one of the things that's wrong with it, at least.
What does it highlight, you're asking? The asinine belief that anyone who doesn't have sex on the brain is undersexed and frustrated. You fit the bill perfectly. Gotta love ignorance.
I also gotta love your suggestion that everyone should ``strike a balance'' between geek things and mainstream things like cars, sports, etc. Guess what? I don't like cars (which is putting it very mildly). Sports just bore me. Apathy is the only emotion I feel toward sexual relations. I do, however, have a passion for computers. I have a passion for comic books.
Just accept that people have different tastes than you. You like sports, cars, and sex? Fine. Just don't belittle me for not liking them. I like computers and comic books. I don't belittle others for not liking them.
Fine. I apologise for singling you out, but just because my comment doesn't apply to you doesn't mean it doesn't apply to others.
Don't think that just because you were joking that other people weren't agreeing with you, either silently or by posting their own comments to that effect (in this thread and others).
GCC was forked once, as egcs, and the forks were later rejoined. It was also forked because GCC had serious problems--the fork was rejoined when GCC was effectively halted and egcs became the new official GCC.
XFree86 was forked once, and only very recently. There was also a damn good reason to start a fork--this wasn't something done on a whim.
You see, we don't waste every waking moment of our lives thinking about getting laid. We actually do things we find interesting.
When I see someone like you post something like your post, I already know that I have more of a life than that person. There are more, and better, things than sex.
Unlike you, I actually spend my life doing things that I enjoy--I don't focus on fulfilling animalistic urges and belittling anyone who actually has a real hobby.
And one final thing...how is this real-life Pacman game any more lame than a game where a bunch of musclebound idiots are chasing another musclebound idiot carrying a ball across a field?
Kile, the KDE Integrated LaTeX Environment, is a pretty powerful LaTeX IDE for KDE. It has toolbars and menus that will be of major assistance, and has commands that automate certain things, like creating a skeletal structure for your document.
Of course, you'll need more than that--an IDE can't teach you everything. I particularly like this LaTeX tutorial--it was the first one I found when I first started learning LaTeX a little over a year ago, and it's pretty good for starting one off.
I don't know about other websites, but we have dozens of OS/Browser configurations. We'd test your claim, and find out that we cannot reproduce the bug. You just wasted part of our day.
Oooh...fun.
First of all, he'd now have the satisfaction of knowing he just wasted part of your day sending you on a wild goose chase.
Second, I'd like to see just how comprehensive your OS/browser configuration list is. If I were doing this, I'd claim to be using something really esoteric, like Voyager on QNX or IBM WebExplorer on OS/2.
Does it allow you not block advertising from, say Slashdot? How about cookies. I only allow cookies from a few sites.
AdBlock lets you block ads on a per-site basis. Basically, if I come across an ad that's not blocked, I'll right click->AdBlock, and then tweak the URL with *s to block all ads from that site. You can also click a button in your statusbar that'll pull up a list of all blockable elements on the page and give you the option to block each one.
AdBlock has nothing to do with cookies, but that's moot as Firefox has a built-in cookie manager.
TurboLinux, SCO/Caldera, SuSE, and Connectiva were once part of an alliance called UnitedLinux, intent on creating a united Linux distribution.
No member of UnitedLinux owned another. They put out one release, and once the litigation started, everything stalled. United is effectively no more--they still technically exist, but all operations are dead.
One thing interesting is that UnitedLinux had one member for each major geographic area except Africa. North America had SCO/Caldera, South America had Connectiva, Europe had SuSE, and Japan had TurboLinux.
Re:VI is everywhere.
on
JOE Hits 3.0
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
I just SSHed into my uni's shell account and ran Joe. Yep, it's there. So is Pico.
Honestly, Gentoo's installer is my favourite, by far. I can't think of a single other Linux distro I've installed where I've had so much fun installing it.
Well, LFS is a contender, but it goes too far in the other direction...IMO, Gentoo strikes the perfect balance between entirely-manual and point-and-click-boredom.
If I want to send a file, I am going to use a better method than DCC.
Maybe the average Slashdotter will use something better, but the average non-techie will just hit mIRC's ``send file'' button.
Back when I was really into IRC, DCC was used all the time.
``Hey, I wasn't here last night...anthing happen?''
``Here, let me send you my log''
``Whoa, I just found this really cool pic''
``Hey, can you send it to me?''
Now, yeah, most of the fserves/bots are distributing pirated stuff (and even there, it's not all piracy). But there's just as much one-on-one DCC out there that's used for perfectly legit purposes.
And DCC's not just a file transfer protocol--it's also a chat protocol, for private conversations not connected to the IRC network. If I want to chat with someone, and I want the chat to last longer than the IRC connection, I'll just start a DCC chat with them.
Slashdot Mirror
If they can't kill it, then they have to resort to "embrace and extend"...
/. joke, but let's not go there.
If that's MS's goal, it will backfire on them so hard. MS thinks they're the ones who ``embrace and extend''? HA! OSS has been doing this for years, far more efficiently than MS has.
If MS tries to ``embrace and extend'' OSS, then OSS will end up embracing and extending MS. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
It also sounds like a really bad
The original article
Between this and them firing all of TechTV's staff, I see NO REASON why any geek worth his salt should use ANY SERVICE offered by this company.
Because the only ADSL ISPs who have service in my area are AOL and SBC/Yahoo, both of which are far worse than Comcast. Tho with the kind of crap Comcast is pulling, SBC/Yahoo is looking better and better.
I tried looking up Speakeasy, since I've heard great things about them, but in my area, they only offer IDSL. For those of you who don't know, IDSL is almost twice the price of cable or ADSL (IIRC, their IDSL is $80-90/month--Comcast is $52/month, with a $10/month discount if you have cable TV), at almost 1/30 the speed (Comcast has 3Mbps up, Speakeasy IDSL is 144kbps--not sure about down on either ISP).
Yeah, I despise Comcast, but they're the least-worst option in my area.
Additionally, they can also choose to not offer a discount for using your own modem. Pretty much eliminates most reasons to go out and get one..
I'm willing to pay the extra money. For my apartment, I bought a $90 Motorola Surfboard cable modem. Comcast will let a customer rent a modem for a very cheap price. In fact, I think the modem I bought is the same model Comcast uses. I don't care. I'd rather pay the extra money than have Comcast have any control over my equipment.
IIRC, it's more of a rule of thumb than actual law. I first saw it on a sign posted in my uni's library. There were differing amounts for each type of work. For text, it was 1000 words or 10%, whichever is less (IIRC, there was no entry for source code, so I just went with text, and only mentioned 10%, as ``words'' really don't apply to code). I Googled around to confirm the numbers, and found quite a few sites mentioning it.
A search for "1000 words" "fair use" should bring up plenty of results. This chart is a pretty good source. Here's another one (you'll have to scroll down quite a bit on this one tho).
Again, it seems mostly like a widely-used rule of thumb than actual law, but it seems like a good guideline. And even if it didn't really apply, the other provisions of fair use do.
The problem with this reasoning is that these are "invented facts" as opposed to "discovered facts."
Except that most of the information on the AP CS exams aren't invented facts. They are basing the questions off parts of a standardised language, which they most certainly didn't create. I suppose the exact, verbatim text of the questions might be copyrighted, but that wouldn't apply to the fact that they asked you a question about a certain fact (does anyone even remember the verbatim text of test questions? I know I almost always just remember what a question covered, not the exact wording used).
You might be able to make a case for the Case Study code, since it's not part of the standard, but that's it. And even that's tenuous, what with the Case Study being released to the public and used in CS curriculums all over the US. It's available for download from the College Board site, and I know for a fact that the code came with one of the editions of CodeWarrior.
The only thing the College Board could sue you for regarding the case study would be for republishing verbatim code without their consent, but that wouldn't bar one from talking about the Case Study, only from copying the exact code used. And even there, fair use guidelines apply. I could be wrong about the exact number, but IIRC, fair use allows for up to 10% of the original material to be copied and requires that the work be used for certain purposes (i.e. comment, criticism, and parody--comment certainly applies here).
It depends on whether or not KDE 3.2, GIMP 2.0, and whatever else they upgraded are worth it. To some people, they are worth it, to others, they're not.
From your point of view, an online purchase may seem to involve something you know (a password) and something you have (the numbers on your credit cards), but from the merchant's point of view they're just taking your word for it because they have no way to validate that the security token you're using is actually in your possession -- hence, credit card fraud.
Of course, just because you have something in your possession doesn't mean you own it. If one were to steal someone's wallet, go to a store, and buy something with the stolen credit card, one has just committed credit card fraud while having the credit card in one's possession.
Unless the ``something you have'' contains a picture of the owner or the like (i.e. something you are), a system that relies on something you have + something you know is just as flawed as a system solely based on something you know. Sure, there's extra effort involved in stealing a credit card, but there's also extra effort involved in guessing a particularly strong password.
If you were under 18 when you signed it, that form is the functional equivalent of toilet paper. Minors cannot sign legally binding contracts.
I don't see much problem with a limited suspension of due process rights with a theft of this scale, even if it still just boils down to theft.
But what if the guys they catch turn out to not be the real thieves? What happens to the innocent people who'll get screwed over because they're denied due process?
Hmm...I actually use LaTeX far more than I use a regular word processor. That's not good.
I understand why the Knoppix guys did it tho...space on live CDs is a pretty big problem, and I suppose they had no choice if they wanted to upgrade KDE, OpenOffice.org, GIMP, etc.
It irks me, but I can live with it. And it's not like Knoppix is my main distro anyway--I mostly just play around with it and use it as an advocacy tool.
Oh, and your original post, entitled This is why geeks will always be better than you is somehow not belittling others?
Hypocrite.
Did you read the post I was replying to? He, or rather his joke-that-didn't-seem-like-a-joke, belittled people that do things that result in them not getting laid. I was calling him on that, and later apologised (to him, at least) when he said he was joking.
Balance is important in life. I have a passion for computers. I have a passion for cars. Thankfully my passion for computers allows me the luxury of indulging my passion for cars, as well as doing other things such as travel, photography, date women, and generally enjoy live my life as I choose.
If that's what you like, fine. But don't insinuate that everyone should like mainstream things for the sake of balance. I like what I like. If I only like geek things, so be it. That's the way it is and nothing'll change that. If I also like some mainstream things, so be it. That's the way it is and nothing'll change that.
And, for the record, this will be my last reply. I'm sick of this thread.
The guy is not insightful in the least. He's clearly undersexed and very frustrated as a result. (And in denial.)
Wonderful. Your post beautifully highlights what's wrong with society. Well, one of the things that's wrong with it, at least.
What does it highlight, you're asking? The asinine belief that anyone who doesn't have sex on the brain is undersexed and frustrated. You fit the bill perfectly. Gotta love ignorance.
I also gotta love your suggestion that everyone should ``strike a balance'' between geek things and mainstream things like cars, sports, etc. Guess what? I don't like cars (which is putting it very mildly). Sports just bore me. Apathy is the only emotion I feel toward sexual relations. I do, however, have a passion for computers. I have a passion for comic books.
Just accept that people have different tastes than you. You like sports, cars, and sex? Fine. Just don't belittle me for not liking them. I like computers and comic books. I don't belittle others for not liking them.
Fine. I apologise for singling you out, but just because my comment doesn't apply to you doesn't mean it doesn't apply to others.
Don't think that just because you were joking that other people weren't agreeing with you, either silently or by posting their own comments to that effect (in this thread and others).
It needed to be said.
Of course, you're assuming it will be forked.
KDE and GNOME have never been forked.
GCC was forked once, as egcs, and the forks were later rejoined. It was also forked because GCC had serious problems--the fork was rejoined when GCC was effectively halted and egcs became the new official GCC.
XFree86 was forked once, and only very recently. There was also a damn good reason to start a fork--this wasn't something done on a whim.
You see, we don't waste every waking moment of our lives thinking about getting laid. We actually do things we find interesting.
When I see someone like you post something like your post, I already know that I have more of a life than that person. There are more, and better, things than sex.
Unlike you, I actually spend my life doing things that I enjoy--I don't focus on fulfilling animalistic urges and belittling anyone who actually has a real hobby.
And one final thing...how is this real-life Pacman game any more lame than a game where a bunch of musclebound idiots are chasing another musclebound idiot carrying a ball across a field?
Kile, the KDE Integrated LaTeX Environment, is a pretty powerful LaTeX IDE for KDE. It has toolbars and menus that will be of major assistance, and has commands that automate certain things, like creating a skeletal structure for your document.
Of course, you'll need more than that--an IDE can't teach you everything. I particularly like this LaTeX tutorial--it was the first one I found when I first started learning LaTeX a little over a year ago, and it's pretty good for starting one off.
I don't know about other websites, but we have dozens of OS/Browser configurations. We'd test your claim, and find out that we cannot reproduce the bug. You just wasted part of our day.
Oooh...fun.
First of all, he'd now have the satisfaction of knowing he just wasted part of your day sending you on a wild goose chase.
Second, I'd like to see just how comprehensive your OS/browser configuration list is. If I were doing this, I'd claim to be using something really esoteric, like Voyager on QNX or IBM WebExplorer on OS/2.
Does it allow you not block advertising from, say Slashdot? How about cookies. I only allow cookies from a few sites.
AdBlock lets you block ads on a per-site basis. Basically, if I come across an ad that's not blocked, I'll right click->AdBlock, and then tweak the URL with *s to block all ads from that site. You can also click a button in your statusbar that'll pull up a list of all blockable elements on the page and give you the option to block each one.
AdBlock has nothing to do with cookies, but that's moot as Firefox has a built-in cookie manager.
Whoops--you're completely right. I completely forgot about you Aussies.
TurboLinux, SCO/Caldera, SuSE, and Connectiva were once part of an alliance called UnitedLinux, intent on creating a united Linux distribution.
No member of UnitedLinux owned another. They put out one release, and once the litigation started, everything stalled. United is effectively no more--they still technically exist, but all operations are dead.
One thing interesting is that UnitedLinux had one member for each major geographic area except Africa. North America had SCO/Caldera, South America had Connectiva, Europe had SuSE, and Japan had TurboLinux.
I just SSHed into my uni's shell account and ran Joe. Yep, it's there. So is Pico.
So much for your comment then...
Honestly, Gentoo's installer is my favourite, by far. I can't think of a single other Linux distro I've installed where I've had so much fun installing it.
Well, LFS is a contender, but it goes too far in the other direction...IMO, Gentoo strikes the perfect balance between entirely-manual and point-and-click-boredom.
If I want to send a file, I am going to use a better method than DCC.
Maybe the average Slashdotter will use something better, but the average non-techie will just hit mIRC's ``send file'' button.
Back when I was really into IRC, DCC was used all the time.
``Hey, I wasn't here last night...anthing happen?''
``Here, let me send you my log''
``Whoa, I just found this really cool pic''
``Hey, can you send it to me?''
Now, yeah, most of the fserves/bots are distributing pirated stuff (and even there, it's not all piracy). But there's just as much one-on-one DCC out there that's used for perfectly legit purposes.
And DCC's not just a file transfer protocol--it's also a chat protocol, for private conversations not connected to the IRC network. If I want to chat with someone, and I want the chat to last longer than the IRC connection, I'll just start a DCC chat with them.