I'm as tickled as the next Linux advocate to see a move to my favorite
platform (Unix). But now some warning bells are going off in my head and I wonder
if "we" are on a collision course with Vista, and Microsoft's thrust (innuendo
intended) into Trusted Computing.
What are the possible ramifications, and can the Linux community proactively
attenutate? I've read many articles, and many posts about Trusted Computing (this
has to be one the more ironic names ever, I can almost
hear the Microsoft-Intel juggernaut sniggering from here), but I've never felt
completely comfortable with how all of the pieces fit together. Maybe it's time
for yet another series of replies to re-educate me.
From past learning I understand TC won't stop Linux from working, and won't stop
people from installing and using Linux, nor will it stop entire organizations from
converting to Linux. But, what about the "Trusted" relationship to the Microsoft
world? An entire organization running Linux would seem open to being completely
shut out from a Microsoft shop.
Are there answers to this? Is a future Linux conversion vulnerable to what amounts
to a technical shunning by the Microsoft universe? Not only do I need to know for
myself, but for counseling others who are considering Linux.
I wonder how many insights from the past we as a "civilization" may be whistling
past. In our smug (seemingly) mastery of technology I often feel a sense of something
missing, or just not quite in the right place. Today we can instantaneously retrieve
and play on our mp3 players any song that tickles our fancy, but to what end? When
sales of Britney outstrip sales of the Emperor Concerto something is out of whack.
Base and rank commercialism has overtaken sensibility. Our choices are far less
choices and far more subtle (and sometimes otherwise) manipulation of our choices
by mass market driven money making machines.
For example, the food industry: did you know that one of the most healthy foods you
can eat is tuna? And if you're trying to lose weight it can be a keystone in that goal.
Did you know that some brands of tuna have artificially introduced certain appetite
inducing chemicals? No intrinsic added value to the food, just a manipulation of
you to buy more food (hopefully, their tuna).
Now, to relate all of this back to the original article. What percentage of medical
breakthroughs and research have anything to do with cumulative knowledge? What
percentage is just purely money driven?
It's only my opinion, but "we" as a civilization will show true evolution when we
take use of true knowledge and think less about everything as "business". Business
is an artifact. Truth and knowledge serve more faithfully.
I worked 21 years for my company. I was good at what I did. I was
also unconventional. I worked my way to the highest position in the technical
ranks. My salary was out of band (never asked for that, btw) because of my
accomplishments. I received the highest technical achievement award possible from
my company. I wrote an application that saved (hard dollars) my company
10's of millions of dollars, and kept them out of legal hot water. That program
is still being used today and is a core technology there.
A year ago I was told in an effort to "cut costs", it was time for me
to go. Done. Finito.
Whatever you do, take care of yourself. My (admittedly anecdotal) experience says
there are no friends out there. There is no reason to strive for excellence based
on your company's desires. Turns out that doesn't matter.
Make yourself happy. Set your own standards.
The business world is a fucked place, and if you ever try to make sense
of it, you're pumping oxygen needlessly to those brain cells.
I think for me the crime in all of this was I used to want to do as much for
my company as possible. There was hardly an evening on my way home at night
I wasn't thinking of ways to make my company a better company. And, I was
pretty good at contributing to that. I'm still good at what I do, but I don't think
I'll ever have an ounce of good will for a company. Bottom line, companies evolve
to where people who like and want power become the ones running the show, and
generally speaking they are fucktards whose acumen is inversely proportional to their
salary.
Let's just hope they never evolve to the level where they take up arms and declare war against us. Our record in Gorilla warfare hasn't been so stellar.
Very intense. Interestingly, just talking to him not knowing who he was I'm not sure I found myself necessarily agreeing with things he was saying. But interesting to talk to.
I accidentally met O'Reilly at a Linux conference in North Carolina a number
of years back. We chatted it up about Linux, where we thought it might be going,
what we thought Linux might say at the keynote address (turned out to be the year
Linus said he would, "never, never, again write code to minimize memory to small
memory machines...", a scary statement, but interestingly enough still to this day
Linux is comparably resource thrifty), and small talk (not the language).
He was soft spoken and unassuming. Somewhere in the course of discussion we
introduced ourselves to each other. I remember walking away thinking what a nice
guy, and an interesting coincidental name with the publisher. Yeah, it was
the Tim O'Reilly, and I didn't figure it out until I saw him speak later
that day. Wow.
His presentation was low key, more about rallying the community than circling the
wagons. Here was truly a man with a vision and understanding about the fabric
of technology. Oh that the leaders of many more of our technology companies could
be of his ilk.
(As an interesting aside (to me), this was also the same conference at which
I met ESR, same way, just striking up a conversation after a presentation. When time
began to run out I told him I had to move along, I wanted to get to the Eric Raymond
presentation. He smiled and let me go, telling me he'd see me there. LOL)
Upfront disclaimer: I'm a total idiot, and I have no idea how businesses
work, nor do I have any legal background.
So, I wonder if this is a confrontation Apple may welcome, and maybe even brought
semi-intentionally. My hunch is the thesis: iPods generate sales, rather than
download sales generate iPod sales is the more correct dynamic at work in
this market.
There certainly are plenty of alternative sources of music, music that could
temporarily replace the current source for iTunes, should the music industry
call Apple's bluff. But I think the music industry stands to lose way more than
Apple. The music industry could:
lose revenue
lose confidence of the consumers
lose artists
lose relevance
Apple, on the other hand still offers a sweet product (even a sweet suite of products)
and there are myriad ways to get music onto their devices. Sure, a speedbump in
iTunes could require a detour, but I think Apple faces little risk. Apple could be
the huge winner here. In my opinion, Apple already is at least the winner, they've
dared not to blink and the music industry is starting to look silly.
Me, I refuse to play one way or the other with any of DRM markets, but I give
Apple grudging credit for offering a palatible product and willingness to take
on the hand that feeds.
I'm probably heading for a troll here, but does the angst and hand wringing of some manager considering taking a job in programming have that much import? Be glad you got a job buddy, be blessed you have opportunity in abundance. And be a bit humble about it.
Why did you bother Googling for him? If you look at the end of the article, it expressly states that he works for ATL. Now, howling about googling them and finding what flavor bastard is implied might be worthwhile, but don't make it seem like they were hiding something that they came right out and said themselves
Yeah, they do mention that, but it isn't reason not to Google and look around for info about the author. So what I Googled for found similar results. While FOX probably fulfilled their obligation, listing someone as "Executive Director of Americans for Technical Leadership" is more misleading than it is helpful. If I were not inclined to look much further I'd infer from that organization's name its mission was to advocate best applications of technology. Maybe ATL thinks that about themselves, but if you know anything about ATL they (especially the author) are clearly are Microsoft shills.
It's over in Fox's "Views" Department (note exact URL before clicking), making it an editorial-- or more exactly an "opinion" piece. (Editorials are written by on-staff editors. Opinions are written by anyone who wants to vent... much like Slashdot, actually.) Traditionally, Editorials and Opinion columnists are allowed much more latitude from the ideal of the neutral journalistic voice. Of course, traditionally editorial and opinion pieces are labeled much more clearly than Fox News does with theirs, so better to distinguish them from the more factual and less subjective elements of the news.
You correctly point out this is in the "Views" section of the FOX web site. However in my slashdot preferences I have set "domain" indicator, and when I read the article in slashdot, the bracketed site is listed as [foxnews.com]. I did revisit the article, and even with the additional prodding from replies to my post it took me a bit to finally detect what it was about that page that indicated it was part of "Views", the graphic neatly embedded/surrounded by the typical banner ads you find on these kinds of pages, hardly an eyecatcher, and hardly the typical label used to indicate Op-Ed fodder. I agree with you, FOX doesn't do a clear job of delineating this, and they should.
Further muddying the semantic waters is the article post itself, where every reference to the page describes the reference as an article, not a column, not a viewpoint, but an article.
I guess I made a couple more assumptions than I should have -- but there was a certain level of disingenuouness (word?) on a few levels here.
Regardless, I agree -- being that it IS under the heading "viewpoint", they can pretty much say whatever they want.... As for the rest of the players, I hope they hold the ropes a little more taut next time.
I'm wondering if you pulled the thread through far enough starting with
Fox News, then the reporter, all the way to the source of and the reason for
the article warning about dangers of OSS that you would find some Microsoft shill
pulling strings.
Oh wait, I just Googled James Prendergast, author of the story.
Hey!, Guess what!, he's Executive Director of ATL, a virulently anti-OSS organization and web site.
Hey slashdotter's, you might want to visit that web site a few times, and make sure you always have a fresh page by
hitting SHIFT-F5!
Okay, here's the thing that bothers me about VOIP going wireless: I already find cellular (wireless) unacceptable in quality. I already find VOIP unacceptable in quality (though I will concede under perfect conditions, it can be quite good). I may not be able to pick out different brands of beer on a bet (actually, I can), but I can smell a cellular call 12,000 miles away. And I can tell a VOIP call 5 "route" hops away.
I assume this development implies some marriage of the technologies (I wasn't able definitively to tell from the article). I can only shudder at the thought. Can you hear me w8erfjkldfa?...., Caeoa yow hear ewlrkj now? FSCK!
Maybe the most irritating thing in this is the stampede to not offer great technology for what I'll call "comfortable" conversation/communication, but instead: Get there first; Maximize throughput; and Make lots of money. The technology on the other hand is quite capable of delivering the high quality land line users are accustomed to... but, you're never going to see (hear) it in the competitive sleezy crappy quality and service world of wireless.
When was the last time you had to constantly repeat yourself on land line to land line phone conversations (not attribtutable to non-understandable help desk support)? Yeah, technology marches on, I just wish it would spiff up its uniform.
as usual, blame the users for trying
on
Too Many Passwords
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
(BTW, this is basically a dupe from about four or five years ago...)
From the article (and the post):
The results suggest
that having to juggle multiple passwords causes users to compensate with
risky security techniques such as listing passwords on post-it notes
(you know who you are)...
First, I can't let this pass. I was on the IT team for a large company that
had the described oodles of systems and oodles of passwords dilemma. And I'd been
out on the floor where our users had to use these systems. The last thing in
the world someone should be saying to them is, "You know how you are",
as if these people are doing some wrong. Their jobs of dealing with the consumer
public is hard enough without having to genuflect to the "security" (inconsistent,
obfuscated, inane, ineffective, and myriad) measures of the systems from which
they are supposed to server the consumers. I never had to deal with as many passwords
as they did, but had I had to, I'd have been tempted to do the same thing.
As for the dilemma of too many passwords... yeah, there are too
many passwords. And the funny thing about that is, they (in my opinion) provide little
to no security and may even subtract from the overall security of the network.
Especially in a closed access building (which these users were), passwords were and
are a hindrance, not an enabler. I'd submit the entire organization would function
more effectively were they all allowed access to the various systems sans passwords
once they'd entered the building. Most stolen and broken passwords are via
social engineering, and half the social engineering is just gaining access.
In the personal computing arena, I'd be awfully surprised if even 10% of the
problems occur because of too many passwords. More likely it's because of incorrectly
configured access levels for general users.
I'm guessing the world of passwords will never go away, but in settings where
users have to deal with many (in the case described above, literally hundreds) of
systems and their various password paradigms, passwords SHOULD go away (NOTE: the use
of the plural... I'd be okay with somehow consolidating total access down to ONE
password). Somehow it must be comforting to PHB's to know their universe is multiply
protected by multiple schema, whether or not it affords any protection.
From the post: This latest attempt involves tacking
on an amendment to a budget reconciliation bill. Since reconciliation
is about cutting spending--something that always sounds good--such
legislation cannot be substantially changed by the Budget Committee once
it is presented...
So, the MPAA is now taking the route on total non-representation. Their initial
approach obviously was non-representational/non populist and of course they
have their own greedy self-motivation. That's okay, you can petition the
government for legislation, and for protection. But they lost that battle and now
look to win the war with their own Trojan Horse, a virus if you will (how ironic).
The thing I find MOST egregious and offensive about this is they are sneaking
their agenda in under the radar in a bill totally unrelated to their issue and
likely to be passed. Normally this is a technique to snag pork for legislators and
representatives, a sleezy technique for allocating money. But this is more
pernicious and evil -- where the intent is to screw the entire entertainment
consuming public (virtually everyone). What a crock.
Hmmm, posted the parent post, and immediately got modded "overrated", which is pretty fscking funny, since the post had not been rated. What fucktard modded me "overrated"? I don't really give a shit about my ratings, and this post (parent) was for mild amusement, don't care if you think it's funny or not, don't care if you don't want to "rate" it or not, but what stupid idiots are wasting fucking mod points to ding the post?
I'm sure I'm hanging karma in the crosshairs for flame or troll, I don't give a fucking shit. At least this time, I'll feel like the ratings will be appropriate. Stupid fscking modders, why the fsck are there these modders out there? Fsck! Meanwhile, I've done over 500 (stopped counting then) metamods under the apparently faux hint that meta-moderaters are more likely to receive mod points. Yeah, right. It's been over a year since I've gotten mod points -- fsck it. I'm sure a post like this'll assure no more points for long time to come.
From the post: It [Google] has even made its way into language as a common word.
It's interesting (to me) to look at the slightly different approaches between Microsoft and Google, and the lexicon of their products. I know it's a little bit of an apples and oranges thing but Microsoft, rather than having products so good they become part of the language, chose words so common you virtually can't finish a couple of sentences without having used one of their products as a word.
Whereas Google's product arose from a good idea and great implementation, and was done so well it became part of our lexicon. Heck, they even coined it as a non-existent word (though cleverly derivative)!
It's interesting (again, to me) how this reflects the long-standing comments about Microsoft: they don't innovate, they embrace and extend. Look, they've done it with their product names and our language! And, they've excelled at it!
The article caught my eye, I'm always curious about new and upcoming programmers and am a fan of Google. So, what great thing did the winner of this contest produce? Turns out, nothing. He won a contest in coding, which I'm not sure tells anybody much of anything.
It's kind of like a spelling bee. Virtually anyone in the top x% is equally capable in spelling acumen. On any given day, any given playah could, or would be a winner in a spelling bee.
Factors:
probability of having to spell a word you can't (I submit that all spelling bee participants have this same foible)
your mental and physical health at the time of the contest
judges
I am sure the winner of this programming contest is bright, but I don't think it brings anything much to the programming/computer science world. But then, I guess it doesn't have to.
Then you create some sort of control network.' That network could be made into a smart grid using more sophisticated software and grid computing technologies.
I believe if you'll check the documentation, that sophisticated smart-grid controller software is part of the new Office 12 release.
It's interesting to juxtapose PR spin from Microsoft. At any given point in time in Microsoft's history, their stance and PR is that they are "state of the art", the most advanced, etc. Yet also at any given point in time they're badmouthing their own product, their own methodologies, from their recent past. Of course their chest thumping for their current "state" prevails, but I'm guessing down the road we're going to hear how messed up they are today, but not until they've made billions off of today's products.
In my opinion data archival screams to be handled in as simple
an lowest-common-denominator a way as possible. For me, that means text for
documents, and picture formats that would seem guaranteed to be around for
a long time, if not forever. I'm guessing a good candidate for pictures would
be something like jpg. I can't imagine jpg going away or ever being a non-decipherable
picture format. Video might be a tougher nut to crack but I would guess some
flavor of mpg.
Note that none of these flavors: text; jpg; nor mpg, include or imply any
reliance on vendor proprietary formats (yes, I know there's a certain proprietary
tinge to the picture and video forms, but they're pretty universal). So, storing
and archiving for historical purposes rules out Microsoft and all of their formats.
This would especially make sense considering there are already huge compatibility
issues with Microsoft documents among their various versions of their products.
Also, for retrieval assurance it no longer makes sense to me to use "dead"
or "inert" methods for storage, e.g., tapes, cds, dvds, etc. Instead, at least for
my purposes I maintain multiple physical and current storage devices for all of my
important data. This has been a recent (last three years) development for me when
I started reading about early failures of the supposedly rugged storage.
So, that being the case that introduces (introduced) the need to devise a
strategy for forward migration of all of may data so nothing got left behind.
Fortunately, this has been mostly easy since right now the "active" storage du jour
seems to be hard disk drives, and the capacity has grown sufficiently with each
new generation of drives I have been able to simply roll my data forward onto the
new drives with the new data with plenty of room to spare.
This shouldn't be an approach foreign to comapanies with reasonably competent data
shops either. But maybe a philosophical change. All is not lost, and hopefully all
will not be.
Hmmm, I generally don't like to reply to ad hominem...
Let's see....
eight-hour interview, passed with flying colors (even had to point out a flaw in one of the puzzles presented to me) -- CHECK!
three offers before *I* accepted -- CHECK!
extremely generous stock option -- CHECK! (had I stayed, they eventually matured at over $3,000,000. And that was just for walking in the door.)
one of the highest ever internal OS test scores ever, allowing me to bypass Microsoft's internal training program -- CHECK!
continued offers, and references to other jobs with partners after I left Microsoft -- CHECK!
Yeah, you're probably right, there's no evidence of competence. I clearly bowed out because I wasn't up to task.
Of course, it's not surprise this attack comes from AC. You just keep telling yourself you posted anonymously to avoid karma dings rather than because you really are a coward. Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that.
In your reply: That's really just legal-ese, and the only reason that geeks felt that they were anti-trust experts was because they knew of a high-profile computer company that was involved. Real people don't care.
Actually, the reason I felt I knew something about this was because I worked at Microsoft. I left, explaining when I left I felt if what they were doing wasn't illegal, it was at least unethical -- reason enough for me to go. Eventually I testified in the DOJ case.
As for your willingness to just allow that "that's how the world works", it's your perogative. It's also an attitude that eventually allows those who would abuse their power to eventually abuse it absolutely.
I actually did know that, one of the very best articles ever on how bps rates were squeezed out of baud was in a very old issue of BYTE Magazine. It talked about amplitude, phase shift, terracing (correct term?) and how they were used and combined to squeeze out bps rates up to 56K.
You're right, while they're typically described and used interchangably, they're not.
You make very good points. This is how commercialism on the grand scale works (or, in Microsoft's case in my opinion, "doesn't"). I think Microsoft is an example that reaches the far end of a spectrum.
As for guaranteeing I don't have products made in sweatshops (doesn't HAVE to be overseas), I can't guarantee that. I assure you though I DO do research (heh!, he said "do do") to the extent I can to avoid buying sweatshop products. Unfortunately, it's not an easy thing to determine.
I agree with you -- large scale business is out of whack.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm as tickled as the next Linux advocate to see a move to my favorite platform (Unix). But now some warning bells are going off in my head and I wonder if "we" are on a collision course with Vista, and Microsoft's thrust (innuendo intended) into Trusted Computing.
What are the possible ramifications, and can the Linux community proactively attenutate? I've read many articles, and many posts about Trusted Computing (this has to be one the more ironic names ever, I can almost hear the Microsoft-Intel juggernaut sniggering from here), but I've never felt completely comfortable with how all of the pieces fit together. Maybe it's time for yet another series of replies to re-educate me.
From past learning I understand TC won't stop Linux from working, and won't stop people from installing and using Linux, nor will it stop entire organizations from converting to Linux. But, what about the "Trusted" relationship to the Microsoft world? An entire organization running Linux would seem open to being completely shut out from a Microsoft shop.
Are there answers to this? Is a future Linux conversion vulnerable to what amounts to a technical shunning by the Microsoft universe? Not only do I need to know for myself, but for counseling others who are considering Linux.
Disclaimer: this post is philosophical drivel...
I wonder how many insights from the past we as a "civilization" may be whistling past. In our smug (seemingly) mastery of technology I often feel a sense of something missing, or just not quite in the right place. Today we can instantaneously retrieve and play on our mp3 players any song that tickles our fancy, but to what end? When sales of Britney outstrip sales of the Emperor Concerto something is out of whack.
Base and rank commercialism has overtaken sensibility. Our choices are far less choices and far more subtle (and sometimes otherwise) manipulation of our choices by mass market driven money making machines.
For example, the food industry: did you know that one of the most healthy foods you can eat is tuna? And if you're trying to lose weight it can be a keystone in that goal. Did you know that some brands of tuna have artificially introduced certain appetite inducing chemicals? No intrinsic added value to the food, just a manipulation of you to buy more food (hopefully, their tuna).
Now, to relate all of this back to the original article. What percentage of medical breakthroughs and research have anything to do with cumulative knowledge? What percentage is just purely money driven?
It's only my opinion, but "we" as a civilization will show true evolution when we take use of true knowledge and think less about everything as "business". Business is an artifact. Truth and knowledge serve more faithfully.
I worked 21 years for my company. I was good at what I did. I was also unconventional. I worked my way to the highest position in the technical ranks. My salary was out of band (never asked for that, btw) because of my accomplishments. I received the highest technical achievement award possible from my company. I wrote an application that saved (hard dollars) my company 10's of millions of dollars, and kept them out of legal hot water. That program is still being used today and is a core technology there.
A year ago I was told in an effort to "cut costs", it was time for me to go. Done. Finito.
Whatever you do, take care of yourself. My (admittedly anecdotal) experience says there are no friends out there. There is no reason to strive for excellence based on your company's desires. Turns out that doesn't matter.
Make yourself happy. Set your own standards.
The business world is a fucked place, and if you ever try to make sense of it, you're pumping oxygen needlessly to those brain cells.
I think for me the crime in all of this was I used to want to do as much for my company as possible. There was hardly an evening on my way home at night I wasn't thinking of ways to make my company a better company. And, I was pretty good at contributing to that. I'm still good at what I do, but I don't think I'll ever have an ounce of good will for a company. Bottom line, companies evolve to where people who like and want power become the ones running the show, and generally speaking they are fucktards whose acumen is inversely proportional to their salary.
Let's just hope they never evolve to the level where they take up arms and declare war against us. Our record in Gorilla warfare hasn't been so stellar.
Very intense. Interestingly, just talking to him not knowing who he was I'm not sure I found myself necessarily agreeing with things he was saying. But interesting to talk to.
I accidentally met O'Reilly at a Linux conference in North Carolina a number of years back. We chatted it up about Linux, where we thought it might be going, what we thought Linux might say at the keynote address (turned out to be the year Linus said he would, "never, never, again write code to minimize memory to small memory machines...", a scary statement, but interestingly enough still to this day Linux is comparably resource thrifty), and small talk (not the language).
He was soft spoken and unassuming. Somewhere in the course of discussion we introduced ourselves to each other. I remember walking away thinking what a nice guy, and an interesting coincidental name with the publisher. Yeah, it was the Tim O'Reilly, and I didn't figure it out until I saw him speak later that day. Wow.
His presentation was low key, more about rallying the community than circling the wagons. Here was truly a man with a vision and understanding about the fabric of technology. Oh that the leaders of many more of our technology companies could be of his ilk.
(As an interesting aside (to me), this was also the same conference at which I met ESR, same way, just striking up a conversation after a presentation. When time began to run out I told him I had to move along, I wanted to get to the Eric Raymond presentation. He smiled and let me go, telling me he'd see me there. LOL)
Upfront disclaimer: I'm a total idiot, and I have no idea how businesses work, nor do I have any legal background.
So, I wonder if this is a confrontation Apple may welcome, and maybe even brought semi-intentionally. My hunch is the thesis: iPods generate sales, rather than download sales generate iPod sales is the more correct dynamic at work in this market.
There certainly are plenty of alternative sources of music, music that could temporarily replace the current source for iTunes, should the music industry call Apple's bluff. But I think the music industry stands to lose way more than Apple. The music industry could:
- lose revenue
- lose confidence of the consumers
- lose artists
- lose relevance
Apple, on the other hand still offers a sweet product (even a sweet suite of products) and there are myriad ways to get music onto their devices. Sure, a speedbump in iTunes could require a detour, but I think Apple faces little risk. Apple could be the huge winner here. In my opinion, Apple already is at least the winner, they've dared not to blink and the music industry is starting to look silly.Me, I refuse to play one way or the other with any of DRM markets, but I give Apple grudging credit for offering a palatible product and willingness to take on the hand that feeds.
I'm probably heading for a troll here, but does the angst and hand wringing of some manager considering taking a job in programming have that much import? Be glad you got a job buddy, be blessed you have opportunity in abundance. And be a bit humble about it.
I'll respond to the strongest critique:
Yeah, they do mention that, but it isn't reason not to Google and look around for info about the author. So what I Googled for found similar results. While FOX probably fulfilled their obligation, listing someone as "Executive Director of Americans for Technical Leadership" is more misleading than it is helpful. If I were not inclined to look much further I'd infer from that organization's name its mission was to advocate best applications of technology. Maybe ATL thinks that about themselves, but if you know anything about ATL they (especially the author) are clearly are Microsoft shills.
You correctly point out this is in the "Views" section of the FOX web site. However in my slashdot preferences I have set "domain" indicator, and when I read the article in slashdot, the bracketed site is listed as [foxnews.com]. I did revisit the article, and even with the additional prodding from replies to my post it took me a bit to finally detect what it was about that page that indicated it was part of "Views", the graphic neatly embedded/surrounded by the typical banner ads you find on these kinds of pages, hardly an eyecatcher, and hardly the typical label used to indicate Op-Ed fodder. I agree with you, FOX doesn't do a clear job of delineating this, and they should.
Further muddying the semantic waters is the article post itself, where every reference to the page describes the reference as an article, not a column, not a viewpoint, but an article.
I guess I made a couple more assumptions than I should have -- but there was a certain level of disingenuouness (word?) on a few levels here.
Regardless, I agree -- being that it IS under the heading "viewpoint", they can pretty much say whatever they want.... As for the rest of the players, I hope they hold the ropes a little more taut next time.
I'm wondering if you pulled the thread through far enough starting with Fox News, then the reporter, all the way to the source of and the reason for the article warning about dangers of OSS that you would find some Microsoft shill pulling strings.
Oh wait, I just Googled James Prendergast, author of the story. Hey!, Guess what!, he's Executive Director of ATL, a virulently anti-OSS organization and web site.
Hey slashdotter's, you might want to visit that web site a few times, and make sure you always have a fresh page by hitting SHIFT-F5!
WTF Fox?!? Fair and balanced news indeed!
Okay, here's the thing that bothers me about VOIP going wireless: I already find cellular (wireless) unacceptable in quality. I already find VOIP unacceptable in quality (though I will concede under perfect conditions, it can be quite good). I may not be able to pick out different brands of beer on a bet (actually, I can), but I can smell a cellular call 12,000 miles away. And I can tell a VOIP call 5 "route" hops away.
I assume this development implies some marriage of the technologies (I wasn't able definitively to tell from the article). I can only shudder at the thought. Can you hear me w8erfjkldfa?...., Caeoa yow hear ewlrkj now? FSCK!
Maybe the most irritating thing in this is the stampede to not offer great technology for what I'll call "comfortable" conversation/communication, but instead: Get there first; Maximize throughput; and Make lots of money. The technology on the other hand is quite capable of delivering the high quality land line users are accustomed to... but, you're never going to see (hear) it in the competitive sleezy crappy quality and service world of wireless.
When was the last time you had to constantly repeat yourself on land line to land line phone conversations (not attribtutable to non-understandable help desk support)? Yeah, technology marches on, I just wish it would spiff up its uniform.
(BTW, this is basically a dupe from about four or five years ago...)
From the article (and the post):
First, I can't let this pass. I was on the IT team for a large company that had the described oodles of systems and oodles of passwords dilemma. And I'd been out on the floor where our users had to use these systems. The last thing in the world someone should be saying to them is, "You know how you are", as if these people are doing some wrong. Their jobs of dealing with the consumer public is hard enough without having to genuflect to the "security" (inconsistent, obfuscated, inane, ineffective, and myriad) measures of the systems from which they are supposed to server the consumers. I never had to deal with as many passwords as they did, but had I had to, I'd have been tempted to do the same thing.
As for the dilemma of too many passwords... yeah, there are too many passwords. And the funny thing about that is, they (in my opinion) provide little to no security and may even subtract from the overall security of the network. Especially in a closed access building (which these users were), passwords were and are a hindrance, not an enabler. I'd submit the entire organization would function more effectively were they all allowed access to the various systems sans passwords once they'd entered the building. Most stolen and broken passwords are via social engineering, and half the social engineering is just gaining access.
In the personal computing arena, I'd be awfully surprised if even 10% of the problems occur because of too many passwords. More likely it's because of incorrectly configured access levels for general users.
I'm guessing the world of passwords will never go away, but in settings where users have to deal with many (in the case described above, literally hundreds) of systems and their various password paradigms, passwords SHOULD go away (NOTE: the use of the plural... I'd be okay with somehow consolidating total access down to ONE password). Somehow it must be comforting to PHB's to know their universe is multiply protected by multiple schema, whether or not it affords any protection.
I'm pretty sure your 60,000 lines of comments will port to the new environment okay. (But I actually have an example of where they didn't.)
From the post: This latest attempt involves tacking on an amendment to a budget reconciliation bill. Since reconciliation is about cutting spending--something that always sounds good--such legislation cannot be substantially changed by the Budget Committee once it is presented...
So, the MPAA is now taking the route on total non-representation. Their initial approach obviously was non-representational/non populist and of course they have their own greedy self-motivation. That's okay, you can petition the government for legislation, and for protection. But they lost that battle and now look to win the war with their own Trojan Horse, a virus if you will (how ironic). The thing I find MOST egregious and offensive about this is they are sneaking their agenda in under the radar in a bill totally unrelated to their issue and likely to be passed. Normally this is a technique to snag pork for legislators and representatives, a sleezy technique for allocating money. But this is more pernicious and evil -- where the intent is to screw the entire entertainment consuming public (virtually everyone). What a crock.
Hmmm, posted the parent post, and immediately got modded "overrated", which is pretty fscking funny, since the post had not been rated. What fucktard modded me "overrated"? I don't really give a shit about my ratings, and this post (parent) was for mild amusement, don't care if you think it's funny or not, don't care if you don't want to "rate" it or not, but what stupid idiots are wasting fucking mod points to ding the post?
I'm sure I'm hanging karma in the crosshairs for flame or troll, I don't give a fucking shit. At least this time, I'll feel like the ratings will be appropriate. Stupid fscking modders, why the fsck are there these modders out there? Fsck! Meanwhile, I've done over 500 (stopped counting then) metamods under the apparently faux hint that meta-moderaters are more likely to receive mod points. Yeah, right. It's been over a year since I've gotten mod points -- fsck it. I'm sure a post like this'll assure no more points for long time to come.
[/rant]
Just another internet fad (though useful to some degree, if they're good).
But may I suggest rather than blog, we could call them blahgs, or even blah-blah-blahgs.
From the post: It [Google] has even made its way into language as a common word .
It's interesting (to me) to look at the slightly different approaches between Microsoft and Google, and the lexicon of their products. I know it's a little bit of an apples and oranges thing but Microsoft, rather than having products so good they become part of the language, chose words so common you virtually can't finish a couple of sentences without having used one of their products as a word.
Whereas Google's product arose from a good idea and great implementation, and was done so well it became part of our lexicon. Heck, they even coined it as a non-existent word (though cleverly derivative)!
It's interesting (again, to me) how this reflects the long-standing comments about Microsoft: they don't innovate, they embrace and extend. Look, they've done it with their product names and our language! And, they've excelled at it!
The article caught my eye, I'm always curious about new and upcoming programmers and am a fan of Google. So, what great thing did the winner of this contest produce? Turns out, nothing. He won a contest in coding, which I'm not sure tells anybody much of anything.
It's kind of like a spelling bee. Virtually anyone in the top x% is equally capable in spelling acumen. On any given day, any given playah could, or would be a winner in a spelling bee.
Factors:
I am sure the winner of this programming contest is bright, but I don't think it brings anything much to the programming/computer science world. But then, I guess it doesn't have to.
Congratulations to the winner.
from the post:
I believe if you'll check the documentation, that sophisticated smart-grid controller software is part of the new Office 12 release.
It's interesting to juxtapose PR spin from Microsoft. At any given point in time in Microsoft's history, their stance and PR is that they are "state of the art", the most advanced, etc. Yet also at any given point in time they're badmouthing their own product, their own methodologies, from their recent past. Of course their chest thumping for their current "state" prevails, but I'm guessing down the road we're going to hear how messed up they are today, but not until they've made billions off of today's products.
Scary article. But probably too true.
In my opinion data archival screams to be handled in as simple an lowest-common-denominator a way as possible. For me, that means text for documents, and picture formats that would seem guaranteed to be around for a long time, if not forever. I'm guessing a good candidate for pictures would be something like jpg. I can't imagine jpg going away or ever being a non-decipherable picture format. Video might be a tougher nut to crack but I would guess some flavor of mpg.
Note that none of these flavors: text; jpg; nor mpg, include or imply any reliance on vendor proprietary formats (yes, I know there's a certain proprietary tinge to the picture and video forms, but they're pretty universal). So, storing and archiving for historical purposes rules out Microsoft and all of their formats. This would especially make sense considering there are already huge compatibility issues with Microsoft documents among their various versions of their products.
Also, for retrieval assurance it no longer makes sense to me to use "dead" or "inert" methods for storage, e.g., tapes, cds, dvds, etc. Instead, at least for my purposes I maintain multiple physical and current storage devices for all of my important data. This has been a recent (last three years) development for me when I started reading about early failures of the supposedly rugged storage.
So, that being the case that introduces (introduced) the need to devise a strategy for forward migration of all of may data so nothing got left behind. Fortunately, this has been mostly easy since right now the "active" storage du jour seems to be hard disk drives, and the capacity has grown sufficiently with each new generation of drives I have been able to simply roll my data forward onto the new drives with the new data with plenty of room to spare.
This shouldn't be an approach foreign to comapanies with reasonably competent data shops either. But maybe a philosophical change. All is not lost, and hopefully all will not be.
Just my $.02. ~
Hmmm, I generally don't like to reply to ad hominem...
Let's see....
Yeah, you're probably right, there's no evidence of competence. I clearly bowed out because I wasn't up to task.
Of course, it's not surprise this attack comes from AC. You just keep telling yourself you posted anonymously to avoid karma dings rather than because you really are a coward. Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that.
In your reply: That's really just legal-ese, and the only reason that geeks felt that they were anti-trust experts was because they knew of a high-profile computer company that was involved. Real people don't care.
Actually, the reason I felt I knew something about this was because I worked at Microsoft. I left, explaining when I left I felt if what they were doing wasn't illegal, it was at least unethical -- reason enough for me to go. Eventually I testified in the DOJ case.
As for your willingness to just allow that "that's how the world works", it's your perogative. It's also an attitude that eventually allows those who would abuse their power to eventually abuse it absolutely.
Damn!, Thanks, and duly noted!
I actually did know that, one of the very best articles ever on how bps rates were squeezed out of baud was in a very old issue of BYTE Magazine. It talked about amplitude, phase shift, terracing (correct term?) and how they were used and combined to squeeze out bps rates up to 56K.
You're right, while they're typically described and used interchangably, they're not.
You make very good points. This is how commercialism on the grand scale works (or, in Microsoft's case in my opinion, "doesn't"). I think Microsoft is an example that reaches the far end of a spectrum.
As for guaranteeing I don't have products made in sweatshops (doesn't HAVE to be overseas), I can't guarantee that. I assure you though I DO do research (heh!, he said "do do") to the extent I can to avoid buying sweatshop products. Unfortunately, it's not an easy thing to determine.
I agree with you -- large scale business is out of whack.