And if he falls asleep at the wheel due to terminal boredom, he only kills himself. It's still a step up.
Look, if you can't bother to pay enough attention to control the vehicle, get out from behind the &*^%$#@ wheel! Ditto if you can't stay awake. Is that so hard to understand?
In a reasonable world, you wouldn't have to wait for a new OS release to support a new media format, because the video codecs wouldn't be part of the OS...
Because he can. Because, even though he knows it's bogus, he hopes he can get a judge to swallow it.
Lawyers make bogus, unsound arguments all the time. But one thing I have learned from reading all about the SCO mess on Groklaw: If you put forth bogus arguments, and your opponent has enough money to hire really good lawyers, you're going to lose every one of your bogus arguments.
I think Microsoft has enough money to hire really good lawyers. They're going to shred this argument.
I read his piece. The big eye-opener came in the comments. About 30 comments down is a place where Greenspun, in reply to someone else, states that MIT doesn't actually teach Java to their CS students. They teach Scheme. But by the time that his students are struggling with JSP on a project, they are producing 10,000-line Java programs.
This is so whacked, it's hard to know where to begin. Does MIT assume that learning Scheme automatically teaches you how to use every programming language? Did it ever occur to them that different programming languages might best be used differently?
Do these hot-shot MIT students really know how to use Java? Or do they try to use it as a less-capable Scheme? Do they really know Java at all, or can they just muddle through with it?
You take a bunch of hotshot MIT seniors who have been told that they can program anything in any language, but don't actually know how to use Java, turn them loose on a JSP project, and they make a mess of it. And this is Java's fault how?
The problem here is not Java. The problem is academic arrogance - "our students know everything, even stuff we couldn't bother to teach them!"
This could be really good. If enough people like Microsoft start realizing that patents are a weapon that can hurt them, we might start to see some patent reform.
Of course, it's going to get worse before it gets better, because right now everybody (Microsoft included) is patenting everything in sight. While Microsoft has given us plenty of reason to doubt their motives, one reason they are doing this is so that somebody else doesn't go ahead and patent an idea that Microsoft is using. This is a distraction from their real business, and it still leaves the possibility of being on the receiving end of a big extortion lawsuit.
When the pain gets bad enough, enough companies will demand patent reform to get it to happen. The only question is how bad the pain will get for the rest of us before the reform comes...
What's PBS doing airing something that needs bleeped anyway? That sure isn't my image of PBS.
You can argue about the FCC standards, about whether they should be what they are. (Remember, though, that just because you consider the standards laughable doesn't mean the rest of the country agrees with you.) But let that go for now. There's another issue here.
If I don't like what's aired on the Playboy channel, you might say, "Don't watch it." But if it's aired on PBS, I'm paying for it. So if this show offends my standards, what are my options? Refuse to pay for it? That equates to either "leave the USA" or "go to jail". Nice set of options you give me...
My point is that standards should be more stringently applied to PBS than to other broadcasters, because if someone doesn't like what is aired, "don't watch it" doesn't address the whole problem.
No, it can be fine, if you realize that you are in a mature market. See, once you have almost all the features anyone will ever need, you can get rid of most of your developers. Just add a few new features every so often, port it to the next rev of the OS, fix a few bugs. That's all. You won't have that many sales, either, just sales at the rate the market is growing. But if the expenses are down, you'll do all right.
But companies don't recognize when they're at that point, or they don't accept it. "No, we have to have a rapidly growing market! Keep all the developers, have them develop something new!" And the "something new" never takes off in time to save the company...
It does for your neighborhood/town/city. Worldwide problems are too big, you can't get any traction on solving them. Locally, though, you can make some difference. Enough people doing that adds up to "overall social improvement".
Do what you can where you are. Trying to solve too large a problem is effectively the same as doing nothing.
Somebody designs a car that won't start without the secret RF handshake. That's fine; I'm all for anti-theft measures. But they do the RF handshake on frequencies that they don't control. That's stupid. They do it on frequencies that the military controls, which means there may be some extremely high-powered transmitters on those frequencies. This stupid design decision has the ability to (temporarily) turn a car into a $30,000 paperweight. When the parent states that those responsible for this blunder should face some consequences, some moderator labels it a troll. Hello?
My problem with this is that it didn't ask me to autheticate IE, or other MSFT services.
You know, this is one of the things that I really like about the Norton Personal Firewall. I installed it on my PC. Then, as a prudent user would, I immediately ran LiveUpdate to get the latest virus definitions. The firewall informed me that LiveUpdate, which was part of the same product, was trying to access the internet, and did I want to allow it?
Now, you may think that's annoying. I was enourmously impressed. They were completely honest. Nobody had "privileged" or "secret" access to the net, not even themselves.
Disclosure: I work for Symantec, though not in the antivirus/firewall side of things.
When the windowing is in the kernel, if anything goes wrong in the windowing, it goes wrong in the kernel, and can take down the whole OS. When windowing is separate, a la Linux, you can restart the windowing manager without having to reboot the kernel.
What I don't know is, when you restart the windowing system in Linux, whether your GUI apps are still there. If not, then crashing the windowing system costs you all your (GUI) apps, so it's just about as bad as crashing the kernel from a desktop user's perspective. (I know, I know, services survive. A desktop user doesn't care.)
I'm not sure exactly what year. My best guess would be early 70's. It was before they moved them to Sugarhouse Park, and before they rebuilt the pond at Liberty.
One year when I was a kid, we got front row seating at a fireworks show where the launching was done from an island in a small lake. (The lake shore defined what was the "front row".) We were close enough to see the people on the ground, and the glow from the fuse as the firworks went up in the air.
It rained on the day of the 4th, and apparently some of the powder in the launch tubes got wet. Quite a few of the fireworks went off at lower altitudes than intended. One particular launch went up about ten feet, came back down, lit on the ground of the launch site, paused a moment (during which the launch crew scattered), then went off on the ground. A couple seconds later, several more tubes launched. I don't know if the crew launched them, or the "extreme-low-altitude" firework did.
Obviously, launching with compressed air is immune to this problem...
If there's one thing I've learned from reading Groklaw watching the SCO thing unfold, it's that something like this doesn't mean anything. All it means is that the judge thinks that WhenU has at least a chance of making a case against the law, and therefore, rather than destroy WhenU's business, the judge puts the law on hold temporarily so that WhenU has a chance to make the case.
Now in your billboard analogy, the judge would probably put the billboard on hold, since if you build it and then the law gets upheld, you're out a lot of money.
I don't need a "specific legal right" to uninstall software from my PC. It's my PC! I own it. This gives me a bunch of legal rights, including "quiet enjoyment" - the right to not have a bunch of psychopaths interfering with my use of my own stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
I want one!
Um... let me pause this DVD for a sec... it'll come to me...
Look, if you can't bother to pay enough attention to control the vehicle, get out from behind the &*^%$#@ wheel! Ditto if you can't stay awake. Is that so hard to understand?
In a reasonable world, you wouldn't have to wait for a new OS release to support a new media format, because the video codecs wouldn't be part of the OS...
Because he can. Because, even though he knows it's bogus, he hopes he can get a judge to swallow it.
Lawyers make bogus, unsound arguments all the time. But one thing I have learned from reading all about the SCO mess on Groklaw: If you put forth bogus arguments, and your opponent has enough money to hire really good lawyers, you're going to lose every one of your bogus arguments.
I think Microsoft has enough money to hire really good lawyers. They're going to shred this argument.
Oops. Forgot to log in. Parent is mine.
Um, dude, PJ's commentary is not a bug, it's a feature.
I read his piece. The big eye-opener came in the comments. About 30 comments down is a place where Greenspun, in reply to someone else, states that MIT doesn't actually teach Java to their CS students. They teach Scheme. But by the time that his students are struggling with JSP on a project, they are producing 10,000-line Java programs.
This is so whacked, it's hard to know where to begin. Does MIT assume that learning Scheme automatically teaches you how to use every programming language? Did it ever occur to them that different programming languages might best be used differently?
Do these hot-shot MIT students really know how to use Java? Or do they try to use it as a less-capable Scheme? Do they really know Java at all, or can they just muddle through with it?
You take a bunch of hotshot MIT seniors who have been told that they can program anything in any language, but don't actually know how to use Java, turn them loose on a JSP project, and they make a mess of it. And this is Java's fault how?
The problem here is not Java. The problem is academic arrogance - "our students know everything, even stuff we couldn't bother to teach them!"
This could be really good. If enough people like Microsoft start realizing that patents are a weapon that can hurt them, we might start to see some patent reform.
Of course, it's going to get worse before it gets better, because right now everybody (Microsoft included) is patenting everything in sight. While Microsoft has given us plenty of reason to doubt their motives, one reason they are doing this is so that somebody else doesn't go ahead and patent an idea that Microsoft is using. This is a distraction from their real business, and it still leaves the possibility of being on the receiving end of a big extortion lawsuit.
When the pain gets bad enough, enough companies will demand patent reform to get it to happen. The only question is how bad the pain will get for the rest of us before the reform comes...
To attract women! (Except for the women musicians, of course...)
The Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition isn't about sports, and the pictures aren't pictures of athletes...
You can argue about the FCC standards, about whether they should be what they are. (Remember, though, that just because you consider the standards laughable doesn't mean the rest of the country agrees with you.) But let that go for now. There's another issue here.
If I don't like what's aired on the Playboy channel, you might say, "Don't watch it." But if it's aired on PBS, I'm paying for it. So if this show offends my standards, what are my options? Refuse to pay for it? That equates to either "leave the USA" or "go to jail". Nice set of options you give me...
My point is that standards should be more stringently applied to PBS than to other broadcasters, because if someone doesn't like what is aired, "don't watch it" doesn't address the whole problem.
... "studies" showing that Unix/Linux is slower than Windows.
But companies don't recognize when they're at that point, or they don't accept it. "No, we have to have a rapidly growing market! Keep all the developers, have them develop something new!" And the "something new" never takes off in time to save the company...
It does for your neighborhood/town/city. Worldwide problems are too big, you can't get any traction on solving them. Locally, though, you can make some difference. Enough people doing that adds up to "overall social improvement".
Do what you can where you are. Trying to solve too large a problem is effectively the same as doing nothing.
Somebody designs a car that won't start without the secret RF handshake. That's fine; I'm all for anti-theft measures. But they do the RF handshake on frequencies that they don't control. That's stupid. They do it on frequencies that the military controls, which means there may be some extremely high-powered transmitters on those frequencies. This stupid design decision has the ability to (temporarily) turn a car into a $30,000 paperweight. When the parent states that those responsible for this blunder should face some consequences, some moderator labels it a troll. Hello?
You know, this is one of the things that I really like about the Norton Personal Firewall. I installed it on my PC. Then, as a prudent user would, I immediately ran LiveUpdate to get the latest virus definitions. The firewall informed me that LiveUpdate, which was part of the same product, was trying to access the internet, and did I want to allow it?
Now, you may think that's annoying. I was enourmously impressed. They were completely honest. Nobody had "privileged" or "secret" access to the net, not even themselves.
Disclosure: I work for Symantec, though not in the antivirus/firewall side of things.
... which is not unrelated.
When the windowing is in the kernel, if anything goes wrong in the windowing, it goes wrong in the kernel, and can take down the whole OS. When windowing is separate, a la Linux, you can restart the windowing manager without having to reboot the kernel.
What I don't know is, when you restart the windowing system in Linux, whether your GUI apps are still there. If not, then crashing the windowing system costs you all your (GUI) apps, so it's just about as bad as crashing the kernel from a desktop user's perspective. (I know, I know, services survive. A desktop user doesn't care.)
I'm not sure exactly what year. My best guess would be early 70's. It was before they moved them to Sugarhouse Park, and before they rebuilt the pond at Liberty.
Nope. Not even close. It was at Liberty Park in Salt Lake City, Utah. And yes, the launch crew was on the island (about 5 guys, if my memory serves).
One year when I was a kid, we got front row seating at a fireworks show where the launching was done from an island in a small lake. (The lake shore defined what was the "front row".) We were close enough to see the people on the ground, and the glow from the fuse as the firworks went up in the air.
It rained on the day of the 4th, and apparently some of the powder in the launch tubes got wet. Quite a few of the fireworks went off at lower altitudes than intended. One particular launch went up about ten feet, came back down, lit on the ground of the launch site, paused a moment (during which the launch crew scattered), then went off on the ground. A couple seconds later, several more tubes launched. I don't know if the crew launched them, or the "extreme-low-altitude" firework did.
Obviously, launching with compressed air is immune to this problem...
If there's one thing I've learned from reading Groklaw watching the SCO thing unfold, it's that something like this doesn't mean anything. All it means is that the judge thinks that WhenU has at least a chance of making a case against the law, and therefore, rather than destroy WhenU's business, the judge puts the law on hold temporarily so that WhenU has a chance to make the case.
Now in your billboard analogy, the judge would probably put the billboard on hold, since if you build it and then the law gets upheld, you're out a lot of money.
Of course, IANAL.
I don't need a "specific legal right" to uninstall software from my PC. It's my PC! I own it. This gives me a bunch of legal rights, including "quiet enjoyment" - the right to not have a bunch of psychopaths interfering with my use of my own stuff.
As far as we know, the alien's legislature hasn't passed the DMCA yet.
And that's hard. It's a lot harder than creating a new buzzword. It's even harder than building a product that connects to other products.