The problem with the *nix community has been and always will be the very thing that makes *nix so attractive: open, availability for forking, etc...
As a code monkey, I have been a fan of linux as long as I can remember. I can also say that in all that time, THIS issue, more than any other, has always kept *nix from gaining real traction in the biz world.
CIO: "So I can't REALLY switch between distros because of library differences"? DEV: "Yeah thats right." CIO: "Then what exactly is the difference between this and windows, other than lack of support?" DEV: "Ummm.... well we can see the OS code and change it" CIO: "We make widgets not OS's right?" DEV: "Yeah..." CIO: "So who cares?" DEV: "Ummm...."... and no, I'm not trolling.
This argument you pose can be applied to any phenomenon. In the end, EVERYTHING is rooted in mathematical equations.
To allow for segregation, separation, and specialization, Society has decided that at some point the level of obscurity where mathematics is evidenced (or not), warrants a new classification.
My God!!! I have been a good lil' boy, and actively avoiding replying to/. in months... but this attitude drives me batty! When did becoming a nomad gain popular acceptance? To disconnect oneself from everything and everyone to chase the dollar is, IMO, not worth the effort.
... As I read through the replies to this article it occurred to me I should investigate the possibility of purchasing large quantities of metal futures. So I headed over to http://www.metalprices.com/ and realized it was a good time to buy aluminum and tin.
...overlook the obvious case that most people just want the functionality a website offers, and hence will accept installations and such to obtain it. Most people really do not understand what is at risk when installing something from a third party, but then again, most really do not care. If at the end of the day they end up getting screwed, they'll call a lawyer.
Maybe instead of chronically pointing to the stupid lusers, we in the IT industry should shoulder the blame for the apathy out there concerning computer security. Should we really expect everyone to have to run a 5 stage security check on every "piece of shiet" website someone interacts with?
What have we in IT provided the users to diminish the need for everyone having to become a security expert?
The fact of the matter is, there are ways in which America is seriously behind Europe and Asia (no, I'm not talking about MP4 wristwatches) and there's no reason we shouldn't learn from their experience. The mindless fury with which many Americans react to any suggestion that the USA is not absolutely, positively #1 in every single way is a much bigger problem for the country than anti-American bigotry... not to mention that a lot of the bigotry is a reaction to that particular type of arrogance.
I can agree with the statement that the U.S. is "lagging behind" on many important issues as compared with particular countries, but I would also like someone to acknowledge that this type of comparison between UK and America, or France and America, or Germany and America is quite unfair.
Sorry to break it to you, but your total land area per country is a pittance compared to that of the U.S. Your total population is likewise trivial compared to the U.S. as a whole. European "countries" are much closer in size and composition to American "states". Compare ALL of Europe to ALL of America, you get a MUCH different picture.
Look at California(163,707 sq. mi, 36,457,000 people) compared with France(339908 sq mi. 60,144,000 people). California is what, the 9th largest economy in the WORLD? Where is France on the list? Compare Florida to England, again, no comparison. Compare North Dakota to Poland and you might get somewhere.
short-cutting due process isn't the answer to finding a better way.
When did we the people give permission to a company (ANY company), the right to spy on us? IANAL but my god everything I do know about law treats a corporate entity as a person when it comes to political speech, etc... How can one person legally spy on another? Short answer: They CAN'T!!
This is NOT about due process at all, this is about constitutionally protected RIGHTS! Where is the outrage? How can we be sitting here on/. even having this conversation? We should all be in the streets of DC shutting the capitol down until this S**T is resolved. Have we become so comfortable in our lives here in the US that we really just don't care anymore at all?!?
The NID and his cronies can get these warrants retroactively, due process only enters into it after our rights have been violated in the first place. STOP CRYING ABOUT HOW LONG IT TAKES FOR THE WARRANTS! What the **** does that have to do with the color of the sky? I don't care if it takes you 40000000000000 hours to get your warrants, I pay taxes to pay for that. But I guess I'm another nut job who cries every time the wind blows. Fine...
I won't be unreasonable. I'll live with retroactive warrants.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll live with a company of my government's choosing being allowed to conduct surveillance on me without consent or due process.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll pretend I don't notice camera's in every public place, satellites looking down on my every move, and a government funded spy agency directed at its citizenry.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll choose not to remember that my president (or any of his friends) are at any time able to label a citizen as an Enemy Combatant and lock them away without access to the courts.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll shut my mouth while the president is allowed to conduct war againsst anyone he chooses, regardless of intent or purpose, despite the will of the people.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll just swallow my frustrations as my government provides HUGE tax incentives and monies to HIGHLY PROFITABLE companies run by friends of political figures.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll just not pay attention as our government writes more and more laws in an attempt to control behavior and actions of it citizens.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll just ignore that more and more of our citizens are being locked away in prisons for arbitrary crimes and that our prison system has a greater percentage of the population housed within those prisons that any other time in history.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll just look the other way as we round up classes of citizens and non-citizens and place them in camps so as to protect the public.
...
I won't be unreasonable. I'll be quiet as our once great and noble country is thrown away at the behest of those who have managed to dupe the public into believing that they are at all in control of themselves anymore.
I cry for our children and the mess we have ALL made.
Have you ever considered that many people with genetic ailments have contributed to research which has provided cures to many diseases all over the world? Many diseases you, I, and everyone else no longer need to worry about or suffer through because of their sacrifices.
The problem with what you propose is if we start telling people to stop breeding because your lineage is unhealthy we may never find out how to properly fix that problem. Then in 200 years, when a new/similar strain affects YOUR lineage, YOUR dead.
No, the answer cannot be kill them off slowly. Who learns from that?
"If the legislators in question REALLY wanted to do something effective..."
How about instead of spending billions on even more police to act as parents, we get more money to the PARENTS!
Like 2-3 year paid maternity leave for working moms/dads, benefit supplementation for part-time working moms/dads, or greater daycare/workcare allowances. Tax breaks for businesses to encourage working from home? THERE are some GOOD ideas on where we should be spending our tax monies, not adding even more damned police and making this an even bigger police state.
And just to be clear, so as to avoid the flame wars, I do not have a problem with police. In fact, I fully support and often pity them for the shiet they are forced to go through dealing with the masses. I just have a big problem with how we are using them these days.
You're already Mod'd up, but I would give you all 5 of my Mod points. I wish you hadn't posted AC, for you deserve to have such an astute observation tied to your person.
Regardless, I salute you sir!! Keep up the good fight!
I do not agree. We sent the rovers to Mars. What exactly did we learn from that mission that had any REAL value? Oooh, they have rocks on Mars Whoopee! The cost to throw on a microscope on one of them and get some much more useful information would have been nominal at that point. The reason they didn't do it was either incompetence or ignorance.
Incompetence/ignorance on the part of the engineers for not including it in the design/budget request OR
incompetence/ignorance on the part of Congress for not seeing the value and properly funding it OR
incompetence/ignorance on the part of the Scientific Community for not standing up and being heard and renouncing stupid investments.
I just think you give engineers too much credit stating:
"You could send a massive unmanned nuclear powered Mars lab complete with every single piece of analytical equipment you could wish for and a dozen rovers that range from toy car size to frigging backhoe."
From what I have seen from NASA they lack the ability to CONSISTENTLY deliver anything anywhere, given any amount of funding.
We've had over 30 years, where are we? Why aren't they delivering what was promised? My argument is simple. They (Congress, NASA, and yes, even the scientific community) are to blame. These people are supposed to be the "Best and Brightest" we have to offer. And yet I, and I am sure many who read this, have very real doubts of their ability to get anything like this done at all, let alone done right.
Blame it on whatever you would like, the bottom line is it AIN'T gettin' done. See I'm not arguing with you, I'm arguing WITH YOU. Where we differ is in our solution to the problem. You say don't send people, send robots. I say don't send anything, cause you're all to damned corrupt/incompetent/ignorant to get it done anyway. Give me the money, I'll find a much better use for it than pissing it away.
Anyone with the most meager understanding of the stateless nature of HTTP realizes ANY means of gathering data on user activity is near meaningless. With Nielsen changing its metrics, they are admitting their previous method was a failure.
Slashdot Mirror
"No kidding. Why do you think I said 'backups' three times in the subject line?"
I think he was just backing up your statement!
The problem with the *nix community has been and always will be the very thing that makes *nix so attractive: open, availability for forking, etc...
As a code monkey, I have been a fan of linux as long as I can remember. I can also say that in all that time, THIS issue, more than any other, has always kept *nix from gaining real traction in the biz world.
CIO: "So I can't REALLY switch between distros because of library differences"? ... and no, I'm not trolling.
DEV: "Yeah thats right."
CIO: "Then what exactly is the difference between this and windows, other than lack of support?"
DEV: "Ummm.... well we can see the OS code and change it"
CIO: "We make widgets not OS's right?"
DEV: "Yeah..."
CIO: "So who cares?"
DEV: "Ummm...."
Sounds like the plot to a bad movie...
"Fly this nuclear powered ship to the asteroid, grapple it, and pull it out of the way!"
That's what we'll tell the astronauts anyway!!
This argument you pose can be applied to any phenomenon. In the end, EVERYTHING is rooted in mathematical equations. To allow for segregation, separation, and specialization, Society has decided that at some point the level of obscurity where mathematics is evidenced (or not), warrants a new classification.
My God!!! I have been a good lil' boy, and actively avoiding replying to /. in months... but this attitude drives me batty! When did becoming a nomad gain popular acceptance? To disconnect oneself from everything and everyone to chase the dollar is, IMO, not worth the effort.
Because GOD would have sent it!!
Geez!!
... As I read through the replies to this article it occurred to me I should investigate the possibility of purchasing large quantities of metal futures. So I headed over to http://www.metalprices.com/ and realized it was a good time to buy aluminum and tin.
Thanks again!!
...overlook the obvious case that most people just want the functionality a website offers, and hence will accept installations and such to obtain it. Most people really do not understand what is at risk when installing something from a third party, but then again, most really do not care. If at the end of the day they end up getting screwed, they'll call a lawyer.
Maybe instead of chronically pointing to the stupid lusers, we in the IT industry should shoulder the blame for the apathy out there concerning computer security. Should we really expect everyone to have to run a 5 stage security check on every "piece of shiet" website someone interacts with?
What have we in IT provided the users to diminish the need for everyone having to become a security expert?
or the "Space Bar".
Would this be an InterStellarNet Cafe?
The fact of the matter is, there are ways in which America is seriously behind Europe and Asia (no, I'm not talking about MP4 wristwatches) and there's no reason we shouldn't learn from their experience. The mindless fury with which many Americans react to any suggestion that the USA is not absolutely, positively #1 in every single way is a much bigger problem for the country than anti-American bigotry ... not to mention that a lot of the bigotry is a reaction to that particular type of arrogance.
I can agree with the statement that the U.S. is "lagging behind" on many important issues as compared with particular countries, but I would also like someone to acknowledge that this type of comparison between UK and America, or France and America, or Germany and America is quite unfair.
Sorry to break it to you, but your total land area per country is a pittance compared to that of the U.S. Your total population is likewise trivial compared to the U.S. as a whole. European "countries" are much closer in size and composition to American "states". Compare ALL of Europe to ALL of America, you get a MUCH different picture.
Look at California(163,707 sq. mi, 36,457,000 people) compared with France(339908 sq mi. 60,144,000 people). California is what, the 9th largest economy in the WORLD? Where is France on the list? Compare Florida to England, again, no comparison. Compare North Dakota to Poland and you might get somewhere.
Please, try to be fair when doing comparisons.
I would recommend this book
Great read to help understand good (and bad) design principles.
short-cutting due process isn't the answer to finding a better way.
/. even having this conversation? We should all be in the streets of DC shutting the capitol down until this S**T is resolved. Have we become so comfortable in our lives here in the US that we really just don't care anymore at all?!?
...
When did we the people give permission to a company (ANY company), the right to spy on us? IANAL but my god everything I do know about law treats a corporate entity as a person when it comes to political speech, etc... How can one person legally spy on another? Short answer: They CAN'T!!
This is NOT about due process at all, this is about constitutionally protected RIGHTS! Where is the outrage? How can we be sitting here on
The NID and his cronies can get these warrants retroactively, due process only enters into it after our rights have been violated in the first place. STOP CRYING ABOUT HOW LONG IT TAKES FOR THE WARRANTS! What the **** does that have to do with the color of the sky? I don't care if it takes you 40000000000000 hours to get your warrants, I pay taxes to pay for that. But I guess I'm another nut job who cries every time the wind blows. Fine...
I won't be unreasonable. I'll live with retroactive warrants.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll live with a company of my government's choosing being allowed to conduct surveillance on me without consent or due process.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll pretend I don't notice camera's in every public place, satellites looking down on my every move, and a government funded spy agency directed at its citizenry.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll choose not to remember that my president (or any of his friends) are at any time able to label a citizen as an Enemy Combatant and lock them away without access to the courts.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll shut my mouth while the president is allowed to conduct war againsst anyone he chooses, regardless of intent or purpose, despite the will of the people.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll just swallow my frustrations as my government provides HUGE tax incentives and monies to HIGHLY PROFITABLE companies run by friends of political figures.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll just not pay attention as our government writes more and more laws in an attempt to control behavior and actions of it citizens.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll just ignore that more and more of our citizens are being locked away in prisons for arbitrary crimes and that our prison system has a greater percentage of the population housed within those prisons that any other time in history.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll just look the other way as we round up classes of citizens and non-citizens and place them in camps so as to protect the public.
I won't be unreasonable. I'll be quiet as our once great and noble country is thrown away at the behest of those who have managed to dupe the public into believing that they are at all in control of themselves anymore.
I cry for our children and the mess we have ALL made.
And, for those who were wondering: that would be ~27809148887081184 1969 Volkswagen buses.
THATS a LOT of hippies!
Have you ever considered that many people with genetic ailments have contributed to research which has provided cures to many diseases all over the world? Many diseases you, I, and everyone else no longer need to worry about or suffer through because of their sacrifices.
The problem with what you propose is if we start telling people to stop breeding because your lineage is unhealthy we may never find out how to properly fix that problem. Then in 200 years, when a new/similar strain affects YOUR lineage, YOUR dead.
No, the answer cannot be kill them off slowly. Who learns from that?
Retroactive?
Not sure if you got the joke, so I'll quickly explain the reference to that song from Coors light commercials... Supposed "Guy" stuff
What... no twins? :)
All well and good. Give me back the 30%-45% of my salary that gets sucked up by the police state and I'll gladly take care of it myself.
"If the legislators in question REALLY wanted to do something effective..."
How about instead of spending billions on even more police to act as parents, we get more money to the PARENTS!
Like 2-3 year paid maternity leave for working moms/dads, benefit supplementation for part-time working moms/dads, or greater daycare/workcare allowances. Tax breaks for businesses to encourage working from home? THERE are some GOOD ideas on where we should be spending our tax monies, not adding even more damned police and making this an even bigger police state.
And just to be clear, so as to avoid the flame wars, I do not have a problem with police. In fact, I fully support and often pity them for the shiet they are forced to go through dealing with the masses. I just have a big problem with how we are using them these days.
You're already Mod'd up, but I would give you all 5 of my Mod points. I wish you hadn't posted AC, for you deserve to have such an astute observation tied to your person.
Regardless, I salute you sir!! Keep up the good fight!
Chocolate?
It hasn't been done because it is expensive.
I do not agree. We sent the rovers to Mars. What exactly did we learn from that mission that had any REAL value? Oooh, they have rocks on Mars Whoopee! The cost to throw on a microscope on one of them and get some much more useful information would have been nominal at that point. The reason they didn't do it was either incompetence or ignorance.
Incompetence/ignorance on the part of the engineers for not including it in the design/budget request OR incompetence/ignorance on the part of Congress for not seeing the value and properly funding it OR incompetence/ignorance on the part of the Scientific Community for not standing up and being heard and renouncing stupid investments.
I just think you give engineers too much credit stating:
"You could send a massive unmanned nuclear powered Mars lab complete with every single piece of analytical equipment you could wish for and a dozen rovers that range from toy car size to frigging backhoe."
From what I have seen from NASA they lack the ability to CONSISTENTLY deliver anything anywhere, given any amount of funding.
We've had over 30 years, where are we? Why aren't they delivering what was promised? My argument is simple. They (Congress, NASA, and yes, even the scientific community) are to blame. These people are supposed to be the "Best and Brightest" we have to offer. And yet I, and I am sure many who read this, have very real doubts of their ability to get anything like this done at all, let alone done right.
Blame it on whatever you would like, the bottom line is it AIN'T gettin' done. See I'm not arguing with you, I'm arguing WITH YOU. Where we differ is in our solution to the problem. You say don't send people, send robots. I say don't send anything, cause you're all to damned corrupt/incompetent/ignorant to get it done anyway. Give me the money, I'll find a much better use for it than pissing it away.
Then why hasn't it been done? Why did we send mostly useless rovers to Mars? Oh and how much did they cost?
I think you are giving our engineers and our government to much credit.
*Flush*
Why flamebait? I think PP has a valid point.
Anyone with the most meager understanding of the stateless nature of HTTP realizes ANY means of gathering data on user activity is near meaningless. With Nielsen changing its metrics, they are admitting their previous method was a failure.