This is the process that the founding fathers envisioned. In an election where more people voted than ever before we should stop and think what we have accomplished . It is great to be an American
You're talking as if the US is alone in terms of being a stable democracy. In fact, if you look anywhere from Australia to Ireland to New Zealand to India to the UK to South Africa... there seem to be an awful lot of democracies about, and most of them don't owe their system of government to an American heritage.
I'm sorry to sound a bit of a moaner, and gripe about your very noble patriotic sentiment, but Aussies like me actually get a bit irked when we hear Americans talking as if they owned democracy. (And we then normally mutter and grumble amongst ourselves about how Rumsfeld, Powell, etc did not have to stand for election, whereas Australian and many other countries' government ministers do at least have to be elected to parliament or the senate first)
But as of today, anyone who is affraid of being punished for voting Democratic or Republican probably should be isolated from society because of mental instability.
Unfortunately there is a more realistic counter-example in this topic. A serving soldier could easily feel that if he were to vote Democrat (voting against the person who sent him to war) and his hypothetical commanding officer who strongly supports Republican policies was to discover he voted Democrat, then that might affect affect his promotion prospects by making his c/o take a dimmer view of him than he had before. Essentially it's a matter of social conformity. If there is a reasonable expectation that your vote will be known by others, then there is a psychological pressure to conform to something that is socially acceptable amongst your group. And in the army, where more than 80% of voters vote Republican, that pressure probably would influence some swinging voters to change their votes to Republican.
So in terms of "will Private X be sent to Guantanamo", of course it's not a big deal. But in terms of having an election which does its utmost to avoid external pressures on voters to change their votes, it is an issue.
I have encountered no problems shopping at best buy, I buy cds & dvds from them on a time to time basis, I have purchased some big items from them before and NO PROBLEMS
This message proudly brought to you by Mr Brad Anderson. If you would like to purchase a Product Support Plan for this message, please breathe to indicate your acceptance.
No, it has to be just Linux. The GPL is not a unitary item for all software. My license for GIMP is separate from my license for Emacs; the two licenses just happen to have identical text.
SCO's alleged breach of its license to IBM's code is presumably the SCO Source program - an attempt to impose additional restrictions on third parties on a Program that contains IBM's code (licenced under the GPL). This is allegedly a breach of Term 6 of the GPL. If this is construed as an attempt to "sublicence the Program except as expressly provided under [the GPL]", then Term 4 terminates SCO's licence to redistribute IBM's code.
For example; a business selling a database product may choose to release it as free software, and offer a gratis download, but offer a support/maintainance license for a fee. The software is still free, and the money from support/maintainance licenses can pay for things like offices, developers, food, water, bills, etc:)
Ahem, RTFA. The article clearly describes how the author does not feel it appropriate for him to be forced to take a call-centre support job to support his programming habit...
Furthermore, market forces mean the release-for-free-and-offer-support-for-money method does not work well for individual software developers or small teams. They are extremely badly placed to offer commercial support for software because being so small they are seen to be too unknown and high risk the promise of support to be worth anything. Nobody will buy the support package.
If your individually-produced OSS software looks good, then a company that did not write it might decide to repackage it and sell it itself, and offer commercial support. An established company is much better placed to offer support contracts, and is in quite a good position to make a lot of money from your work. Your most likely hope for earning a living off your OSS software is that this company might decide to offer you a job - but that is far from guarunteed. They could just as easily write their own proprietary version that they will sell or offer support on - leaving you out in the cold.
Is it just me or are video games way ahead of other apps on user interface?
Could thid simply be because a good user interface is considered more vital to a game's success? - The entire point of a game is a pleasurable interaction, whereas the point of an application is [supposedly] just to get a task done. So useability issues are given a higher priority for games than apps when the software is being developed.
So, in the article, he mentions that many of these open source projects have a lot of "noise" (discussion) on the list. There are a number of Human-Computer Interaction analysis techniques which are based around discussion, but in a slightly more formal way. A first step the OSS projects could do is try to formalise their discussions a little, to make them more productive rather than just noisy.
For example, the Cognitive Walkthrough technique could be adapted to be done over the mailing list. A contributor who believes he has identified a useability issue could post a cognitive walkthrough analysis of the problem, which can be discussed and refined, and then used to come up with a reasoned solution, rather than a hacky fix.
Similarly, Cognitive Dimensions of Notations provides a common vocabulary for analysing the usability of software, and keeping the discussion to analysis using its terms helps to make sure the conversation progresses to a conclusion, rather than degenerating into noise.
If discussion and co-operation is what you're strong in, at least make it work for you.
Hmm... maybe because I reasearch in this area I feel a little concerned that (according to the review) he only spends a third of the book discussing the research where technology has been successfully applied to teaching.
Intelligent Tutoring Systems from Carnegie Mellon, the US Naval Academy, the University of Western Australia, the University of Canterbury, and a number of others have been deployed successfully, and studies have shown learning improvements in students that use them over control groups. In the literature, Koedinger, Anderson, Hadley and Mark's "Intelligent Tutoring Goes To School..." (1997) paper often gets cited as one example of this.
Most engineering courses appear to be considering some kind of automated tutoring / online interactive simulation. There is good reason for this - not to replace the teacher but to replace the situation where the teaching staff do not have time to give proper feedback to homework assignments.
Similarly there are a number of successful cases of deploying technology in the classroom (without taking attention away from the teacher).
The driving license does not work as a de facto ID. For example, although I am living in the UK at the moment, I have an Australian driving license. It looks nothing like a UK driving license, and unless the policeman who checks is particularly knowledgeable, he's not going to be able to tell the difference between it and a laminated piece of card printed from a home computer. (There are differences, but the policeman would not know what they are)
Oddly enough, this is one good reason why a national id card will not work. Does every tourist/overseas student have to have one? If not then anyone can pretent to be a tourist / overseas student. If you are after a unique id for benefits eligibility - we already have that. I am uniquely myself because I am my age, live where I live, do what I do, have my tax number, student number, etc., and am called what I am called. Rarely do my friends or colleagues have to examine my iris pattern... Proving identity is actually a matter of traceability of personal history, not of having a unique number to type in.
If you introduce a separate national id card, then at some point you have to say "this is how much id you need to apply for an id card" - and suddenly every illegal immigrant / criminal knows exactly what to do to get a new disposable id that will be acceptable everywhere. Rather than being a cure for crime, it becomes a manual on how to do it.
Actually, it's quite easy to go through history and spot any number of high quality and classical literature works that were made by "Christians first". C.S. Lewis is the most glaring example (I've never yet heard someone complain the Narnia stories are low quality. They were also somewhat popular.)
What does happen is that Christian work of middling quality is still well-supported and garners sales, either for evangelistic purposes or because Christians like buying things that match their faith. So yes you can find some lower quality Christian work out there. But I hardly think this can be used as an argument to say that "quality cannot happen". I could go into a bookshop and find you lower quality secular work pretty quickly too.
The existence of low quality output is not proof of the non-existence of high quality output.
Many corporately employed artists, writers, etc, do not own copyright on their portfolio, but it is accepted standard practice for them to show copies of work at job interviews.
I have heard of it happening often amongst interviews for technical writers (where being able to write clearly about a technical topic is important), but seeing code samples from an applicant for a programming job is surely of limited value:
Is the interviewer going to know the applicant's products that well that she/he is going to be able to see why particular design decisions were made? And by the time you take into account company coding standards, code reviews, and other people making maintenance changes to the code, how much of the formatting is an indication of that individual programmer's skills?
More usual is to get asked a bunch of technical questions by an engineer sitting in on the interview and to get into a bit of a discussion that will also reveal if you have an understanding of the new company's field or not.
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You're talking as if the US is alone in terms of being a stable democracy. In fact, if you look anywhere from Australia to Ireland to New Zealand to India to the UK to South Africa... there seem to be an awful lot of democracies about, and most of them don't owe their system of government to an American heritage.
I'm sorry to sound a bit of a moaner, and gripe about your very noble patriotic sentiment, but Aussies like me actually get a bit irked when we hear Americans talking as if they owned democracy. (And we then normally mutter and grumble amongst ourselves about how Rumsfeld, Powell, etc did not have to stand for election, whereas Australian and many other countries' government ministers do at least have to be elected to parliament or the senate first)
Unfortunately there is a more realistic counter-example in this topic. A serving soldier could easily feel that if he were to vote Democrat (voting against the person who sent him to war) and his hypothetical commanding officer who strongly supports Republican policies was to discover he voted Democrat, then that might affect affect his promotion prospects by making his c/o take a dimmer view of him than he had before. Essentially it's a matter of social conformity. If there is a reasonable expectation that your vote will be known by others, then there is a psychological pressure to conform to something that is socially acceptable amongst your group. And in the army, where more than 80% of voters vote Republican, that pressure probably would influence some swinging voters to change their votes to Republican.
So in terms of "will Private X be sent to Guantanamo", of course it's not a big deal. But in terms of having an election which does its utmost to avoid external pressures on voters to change their votes, it is an issue.
...George W Bush ever looks one of those ancient maps with much of Africa marked as terra incognita...
"Launch the missiles, Dick! We'll get those terrarist hideouts now!"
No, it has to be just Linux. The GPL is not a unitary item for all software. My license for GIMP is separate from my license for Emacs; the two licenses just happen to have identical text.
SCO's alleged breach of its license to IBM's code is presumably the SCO Source program - an attempt to impose additional restrictions on third parties on a Program that contains IBM's code (licenced under the GPL). This is allegedly a breach of Term 6 of the GPL. If this is construed as an attempt to "sublicence the Program except as expressly provided under [the GPL]", then Term 4 terminates SCO's licence to redistribute IBM's code.
Ahem, RTFA. The article clearly describes how the author does not feel it appropriate for him to be forced to take a call-centre support job to support his programming habit...
Furthermore, market forces mean the release-for-free-and-offer-support-for-money method does not work well for individual software developers or small teams. They are extremely badly placed to offer commercial support for software because being so small they are seen to be too unknown and high risk the promise of support to be worth anything. Nobody will buy the support package.
If your individually-produced OSS software looks good, then a company that did not write it might decide to repackage it and sell it itself, and offer commercial support. An established company is much better placed to offer support contracts, and is in quite a good position to make a lot of money from your work. Your most likely hope for earning a living off your OSS software is that this company might decide to offer you a job - but that is far from guarunteed. They could just as easily write their own proprietary version that they will sell or offer support on - leaving you out in the cold.
Could thid simply be because a good user interface is considered more vital to a game's success? - The entire point of a game is a pleasurable interaction, whereas the point of an application is [supposedly] just to get a task done. So useability issues are given a higher priority for games than apps when the software is being developed.
So, in the article, he mentions that many of these open source projects have a lot of "noise" (discussion) on the list. There are a number of Human-Computer Interaction analysis techniques which are based around discussion, but in a slightly more formal way. A first step the OSS projects could do is try to formalise their discussions a little, to make them more productive rather than just noisy.
For example, the Cognitive Walkthrough technique could be adapted to be done over the mailing list. A contributor who believes he has identified a useability issue could post a cognitive walkthrough analysis of the problem, which can be discussed and refined, and then used to come up with a reasoned solution, rather than a hacky fix.
Similarly, Cognitive Dimensions of Notations provides a common vocabulary for analysing the usability of software, and keeping the discussion to analysis using its terms helps to make sure the conversation progresses to a conclusion, rather than degenerating into noise.
If discussion and co-operation is what you're strong in, at least make it work for you.
Will
Hmm... maybe because I reasearch in this area I feel a little concerned that (according to the review) he only spends a third of the book discussing the research where technology has been successfully applied to teaching.
Intelligent Tutoring Systems from Carnegie Mellon, the US Naval Academy, the University of Western Australia, the University of Canterbury, and a number of others have been deployed successfully, and studies have shown learning improvements in students that use them over control groups. In the literature, Koedinger, Anderson, Hadley and Mark's "Intelligent Tutoring Goes To School..." (1997) paper often gets cited as one example of this.
Most engineering courses appear to be considering some kind of automated tutoring / online interactive simulation. There is good reason for this - not to replace the teacher but to replace the situation where the teaching staff do not have time to give proper feedback to homework assignments.
Similarly there are a number of successful cases of deploying technology in the classroom (without taking attention away from the teacher).
The driving license does not work as a de facto ID. For example, although I am living in the UK at the moment, I have an Australian driving license. It looks nothing like a UK driving license, and unless the policeman who checks is particularly knowledgeable, he's not going to be able to tell the difference between it and a laminated piece of card printed from a home computer. (There are differences, but the policeman would not know what they are)
Oddly enough, this is one good reason why a national id card will not work. Does every tourist/overseas student have to have one? If not then anyone can pretent to be a tourist / overseas student. If you are after a unique id for benefits eligibility - we already have that. I am uniquely myself because I am my age, live where I live, do what I do, have my tax number, student number, etc., and am called what I am called. Rarely do my friends or colleagues have to examine my iris pattern... Proving identity is actually a matter of traceability of personal history, not of having a unique number to type in.
If you introduce a separate national id card, then at some point you have to say "this is how much id you need to apply for an id card" - and suddenly every illegal immigrant / criminal knows exactly what to do to get a new disposable id that will be acceptable everywhere. Rather than being a cure for crime, it becomes a manual on how to do it.
Will
Actually, it's quite easy to go through history and spot any number of high quality and classical literature works that were made by "Christians first". C.S. Lewis is the most glaring example (I've never yet heard someone complain the Narnia stories are low quality. They were also somewhat popular.) What does happen is that Christian work of middling quality is still well-supported and garners sales, either for evangelistic purposes or because Christians like buying things that match their faith. So yes you can find some lower quality Christian work out there. But I hardly think this can be used as an argument to say that "quality cannot happen". I could go into a bookshop and find you lower quality secular work pretty quickly too. The existence of low quality output is not proof of the non-existence of high quality output.
Many corporately employed artists, writers, etc, do not own copyright on their portfolio, but it is accepted standard practice for them to show copies of work at job interviews. I have heard of it happening often amongst interviews for technical writers (where being able to write clearly about a technical topic is important), but seeing code samples from an applicant for a programming job is surely of limited value: Is the interviewer going to know the applicant's products that well that she/he is going to be able to see why particular design decisions were made? And by the time you take into account company coding standards, code reviews, and other people making maintenance changes to the code, how much of the formatting is an indication of that individual programmer's skills? More usual is to get asked a bunch of technical questions by an engineer sitting in on the interview and to get into a bit of a discussion that will also reveal if you have an understanding of the new company's field or not.
...one word misspelt in the whole post, and he goes and puts it in italics so all the sarcastic pedants notice. Silly boy. ;-)