Unfortunately the market does expect more experience than any college graduate can get in four years. I started programming at fourteen as a freshman in HS and at 45 can honestly say I have thirty years of coding experience. I also jumped in on the beta of the up and coming MS.Net technology circa 2000 so actually have ten years experience with.Net.
I can only speak to programming but we should be exposing kids in middle school to all of the different languages and let them go to town if it is something that they like. Summer interning in High School would probably lead to a direct hire on graduation and they can get their degree on the company's dime. At the very least they will be three or four years ahead of any other graduate when they are out looking for work.
On a final note I can say definitely that no cares about a college degree if you have the required experience.
Warning: opinionated rant from someone who has hired new grads.
First up, yes I most definitely do care about degree not just experience -- because experience is not graded. Your job history does not tell me whether you were brilliant at everything put in front of you, or merely tapped the keys for several years. Your referees might tell you, but I'm not going to contact the referees of every single applicant, just those I think I might want to interview. And I'm not just hiring for productivity on day 1 -- if there's someone brilliant who'd take a few months to get up to speed, versus someone who's been mediocre but has experience on exactly the same problem, often I'm going to want to prefer the brilliant guy because in months 4 and onwards he will be much more valuable. (Of course, it is hard to get job adverts and recruiters to work that way -- they always want the keywords and years of experience to put in the job ad because it's easier to tick off on a CV.)
Secondly, the experience I most care about isn't really which programming language you've used (for a new grad). If you've been using it at college or in school you have probably only used it in small assignments and projects anyway, and for most new grads there's a big jump to understanding the rest of the systems (new grads often don't start on fresh new products) and the realities of working on large projects. I'm happy and prepared to help a smart new grad learn the technologies we use. So what I care more about are experience on teams and in big projects -- how good is this guy at working with people. Is his code spaghetti or does he have much of an idea about making code maintainable by others? etc.
But why does the government need to have trade secrets along with the usual military and diplomatic embargo on information?
Because it's an investment that they are determined is a good idea, but it's very hard to prove there will be enough of an economic return. Open up the accounts and they'll get assaulted from all sides -- the Liberal party complaining about the debt burden, the Telcos complaining about unfair competition, etc etc. Realistically, the NBN is being funded in the hope that having a western English-speaking country with almost universal fast broadband access, companies will choose to deploy here first, found the company here, and turn technology from a big net import to a big net export as things deployed here first get re-exported around the world. As a technologist, I think it's a good bet, but it is one that is darned hard to prove in a business case -- expose it and the polticial flak from taking a punt with $40bn will sink the project and condemn Australia to continue importing most of its technology. At the moment, even most things that are invented here are incorporated in the US because that's the market the founders want to build a business in -- 10 times the size of Australia and with comparable infrastructure. So even if we invent it, it usually still ends up as a foreign company selling technology to Australia, and a balance of trade problem, as the US-incorporated company does the bulk of its hiring in the US. We need to change that, and making it attractive to found the next generation of technology companies here -- making Australia the first market a founding start-up will target, and consequently where they will incorporate -- is a good way to start.
In short, my opinion is that it's a great bet because even if worst comes to worst, you still end up with a useful utility. But if the bet pays off, you get both a useful utility and growth and diversification in the economy. But you'd never get that past an opposition politician or a businessman with a vested interest in it failing.
I was thinking more along the lines of he'll have purged the majority of his supporters before the UN forms a committee on it. As it's going right now, you've got his thugs running around hacking people up(house to house). You have mercs from some of the bloodiest intra-africa conflicts there, opening fire on people and dragging the bodies away.
Of course there is some heartening stuff like the fighter pilots who ran to malta, or the couple that ditched in the desert and ran like hell. He doesn't have absolute control on his military, but he has enough that a lot of people are going to die.
And regardless of that, this is going to be the status-quo for the next 10 years in the middle east.
Unfortunately, it may be worse than that. Gaddafi has been successful enough in squishing all opposition over the last 40 years that after his toppling the likely result is not "Yay, we're magically transformed into a liberal market democracy" but "Now the tribal leaders get their turn at fighting each other for power in various regions, and tearing any civillians caught in the middle to shreds". The dilemma for the UN and Europe is that there are no certain good options here.
Topple Gaddafi and potentially watch the aftermath turn it into another Somalia (but much closer to Europe's doorstep) - not so good.
Invade and try to nation build -- hasn't worked so well in Iraq or Afghanistan and nobody has the stomach (or money) for it any more.
Hope an African-led UN intervention can take place -- good luck with that.
They are scratching for options and desperately hoping a good one will appear.
You can tell the West is stuck for options by what they say -- they still stop short of saying Gadaffi must go. Obama, Cameron, and other western leaders all troop up to say how deplorable and illegal Gadaffi's actions are and that they must stop -- but they all still stop short of calling on him to resign, even after he has already lost control of most of the country and launched attacks on his own civilians that would presumably be considered crimes against humanity.
...when you have the best search engine, tied to the best internet ad support, tied to great free thought-provoking-industry changing office products, map tools, tool bars for your browser, chat tools, phone tools, and it all comes from ONE company. What else can you do when everyone is watching every move, ever senior management comment, every action?
On the other hand, 12 years into its life Google still gets the vast majority of its earnings from its original product. And despite telling the world for a decade that it gives its employees 20% time so the "next big thing" will come from within Google, almost all its other successful products (including Docs, Maps, and Android) have been acquisitions rather than internal inventions. Like Microsoft since the late nineties / early 2000s, they are desperately trying to leverage into new markets to keep growing. Sometimes they will manage it. MS built their XBox business long after they had ceased to be seen as "at their peak" as a company. But even as MS muscled its way into the games console space, would people have said they were "as innovative as they once were"?
How is this anything but an eventual response to an internal snafu which could've resulted in (much more expensive) litigious actions?
The GPL violations, and the resulting denial of compliance (for years, wasn't it?) was nothing but bad press. In contrast, had they admitted to the snafu right off the bat and addressed it promptly (a couple months? 6 on the outside?) it'd have been another thing entirely - the press would've been positive. GNU 'compliance' types just want the (free to the violators) adherence to the GPL - they don't care about the money or licensing aspect of it.
In my mind, this almost says less than doing nothing about it at all - "oh, we've got another release, let's include those license files and source code this time".
(What do you want to bet the code is significantly aged and with numerous vulnerabilities known for a long time?)
Actually, it wasn't Telstra who was doing the wrong thing in the first place. The company that makes the T-Hub device, that included the GPL code, and that hadn't released their code is Sagemcom. Telstra just re-sell the device with their sticker on it. (Very much like how iiNet sell Belkin-made modems under the brandname "BoB".) Is a shop selling physical objects a GPL licensee if the manufacturer of one of its physical object happened to include some GPL code? Would Wal-Mart be in breach if they'd stuck one of these on their shelves? In this story, Telstra has put pressure on Sagemcom to make the code available and comply with the GPL. I think that's a good outcome, and I can see why it would take some time for Telstra to comply -- they didn't have the code to be able to release it.
They're only distributing the files they changed? Then that's not complying with the GPL. The GPL very clearly requires "complete corresponding machine-readable source code". Basically, if you get a product with binaries of GPL licensed code, then you must be able to recreate those binaries from just the files that the vendor made available. Just pointing to someone else's distribution of the source is not allowed (there's only one exception: you got the code in binary form yourself and redistribute it non-commercially).
Can I suggest reading the article next time? It would have been quicker than typing up your post. From the article:
Gratton last week said he had requested and received a copy of the CD. “It looks like a complete GPL source release, all of the GPL components I identified seem to be there and there are build tools covering the BSP (board support package) for the SoC (system-on-a-chip) in the T-Hub,” he said.
Money is historically very, very easy to forge. Gold, on the other hand, can't be in a fashion that some simple tests can verify.
Actually not true -- regardless of who owns it, the gold almost never leaves the US Federal Reserve as it's just too darn heavy to ship around cost-effectively. So all they'd have to do forge gold is fiddle the figures for who owns what at the reserve. (Eg, sell the same bar six times over because not everyone is going to come to look at their gold at once.)
And who said gold bars stashed away was the way to do it?
People who don't want to have to post gold in an envelope every time they buy something online. Want to download a new app? Sure, just wait for the heavy metal to be transported in a van to Apple before it can be activated. Last minute plane flight? Don't forget delivery times for registered post are a week at this time of year!
Not really. It is more because Microsoft's FUD has been successful in scaring your organization.
Nothing to do with MS at all (we haven't even heard their FUD). Everything to do with government organisations needing to be able to audit everything. Trust me, we do not need a "[My Organisation] accused of breaching the GPL" headline turning up on Slashdot just because a PhD student made a mistake and nobody ever checked our compliance before release.
Do you really think the GPL somehow more complex than that license?
The problem's not complexity; the problem is volume. Proprietary code doesn't even get near us without a lawyer in between, so we just don't use it. But every developer in the organisation can grab a dozen different open source libraries and build against them without legal even being aware of it. And that's where the lawyers start worrying about compliance verification and embarrassing headlines.
Do you really think it would be legally easier to release proprietary code? Think about that.
Pedantically, yes it would be. Why? Because if we were using some company's proprietary library then that would imply our legal team had already scrutinised an agreement with that company and were already monitoring our compliance with it. So in that case, it'd be no extra legal effort to distribute a binary. (Of course, we almost never use third party proprietary code in the first place, so it almost never happens.)
I work for a government organisation in Australia that writes a lot of open source code. But even my organisation tells me we should not release any binaries that contain open source code -- even when we also release our own source code open source. Why? Because the legal team cannot afford the time or cost to check for compliance in everything we produce.
Just look through this thread and you will see Slashdotters (perhaps the most pro-open source community on the Web) bickering about what the licences mean and getting it wrong. No company's legal team can just assume the developers understand the licence, especially if they are receiving code to distribute from the public (as Microsoft's app store does). And the cost to Microsoft of trying to verify compliance of everything in the app store would be horrendous. In fact, Microsoft are being more liberal than my organisation: MS has banned copyleft licenses; my organisation's legal team tells me they'd rather we didn't redistribute any third party open source code whatsoever whether in source or binary form (even when we legally could), but should instead instruct our customers on how to go and get it themselves and build our software themselves -- not exactly user-friendly!
TFA misses a very important point of strategy - Google aren't filing patents like mad because that's not a game they are playing. they are massive innovators, but their business model is not technology so much as advertising. the patents aren't as valuable to them as they are to Oracle, and if Google lose 576 patents it'll be nothing to the many thousands that other companies stand to lose if they are ever challenged.
You might want to check the date of Google's patents. More than half of them are less than a year old. Google is filing patents like mad, to try to catch up with its competitors that already have an armoury of them.
Speaking only as devil's advocate, I could use that definition to argue that my campus varsity sports teams, LGBT group, Green Party and Young Republicans should all be banned.
All groups encourage their members to associate with the like-minded, and to distance themselves from family when the family is seen as abusive or misguided. Whether that pressure rises to true cult status is largely a matter of degree.
Not at all. "Your family are not members of OurCult therefore you must move out, move in with other members of OurCult and have no further contact with your family". I'm yet to hear of a rugby club telling someone to drop all contact with their parents because they don't play rugby.
The distinction that gets used in practice (eg on campus for regulating which groups are banned) is that a cult pressures new members to separate themselves from their families and only to associate with other members of the group. This is a usefully impartial distinction as it is not an issue of what organisations believe but how they behave.
It seems like you GET what the problem is, you just don't get why its a problem
Then let me explain exactly why as something of a libertarian, I find Google's claims not merely wrong but offensive. The query I type into their search engine belongs to me, not Google. I chose to type it, not them. My choice to click on any link, similarly, is my decision, not theirs. If I so choose to send that data to Microsoft (as it happens I don't, but that's irrelevant) then that is my right. By claiming that Microsoft is "directly copying Google" if Bing uses my data, directly from me, Google is claiming ownership of something that belongs to me, not to them: my queries and my clicks. And I find that offensive, illiberal, and yet another example of Google believing it does not have to respect individual's rights, or people's ownership of their own data.
The point was the search term wasn't passed directly in some sort of meta data. It had to be parsed out of the URL. Who the hell cares if the same parsing applies to multiple search engines? That was not the relevant point.
The important part was always this: someone had to write a bit of code that looks for ?q= and strip out everything before that up to the next ampersand. Whoever wrote that bit of code had to realize that this meant they'd be specifically looking at what their users searched for on Google and what the result they clicked on was. They could already do this directly from Bing itself -- since they always know both what someone searches for and what they ultimately choose to click on. Doing this, separately, could ONLY serve to spy on Google and other non-Bing search engines. That is a troubling notion to most people.
Most open source analytics packages already do this, and Google Analytics already does this for many more websites. So, no I don't think most people think it's troubling (or at least if they do, they are very naive as most of the Web is already doing this to them). The claim that Google somehow own a search query that Google did not write (the user wrote it, the same user that agreed to give it to Microsoft) also sounds like FUD.
It seems like you GET what the problem is, you just don't get why its a problem. Look to the results: If Google's search quality declines, Bing declines with it. If Google is not there, Bing performs worse. I'm not sure why you don't see how this is problematic.
Not true. For the vast majority of searches, click data that happens to be from clicks on search results are insignificant compared to the other signals Bing receives. And even in those edge-cases (where clicks in Google searches is the only data), Google could be putting up lolcats for 9 out of 10 links and Bing would still be fine, as it only collects the user's clicks and the user would not click on something the user did not deem relevant.
And Google explicitly stated they don't do this in the original blog post.
You need to read it carefuly. Google explicitly stated they don't use the Google Toolbar submitted data or the Chrome URL-completion data for this. But they said nothing whatsoever about using Analytics data, and the privacy policy and FAQ for Analytics explicitly says they do use shared Analytics data to improve their services (which certainly could include as a signal in their indexing algorithms).
I didn't realise you struggle with counting. "...pays people to install Bing's toolbar and click on the links so the data of them clicking on that link with a referrer URL including the search term "hiybbprqag" will be sent to Bing."
I think you've now achieved "stupid cunt".
And it's off to the admin abuse-reporting link for you.
I never wrote about the "Referrer URL" at all. Not commented on your use of it. It's a distraction.... The data is sent to Bing by the search bar of IE. It's nothing to do with the Referrer field. The referrer field only delivers information to the domain of the clicked on URL.
Will you wake up, man?? My very first post told you quite precisely that Bing's toolbar is sending them details of the GET request including the referrer URL (post 1, paragraph 1, sentence 2). That is what they are doing and it is all they are doing. That is what this entire discussion has been about. And it has been public knowledge in Microsoft's privacy policy for years:
"...will also be sent to Microsoft such as the time that websites were visited, which website referred you, and how you got there (e.g., by clicking a link or one of your Favorites)"
But I'll let you get back to thinking up some more random slanders. We've had "trolling", "shilling", "FUD",... I can't wait to hear what rubbish you spin next because you have been shown to be wrong.
This means a teacher can discuss examples of creationism from other religions (like from Islam) without fear of reprimand. With, of course, supporting text from the Koran.
You know, in most countries, you can. Is there a particular reason why Americans, alone in the world, should not be permitted to hear about the basis of others' beliefs?
Most of the atheists I know have read the Christian Bible, and many "evangelical" atheists promote Bible reading and study - because once you've read the whole thing with a critical mindset it's impossible to take it seriously.
Except "reading" necessarily means "attempting to make sense of" not "attempting to make nonsense of". Let me give you an example. "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." At face value, it is a contradiction, and it would be easy for a "reader with a critical mindset" (ie, someone who wants to "make nonsense of") to hold that up as a contradiction. But fortunately for lovers of literature, people are usually happy to read to make sense of that opening line of A Tale of Two Cities, rather than seek ways to dismiss it out of hand. If your mindset before you pick up a book (any book) is "I want to find ways that this does not make sense", you might as well not bother picking up the book.
Actually scientists believe all sorts of things, we just don't use those beliefs as evidence in scientific research. Scientific papers are reviewed based on the content of the paper not the identity or beliefs of the author.
No, it's not worth it to me to spend my time following your random distractions outcome. You know you're spinning FUD, I know you're spinning FUD. So why would I waste time on it? You're not going to suddenly change from being dishonest to being honest.
I don't think you even know what FUD means. Let me spell it out to you: detailed analysis of what Bing actually analyses is not FUD. It's not fear, and there is no doubt or uncertainty about my analysis. Posting claims that obtaining the referrer URL is "NOT an anywhere on the Web technology" when actually the Referrer URL is part of the HTTP standard, that's FUD. And then when you are caught out as being wrong, levying random accusations against your opponents honesty (this post) and unsubstantiated accusations of "you're trolling" and "you're spinning FUD" (previous posts), that is FUD -- grandstanding to the (imagined) audience and trying to sow doubt about your opponent's honesty because you cannot address the arguments. But I see you are a proud man who reacts badly when he is found to be wrong, so I will end the conversation here.
I asked earlier if you were trolling. This message confirms it. Every single point you make is tiresome FUD... No. Just but that is a very valid way of describing your posts.
Ah, the "I can't rebut any of your points, so I'm just going to snip everything and make pathetic insults to pretend I'm right" tactic. Not very impressive. But hey, you're so tied up in the groupthink that what does it matter to you that your claims do not match reality. Keep waving your banner and shouting "Ra ra ra" rather than thinking and analysing facts if you like.
That would be even worse, then, because the referrer URL contains the search term differently in each search engine -- which would mean that Microsoft would have had to explicitly code it to strip search terms from Google search URLs, rather than simply having the browser watch what people type into *any* search field
Wholly incorrect, and shows you really don't know what you are talking about. Here's a URL from Google search: www.google.com.au/search?q=swine+flu And here's one from Bing search: http://www.bing.com/search?q=foo They both have the search query in the URL argument "q". And here's Ask.com: http://www.ask.com/web?q=foo&search=&qsrc Still has the search query in the "q" argument, and the word "search" in the URL... I could keep going if you like, but I think I've embarrassed you enough....
Could Google do the same thing with Analytics? Yes, but they aren't.
Says whom? They're FAQ says they do use the shared information to "improve the services they provide". They have claimed not to use the click-stream data from the Google toolbar, but so far as I am aware they've carefully avoided saying they don't use data from Analytics and all their FAQs and legal materials suggest that they do use that data.
It appears that when a user searches from something, and clicks a link as a result of that search, the search term and site that the user found relevant is collected and used in their own search algorithm -- so they are, to some degree, piggybacking on Google here.
Actually, no. It appears that all the information Bing receives is the GET request on the link, not any of the content of Google's page (otherwise it would have got the corrected spelling and links other than the one Google paid users to click on). And that GET request is the same information that the visited site gets, so it has never been secret to Google. The Referer HTTP header contains the reffering URL which includes the user's (and I stress user's, ie not Google's) search query. And millions of sites use simple analysis on that header to see what search queries lead users to their site every day.
Incidentally, I'm pretty sure you could perform the same sting on Google. Set up a page, put a fake result in Bing and carefully engineer it so that Google "copies" Bing's result. The only difference is that the way to get it there is by installing Google Analytics on the target page, instead of by paying click-frauders to use the Bing toolbar. Google Analytics also collects the Referer URL (which again includes the user's search query) and sends that back to Google... Actually there is a second difference: you have to opt in to use the Bing toolbar before Bing will get your link-following data; Google Analytics is so widespread that they get your link-following data every day without ever asking you for permission.
Actually, that's very strong evidence that Bing was not copying Google. Whenever Google spelling-corrects a query, it makes it very clear on the results page "showing results for [the correct spelling]" and all the text surrounding the link has the corrected spelling. Quite clearly, if Bing was scraping Google's results page, it would have got the correct spelling from the search results page. It didn't. It got the user's incorrect spelling -- the original query that was written by the user and belongs to the user. Similarly, it only got the result the user chose to click on, not any other result on the page. If they wanted to copy Google's results page, they'd have had the lot. The user's choice to click on a link belongs to the user, not to Google. What we have here is concrete evidence that Bing only collected the standard GET request made by the user's browser for visiting a link. That standard GET request includes (according to the HTTP standard) the Referrer header containing the referring URL which would have included the user's (misspelled) query. And, for instance, if the visited site had any analytics installed they too would have known what search query had led the user to their site.
That's not the issue. The issue is collecting the search term which is intended to go to Google, and associating it with the next URL that is clicked on. That's NOT an "anywhere on the web" technology.
O yes it is. In fact most sites you visit do that analysis these days. The Referer HTTP header (which contains the source URL and includes the search query) does not only go to Google. It also, for instance, sent by your browser to the site that you visit. Most of which do use analytics to see what search queries are leading you to their site. Every site you visit from every search results page has access to the search query URL that took you there (not thanks to Google but thanks to your browser and the HTTP standard). So yes the Referrer URL is most certainly a standard part of link-click information.
The page would be found by spidering, or by click streams. But it Google would not associate Yahoo's search terms with that page, because as far as we know, Google isn't collecting that data. Bing is.
That is a furphy. Firstly, Bing is collecting is not Google's search terms. Google does not own the queries that I type. The search query is not written by Google but by the human user and belongs to the human user. That, for instance, is why 'torsorophy' (the human user's misspelling) ended up in Bing, not 'tarrsorrhaphy' (which was Google's term that they spelling-corrected it to). Bing does not care that "Google showed site X for query Y". It cares "Human user actively chose to click link X". It is the user's decision that is mined, not Google's. And that user's decision would be mined whether the link they were clicking on was on Google or anywhere else.
Secondly, I'm interested in why you think spidering, where a spider comes and pilfers your content unless you actively opt out, is somehow more noble than collecting click data from volunteers who have to actively opt in to sending you their data? Google comes by unannounced to suck your data and that is "noble" (even if it's flogging the fact you've got a WiFi router to marketing companies -- that's what the StreetView drive-bys were trying to collect, but that's another story). But if you actively agree to send some of your data to Microsoft that's just "stealing".
Thirdly, Google do have a lot of your click-stream data -- and without your permission. Google Analytics is neatly embedded on many pages, making sure that even if you didn't go there via Google search, Google still gets told where you went and where you came from. In fact, Google probably gets orders of magnitude more referrer->visited-site information through this than ever Bing gets from the toolbar. And Google's Analytics FAQ says "shared data will be used to improve the services we provide you" -- gee, I wonder if that means they use it in their tuning of the search service they provide me...
Fourthly, I'd have thought by now you'd have realised that actually this whole controversy is a ridiculous misdirection. Not many searchers are about 'torsorophy' -- for most queries the click-stream data has a miniscule impact. But Google and Microsoft do both have very active teams carefully analysing the oppositions' algorithms by constructing queries and data so that they can copy anything they find.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately the market does expect more experience than any college graduate can get in four years. I started programming at fourteen as a freshman in HS and at 45 can honestly say I have thirty years of coding experience. I also jumped in on the beta of the up and coming MS .Net technology circa 2000 so actually have ten years experience with .Net.
I can only speak to programming but we should be exposing kids in middle school to all of the different languages and let them go to town if it is something that they like. Summer interning in High School would probably lead to a direct hire on graduation and they can get their degree on the company's dime. At the very least they will be three or four years ahead of any other graduate when they are out looking for work.
On a final note I can say definitely that no cares about a college degree if you have the required experience.
Warning: opinionated rant from someone who has hired new grads.
First up, yes I most definitely do care about degree not just experience -- because experience is not graded. Your job history does not tell me whether you were brilliant at everything put in front of you, or merely tapped the keys for several years. Your referees might tell you, but I'm not going to contact the referees of every single applicant, just those I think I might want to interview. And I'm not just hiring for productivity on day 1 -- if there's someone brilliant who'd take a few months to get up to speed, versus someone who's been mediocre but has experience on exactly the same problem, often I'm going to want to prefer the brilliant guy because in months 4 and onwards he will be much more valuable. (Of course, it is hard to get job adverts and recruiters to work that way -- they always want the keywords and years of experience to put in the job ad because it's easier to tick off on a CV.)
Secondly, the experience I most care about isn't really which programming language you've used (for a new grad). If you've been using it at college or in school you have probably only used it in small assignments and projects anyway, and for most new grads there's a big jump to understanding the rest of the systems (new grads often don't start on fresh new products) and the realities of working on large projects. I'm happy and prepared to help a smart new grad learn the technologies we use. So what I care more about are experience on teams and in big projects -- how good is this guy at working with people. Is his code spaghetti or does he have much of an idea about making code maintainable by others? etc.
But why does the government need to have trade secrets along with the usual military and diplomatic embargo on information?
Because it's an investment that they are determined is a good idea, but it's very hard to prove there will be enough of an economic return. Open up the accounts and they'll get assaulted from all sides -- the Liberal party complaining about the debt burden, the Telcos complaining about unfair competition, etc etc. Realistically, the NBN is being funded in the hope that having a western English-speaking country with almost universal fast broadband access, companies will choose to deploy here first, found the company here, and turn technology from a big net import to a big net export as things deployed here first get re-exported around the world. As a technologist, I think it's a good bet, but it is one that is darned hard to prove in a business case -- expose it and the polticial flak from taking a punt with $40bn will sink the project and condemn Australia to continue importing most of its technology. At the moment, even most things that are invented here are incorporated in the US because that's the market the founders want to build a business in -- 10 times the size of Australia and with comparable infrastructure. So even if we invent it, it usually still ends up as a foreign company selling technology to Australia, and a balance of trade problem, as the US-incorporated company does the bulk of its hiring in the US. We need to change that, and making it attractive to found the next generation of technology companies here -- making Australia the first market a founding start-up will target, and consequently where they will incorporate -- is a good way to start.
In short, my opinion is that it's a great bet because even if worst comes to worst, you still end up with a useful utility. But if the bet pays off, you get both a useful utility and growth and diversification in the economy. But you'd never get that past an opposition politician or a businessman with a vested interest in it failing.
I was thinking more along the lines of he'll have purged the majority of his supporters before the UN forms a committee on it. As it's going right now, you've got his thugs running around hacking people up(house to house). You have mercs from some of the bloodiest intra-africa conflicts there, opening fire on people and dragging the bodies away.
Of course there is some heartening stuff like the fighter pilots who ran to malta, or the couple that ditched in the desert and ran like hell. He doesn't have absolute control on his military, but he has enough that a lot of people are going to die.
And regardless of that, this is going to be the status-quo for the next 10 years in the middle east.
Unfortunately, it may be worse than that. Gaddafi has been successful enough in squishing all opposition over the last 40 years that after his toppling the likely result is not "Yay, we're magically transformed into a liberal market democracy" but "Now the tribal leaders get their turn at fighting each other for power in various regions, and tearing any civillians caught in the middle to shreds". The dilemma for the UN and Europe is that there are no certain good options here.
They are scratching for options and desperately hoping a good one will appear.
You can tell the West is stuck for options by what they say -- they still stop short of saying Gadaffi must go. Obama, Cameron, and other western leaders all troop up to say how deplorable and illegal Gadaffi's actions are and that they must stop -- but they all still stop short of calling on him to resign, even after he has already lost control of most of the country and launched attacks on his own civilians that would presumably be considered crimes against humanity.
...when you have the best search engine, tied to the best internet ad support, tied to great free thought-provoking-industry changing office products, map tools, tool bars for your browser, chat tools, phone tools, and it all comes from ONE company. What else can you do when everyone is watching every move, ever senior management comment, every action?
On the other hand, 12 years into its life Google still gets the vast majority of its earnings from its original product. And despite telling the world for a decade that it gives its employees 20% time so the "next big thing" will come from within Google, almost all its other successful products (including Docs, Maps, and Android) have been acquisitions rather than internal inventions. Like Microsoft since the late nineties / early 2000s, they are desperately trying to leverage into new markets to keep growing. Sometimes they will manage it. MS built their XBox business long after they had ceased to be seen as "at their peak" as a company. But even as MS muscled its way into the games console space, would people have said they were "as innovative as they once were"?
How is this anything but an eventual response to an internal snafu which could've resulted in (much more expensive) litigious actions?
The GPL violations, and the resulting denial of compliance (for years, wasn't it?) was nothing but bad press. In contrast, had they admitted to the snafu right off the bat and addressed it promptly (a couple months? 6 on the outside?) it'd have been another thing entirely - the press would've been positive. GNU 'compliance' types just want the (free to the violators) adherence to the GPL - they don't care about the money or licensing aspect of it.
In my mind, this almost says less than doing nothing about it at all - "oh, we've got another release, let's include those license files and source code this time".
(What do you want to bet the code is significantly aged and with numerous vulnerabilities known for a long time?)
Actually, it wasn't Telstra who was doing the wrong thing in the first place. The company that makes the T-Hub device, that included the GPL code, and that hadn't released their code is Sagemcom. Telstra just re-sell the device with their sticker on it. (Very much like how iiNet sell Belkin-made modems under the brandname "BoB".) Is a shop selling physical objects a GPL licensee if the manufacturer of one of its physical object happened to include some GPL code? Would Wal-Mart be in breach if they'd stuck one of these on their shelves? In this story, Telstra has put pressure on Sagemcom to make the code available and comply with the GPL. I think that's a good outcome, and I can see why it would take some time for Telstra to comply -- they didn't have the code to be able to release it.
They're only distributing the files they changed? Then that's not complying with the GPL. The GPL very clearly requires "complete corresponding machine-readable source code". Basically, if you get a product with binaries of GPL licensed code, then you must be able to recreate those binaries from just the files that the vendor made available. Just pointing to someone else's distribution of the source is not allowed (there's only one exception: you got the code in binary form yourself and redistribute it non-commercially).
Can I suggest reading the article next time? It would have been quicker than typing up your post. From the article:
Gratton last week said he had requested and received a copy of the CD. “It looks like a complete GPL source release, all of the GPL components I identified seem to be there and there are build tools covering the BSP (board support package) for the SoC (system-on-a-chip) in the T-Hub,” he said.
Money is historically very, very easy to forge. Gold, on the other hand, can't be in a fashion that some simple tests can verify.
Actually not true -- regardless of who owns it, the gold almost never leaves the US Federal Reserve as it's just too darn heavy to ship around cost-effectively. So all they'd have to do forge gold is fiddle the figures for who owns what at the reserve. (Eg, sell the same bar six times over because not everyone is going to come to look at their gold at once.)
And who said gold bars stashed away was the way to do it?
People who don't want to have to post gold in an envelope every time they buy something online. Want to download a new app? Sure, just wait for the heavy metal to be transported in a van to Apple before it can be activated. Last minute plane flight? Don't forget delivery times for registered post are a week at this time of year!
Not really. It is more because Microsoft's FUD has been successful in scaring your organization.
Nothing to do with MS at all (we haven't even heard their FUD). Everything to do with government organisations needing to be able to audit everything. Trust me, we do not need a "[My Organisation] accused of breaching the GPL" headline turning up on Slashdot just because a PhD student made a mistake and nobody ever checked our compliance before release.
Do you really think the GPL somehow more complex than that license?
The problem's not complexity; the problem is volume. Proprietary code doesn't even get near us without a lawyer in between, so we just don't use it. But every developer in the organisation can grab a dozen different open source libraries and build against them without legal even being aware of it. And that's where the lawyers start worrying about compliance verification and embarrassing headlines.
Do you really think it would be legally easier to release proprietary code? Think about that.
Pedantically, yes it would be. Why? Because if we were using some company's proprietary library then that would imply our legal team had already scrutinised an agreement with that company and were already monitoring our compliance with it. So in that case, it'd be no extra legal effort to distribute a binary. (Of course, we almost never use third party proprietary code in the first place, so it almost never happens.)
I work for a government organisation in Australia that writes a lot of open source code. But even my organisation tells me we should not release any binaries that contain open source code -- even when we also release our own source code open source. Why? Because the legal team cannot afford the time or cost to check for compliance in everything we produce.
Just look through this thread and you will see Slashdotters (perhaps the most pro-open source community on the Web) bickering about what the licences mean and getting it wrong. No company's legal team can just assume the developers understand the licence, especially if they are receiving code to distribute from the public (as Microsoft's app store does). And the cost to Microsoft of trying to verify compliance of everything in the app store would be horrendous. In fact, Microsoft are being more liberal than my organisation: MS has banned copyleft licenses; my organisation's legal team tells me they'd rather we didn't redistribute any third party open source code whatsoever whether in source or binary form (even when we legally could), but should instead instruct our customers on how to go and get it themselves and build our software themselves -- not exactly user-friendly!
TFA misses a very important point of strategy - Google aren't filing patents like mad because that's not a game they are playing. they are massive innovators, but their business model is not technology so much as advertising. the patents aren't as valuable to them as they are to Oracle, and if Google lose 576 patents it'll be nothing to the many thousands that other companies stand to lose if they are ever challenged.
You might want to check the date of Google's patents. More than half of them are less than a year old. Google is filing patents like mad, to try to catch up with its competitors that already have an armoury of them.
Speaking only as devil's advocate, I could use that definition to argue that my campus varsity sports teams, LGBT group, Green Party and Young Republicans should all be banned.
All groups encourage their members to associate with the like-minded, and to distance themselves from family when the family is seen as abusive or misguided. Whether that pressure rises to true cult status is largely a matter of degree.
Not at all. "Your family are not members of OurCult therefore you must move out, move in with other members of OurCult and have no further contact with your family". I'm yet to hear of a rugby club telling someone to drop all contact with their parents because they don't play rugby.
The distinction that gets used in practice (eg on campus for regulating which groups are banned) is that a cult pressures new members to separate themselves from their families and only to associate with other members of the group. This is a usefully impartial distinction as it is not an issue of what organisations believe but how they behave.
(Pardon the split reply --)
It seems like you GET what the problem is, you just don't get why its a problem
Then let me explain exactly why as something of a libertarian, I find Google's claims not merely wrong but offensive. The query I type into their search engine belongs to me, not Google. I chose to type it, not them. My choice to click on any link, similarly, is my decision, not theirs. If I so choose to send that data to Microsoft (as it happens I don't, but that's irrelevant) then that is my right. By claiming that Microsoft is "directly copying Google" if Bing uses my data, directly from me, Google is claiming ownership of something that belongs to me, not to them: my queries and my clicks. And I find that offensive, illiberal, and yet another example of Google believing it does not have to respect individual's rights, or people's ownership of their own data.
Embarrassed me? You only proved my point!
The point was the search term wasn't passed directly in some sort of meta data. It had to be parsed out of the URL. Who the hell cares if the same parsing applies to multiple search engines? That was not the relevant point.
The important part was always this: someone had to write a bit of code that looks for ?q= and strip out everything before that up to the next ampersand. Whoever wrote that bit of code had to realize that this meant they'd be specifically looking at what their users searched for on Google and what the result they clicked on was. They could already do this directly from Bing itself -- since they always know both what someone searches for and what they ultimately choose to click on. Doing this, separately, could ONLY serve to spy on Google and other non-Bing search engines. That is a troubling notion to most people.
Most open source analytics packages already do this, and Google Analytics already does this for many more websites. So, no I don't think most people think it's troubling (or at least if they do, they are very naive as most of the Web is already doing this to them). The claim that Google somehow own a search query that Google did not write (the user wrote it, the same user that agreed to give it to Microsoft) also sounds like FUD.
It seems like you GET what the problem is, you just don't get why its a problem. Look to the results: If Google's search quality declines, Bing declines with it. If Google is not there, Bing performs worse. I'm not sure why you don't see how this is problematic.
Not true. For the vast majority of searches, click data that happens to be from clicks on search results are insignificant compared to the other signals Bing receives. And even in those edge-cases (where clicks in Google searches is the only data), Google could be putting up lolcats for 9 out of 10 links and Bing would still be fine, as it only collects the user's clicks and the user would not click on something the user did not deem relevant.
And Google explicitly stated they don't do this in the original blog post.
You need to read it carefuly. Google explicitly stated they don't use the Google Toolbar submitted data or the Chrome URL-completion data for this. But they said nothing whatsoever about using Analytics data, and the privacy policy and FAQ for Analytics explicitly says they do use shared Analytics data to improve their services (which certainly could include as a signal in their indexing algorithms).
Hard to know which particular post you mean.
I didn't realise you struggle with counting.
"...pays people to install Bing's toolbar and click on the links so the data of them clicking on that link with a referrer URL including the search term "hiybbprqag" will be sent to Bing."
I think you've now achieved "stupid cunt".
And it's off to the admin abuse-reporting link for you.
I never wrote about the "Referrer URL" at all. Not commented on your use of it. It's a distraction.... The data is sent to Bing by the search bar of IE. It's nothing to do with the Referrer field. The referrer field only delivers information to the domain of the clicked on URL.
Will you wake up, man?? My very first post told you quite precisely that Bing's toolbar is sending them details of the GET request including the referrer URL (post 1, paragraph 1, sentence 2). That is what they are doing and it is all they are doing. That is what this entire discussion has been about. And it has been public knowledge in Microsoft's privacy policy for years:
"...will also be sent to Microsoft such as the time that websites were visited, which website referred you, and how you got there (e.g., by clicking a link or one of your Favorites)"
But I'll let you get back to thinking up some more random slanders. We've had "trolling", "shilling", "FUD", ... I can't wait to hear what rubbish you spin next because you have been shown to be wrong.
This means a teacher can discuss examples of creationism from other religions (like from Islam) without fear of reprimand. With, of course, supporting text from the Koran.
You know, in most countries, you can. Is there a particular reason why Americans, alone in the world, should not be permitted to hear about the basis of others' beliefs?
Most of the atheists I know have read the Christian Bible, and many "evangelical" atheists promote Bible reading and study - because once you've read the whole thing with a critical mindset it's impossible to take it seriously.
Except "reading" necessarily means "attempting to make sense of" not "attempting to make nonsense of". Let me give you an example. "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." At face value, it is a contradiction, and it would be easy for a "reader with a critical mindset" (ie, someone who wants to "make nonsense of") to hold that up as a contradiction. But fortunately for lovers of literature, people are usually happy to read to make sense of that opening line of A Tale of Two Cities, rather than seek ways to dismiss it out of hand. If your mindset before you pick up a book (any book) is "I want to find ways that this does not make sense", you might as well not bother picking up the book.
Actually scientists believe all sorts of things, we just don't use those beliefs as evidence in scientific research. Scientific papers are reviewed based on the content of the paper not the identity or beliefs of the author.
No, it's not worth it to me to spend my time following your random distractions outcome. You know you're spinning FUD, I know you're spinning FUD. So why would I waste time on it? You're not going to suddenly change from being dishonest to being honest.
I don't think you even know what FUD means. Let me spell it out to you: detailed analysis of what Bing actually analyses is not FUD. It's not fear, and there is no doubt or uncertainty about my analysis. Posting claims that obtaining the referrer URL is "NOT an anywhere on the Web technology" when actually the Referrer URL is part of the HTTP standard, that's FUD. And then when you are caught out as being wrong, levying random accusations against your opponents honesty (this post) and unsubstantiated accusations of "you're trolling" and "you're spinning FUD" (previous posts), that is FUD -- grandstanding to the (imagined) audience and trying to sow doubt about your opponent's honesty because you cannot address the arguments. But I see you are a proud man who reacts badly when he is found to be wrong, so I will end the conversation here.
I asked earlier if you were trolling. This message confirms it. Every single point you make is tiresome FUD... No. Just but that is a very valid way of describing your posts.
Ah, the "I can't rebut any of your points, so I'm just going to snip everything and make pathetic insults to pretend I'm right" tactic. Not very impressive. But hey, you're so tied up in the groupthink that what does it matter to you that your claims do not match reality. Keep waving your banner and shouting "Ra ra ra" rather than thinking and analysing facts if you like.
That would be even worse, then, because the referrer URL contains the search term differently in each search engine -- which would mean that Microsoft would have had to explicitly code it to strip search terms from Google search URLs, rather than simply having the browser watch what people type into *any* search field
Wholly incorrect, and shows you really don't know what you are talking about. Here's a URL from Google search:
www.google.com.au/search?q=swine+flu
And here's one from Bing search:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=foo
They both have the search query in the URL argument "q".
And here's Ask.com:
http://www.ask.com/web?q=foo&search=&qsrc
Still has the search query in the "q" argument, and the word "search" in the URL...
I could keep going if you like, but I think I've embarrassed you enough....
Could Google do the same thing with Analytics? Yes, but they aren't.
Says whom? They're FAQ says they do use the shared information to "improve the services they provide". They have claimed not to use the click-stream data from the Google toolbar, but so far as I am aware they've carefully avoided saying they don't use data from Analytics and all their FAQs and legal materials suggest that they do use that data.
It appears that when a user searches from something, and clicks a link as a result of that search, the search term and site that the user found relevant is collected and used in their own search algorithm -- so they are, to some degree, piggybacking on Google here.
Actually, no. It appears that all the information Bing receives is the GET request on the link, not any of the content of Google's page (otherwise it would have got the corrected spelling and links other than the one Google paid users to click on). And that GET request is the same information that the visited site gets, so it has never been secret to Google. The Referer HTTP header contains the reffering URL which includes the user's (and I stress user's, ie not Google's) search query. And millions of sites use simple analysis on that header to see what search queries lead users to their site every day.
Incidentally, I'm pretty sure you could perform the same sting on Google. Set up a page, put a fake result in Bing and carefully engineer it so that Google "copies" Bing's result. The only difference is that the way to get it there is by installing Google Analytics on the target page, instead of by paying click-frauders to use the Bing toolbar. Google Analytics also collects the Referer URL (which again includes the user's search query) and sends that back to Google... Actually there is a second difference: you have to opt in to use the Bing toolbar before Bing will get your link-following data; Google Analytics is so widespread that they get your link-following data every day without ever asking you for permission.
No, because in the search it was misspelled.
Actually, that's very strong evidence that Bing was not copying Google. Whenever Google spelling-corrects a query, it makes it very clear on the results page "showing results for [the correct spelling]" and all the text surrounding the link has the corrected spelling. Quite clearly, if Bing was scraping Google's results page, it would have got the correct spelling from the search results page. It didn't. It got the user's incorrect spelling -- the original query that was written by the user and belongs to the user. Similarly, it only got the result the user chose to click on, not any other result on the page. If they wanted to copy Google's results page, they'd have had the lot. The user's choice to click on a link belongs to the user, not to Google. What we have here is concrete evidence that Bing only collected the standard GET request made by the user's browser for visiting a link. That standard GET request includes (according to the HTTP standard) the Referrer header containing the referring URL which would have included the user's (misspelled) query. And, for instance, if the visited site had any analytics installed they too would have known what search query had led the user to their site.
That's not the issue. The issue is collecting the search term which is intended to go to Google, and associating it with the next URL that is clicked on. That's NOT an "anywhere on the web" technology.
O yes it is. In fact most sites you visit do that analysis these days. The Referer HTTP header (which contains the source URL and includes the search query) does not only go to Google. It also, for instance, sent by your browser to the site that you visit. Most of which do use analytics to see what search queries are leading you to their site. Every site you visit from every search results page has access to the search query URL that took you there (not thanks to Google but thanks to your browser and the HTTP standard). So yes the Referrer URL is most certainly a standard part of link-click information.
The page would be found by spidering, or by click streams. But it Google would not associate Yahoo's search terms with that page, because as far as we know, Google isn't collecting that data. Bing is.
That is a furphy. Firstly, Bing is collecting is not Google's search terms. Google does not own the queries that I type. The search query is not written by Google but by the human user and belongs to the human user. That, for instance, is why 'torsorophy' (the human user's misspelling) ended up in Bing, not 'tarrsorrhaphy' (which was Google's term that they spelling-corrected it to). Bing does not care that "Google showed site X for query Y". It cares "Human user actively chose to click link X". It is the user's decision that is mined, not Google's. And that user's decision would be mined whether the link they were clicking on was on Google or anywhere else.
Secondly, I'm interested in why you think spidering, where a spider comes and pilfers your content unless you actively opt out, is somehow more noble than collecting click data from volunteers who have to actively opt in to sending you their data? Google comes by unannounced to suck your data and that is "noble" (even if it's flogging the fact you've got a WiFi router to marketing companies -- that's what the StreetView drive-bys were trying to collect, but that's another story). But if you actively agree to send some of your data to Microsoft that's just "stealing".
Thirdly, Google do have a lot of your click-stream data -- and without your permission. Google Analytics is neatly embedded on many pages, making sure that even if you didn't go there via Google search, Google still gets told where you went and where you came from. In fact, Google probably gets orders of magnitude more referrer->visited-site information through this than ever Bing gets from the toolbar. And Google's Analytics FAQ says "shared data will be used to improve the services we provide you" -- gee, I wonder if that means they use it in their tuning of the search service they provide me...
Fourthly, I'd have thought by now you'd have realised that actually this whole controversy is a ridiculous misdirection. Not many searchers are about 'torsorophy' -- for most queries the click-stream data has a miniscule impact. But Google and Microsoft do both have very active teams carefully analysing the oppositions' algorithms by constructing queries and data so that they can copy anything they find.