It's hard to get familiar with something that acts differently every time you use it.
I'm sorry. I was under the false impression you were referring to the UI's in Linux, which by the way, ARE consistent, just not consistent with OTHER systems. Apparently you have something entirely different in mind.
If you don't do 'Stage 2', or don't do it well, you end up with technology that sits on a shelf.
Incorrect. There are a plethora of technologies that don't have a user interface designed for ease of use by the masses, yet don't "sit on a shelf". Do most people know how to fly a plane, or even harder, navigate one using the radio instruments. Do most people know how to run a nuclear reactor? Once upon a time, the automobile was the same way. It took specialized training to learn to drive one (today it's easy and the 'training' is about the traffic laws more than the control of the car). Once upon a time the PC was the same way. People had no clue how to use one without a good background in math, and a lot of time with the owner's manual. Some technologies get past stage 1 and into stage 2, like the automobile and the computer. Some do not, like the airplane and the nuclear reactor. That doesn't mean they "sit on a shelf".
If we all had the attitude you put forth, the menus on our apps wouldn't all start with FILE - EDIT.
And the world would be better for it. Not all programs work on files, so having all programs have a file menu is brain-damaged. Let's look at what's on the File menu in a typical program: In addition to that ability to save and load files, it has the ability to open new instances of the window, the ablity to close the window, and the ability to print something to the printer. NONE of those are appropriate for a "file" menu. I remember the first time I used a system with that brain-damaged interface. I couldn't figure out where the quit option was, because I assumed the program was telling me the truth when it said that menu was for file operations. Silly me. Nowadays we're all used to it, but I remember what it was like when it first started being used. It made no sense of any kind and the only reason it feels normal now is that people can get used to anything if they get exposed to it enough times.
An inconsistant GUI forces the user to think "To close this window, I need to find the X. It was on the right last time, but that's a Circle. Oh, there it is on the left. Click."
True, but consistency is not the same as familiarity. Pick a window manager, set it the way you want, and it consistently stays that way. Have you ever seen a light switch on a wall that went left-right and not up-down?
Have you seen the ones where it's inconsistent as to whether up is on or up is off? That happens because there are two switches in the circuit, to allow you to access the same light from two different switches, and the switches are wired so that you can always toggle the light from one of the two switches. I think this example illustrates quite well how people are willing to tolerate a somewhat more complex interface if doing so gives them better functionality.
The human interface is far more important that the implementation behind it, and this is universal across all technology. Think of cars. If the steering wheel, radio, pedals, etc. are all in accessible places, how many people really care how they work the car?
False. The implementation is more important, because if that messes up, the car doesn't go at all, and all those nice comfortable interface widgets don't amount to a hill of beans.
When designing a technology, it *always* comes in two stages:
stage 1 - make it possibile in the first place.
stage 2 - make it easy for the common man. Stage 2 cannot come before stage 1. When you try, you end up with crap.
It always seems to surprise the average geeks that rank-and-file users don't want to learn a new, unfamiliar app to do a task they feel they already know how to do, and as one who focuses on usability and GUI design, I say why should they?
Because familiarity is not the same as usability. If everyone in the auto industry in the early days had the attitude you put forth, cars wouldn't have steering wheels today. They'd have reins.
What the hell's the point of using an alternative to Microsoft if that alternative contains exactly the same problem the original has - lack of choice? The arguments between KDE and Gnome are what I like about Linux, and I'm glad they're both there. I don't want to live in a world where everyone has to use linux. I want to live in a world where *I* can use it even if my coworkers and friends use something else. Yes, that does mean Microsoft has to lose marketshare (since they are the biggest proponents of OS lock-in which prevents that scenario from being possible), but if we have to turn Linux *into* Windows to do it, then that's not really a win.
Here's an example: I used to prefer Gnome over KDE because gnome was more capable of making the UI look like what I wanted. Now that Gnome has gotten onto the one-size-fits-all bandwagon and removed useful features, I've gone the other way and prefer KDE. Without that kind of choice out there, I couldn't do that and I'd be stuck. (And the manifesto-like explanation as to why pisses me off since it claims features I need are just pointless toys. (I don't consider outline-drag to be a toy. I consider opaque-drag to be the toy that eats CPU cycles needlessly. The Gnome manifesto seems to disagree, claiming that since all machines these days are faster than a Gigahertz, it's pointless to worry about it, but that's the same sort of wasteful mentality that makes me despise Windows. Just because I have lots of clock cycles doesn't mean I want to be wasting them on the UI. I'd rather have useful programs in the background crunching away using them.)
No it wouldn't. That only works if all browsers do it. If, as in your example, only Mozilla does it, then the ignorant masses will just see that as something Mozilla sucks at doing, and chalk it up to bad software. Think of all the times we've tried explaining the difference between some software being broken because the laws won't allow it to work versus it being broken because the product itself is at fault, and think of how most people just don't care. Think of DVD's and Quicktime on Linux as an example.
All this is not to say that Microsoft doesn't have some basic architectural issues--they do. But the unreasonable demands and silly behavior of many users more or less prevents them from changing any of it.
I don't think those two are seperable. The reason users make those unreasonable demands is precisely because they've been sold on the white elephant of similtaneous security and ease-of-use by Microsoft's practices. They don't realize they've been lied to. Good secuirity requires extra steps on the part of the user. Microsoft is trying to convince people it doesn't, and those who believe it are the ones propigating these virii.
But the wrongness is entirely on the part of the client. Nothing the sever can do distinguises Feb 30th from March 2nd. They both result in exactly the same number being returned.
Get some basic knowledge of geology before you go spouting such rubbish.
Get some basic knowlege of history and realize that the designation of the continents predates any of that knowlege you spewed out (plus there's the fact that what you said violates the designation of Europe and Asia being seperate continents.)
If you wait several days and still no new articles about it show up, then you have the right to make the bitch about it you did. Until then, you don't Your complaint is premature. Slashdot is slow to get news articles out. Always has been - is even more so now that you need a subscription to see them as they are first posted.
What is the definition of "continent"? If is is merely that you can walk across it on land, then Africa is also part of the same continent (or was before the Suez Canal was built), and so too were North and South America (before the Panama canal was built). It is merely that it's an island? How big of one? Why is Australia a continent, but Greenland is just an island of North America? Where is the official cutoff mark in terms of land area, or how narrow an isthmus has to be (such as Panama or the connection between Egypt and Asia) to consider landmasses to be separate? Is there one? No. My point is that *all* designations of continents are arbitrary made-up terms, not just the strange decision to split Europe from Asia. There is no such thing as the concrete definition of what is a continent. It's all arbitrary.
If the game *rules* are complex, there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. That makes the game better. I'll take a good strategy game like Civilization any day over some console button-masher. And I don't just mean strategy either. I'll take a good game of Thief 1 or 2 or Deus Ex any day over a speedy button mashing fest like most other 3d shooters are, because for them (Theif/Deus Ex) the complexity was inside the gameworld, not out on your keyboard. What makes games suck are on consoles when you have to know that A+B+down will let you win, but A+B+diagonally down/left will kill you. That's not fun. I don't want a dexterity challenge. I want a tactical challenge.
Am I the only one who thinks the console-game controllers feel like they're designed for left-handed people? It takes much more manual dexterity to correctly move the stick or arrow keys the direction you want than it does to press one of four distinct buttons, so why does it put the task requiring better dexterity on the left-hand side? Why do *ALL* games do this? It makes me suck at them. On a stand-up arcade game, I do much better when I cross my arms and use the buttons with the wrong hands, since I don't need good dexterity to whap buttons but I do to move the stick. But that's not an option on console games.
The left-handedness of console controllers make me hate any console game which contains a dexterity-related challenge.
Not a viable solution for a space program in it's current, limited form, I agree. But a much better space program could be built using Orions. One where tens of thousands,,perhaps even hundred of thousands of people would be launched to live and work in space. One where space is no longer a curiosity or a millioner's toy. One that will enable the survival of the human race.
You can't get there from here. You can't suddenly make one giant leap from having no inhabitants in space to suddenly having 50,000 people all launched up at once without any infrastructure for them to go to.
And no, waiting for the ground to refreeze isn't a solution. The fact that the launch ruins the launch site means you can't have the infrastructure built there to support the launch. A mission of 50,000 people will take time to organize, time to assemble everything at the launch site, time to build essentially a factory at the launch site to build the large vehicle (since nothing could transport the thing in one piece), time to build up the small city that will appear around the launch site to support the time leading up to it, and all of that goes away after one single launch. Even if it's not a large amount of ice compared to the entire arctic, it's a huge amount of effort to build the support infractructure at the launch site, and it all goes away.
JEFFERSON. Doesn't sound like someone who would support your (un)consitution party:
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82 (capitalization of the word god is retained per original; see Positive Atheism's Historical Section)
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814, responding to the claim that Chritianity was part of the Common Law of England, as the United States Constitution defaults to the Common Law regarding matters that it does not address. This argument is still used today by "Christian Nation" revisionists who do not admit to having read Thomas Jefferson's thorough research of this matter.
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." -- Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers, 1:545
"Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds." -- Thomas Jefferson, to Charles Clay, January 29, 1815; Writings, XIV, 232
MADISON, would not be much of a supporter either:
"Besides the danger of a direct mixture of religion and civil government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations.
The establishment of the chaplainship in Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights as well as of Constitutional principles.
The danger of silent accumulations and encroachments by ecclesiastical bodies has not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S." -- James Madison, being outvoted in the bill to establish the office of Congressional Chaplain, from the "Detached Memoranda," Elizabeth Fleet, "Madison's Detached Memoranda." William and Mary Quarterly (1946): 554-62. Quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom.
And the interpetation of the first amendment, that says it prevents using government property for religious messages, is NOT a new interpetation brought about by a recent supreme court, as the theocracy propoonents often claim. Here's James Madison's view on the matter:
"Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not." -- James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, addressed to the Virginia General Assemby, June 20, 1785
"Because the bill in reserving a certain parcel of land in the United States for the use of said Baptist Church comprises a principle and a precedent for the appropriation of funds of the United States for the use and support of religious societies, contrary to the article of the Constitution which declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment."" -- James Madison, veto message, February 28, 1811. Madison vetoed a bill granting public lands to a Baptist Church in Mississippi Territory. Quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom. Also in Gaillard Hunt, The Writings of James Madison, Vol. 8, (1908), p. 133.
"Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any Manner contrary to their conscience." -- James Madison, explaining to Congress during the House Debate what the First Amendment means to him, 1 Annals of Congress 73
I got my Bachelor's at UW-Zero. It's what we called it ourselves when we were there. (And, it is indirectly affected by what happens to the UW-Madison system, since that is effectively the hub for the other UW campuses (in both an administrative and network heirarchy standpoint).)
Bull. The publicly offered service is not the service actually being used. And Slashdot itself isn't reposnsible for the fact that a lot of slashdot readers click on the link, whereas Netgear IS responsible for the fact that their routers do so entirely on their own without the users doing anything active to make it happen. With slashdot, who clicks on the link and thus initiates the accesssion of a site - a human, who is responsible for the usage. With Netgear who initiates the access of the uwisc time server in question? The firmware program in hardware, with no user triggering the action. That means the human at fault is the programmer of that firmware - who is a Netgear employee.
You don't specify the month and day. Just the number of seconds since 1970. It's up to the client to decode that into a date if it has a need to. So it won't know the date as Feb 30, 2003. It will know the date as: 1046649600 seconds since the start of 1970. (roughly. I may have counted the leap-years wrong there), and thus calculate that as being March 2.
I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of/. readers at the CS Departments of Big 10 universities.
I wouldn't be surprised if the submission of the story was prompted by the UW staff themselves. The article did mention that they wanted the story dissemated to many admins worldwide so they were aware that they might be flooding uwisc if they are using NETGEAR routers.
(And it's not just the CS department. At the university of Wisconsin, the IT's server room is housed inside a floor of the CS building, and the CS department and DoIT (division of information technology) are like *this* (image of fingers crossed), and so some of the addresses, despite the fact that they are named ending in "cs.wisc.edu", actually are services for the entire campus, not just CS.)
Slashdot Mirror
It's hard to get familiar with something that acts differently every time you use it.
I'm sorry. I was under the false impression you were referring to the UI's in Linux, which by the way, ARE consistent, just not consistent with OTHER systems. Apparently you have something entirely different in mind.
If you don't do 'Stage 2', or don't do it well, you end up with technology that sits on a shelf.
Incorrect. There are a plethora of technologies that don't have a user interface designed for ease of use by the masses, yet don't "sit on a shelf". Do most people know how to fly a plane, or even harder, navigate one using the radio instruments. Do most people know how to run a nuclear reactor? Once upon a time, the automobile was the same way. It took specialized training to learn to drive one (today it's easy and the 'training' is about the traffic laws more than the control of the car). Once upon a time the PC was the same way. People had no clue how to use one without a good background in math, and a lot of time with the owner's manual. Some technologies get past stage 1 and into stage 2, like the automobile and the computer. Some do not, like the airplane and the nuclear reactor. That doesn't mean they "sit on a shelf".
If we all had the attitude you put forth, the menus on our apps wouldn't all start with FILE - EDIT.
And the world would be better for it. Not all programs work on files, so having all programs have a file menu is brain-damaged. Let's look at what's on the File menu in a typical program: In addition to that ability to save and load files, it has the ability to open new instances of the window, the ablity to close the window, and the ability to print something to the printer. NONE of those are appropriate for a "file" menu. I remember the first time I used a system with that brain-damaged interface. I couldn't figure out where the quit option was, because I assumed the program was telling me the truth when it said that menu was for file operations. Silly me. Nowadays we're all used to it, but I remember what it was like when it first started being used. It made no sense of any kind and the only reason it feels normal now is that people can get used to anything if they get exposed to it enough times.
An inconsistant GUI forces the user to think "To close this window, I need to find the X. It was on the right last time, but that's a Circle. Oh, there it is on the left. Click."
True, but consistency is not the same as familiarity. Pick a window manager, set it the way you want, and it consistently stays that way.
Have you ever seen a light switch on a wall that went left-right and not up-down?
Have you seen the ones where it's inconsistent as to whether up is on or up is off? That happens because there are two switches in the circuit, to allow you to access the same light from two different switches, and the switches are wired so that you can always toggle the light from one of the two switches. I think this example illustrates quite well how people are willing to tolerate a somewhat more complex interface if doing so gives them better functionality.
The human interface is far more important that the implementation behind it, and this is universal across all technology. Think of cars. If the steering wheel, radio, pedals, etc. are all in accessible places, how many people really care how they work the car?
False. The implementation is more important, because if that messes up, the car doesn't go at all, and all those nice comfortable interface widgets don't amount to a hill of beans.
When designing a technology, it *always* comes in two stages:
stage 1 - make it possibile in the first place.
stage 2 - make it easy for the common man.
Stage 2 cannot come before stage 1. When you try, you end up with crap.
It always seems to surprise the average geeks that rank-and-file users don't want to learn a new, unfamiliar app to do a task they feel they already know how to do, and as one who focuses on usability and GUI design, I say why should they?
Because familiarity is not the same as usability. If everyone in the auto industry in the early days had the attitude you put forth, cars wouldn't have steering wheels today. They'd have reins.
What the hell's the point of using an alternative to Microsoft if that alternative contains exactly the same problem the original has - lack of choice? The arguments between KDE and Gnome are what I like about Linux, and I'm glad they're both there. I don't want to live in a world where everyone has to use linux. I want to live in a world where *I* can use it even if my coworkers and friends use something else. Yes, that does mean Microsoft has to lose marketshare (since they are the biggest proponents of OS lock-in which prevents that scenario from being possible), but if we have to turn Linux *into* Windows to do it, then that's not really a win.
Here's an example: I used to prefer Gnome over KDE because gnome was more capable of making the UI look like what I wanted. Now that Gnome has gotten onto the one-size-fits-all bandwagon and removed useful features, I've gone the other way and prefer KDE. Without that kind of choice out there, I couldn't do that and I'd be stuck. (And the manifesto-like explanation as to why pisses me off since it claims features I need are just pointless toys. (I don't consider outline-drag to be a toy. I consider opaque-drag to be the toy that eats CPU cycles needlessly. The Gnome manifesto seems to disagree, claiming that since all machines these days are faster than a Gigahertz, it's pointless to worry about it, but that's the same sort of wasteful mentality that makes me despise Windows. Just because I have lots of clock cycles doesn't mean I want to be wasting them on the UI. I'd rather have useful programs in the background crunching away using them.)
No it wouldn't. That only works if all browsers do it. If, as in your example, only Mozilla does it, then the ignorant masses will just see that as something Mozilla sucks at doing, and chalk it up to bad software. Think of all the times we've tried explaining the difference between some software being broken because the laws won't allow it to work versus it being broken because the product itself is at fault, and think of how most people just don't care. Think of DVD's and Quicktime on Linux as an example.
I don't think those two are seperable. The reason users make those unreasonable demands is precisely because they've been sold on the white elephant of similtaneous security and ease-of-use by Microsoft's practices. They don't realize they've been lied to. Good secuirity requires extra steps on the part of the user. Microsoft is trying to convince people it doesn't, and those who believe it are the ones propigating these virii.
Off my head that seems to work for all the acknowledged continents..
Except, of course, for Europe vs Asia.
But the wrongness is entirely on the part of the client. Nothing the sever can do distinguises Feb 30th from March 2nd. They both result in exactly the same number being returned.
Get some basic knowledge of geology before you go spouting such rubbish.
Get some basic knowlege of history and realize that the designation of the continents predates any of that knowlege you spewed out (plus there's the fact that what you said violates the designation of Europe and Asia being seperate continents.)
It has to do with plate tectonics.
It can't. The geographic designation of the continents predates knowlege of plate tectonics.
Don't blame your lack of skills on your inferior right hand.
Improve your reading comprehension skills. It's my left hand that has shitty dexterity, as stated in the post.
everyone remembers the name of those "brave american explorers"
Liar. Can you recite them (without looking them up)? I know I can't, and I'm part of "everybody", so NO, not "everybody" can do so.
If you wait several days and still no new articles about it show up, then you have the right to make the bitch about it you did. Until then, you don't Your complaint is premature. Slashdot is slow to get news articles out. Always has been - is even more so now that you need a subscription to see them as they are first posted.
What is the definition of "continent"? If is is merely that you can walk across it on land, then Africa is also part of the same continent (or was before the Suez Canal was built), and so too were North and South America (before the Panama canal was built). It is merely that it's an island? How big of one? Why is Australia a continent, but Greenland is just an island of North America? Where is the official cutoff mark in terms of land area, or how narrow an isthmus has to be (such as Panama or the connection between Egypt and Asia) to consider landmasses to be separate? Is there one? No. My point is that *all* designations of continents are arbitrary made-up terms, not just the strange decision to split Europe from Asia. There is no such thing as the concrete definition of what is a continent. It's all arbitrary.
But in the context of space programs, it is like one country, since everything is a joint project within the European Space Agency.
If the game *rules* are complex, there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. That makes the game better. I'll take a good strategy game like Civilization any day over some console button-masher. And I don't just mean strategy either. I'll take a good game of Thief 1 or 2 or Deus Ex any day over a speedy button mashing fest like most other 3d shooters are, because for them (Theif/Deus Ex) the complexity was inside the gameworld, not out on your keyboard. What makes games suck are on consoles when you have to know that A+B+down will let you win, but A+B+diagonally down/left will kill you. That's not fun. I don't want a dexterity challenge. I want a tactical challenge.
Am I the only one who thinks the console-game controllers feel like they're designed for left-handed people? It takes much more manual dexterity to correctly move the stick or arrow keys the direction you want than it does to press one of four distinct buttons, so why does it put the task requiring better dexterity on the left-hand side? Why do *ALL* games do this? It makes me suck at them. On a stand-up arcade game, I do much better when I cross my arms and use the buttons with the wrong hands, since I don't need good dexterity to whap buttons but I do to move the stick. But that's not an option on console games.
The left-handedness of console controllers make me hate any console game which contains a dexterity-related challenge.
Not a viable solution for a space program in it's current, limited form, I agree. But a much better space program could be built using Orions. One where tens of thousands,
You can't get there from here. You can't suddenly make one giant leap from having no inhabitants in space to suddenly having 50,000 people all launched up at once without any infrastructure for them to go to.
And no, waiting for the ground to refreeze isn't a solution. The fact that the launch ruins the launch site means you can't have the infrastructure built there to support the launch. A mission of 50,000 people will take time to organize, time to assemble everything at the launch site, time to build essentially a factory at the launch site to build the large vehicle (since nothing could transport the thing in one piece), time to build up the small city that will appear around the launch site to support the time leading up to it, and all of that goes away after one single launch. Even if it's not a large amount of ice compared to the entire arctic, it's a huge amount of effort to build the support infractructure at the launch site, and it all goes away.
JEFFERSON. Doesn't sound like someone who would support your (un)consitution party:
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82 (capitalization of the word god is retained per original; see Positive Atheism's Historical Section)
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814, responding to the claim that Chritianity was part of the Common Law of England, as the United States Constitution defaults to the Common Law regarding matters that it does not address. This argument is still used today by "Christian Nation" revisionists who do not admit to having read Thomas Jefferson's thorough research of this matter.
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers, 1:545
"Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds."
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Charles Clay, January 29, 1815; Writings, XIV, 232
MADISON, would not be much of a supporter either:
"Besides the danger of a direct mixture of religion and civil government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations.
The establishment of the chaplainship in Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights as well as of Constitutional principles.
The danger of silent accumulations and encroachments by ecclesiastical bodies has not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S."
-- James Madison, being outvoted in the bill to establish the office of Congressional Chaplain, from the "Detached Memoranda," Elizabeth Fleet, "Madison's Detached Memoranda." William and Mary Quarterly (1946): 554-62. Quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom.
And the interpetation of the first amendment, that says it prevents using government property for religious messages, is NOT a new interpetation brought about by a recent supreme court, as the theocracy propoonents often claim. Here's James Madison's view on the matter:
"Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not."
-- James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, addressed to the Virginia General Assemby, June 20, 1785
"Because the bill in reserving a certain parcel of land in the United States for the use of said Baptist Church comprises a principle and a precedent for the appropriation of funds of the United States for the use and support of religious societies, contrary to the article of the Constitution which declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment.""
-- James Madison, veto message, February 28, 1811. Madison vetoed a bill granting public lands to a Baptist Church in Mississippi Territory. Quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom. Also in Gaillard Hunt, The Writings of James Madison, Vol. 8, (1908), p. 133.
"Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any Manner contrary to their conscience."
-- James Madison, explaining to Congress during the House Debate what the First Amendment means to him, 1 Annals of Congress 73
I got my Bachelor's at UW-Zero. It's what we called it ourselves when we were there. (And, it is indirectly affected by what happens to the UW-Madison system, since that is effectively the hub for the other UW campuses (in both an administrative and network heirarchy standpoint).)
Bull. The publicly offered service is not the service actually being used. And Slashdot itself isn't reposnsible for the fact that a lot of slashdot readers click on the link, whereas Netgear IS responsible for the fact that their routers do so entirely on their own without the users doing anything active to make it happen. With slashdot, who clicks on the link and thus initiates the accesssion of a site - a human, who is responsible for the usage. With Netgear who initiates the access of the uwisc time server in question? The firmware program in hardware, with no user triggering the action. That means the human at fault is the programmer of that firmware - who is a Netgear employee.
You don't specify the month and day. Just the number of seconds since 1970. It's up to the client to decode that into a date if it has a need to. So it won't know the date as Feb 30, 2003. It will know the date as: 1046649600 seconds since the start of 1970. (roughly. I may have counted the leap-years wrong there), and thus calculate that as being March 2.
I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of
I wouldn't be surprised if the submission of the story was prompted by the UW staff themselves. The article did mention that they wanted the story dissemated to many admins worldwide so they were aware that they might be flooding uwisc if they are using NETGEAR routers.
(And it's not just the CS department. At the university of Wisconsin, the IT's server room is housed inside a floor of the CS building, and the CS department and DoIT (division of information technology) are like *this* (image of fingers crossed), and so some of the addresses, despite the fact that they are named ending in "cs.wisc.edu", actually are services for the entire campus, not just CS.)