>> If its going to be in the Air all the time, and just circle. Why don't the replace it with a few balloons or Zeppelins as fixed air platform.
OK, I'll bite: Because the mounting harness of the camera system sold by the contractor buddy of the Mayor, is custom made to install on airplanes sold by the golf partner of the contractor. The owner of the balloon/airship company was not aware of the project, and so couldn't offer to chip in for the Mayor's summer vacation trip.
And that's fine--exceeeeeeeeeept for the fact that Mono has yet to be split into the patent-friendly Core and lawsuite-magnet Frameworks; de Icaza just announced that this will be done, as a result of Microsoft's current promise.
You see, the point is not that Microsoft's promise is bullshit; it's legally binding, fine. The problem is that, so far, de Icaza and the Mono supporters have been claiming (or hoping) that Mono is free from patent hassles because of some alleged ambiguous comments from Microsoft. It has now been clarified by Microsoft, sure, but their Community Promise specifies only what amounted to a subset of Mono: the core implementation of ECMA standards. The fact that the Mono distribution will now be split into these two factions is telling. It means that they were hoping everything would be covered, and were operating under this assumption.
And that is what a lot of people were (and still are) unhappy about.
Sure, everybody who's been using Mono with compatibility libraries for Winforms, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, etc. can switch to the non-Microsoft owned frameworks offered by the Mono project. But perhaps this removes the advantage that they thought Mono offered them. Most likely, they'll install Windows on their servers instead of Linux, and go back to Microsoft's.NET technologies.
Anybody who uses Mono just for the CLI and C# implementations, like some in the Linux community do, can continue with their work merrily and safely. But Mono will then be useful as just that: Just another competing development platform. A good one, it's true, but just another one of many available to the Open Source community. It will therefore have to survive on its technical merit alone.
As I see it, gone is the advantage of being able to run your.NET applications on Linux. For as much as the Linux (and Slashdot) community want to ignore it, the primary attraction of Windows developers to Mono was the cross-platform compatibility feature of the entire framework--not just the C# language. Most of those who develop for Windows will use.NET, and have been using (or would have used) Mono in order to run their applications on Linux. That is a significant chunk of potential mind-share and developer support culled at the stroke of Microsoft's legal pen.
The "privacy" context in this case is not regarding the obscuring of criminal behaviour but the prevention of being intrusively monitored by commercial entities in order to build consumer behaviour profiles, and bombard you directly with even MORE advertising.
On that context, this ruling means that there is no way to avoid having your browsing and purchasing behaviour monitored, collated, analyzed, correlated and associated with you personally, and sold for profit; which will entice advertising organizations to intrude even more into your life.
An IP address is tied to an account at the access provider, that account is tied to a specific person in the same way that license plates and phone numbers are.
The same way that you may receive a driving violation ticket on the mail from an automatic red-light camera system, and then must contest the fact that it wasn't really you driving; so the IP address can be used in the same way.
It is becaues of this why any reasonable person would consider it personally identifiable. If it weren't, then it means that there is no correlation between the IP address and the account holder, which has other legal implications.
Actually, I don't think that may be such a bad thing.
You don't get it. ".NET" is much more than just C# and CLI, it is the platform comprised of Winforms, ADO.NET, ASP.NET, and other frameworks. Using those does not allow for patent-hassle-free, cross-platform development as Mono purports to offer.
Then the focus of Mono should be specified as "an open source implementation of C# and CLI", not.NET. However, this is not reflected, as far as I can tell, in the main and FAQ pages of the project, which still claim prominently "Open Source" next to ".NET Compatibility". As it stands, the message from the project seems to be schizophrenic: On the one hand it wants to announce itself as a cross-platform implementation of.NET and attract developers to this point, and on the other hand it wants to make itself known as an Open Source project, which is safe from patent issues.
Both signals are not compatible, since the ancillary libraries and frameworks of the.NET platform are proprietary from Microsoft and not part of the Community Promise license. The fact that Miguel de Icaza is now talking about physically separating both the core and the rest is telling of the situation heretofore:
In the next few months we will be working towards splitting the jumbo Mono source code that includes ECMA + A lot more into two separate source code distributions. One will be ECMA, the other will contain our implementation of ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Winforms and others.
The Mono Project is an open development initiative sponsored by Novell to develop an open source, UNIX version of the Microsoft.NET development platform. Its objective is to enable UNIX developers to build and deploy cross-platform.NET Applications. The project implements various technologies developed by Microsoft that have now been submitted to the ECMA for standardization.
(my emphasis)
That was the main concern of RMS: that the attraction to the project was the promise of cross-platform.NET development, but that such development is ultimately encumbered by patented technologies.
I'm sorry, but wasn't part of the point of Mono (and.NET, actually) compatibility and cross-platform independence? So if I require Mono-specific libraries to use Mono, and Microsoft-owned libraries to use.NET, what is the advantage of using the framework? It is then just another environment among myriad, more mature, others.
Keith Lomax was not the engineer who fixed the plane. From the article:
Holidaymaker Keith Lomax, from Stirling, was travelling home from a week's break with his wife when the plane's captain announced the expected delay.
"We were in the plane, ready for take-off, when he announced there was a technical problem and that an engineer might have to be flown out from Manchester to fix it," he said.
"Then a stewardess told us there was an engineer on board and they were checking out to see if he could work on it. He was obviously successful. When he came back onto the plane there was a round of applause from the back of the aircraft.
Keith Lomax is just a passenger, on vacation with his wife, who witnessed the event and talked about it to the reporter.
No, it's not just you. The same happened to me. I read it when I was 18 or 19 years old on the enthusiastic recommendation of friends and strangers alike, and I found it extremely weird and hard to follow. I "got" most of the plot and theme, I just didn't care much for it.
I then tried to give it another chance later on, when in my 30s, thinking that perhaps I was too young to grasp and appreciate the book on my first read. You see, I fell for the hype (again), and wanted to make sure I wasn't missing out on something grand. Alas, no; I felt even more removed from it, and just could not understand what so many saw in it.
I must admit that reading the plot synopsis in Wikipedia is very interesting: somehow the wiki-editors managed to make sense and explain in a coherent and entertaining fashion, in just a few paragraphs, what Gibson couldn't do in endless pages of freaky and overwrought exposition and technobabble.
Note: If you are going to Mirror these sources or place them onto your own site, please have the respect and courtesy to include with them - Source: www.atarimuseum.com as these wouldn't exist if I hadn't of climbed into a filthy dumpster at 3am in the morning behind the old Atari building in Sunnyvale and salvaged them and restored them from their diskettes.
I didn't see any mention of AtariMuseum.com in the ProgrammerFish article. Bastards!
So here it is, on behalf of us grateful slashdotters: THANK YOU CURT VENDEL!
Slashdot Mirror
He's explaining the joke; he's a sensitive clod.
-dZ.
>> But hey, when someone asks you to make a robot to do X, how many engineers will step back and ask "Are you SURE X is what you want to do?"
I'll go out on a limb and say, the answer is Y engineers.
-dZ.
>> If its going to be in the Air all the time, and just circle. Why don't the replace it with a few balloons or Zeppelins as fixed air platform.
OK, I'll bite: Because the mounting harness of the camera system sold by the contractor buddy of the Mayor, is custom made to install on airplanes sold by the golf partner of the contractor. The owner of the balloon/airship company was not aware of the project, and so couldn't offer to chip in for the Mayor's summer vacation trip.
-dZ.
But think of the (wet) children!
-dZ.
And that's fine--exceeeeeeeeeept for the fact that Mono has yet to be split into the patent-friendly Core and lawsuite-magnet Frameworks; de Icaza just announced that this will be done, as a result of Microsoft's current promise.
You see, the point is not that Microsoft's promise is bullshit; it's legally binding, fine. The problem is that, so far, de Icaza and the Mono supporters have been claiming (or hoping) that Mono is free from patent hassles because of some alleged ambiguous comments from Microsoft. It has now been clarified by Microsoft, sure, but their Community Promise specifies only what amounted to a subset of Mono: the core implementation of ECMA standards. The fact that the Mono distribution will now be split into these two factions is telling. It means that they were hoping everything would be covered, and were operating under this assumption.
And that is what a lot of people were (and still are) unhappy about.
Sure, everybody who's been using Mono with compatibility libraries for Winforms, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, etc. can switch to the non-Microsoft owned frameworks offered by the Mono project. But perhaps this removes the advantage that they thought Mono offered them. Most likely, they'll install Windows on their servers instead of Linux, and go back to Microsoft's .NET technologies.
Anybody who uses Mono just for the CLI and C# implementations, like some in the Linux community do, can continue with their work merrily and safely. But Mono will then be useful as just that: Just another competing development platform. A good one, it's true, but just another one of many available to the Open Source community. It will therefore have to survive on its technical merit alone.
As I see it, gone is the advantage of being able to run your .NET applications on Linux. For as much as the Linux (and Slashdot) community want to ignore it, the primary attraction of Windows developers to Mono was the cross-platform compatibility feature of the entire framework--not just the C# language. Most of those who develop for Windows will use .NET, and have been using (or would have used) Mono in order to run their applications on Linux. That is a significant chunk of potential mind-share and developer support culled at the stroke of Microsoft's legal pen.
-dZ.
Anonymous Coward Replying to Fag Joke = Fag
Oh wait!
-dZ.
Yeah, but real life is booooooring. I ain't paying for that! pshaw!
-dZ.
Wow, chill a bit and read the article.
The "privacy" context in this case is not regarding the obscuring of criminal behaviour but the prevention of being intrusively monitored by commercial entities in order to build consumer behaviour profiles, and bombard you directly with even MORE advertising.
On that context, this ruling means that there is no way to avoid having your browsing and purchasing behaviour monitored, collated, analyzed, correlated and associated with you personally, and sold for profit; which will entice advertising organizations to intrude even more into your life.
That's just creepy.
-dZ.
An IP address is tied to an account at the access provider, that account is tied to a specific person in the same way that license plates and phone numbers are.
The same way that you may receive a driving violation ticket on the mail from an automatic red-light camera system, and then must contest the fact that it wasn't really you driving; so the IP address can be used in the same way.
It is becaues of this why any reasonable person would consider it personally identifiable. If it weren't, then it means that there is no correlation between the IP address and the account holder, which has other legal implications.
Actually, I don't think that may be such a bad thing.
-dZ.
You don't get it. ".NET" is much more than just C# and CLI, it is the platform comprised of Winforms, ADO.NET, ASP.NET, and other frameworks. Using those does not allow for patent-hassle-free, cross-platform development as Mono purports to offer.
Then the focus of Mono should be specified as "an open source implementation of C# and CLI", not .NET. However, this is not reflected, as far as I can tell, in the main and FAQ pages of the project, which still claim prominently "Open Source" next to ".NET Compatibility". As it stands, the message from the project seems to be schizophrenic: On the one hand it wants to announce itself as a cross-platform implementation of .NET and attract developers to this point, and on the other hand it wants to make itself known as an Open Source project, which is safe from patent issues.
Both signals are not compatible, since the ancillary libraries and frameworks of the .NET platform are proprietary from Microsoft and not part of the Community Promise license. The fact that Miguel de Icaza is now talking about physically separating both the core and the rest is telling of the situation heretofore:
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Jul-06.html
-dZ.
Wow, I didn't know Vince Clarke programmed computers as well as synths!
-dZ.
Sorry, forgot to post the link to the FAQ:
http://www.mono-project.com/FAQ:_General
-dZ.
Almost. I present to you, the Mono Project FAQ:
(my emphasis)
That was the main concern of RMS: that the attraction to the project was the promise of cross-platform .NET development, but that such development is ultimately encumbered by patented technologies.
-dZ.
I'm sorry, but wasn't part of the point of Mono (and .NET, actually) compatibility and cross-platform independence? So if I require Mono-specific libraries to use Mono, and Microsoft-owned libraries to use .NET, what is the advantage of using the framework? It is then just another environment among myriad, more mature, others.
-dZ.
What, no pony? sheeez!
-dZ.
Keith Lomax was not the engineer who fixed the plane. From the article:
Keith Lomax is just a passenger, on vacation with his wife, who witnessed the event and talked about it to the reporter.
Jeez! now not even the submitters are R'ingTFA!
-dZ.
You must be new here. Welcome!
-dZ.
Or... you're both: 30 x 24 = 720, Wow!
Happy birthcentury!
-dZ.
So, what you are saying is that it has a purpose?
Then it is not as ridiculous as you say.
-dZ.
No, it's not just you. The same happened to me. I read it when I was 18 or 19 years old on the enthusiastic recommendation of friends and strangers alike, and I found it extremely weird and hard to follow. I "got" most of the plot and theme, I just didn't care much for it.
I then tried to give it another chance later on, when in my 30s, thinking that perhaps I was too young to grasp and appreciate the book on my first read. You see, I fell for the hype (again), and wanted to make sure I wasn't missing out on something grand. Alas, no; I felt even more removed from it, and just could not understand what so many saw in it.
I must admit that reading the plot synopsis in Wikipedia is very interesting: somehow the wiki-editors managed to make sense and explain in a coherent and entertaining fashion, in just a few paragraphs, what Gibson couldn't do in endless pages of freaky and overwrought exposition and technobabble.
-dZ.
His site says this at the bottom:
I didn't see any mention of AtariMuseum.com in the ProgrammerFish article. Bastards!
So here it is, on behalf of us grateful slashdotters: THANK YOU CURT VENDEL!
-dZ.
Er, hold on there, cowboy!
That's not THE Joust. That's the crappy Atari 7800 port.
Though it was made by Williams, which kept it very faithful to the original.
Ok, then, go on--do some cartwheels and stuff. It's cool!
-dZ.
I bet you that the original Joust from Williams was written in poorly commented M6809 assembly. And so was Defender and Robotron.
Gosh, how I loved Joust. Damn you! Now I have to spend the 4th of July setting up and playing MAME.
-dZ.
Oh yeah?! Well, my dad can beat up your dad!
P.S. Great comment. And here I was, fancying myself a geeky computer-history and techie buff. I feel so inadequate.
-dZ.
Thom, is that you?
OHAI!
-dZ.