The fact that he works for Oracle doesn't prove his arguments are wrong.
No, it demonstrates that he might have been wrong to make the arguments in the first place.
One of the first rules of journalism is that if you're going to be a commentator[*], you do not derive benefit from the people you write about. It's not wrong to take sides. It is very wrong indeed to take a side and then accept any kind of recompense from those you sided with for any reason, and in any way whatsoever. That goes all the way down to returning the fruit basket a company sends you following a positive product review, or even letting an interviewee buy you lunch[+].
This is important in the same way that, in the courts, justice not only has to be done, it has to be seen to be done.
------------ [*] A commentator, not a participant. If you want to advocate for a given side, and that side happens to employ you or pay you in some way, fine. Just say that at the outset, and have at it.
[+] There are exceptions, such as being allowed to visit a military camp, in which you've got to rely on your hosts for transport, food and lodging because there's no alternative. But even then, you're expected to make it clear that your perspective might have been limited or influenced by these factors.
One can cure oneself of the NOT 'UN-' formation by memorizing this
sentence: A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field.
--Politics and The English Language
Not bad. You could do far worse than read the entire piece. There are few more significant essays on post-War English usage.
"Any serious email user who doesn't top-post."
I once proposed that anyone who top-posted or full-quoted should lose a finger every time they did so. I believe that the overall quailty of mail traffic, particularly on large mailing lists, would be markedly improved in short order.
Regrettably, the RFC didn't find traction within the IETF. Pity.
Or, as Joyent's Howard Wu puts it, 'It's kind of like buying couches. If you buy one, you go to a retail store. If you buy 10,000 couches, you go straight to the factory
Of course what Mr. Wu leaves out is that they are going straight to a factory in Asia instead of the American manufacturers (stalwarts, I beleive the summary called them).
What did get mentioned, but seems to be overlooked by everyone here, is that one of Google's primary motivations was because they needed a more open and flexible platform than the 'stalwarts' were willing to give them.
The only thing that distinguishes Cisco from the others is their 'secret sauce' - the proprietary elements that make high volume network management easier (and in some cases possible). But that's no longer sufficient to keep some of their biggest customers happy; they want lower-level access to the equipment. Manufacturers, however, don't want to give away the only thing that still distinguishes them from commodity brokers.
I think the biggest news to me is that the commodification of high performance gear has advanced enough to allow someone to rock up to the factory door with a spec and get something decent enough to rely on. This is the same phenomenon we've seen in server operating systems and systems software. There's still room for 'Enterprise' operators to make a buck, but increasingly, companies are realising that, a lot of the time, ordering à la carte makes more sense.
What makes this act constitutional is the power granted to Congress under the Constitution to regulate commerce between nations and enforce immigration laws.
It is VERY unlikely that the Supreme Court will touch this principle that has been in force for 230 years.
And what would make it UN-constitutional is if the search and seizure were done to silence domestic political opposition. Which is why the judge is allowing the case to proceed.
DP Review has a review of this camera. It sounds like it has a long way to go. Due to the way lightfield works, the final resolution is fairly low, in this case only 1024x1024.
Low res? No worries, just use the ENHANCE button. Problem solved.
Regards,
David Benton Crime Scene Investigations, Miami PD
We spent thousands of years with no privacy whatsoever. The idea that we ever had some fanciful idea called "personal privacy" is largely a myth.
I've seen this chestnut trotted out before, but it's not as pertinent as a lot of people would like to think.
I live in the developing world in a locale where personal privacy is largely as it was 3000 years ago when these islands were first settled. I can assure you that a digital society that records your every action with perfect accuracy is not at all like village life.
Yes, it's true that everyone here knows everybody else's business. It's not at all unusual for me to meet someone in the street whom I haven't seen in months, and they'll already know what I've been up to earlier in the day. Buildings here are not designed to suppress sound (it's the tropics, don't you know), so you actually have to make an effort to ignore some of the things that happen next door.
But the local culture has long adapted to these circumstances. Privacy is actually jealously protected, not only by the individuals, but by their neighbours. They'll gossip like crazy, but they will not, for example, let a person's drunken weekend spree come into consideration when they're applying for work.
Most importantly of all, government and police are not given carte blanche access to their collective knowledge.
In short, there's a world of difference between a place without privacy and a surveillance society. Let's be clear that in this case we're talking about the latter.
No, he didn't. The Germans had several Panzer units stationed only a few miles from the coast in France. However, Hitler would not allow them to be released because he was convinced the invasion would be at Calais, where the Channel is actually the thinnest. By the time he allowed the tanks to be released, the Allies had already established a beachhead and moved inland. Had they been released when the request was made, the landings would have failed.
In fairness, the allies went to pretty extreme lengths to convince him that they were in fact aiming at Calais.
Great. Now you just need to convince all the actors, directors, writers, producers, gaffers, AD's, DP's, PA's, prop managers, production designers, cinematographers, lighting directors, script supervisors, best boys, assistants, craft services workers, agents, publicists--and everyone in the hundred or so related fields in Hollywood, Vancouver, London, Mumbai, Toronto, Bulgaria, and Beijing to start working for free and feeding their families on good will and rainbows.
Yeah, because there's no middle ground ever, under any circumstances, between draconian DRM regimes and the death of an entire industry. Forget the entire history of creative endeavour.
So you think a standards committee should favour the views of a relatively small minority who philosophically oppose any DRM, as opposed to the relatively large majority who consume DRM'd content all the time without objecting?
Uh, 'scuse me?
The vast majority of the Internet-going population hate DRM so much that they knowingly break the law to obtain more readily available formats - often enough downloading materials that they would gladly pay for, if the media companies would only get a clue about how to do business online.
P.S. You're indulging in argumentum ad populum. Just because a lot of people feel a certain way doesn't make them right. Though ironically, in this case, I'm inclined to agree with the majority who think DRM is nothing but a pain in the ass.
The Internet is not yours either, but if you leave us and the millions of people who enjoy our content alone, then none of this will affect you anyway.
Thanks,
The people who actually make the content
PS: If you want our content but not locked down so you can do things you aren't supposed to with it, please take the money you were never going to give us anyway because you're just another worthless pirate that way ---->/dev/null
As someone who 'makes the content' for a living, allow me add: Speak for yourself. Quit pretending that everyone who ever created something feels entitled to dictate how every single bit that ensues gets used.
And while you're at it, quit accusing everyone who dislikes DRM of theft. That kind of blanket discourtesy is one of the most compelling reasons why those of us who oppose DRM feel like telling you to get stuffed. If you're not going to have a civilised conversation about the issue, then maybe you should just keep your proverbial mouth shut and let the adults talk.
Dear Wowsers. The internet IS NOT YOURS EITHER. Don't like a protocol, file format, or DRM scheme? DONT USE IT.
Your logic is utterly without merit. It's directly analogous to the old 'if you've got nothing to fear, you've got nothing to hide' chestnut.
There is a fundamental difference between not liking something and opposing it. The ratification and formalisation of DRM as an inherent part of the set of standards that collectively define the Internet (well, the Web in this case) is something that a great many people rightly oppose. It's not just that we find it distasteful; it's that its very existence subverts the exercise of the liberties which we've become accustomed to.
Second of all, if the Internet is not Wowser's - and mine, and yours - then whose is it?
That's not a trivial question. I'd be genuinely interested to see how you answer it. Assuming of course that you actually give it some thought, first.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that he works for Oracle doesn't prove his arguments are wrong.
No, it demonstrates that he might have been wrong to make the arguments in the first place.
One of the first rules of journalism is that if you're going to be a commentator[*], you do not derive benefit from the people you write about. It's not wrong to take sides. It is very wrong indeed to take a side and then accept any kind of recompense from those you sided with for any reason, and in any way whatsoever. That goes all the way down to returning the fruit basket a company sends you following a positive product review, or even letting an interviewee buy you lunch[+].
This is important in the same way that, in the courts, justice not only has to be done, it has to be seen to be done.
------------
[*] A commentator, not a participant. If you want to advocate for a given side, and that side happens to employ you or pay you in some way, fine. Just say that at the outset, and have at it.
[+] There are exceptions, such as being allowed to visit a military camp, in which you've got to rely on your hosts for transport, food and lodging because there's no alternative. But even then, you're expected to make it clear that your perspective might have been limited or influenced by these factors.
It is a well known fact that reality has a lib^H^H^H^Hn anti-MS/Oracle bias.
I'm tempted to mod you up just for your typographically correct use of '^H'.
--Politics and The English Language
Not bad. You could do far worse than read the entire piece. There are few more significant essays on post-War English usage.
I'd be more suspicious of Venus... clearly it was trying to take down a passenger aircraft, the classic cowardly maneuver of a terrorist.
Clearly it's aligned with the Ecliptic of Evil.
Explaining your work is a great way to demonstrate that you actually understand it.
My standard development process is:
My rationale is precisely that: I'm not really sure I know what I'm doing until I've described it, then figured out how my idea might fail.
Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't everyone do this?
"Any serious email user who doesn't top-post." I once proposed that anyone who top-posted or full-quoted should lose a finger every time they did so. I believe that the overall quailty of mail traffic, particularly on large mailing lists, would be markedly improved in short order. Regrettably, the RFC didn't find traction within the IETF. Pity.
You could try "+1 Funny".
I could, but I was trying for a "+1 Funny" myself.
I have mod points, but tragically there's no +1 troll option.
Or, as Joyent's Howard Wu puts it, 'It's kind of like buying couches. If you buy one, you go to a retail store. If you buy 10,000 couches, you go straight to the factory
Of course what Mr. Wu leaves out is that they are going straight to a factory in Asia instead of the American manufacturers (stalwarts, I beleive the summary called them).
What did get mentioned, but seems to be overlooked by everyone here, is that one of Google's primary motivations was because they needed a more open and flexible platform than the 'stalwarts' were willing to give them.
The only thing that distinguishes Cisco from the others is their 'secret sauce' - the proprietary elements that make high volume network management easier (and in some cases possible). But that's no longer sufficient to keep some of their biggest customers happy; they want lower-level access to the equipment. Manufacturers, however, don't want to give away the only thing that still distinguishes them from commodity brokers.
I think the biggest news to me is that the commodification of high performance gear has advanced enough to allow someone to rock up to the factory door with a spec and get something decent enough to rely on. This is the same phenomenon we've seen in server operating systems and systems software. There's still room for 'Enterprise' operators to make a buck, but increasingly, companies are realising that, a lot of the time, ordering à la carte makes more sense.
Don't be ridiculous. Uncle Sam gets it 10/10.
Not true. Every tenth time it's a white male. Or a cop. Or a politician. Or an investment banker. So, the system does suffer occasional failure.
Randomly, of course.
What makes this act constitutional is the power granted to Congress under the Constitution to regulate commerce between nations and enforce immigration laws.
It is VERY unlikely that the Supreme Court will touch this principle that has been in force for 230 years.
And what would make it UN-constitutional is if the search and seizure were done to silence domestic political opposition. Which is why the judge is allowing the case to proceed.
...negative ion concentrations in the air were two times higher in heavily wooded areas
I am not going into the woods -- there is so much negative energy there.
Are you positive?
Ion dont know. I cant be positive that I read this somewhere else. But maybe I am putting too much spin on this...
Oh, don't be so negative. Some of us get a charge out of this.
Come to what?
You. Me. Mercury. The Rising.
SAM: "Ich bin ein Developer! Developer! Developer! Developer! Developer! Developer! Developer! Developer!STOP 80000X21 OOM_MONKEYDANCE_INFINITE_LOOP"
The article says "I did some checking up, and thereâ(TM)s an estimate that MIME is used a trillion times every day"
A trillion MIMEs? I'm speechless.
*runs away without moving*
DP Review has a review of this camera. It sounds like it has a long way to go. Due to the way lightfield works, the final resolution is fairly low, in this case only 1024x1024.
Low res? No worries, just use the ENHANCE button. Problem solved.
Regards,
David Benton
Crime Scene Investigations, Miami PD
Step 2 == "Infiltrate Washington Post"
3) ???
4) Profit!
Mr. Taco, we understand that you know a lot about this Twitter/Internet/Facebooks stuff. We would like to be hip with that vibe.
"Sorry, just one more question: Who is this Cowboy Neal character? He seems to be out-performing the entire Republican field in the latest polls...."
We spent thousands of years with no privacy whatsoever. The idea that we ever had some fanciful idea called "personal privacy" is largely a myth.
I've seen this chestnut trotted out before, but it's not as pertinent as a lot of people would like to think.
I live in the developing world in a locale where personal privacy is largely as it was 3000 years ago when these islands were first settled. I can assure you that a digital society that records your every action with perfect accuracy is not at all like village life.
Yes, it's true that everyone here knows everybody else's business. It's not at all unusual for me to meet someone in the street whom I haven't seen in months, and they'll already know what I've been up to earlier in the day. Buildings here are not designed to suppress sound (it's the tropics, don't you know), so you actually have to make an effort to ignore some of the things that happen next door.
But the local culture has long adapted to these circumstances. Privacy is actually jealously protected, not only by the individuals, but by their neighbours. They'll gossip like crazy, but they will not, for example, let a person's drunken weekend spree come into consideration when they're applying for work.
Most importantly of all, government and police are not given carte blanche access to their collective knowledge.
In short, there's a world of difference between a place without privacy and a surveillance society. Let's be clear that in this case we're talking about the latter.
No, he didn't. The Germans had several Panzer units stationed only a few miles from the coast in France. However, Hitler would not allow them to be released because he was convinced the invasion would be at Calais, where the Channel is actually the thinnest. By the time he allowed the tanks to be released, the Allies had already established a beachhead and moved inland. Had they been released when the request was made, the landings would have failed.
In fairness, the allies went to pretty extreme lengths to convince him that they were in fact aiming at Calais.
Great. Now you just need to convince all the actors, directors, writers, producers, gaffers, AD's, DP's, PA's, prop managers, production designers, cinematographers, lighting directors, script supervisors, best boys, assistants, craft services workers, agents, publicists--and everyone in the hundred or so related fields in Hollywood, Vancouver, London, Mumbai, Toronto, Bulgaria, and Beijing to start working for free and feeding their families on good will and rainbows.
Yeah, because there's no middle ground ever, under any circumstances, between draconian DRM regimes and the death of an entire industry. Forget the entire history of creative endeavour.
So you think a standards committee should favour the views of a relatively small minority who philosophically oppose any DRM, as opposed to the relatively large majority who consume DRM'd content all the time without objecting?
Uh, 'scuse me?
The vast majority of the Internet-going population hate DRM so much that they knowingly break the law to obtain more readily available formats - often enough downloading materials that they would gladly pay for, if the media companies would only get a clue about how to do business online.
P.S. You're indulging in argumentum ad populum. Just because a lot of people feel a certain way doesn't make them right. Though ironically, in this case, I'm inclined to agree with the majority who think DRM is nothing but a pain in the ass.
Dear Wowsers,
The Internet is not yours either, but if you leave us and the millions of people who enjoy our content alone, then none of this will affect you anyway.
Thanks,
The people who actually make the content
PS: If you want our content but not locked down so you can do things you aren't supposed to with it, please take the money you were never going to give us anyway because you're just another worthless pirate that way ----> /dev/null
As someone who 'makes the content' for a living, allow me add: Speak for yourself. Quit pretending that everyone who ever created something feels entitled to dictate how every single bit that ensues gets used.
And while you're at it, quit accusing everyone who dislikes DRM of theft. That kind of blanket discourtesy is one of the most compelling reasons why those of us who oppose DRM feel like telling you to get stuffed. If you're not going to have a civilised conversation about the issue, then maybe you should just keep your proverbial mouth shut and let the adults talk.
Dear Wowsers. The internet IS NOT YOURS EITHER. Don't like a protocol, file format, or DRM scheme? DONT USE IT.
Your logic is utterly without merit. It's directly analogous to the old 'if you've got nothing to fear, you've got nothing to hide' chestnut.
There is a fundamental difference between not liking something and opposing it. The ratification and formalisation of DRM as an inherent part of the set of standards that collectively define the Internet (well, the Web in this case) is something that a great many people rightly oppose. It's not just that we find it distasteful; it's that its very existence subverts the exercise of the liberties which we've become accustomed to.
Second of all, if the Internet is not Wowser's - and mine, and yours - then whose is it?
That's not a trivial question. I'd be genuinely interested to see how you answer it. Assuming of course that you actually give it some thought, first.