Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
Normally replying to a sig results in an automatic -1 Offtopic, but in this case, I think it makes a perfect point.
Here we are discussing the merits of new realms of human interface when we don't properly understand the interfaces we already have. Over the decades, people have tried again and again to reinvent the IDE, in many cases failing utterly, in others just trading one set of features for another.
If you're going to be working in human interface design, it won't help you to disparage the most mature and capable text editors in common use today. Yes, they may seem unappealing and even counter-intuitive, but that doesn't mean that they are not fit for a purpose. In nearly 20 years of computing, I've gone through the same process of chasing UI glitter. But I have learned through countless disappointments that GUIs are not ideal for character entry.
Don't get me wrong. I use Compiz. I've found the 3D rendering of the desktop cube makes it easier for me to visualise my workspace. I'd almost say I need it to work now. I prefer wobbly windows because they seem more organic, therefore part of the world around me. I like the smoother fades when windows open, because the experience is less jarring. I like it when things minimise into their icons, like genies going back into the bottle. All of these things provide a more consistent and visually 'natural' environment.
BUT... when I'm typing - and especially when I'm coding - my hands belong on the keyboard. Every time I lift them, I slow down and more to the point, I lose focus.
I write and code professionally, so I spend a lot of time thinking about my tools. The best word processor I've ever used was WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. (That's likely because I was just a tad too young for WordStar.) I use vi and emacs for different purposes and, despite have tried Visual Studio and lord knows how many other more GUI-oriented editors, I keep coming back to them.
Again, don't get me wrong. I don't dislike VS. I actually wish that emacs would import the auto-completion functionality that VS has. But here's the thing. For all its bells and whistles, I'm just not as comfortable coding with anything other than emacs. Make as many EXTENDED/META/ALT/CONTROL/SHIFT jokes as you like; emacs is still my coding environment of choice. Because my hands never have to leave the keyboard, not to debug, compile, import other files, diff them or commit them to subversion. Yeah, it takes time to learn. Boy is it worth it.
Likewise vi. Just yesterday, I was working with another silverback programmer. We were rebuilding a website containing tens of thousands of documents in hundreds of different collections. Every single document had to be recreated from source materials, which implies dozens of filters, all context-sensitive. By importing a directory listing into vi and running a few regular expressions against it, we were able to create a shell script to automate the entire build in about a minute and a half. Show me something else that can do that.
I like new interfaces. My friends all make fun of me because of my attraction to shiny. But when it comes to interfaces, I'm not so blind as to throw away my tools just because they aren't pretty enough.
Good interface designers have learned this lesson, and focus on making things simple, but no simpler than they should be. I suggest you take that advice to heart as you back away toward the gate and get the heck off my lawn.
* As a note, I wrote our Intranet to work in all versions of IE and FireFox. I'm unsure why it doesn't work with Google Chrome but as Chrome consists of less than 1% of our Intranet traffic, it is not worth my time to debug it.
You know, I saw exactly this argument countless times in the first (late 90s) round of the web standards wars. In case you didn't get the memo: After a long, bloody and ugly war of attrition, standards won. There's a lot of mopping up still to do, but standards hold all the important ground.
Do yourself a favour and debug these problems. They may be affecting 1% of your users right now, but they point to something not right. Chrome is based on Webkit, which is also at the heart of the Safari browser. Don't wait until your CxO's new MacBook Air doesn't work on your site. Fix it now and save yourself some grief down the road.
And heck, even if you have a captive audience consisting of one browser - it'll do you some good to understand the problem regardless. Frequently bugs like these are hiding bigger bugs behind them. My definition of professionalism includes getting out ahead of problems, but YMMV.
Suppose it was possible to apply security patches without installing Windows Genuine Advantage (malware by anyone's definition except Microsoft's). Would that make a difference?
Quite likely, but Microsoft is definitely within their rights to insist that people pay for their software. You and I may find it to be unwieldy, intrusive and obnoxious, but that's our problem, not theirs.
If people don't want to deal with the mess and hassle of keeping their Windows machines clean and up to date, they have alternatives. They can pony up for a Mac or they can install Linux. Heck, if they're absolutely committed to using Windows without paying, they can run it in a snapshotted VM on Linux.
Just last week I wrote a newspaper column advocating Ubuntu Karmic over Windows 7, so I'm no fan of Windows whatsoever. But as someone who writes a fair amount of software, I fully respect Microsoft's right to license it - and enforce that license - as they see fit.
The fact that they're doing so in such a way as to drive the world away from them is just gravy, as far as I'm concerned. 8^)
Getting into journalism "to do good" misses the point of journalism entirely.
Provide analysis to "do good". Be a journalist by reporting the damn facts.
I couldn't disagree more. Publishing objective truth and honest analysis is 'doing good.'
First, if you don't think truth-telling shouldn't be pursued in the spirit of public service, then what motivation would you suggest?
It takes a thick skin and a lot more motivation than simple greed to endure the grind of getting and publishing facts. The publisher of our national daily has been threatened, beaten and even briefly jailed for publishing the truth. One of his reporters was beaten so badly she miscarried. She's still on the beat. There are far safer ways of making money than that.
Second, analysis that isn't just as well-sourced and researched as straight reporting isn't worth the paper it's printed on. I'll agree that in the US there's a noticeable dearth of good analysis in print. But elsewhere in the world, that's not always the case.
For my part, I work very closely with the reporters to verify facts and events, and I have also conducted original research as well. I've been wrong on points of fact once or twice, but not very often.
Opinion is... well, opinion. I'm paid to have one. But to the extent that time and opportunity allow, it's based on a full appreciation of the facts and solid, clear reasoning. And that is the good I'm trying to do.
I didn't decide to get out of the business because my ego was bruised that I wasn't accomplishing a lofty goal - I got out of it because I moved into fields where I have been able to do some good.
Heh, interesting. Did you know that road runs both ways?
I've fallen sideways into part-time journalism because I wanted to do some good. After 4 years of work with NGOs in a developing country, I realised that some important issues just weren't getting the analysis (and attention) they deserved, so I started writing a weekly column in one of the national newspapers. It helped my work quite a bit, because whenever I had a conversation with someone, we'd have common context to work with.
Since then, I was asked to write a general purpose editorial column in the other major newspaper. So now I spend more time writing and researching than I do with my NGO work. Happily, there are others to pick up the slack.
My biggest lesson? Writing a clear, well-argued editorial is hard. But writing a clear, well argued editorial that leads people to stop me in the streets and thank me for raising the issue is incredibly rewarding. Sometimes they agree with me, sometimes they don't. I don't care about that. I just want them to think.
If my columns were ever put behind a paywall, I'd just post them on my own site for free (well, actually, I do that anyway). Limiting exposure to such material is, in my opinion, cutting off your nose to spite your face.
I agree with you that the current interface between artists and audience is far from ideal. One thing I find interesting about your position, however, is the notion that there should not necessarily be any kind of correlation between the number of people who enjoy an artist's music and the degree to which that artist should be financially compensated. I'm just curious: do you feel the same way about sports stars (for example)?
Artists live very much at the mercy of the elements. Throughout history, there is little correlation between wealth, popularity and achievement. In fact, many of the richest artists were actually better at being popular than being good artists. Many of the best artists were better at being artists than being popular.
It stands to reason, therefore, that creative and remunerative processes are not strongly linked. Therefore, there's little reason to get one's shorts in a knot if they don't follow similar lines on a graph.
The thing is, people don't torrent Beyonce to protest the copyright status of Richard Strauss. They just want free stuff. If the duration of copyright were revised drastically downward, people would still pirate the most current music. I'm not defending life+70 - it's patently insane (ha ha) - but let's not pretend it has any bearing on this issue.
But that's the crux of the issue: copyright is effectively meaningless to most people.
Whatever rights the artist may claim, the majority don't recognise them. If they felt some duty to pay, they would do so. But they don't. Nor do they feel that what they are doing is wrong, in spite of being told so. Sharing music appeals to the same part of human nature that gossip does - it's sharing of interesting information in order to solidify or improve one's status in a given group. It's an activity that's always been done freely, with no thought of (direct) recompense.
The whole issue of so-called piracy is based on what, to most people, is a non-sequitur: 'The artist deserves to be rewarded for their work, therefore every one of you who listens to me has to pay.' The second statement simply doesn't follow from the first assertion. Worse, the question of who gets paid (and how much) quickly becomes a morass that's interesting only to those involved.
For most people, their debt to the artist is measured in goodwill and little more. Sometimes that goodwill translates into an album purchase, a concert ticket and maybe a t-shirt, but that's incidental. One brilliant example: Bruce Springsteen walks by a busker singing one of his songs, decides to join in. Everyone is treated to a live performance. And nobody puts a penny in the hat. Not even Bruce.
I think ultimately that the entire framework of 'droits d'auteur' (author's rights) will have to be re-conceived before a renewal of the social contract between artist and audience can be considered.
My time online is generally during working hours. The prospect of having to field hundreds of questions is a little intimidating, to be honest.
But much of what I do is public in nature. I write two columns (one IT-related) for our national newspapers. They're collected on my website (see my profile). I also take a lot of photos.
If you're interested in learning still more, I'd suggest taking a membership in the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society. PICISOC is a pretty active and engaged community, and there's lots of talk about this kind of work. I'm a frequent contributor to the noise.
What is the name of the organization you work for ?
I currently work for the University of the South Pacific (no link, slashdot would kill it).
Most of the ICT4D stuff I did was through VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas). They tend to prefer people with solid industry experience and who have some exposure to cultures other than their own. They recruit throughout Europe, North America and in Kenya, Uganda, India and the Phillippines. In Canada, they recently amalgamated with CUSO. They work in dozens of countries the world over.
There are a ton of organisations seeking talented professionals to do this kind of work. It takes a little time to find the right combination, and some volunteering work is almost always required before you can start contracting your services professionally.
A few good places to start looking:
The Grameen Foundation - Founded by Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus, this micro-finance group does fascinating IT-based work throughout the developing world. Very high standards.
VSO - One of the best volunteering organisations, in my opinion. They require strong professional skills and experience, and typically provide good in-country support (YMMV from country to country).
GeekCorps - Founded by Dot Com millionaire Ethan Zuckerman, this group is focused on answering the question of what comes after we've established the basics (e.g. roads, power and water). Interesting work and interesting people.
You give up a lot to do this kind of work, and you need to remember that it's never about you - it's about the people you're working with. But once you stop worrying about career and how to pay for your next Xbox, you'll find the rewards are tremendous.
For my part, just seeing the look in people's eyes when I show them what the Internet can do is enough. Watching them take your work in directions you could never have foreseen is enlightening and humbling. I wouldn't trade this life for the world.
I hit the same point about 2002. The Dot Com thing had soured and I was just tired of the whole game. I did a two year volunteering gig in the South Pacific... and never left.
It's fascinating, because a lot of the stuff I was doing when I first arrived here was the same I'd been doing 10 years before (I mean literally the same technology). Since then I've moved along and now I'm pretty much current with the kind of things I'd likely be doing back in Canada (technical manager for a local university institution). Just this week I submitted patches to a wireless network driver for the latest version of Ubuntu. So what's changed for me? Just this:
IT work in development has taken me to cities, towns and villages in Fiji, the Solomon Islands, East Timor and Vanuatu (where I now live). I'll be off to South Africa in a little over a month.
I have faced crazy demands in the past (Windows activation from a place with no networks and no telephones? Keeping the minutes for a week-long meeting in a town with no power?) I've had malaria and been hospitalised with kidney stones from dehydration. I've shared the room with rats, roaches, fire ants and geckoes. I've slept on cement and eaten more cold rice than I ever thought possible.
But I've also had breakfast in the clouds, been to the brink of volcanoes, rambled in rain forest and snorkeled in coral reefs so often that it's run-of-the-mill, dined with Ministers of state... and helped make people's lives a little more liveable.
The work is engaging, challenging and stretches one's creativity to the limit, trying to figure out how to mesh Internet technologies with cultures largely unchanged in the last 3000 years. It pays a tiny fraction of what I used to make, but the rewards are infinitely greater.
While I'm all for this project - tell me again HOW those books are going to get to an OLPC-using kid's hands?
Internet, I'd guess.
As other posters have pointed out - there's the issue of indexing this stuff properly.
Good point. I suspect that putting them on a website and letting Google work its magic might address some - but definitely not all - of the problem. After all, the really interesting literature is often the stuff you didn't know about in the first place.
And there's still distribution to think about.
A book in plain text (or even simple XML/HTML markup) is not large at all. I'm on the board of one project that's offering Internet access over HF radio to some of the most remote islands in the Pacific, and they'd be perfectly capable of sending an entire novel as an email attachment in no more than a minute or two. Once it's reached the people at the other end of the link, it can be retransmitted using the XO's built-in wifi and self-configuring mesh networking capability.
Are these books mostly written in English? And the OLPC is mainly used in developing countries? I think I see a problem here...
In the part of the world I live in (Pacific Islands), even the least educated people speak 3 or more languages as a matter of course. Some speak 5 or 6 fluently. Visitors (and many long-term residents) are regularly the subject of ridicule because they can't learn to say more than 'hello' and 'thank you', even after months or years here.
My educated colleagues and friends have a remarkable ability to pick up language and - more importantly - to grasp the nuance of even the most abstruse language.
Geography plays a big role in this, but in many developing nations, poor infrastructure and lack of travel opportunities mean that there are often dozens of languages spoken within a given country. I can say from my own experience growing up in a bilingual milieu that if you've been speaking more than one language from birth, learning a new one is pretty much as easy as learning a new sport or the rules to a new card game.
Could the internet eventually be replaced with a mesh network? Maybe because I'm in student housing right now, but without the internet, we'd probably go about setting up an Ad-Hoc network in our building, then expand that to others we want to talk to (like a cantenna to the university buildings across the way). Sure, I wouldn't be able to post on Slashdot, but I could probably scrounge up enough movies to keep playing for a couple of years. Porn on the other hand, we'd have to get creative.
Vanuatu? Amazing. Do you know of anybody who believes in "John From"?
OT for this thread, but... yes, this man, for example. There are entire communities on Tanna island that take cargo culture very seriously. And to bring things back on topic (a little), here's a semi-humorous article I wrote about cargo culture and development.
Broadband access, of course. I'd imagine that narrowly edged out security, stability, access to medical care, and clean drinking water.
[I replied to this once already, but for some reason, slashdot truncated my response. Here's the full deal....]
How can you contact the police or the doctor if you don't have working comms? How can you get access to better education without distance learning? How can you advocate for better sanitation unless you have some means to contact others?
Communications is infrastructure. While it's not the only piece of the puzzle, it's a critical, fundamental one. Also, communications breeds wealth. I've been helping out a little with a national telecommunications strategy in Vanuatu, considered a Least Developed Country by the UN. In a little over a year since we implemented telecoms market liberalisation, teledensity (phones per population) has tripled. National cellular coverage has increased from about 20% of the population to nearly 80%. The government of Vanuatu estimates that this has lead to an increased in GDP of over 1%. Papua New Guinea estimates the impact for them at over 2%.
For a more comprehensive look at the correlation between improved telecoms infrastructure and economic growth, take a look at the Pacific Economic Survey for 2008. It has some very well-presented data that deals with this issue on a regional basis.
The UN report is correct, as far as it goes, but it neglects the fact that the biggest leap is from zero to one - that is, the greatest impact happens when people have any access at all to basic communications. Living as I do in a country with some of the highest Internet fees in the world (USD 55 for 128Kbps to USD 500 for 1Mbps), I've learned the hard way how to keep in touch using only a nominal Internet connection. For most people here, their only choice is GPRS mobile service available at USD 4/MB (total upload/download).
Is high cost Internet a hindrance? Unquestionably. Is it a priority? You bet your boots. This country recently faced a tsunami warning, is heading into hurricane season and has a volcano that's recently been upgraded to level 2 (no earth shattering kaboom yet, but needs watching). The only way the people close to the volcano were able to get a warning out was via HF radio to a nearby island, which relayed the warning to the national capital. Given that there's a lake in the caldera separated by only 2 metres of stone from the magma chamber, the potential for a Krakatoa-scale event is quite high. You can bet that people want to know when this vocano stirs, but communications infrastructure is so poor that the explosion/tidal wave would reach us before the warning did.
I write a weekly column about these things for a national newspaper, so I can speak with some assurance when I tell you that improving communications saves lives. In fact, where the volcano is concerned, this is an issue that affects people throughout the Pacific, from Japan and Australia to the western US and Canada.
(I'd link to my blog, but our Internet service here is so poor that it's offline right at the moment.)
We don't have huge issues with hunger here, and there's virtually no homelessness, but health and education are significant problems. Most of the development work in these two sectors is predicated on improving communications. Even economic interests admit that they need adequate comms in order to work at all. The linchpin of the National Bank of Vanuatu's rural finance scheme is a mobile phone-based finance system coupled with increased rural presence. Each new office is accompanied by its own VSAT terminal in order to function. The Bank is far-sighted enough to have signed agreements sharing that data stream with other information services in order to maximise community benefit.
To sum up: Without solid communications infrastructure, development is rendered many times more difficult than it should be. Improving access to information networks is something the entire world should be investing in, if only out of enlightened self-interest.
Broadband access, of course. I'd imagine that narrowly edged out security, stability, access to medical care, and clean drinking water.
How can you contact the doctor if you don't have working comms? How can you get access to better education without distance learning? How can you advocate for better sanitation unless you have some means to contact others?
Communications is infrastructure. While it's not the only piece of the puzzle, it's a critical, fundamental one. Also, communications breeds wealth. I've been helping out a little with a national telecommunications strategy in Vanuatu, considered a Least Developed Country by the UN. In a little over a year since we implemented telecoms market liberalisation, teledensity (phones per population) has tripled. National cellular coverage has increased from about 20% of the population to nearly 80%. The government of Vanuatu estimates that this has lead to an increased in GDP of over1%. Papua New Guinea estimates the impact for them at over 2%
The report is correct, as far as it goes, but it neglects the fact that the biggest leap is from zero to one - that is, the greatest impact
With all respect, you are completely missing the point.
The people who are at this moment buying and installing Windows 7 are mostly going to be desktop users upgrading from an earlier Windows release.
And I missed the point how? I gave 4 different scenarios, covering most use cases, including the 'average desktop'. In every case, the experience led me to conclude that a sweeping pronouncement that only fools upgrade just isn't valid.
If you need further data: Ubuntu's upgrade process is so smooth you can simply start it running in the background and continue working. After some time, the system tells you to reboot and that's that. (I generally toss the LiveCD into the machine first just to be sure my hardware's going to be properly supported after the upgrade, but I'm a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy.)
Mac OSX is reasonably easy as well. Boot the new DVD, wait a while, restart.
I then speculated that the tendency to generalise might be a result of inexperience. I was apparently wrong about that.
My point stands: Upgrades for most OSes are mostly straightforward.
And if these people **REALLY** believe that upgrading any OS in this fashion, let alone MS Windows, will end up giving them a nice clean install afterwards, then they probably shouldn't be anywhere near a computer in the first place.
You're generalising. I've had:
Servers that have been in continuous operation for 5+ years and have been upgraded over several major version changes.
A Windows machine from that cleanly upgraded from 98 - NT4 - 2000. (I haven't run Windows on my own hardware since)
A home computer that has been continuously upgraded from Ubuntu 6.10.
A Mac laptop that was cleanly upgraded from 10.2 - 10.3 - 10.5
In fact, while I have on rare occasions found it easier to install afresh than to upgrade, that's been the exception, not the rule.
The problem is not n00bs who are naive enough not to plan their way through an upgrade. The problem is junior and intermediate geeks who think the sum of their knowledge and experience is all there is. Upgrades require care and attention and planning. Just because it's currently beyond your capacity to do it doesn't mean it can't be done.
Yes; this will likely be achieved by embedding a Perl 5 interpreter, which is what Pugs, one of the prototype Perl 6 compilers, does now. The syntax for using a Perl 5 module is:
use perl5:Module::Name;
So go ahead, move on to Perl 6 and enjoy yourself.
No, it's a warning beacon advising more civilized species of interstellar travelers to keep away from from a star system inhabited by homo sapiens sapiens.
Actually, it's a banner. When we finally decipher it, we'll read, "Do Not Feed The Monkeys."
Well, actually, ".syeknoM ehT deeF toN oD" If you know what I mean.
Why not a compromise that limits the bandwidth advantage a company can give to X percent? That way they can give their own content enough of a boost to justify investing in smaller towns etc., but not enough to throw rivals into pure molasses.
I've stated this before, so I won't bother repeating myself. Here's the summary: Network Neutrality is a fundamental design principle that defines the Internet. As such, it is not negotiable.
furthermore, the internet has done exceptionally well so far without such rules. i think we're better off without them, in spite of the few incidences of filtering and blocking some providers have tried.
The Internet has done exceptionall well so far because of such rules. It blossomed where other networks (AOL, CompuServe et alia) died on the vine precisely because it is an agnostic end-to-end network by design. Recently, in response to moves to subvert these fundamental elements of the Internet, the Obama administration has decided that this set of general principles deserves to be formalised at the regulatory level. They're not proposing anything new, they're simply recognising what makes the Internet what it is.
Recently telcos have begun to realise that collusive, predatory practices serve their short-term interests better than the current open regime. The rise of Google has put the fear into them because it makes it vividly apparent that, unless they actually begin to run their businesses efficiently, someone who gets this whole Open thing is going to come along and eat their lunch.
The telcos don't fear regulation. They fear competition.
Slashdot Mirror
Normally replying to a sig results in an automatic -1 Offtopic, but in this case, I think it makes a perfect point.
Here we are discussing the merits of new realms of human interface when we don't properly understand the interfaces we already have. Over the decades, people have tried again and again to reinvent the IDE, in many cases failing utterly, in others just trading one set of features for another.
If you're going to be working in human interface design, it won't help you to disparage the most mature and capable text editors in common use today. Yes, they may seem unappealing and even counter-intuitive, but that doesn't mean that they are not fit for a purpose. In nearly 20 years of computing, I've gone through the same process of chasing UI glitter. But I have learned through countless disappointments that GUIs are not ideal for character entry.
Don't get me wrong. I use Compiz. I've found the 3D rendering of the desktop cube makes it easier for me to visualise my workspace. I'd almost say I need it to work now. I prefer wobbly windows because they seem more organic, therefore part of the world around me. I like the smoother fades when windows open, because the experience is less jarring. I like it when things minimise into their icons, like genies going back into the bottle. All of these things provide a more consistent and visually 'natural' environment.
BUT... when I'm typing - and especially when I'm coding - my hands belong on the keyboard. Every time I lift them, I slow down and more to the point, I lose focus.
I write and code professionally, so I spend a lot of time thinking about my tools. The best word processor I've ever used was WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. (That's likely because I was just a tad too young for WordStar.) I use vi and emacs for different purposes and, despite have tried Visual Studio and lord knows how many other more GUI-oriented editors, I keep coming back to them.
Again, don't get me wrong. I don't dislike VS. I actually wish that emacs would import the auto-completion functionality that VS has. But here's the thing. For all its bells and whistles, I'm just not as comfortable coding with anything other than emacs. Make as many EXTENDED/META/ALT/CONTROL/SHIFT jokes as you like; emacs is still my coding environment of choice. Because my hands never have to leave the keyboard, not to debug, compile, import other files, diff them or commit them to subversion. Yeah, it takes time to learn. Boy is it worth it.
Likewise vi. Just yesterday, I was working with another silverback programmer. We were rebuilding a website containing tens of thousands of documents in hundreds of different collections. Every single document had to be recreated from source materials, which implies dozens of filters, all context-sensitive. By importing a directory listing into vi and running a few regular expressions against it, we were able to create a shell script to automate the entire build in about a minute and a half. Show me something else that can do that.
I like new interfaces. My friends all make fun of me because of my attraction to shiny. But when it comes to interfaces, I'm not so blind as to throw away my tools just because they aren't pretty enough.
Good interface designers have learned this lesson, and focus on making things simple, but no simpler than they should be. I suggest you take that advice to heart as you back away toward the gate and get the heck off my lawn.
Really? Why?
It looks like a regular Atom netbook... Why pay $700.00USD when you can get a netbook with similar specs for half that price...
Dude, it's a joke.
Litl is going to be huge. Get it? Little? Huge! Ha. Haha.
Heh....
...Okay, you're right. I totally get why you missed that.
That wasn't so much 'whoosh' as 'wha-atever'.
* As a note, I wrote our Intranet to work in all versions of IE and FireFox. I'm unsure why it doesn't work with Google Chrome but as Chrome consists of less than 1% of our Intranet traffic, it is not worth my time to debug it.
You know, I saw exactly this argument countless times in the first (late 90s) round of the web standards wars. In case you didn't get the memo: After a long, bloody and ugly war of attrition, standards won. There's a lot of mopping up still to do, but standards hold all the important ground.
Do yourself a favour and debug these problems. They may be affecting 1% of your users right now, but they point to something not right. Chrome is based on Webkit, which is also at the heart of the Safari browser. Don't wait until your CxO's new MacBook Air doesn't work on your site. Fix it now and save yourself some grief down the road.
And heck, even if you have a captive audience consisting of one browser - it'll do you some good to understand the problem regardless. Frequently bugs like these are hiding bigger bugs behind them. My definition of professionalism includes getting out ahead of problems, but YMMV.
Suppose it was possible to apply security patches without installing Windows Genuine Advantage (malware by anyone's definition except Microsoft's). Would that make a difference?
Quite likely, but Microsoft is definitely within their rights to insist that people pay for their software. You and I may find it to be unwieldy, intrusive and obnoxious, but that's our problem, not theirs.
If people don't want to deal with the mess and hassle of keeping their Windows machines clean and up to date, they have alternatives. They can pony up for a Mac or they can install Linux. Heck, if they're absolutely committed to using Windows without paying, they can run it in a snapshotted VM on Linux.
Just last week I wrote a newspaper column advocating Ubuntu Karmic over Windows 7, so I'm no fan of Windows whatsoever. But as someone who writes a fair amount of software, I fully respect Microsoft's right to license it - and enforce that license - as they see fit.
The fact that they're doing so in such a way as to drive the world away from them is just gravy, as far as I'm concerned. 8^)
I think they should have gone with Open Web Type Format.
Dude, please. If you're going to do it, do it right:
Open, Modular, Generic Web Type Format.
Getting into journalism "to do good" misses the point of journalism entirely.
Provide analysis to "do good". Be a journalist by reporting the damn facts.
I couldn't disagree more. Publishing objective truth and honest analysis is 'doing good.'
First, if you don't think truth-telling shouldn't be pursued in the spirit of public service, then what motivation would you suggest?
It takes a thick skin and a lot more motivation than simple greed to endure the grind of getting and publishing facts. The publisher of our national daily has been threatened, beaten and even briefly jailed for publishing the truth. One of his reporters was beaten so badly she miscarried. She's still on the beat. There are far safer ways of making money than that.
Second, analysis that isn't just as well-sourced and researched as straight reporting isn't worth the paper it's printed on. I'll agree that in the US there's a noticeable dearth of good analysis in print. But elsewhere in the world, that's not always the case.
For my part, I work very closely with the reporters to verify facts and events, and I have also conducted original research as well. I've been wrong on points of fact once or twice, but not very often.
Opinion is... well, opinion. I'm paid to have one. But to the extent that time and opportunity allow, it's based on a full appreciation of the facts and solid, clear reasoning. And that is the good I'm trying to do.
I didn't decide to get out of the business because my ego was bruised that I wasn't accomplishing a lofty goal - I got out of it because I moved into fields where I have been able to do some good.
Heh, interesting. Did you know that road runs both ways?
I've fallen sideways into part-time journalism because I wanted to do some good. After 4 years of work with NGOs in a developing country, I realised that some important issues just weren't getting the analysis (and attention) they deserved, so I started writing a weekly column in one of the national newspapers. It helped my work quite a bit, because whenever I had a conversation with someone, we'd have common context to work with.
Since then, I was asked to write a general purpose editorial column in the other major newspaper. So now I spend more time writing and researching than I do with my NGO work. Happily, there are others to pick up the slack.
My biggest lesson? Writing a clear, well-argued editorial is hard. But writing a clear, well argued editorial that leads people to stop me in the streets and thank me for raising the issue is incredibly rewarding. Sometimes they agree with me, sometimes they don't. I don't care about that. I just want them to think.
If my columns were ever put behind a paywall, I'd just post them on my own site for free (well, actually, I do that anyway). Limiting exposure to such material is, in my opinion, cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Artists live very much at the mercy of the elements. Throughout history, there is little correlation between wealth, popularity and achievement. In fact, many of the richest artists were actually better at being popular than being good artists. Many of the best artists were better at being artists than being popular.
It stands to reason, therefore, that creative and remunerative processes are not strongly linked. Therefore, there's little reason to get one's shorts in a knot if they don't follow similar lines on a graph.
The thing is, people don't torrent Beyonce to protest the copyright status of Richard Strauss. They just want free stuff. If the duration of copyright were revised drastically downward, people would still pirate the most current music. I'm not defending life+70 - it's patently insane (ha ha) - but let's not pretend it has any bearing on this issue.
But that's the crux of the issue: copyright is effectively meaningless to most people.
Whatever rights the artist may claim, the majority don't recognise them. If they felt some duty to pay, they would do so. But they don't. Nor do they feel that what they are doing is wrong, in spite of being told so. Sharing music appeals to the same part of human nature that gossip does - it's sharing of interesting information in order to solidify or improve one's status in a given group. It's an activity that's always been done freely, with no thought of (direct) recompense.
The whole issue of so-called piracy is based on what, to most people, is a non-sequitur: 'The artist deserves to be rewarded for their work, therefore every one of you who listens to me has to pay.' The second statement simply doesn't follow from the first assertion. Worse, the question of who gets paid (and how much) quickly becomes a morass that's interesting only to those involved.
For most people, their debt to the artist is measured in goodwill and little more. Sometimes that goodwill translates into an album purchase, a concert ticket and maybe a t-shirt, but that's incidental. One brilliant example: Bruce Springsteen walks by a busker singing one of his songs, decides to join in. Everyone is treated to a live performance. And nobody puts a penny in the hat. Not even Bruce.
I think ultimately that the entire framework of 'droits d'auteur' (author's rights) will have to be re-conceived before a renewal of the social contract between artist and audience can be considered.
Nonsense. I'm sure that B^HTuttle is a perfectly unique name and entirely worthy of our attention.
Any chance you'd do a Reddit IAMA?
My time online is generally during working hours. The prospect of having to field hundreds of questions is a little intimidating, to be honest.
But much of what I do is public in nature. I write two columns (one IT-related) for our national newspapers. They're collected on my website (see my profile). I also take a lot of photos.
If you're interested in learning still more, I'd suggest taking a membership in the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society. PICISOC is a pretty active and engaged community, and there's lots of talk about this kind of work. I'm a frequent contributor to the noise.
What is the name of the organization you work for ?
I currently work for the University of the South Pacific (no link, slashdot would kill it).
Most of the ICT4D stuff I did was through VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas). They tend to prefer people with solid industry experience and who have some exposure to cultures other than their own. They recruit throughout Europe, North America and in Kenya, Uganda, India and the Phillippines. In Canada, they recently amalgamated with CUSO. They work in dozens of countries the world over.
There are a ton of organisations seeking talented professionals to do this kind of work. It takes a little time to find the right combination, and some volunteering work is almost always required before you can start contracting your services professionally.
A few good places to start looking:
You give up a lot to do this kind of work, and you need to remember that it's never about you - it's about the people you're working with. But once you stop worrying about career and how to pay for your next Xbox, you'll find the rewards are tremendous.
For my part, just seeing the look in people's eyes when I show them what the Internet can do is enough. Watching them take your work in directions you could never have foreseen is enlightening and humbling. I wouldn't trade this life for the world.
I hit the same point about 2002. The Dot Com thing had soured and I was just tired of the whole game. I did a two year volunteering gig in the South Pacific... and never left.
It's fascinating, because a lot of the stuff I was doing when I first arrived here was the same I'd been doing 10 years before (I mean literally the same technology). Since then I've moved along and now I'm pretty much current with the kind of things I'd likely be doing back in Canada (technical manager for a local university institution). Just this week I submitted patches to a wireless network driver for the latest version of Ubuntu. So what's changed for me? Just this:
IT work in development has taken me to cities, towns and villages in Fiji, the Solomon Islands, East Timor and Vanuatu (where I now live). I'll be off to South Africa in a little over a month.
I have faced crazy demands in the past (Windows activation from a place with no networks and no telephones? Keeping the minutes for a week-long meeting in a town with no power?) I've had malaria and been hospitalised with kidney stones from dehydration. I've shared the room with rats, roaches, fire ants and geckoes. I've slept on cement and eaten more cold rice than I ever thought possible.
But I've also had breakfast in the clouds, been to the brink of volcanoes, rambled in rain forest and snorkeled in coral reefs so often that it's run-of-the-mill, dined with Ministers of state... and helped make people's lives a little more liveable.
The work is engaging, challenging and stretches one's creativity to the limit, trying to figure out how to mesh Internet technologies with cultures largely unchanged in the last 3000 years. It pays a tiny fraction of what I used to make, but the rewards are infinitely greater.
Internet, I'd guess.
Good point. I suspect that putting them on a website and letting Google work its magic might address some - but definitely not all - of the problem. After all, the really interesting literature is often the stuff you didn't know about in the first place.
A book in plain text (or even simple XML/HTML markup) is not large at all. I'm on the board of one project that's offering Internet access over HF radio to some of the most remote islands in the Pacific, and they'd be perfectly capable of sending an entire novel as an email attachment in no more than a minute or two. Once it's reached the people at the other end of the link, it can be retransmitted using the XO's built-in wifi and self-configuring mesh networking capability.
Are these books mostly written in English? And the OLPC is mainly used in developing countries? I think I see a problem here...
In the part of the world I live in (Pacific Islands), even the least educated people speak 3 or more languages as a matter of course. Some speak 5 or 6 fluently. Visitors (and many long-term residents) are regularly the subject of ridicule because they can't learn to say more than 'hello' and 'thank you', even after months or years here.
My educated colleagues and friends have a remarkable ability to pick up language and - more importantly - to grasp the nuance of even the most abstruse language.
Geography plays a big role in this, but in many developing nations, poor infrastructure and lack of travel opportunities mean that there are often dozens of languages spoken within a given country. I can say from my own experience growing up in a bilingual milieu that if you've been speaking more than one language from birth, learning a new one is pretty much as easy as learning a new sport or the rules to a new card game.
Could the internet eventually be replaced with a mesh network? Maybe because I'm in student housing right now, but without the internet, we'd probably go about setting up an Ad-Hoc network in our building, then expand that to others we want to talk to (like a cantenna to the university buildings across the way). Sure, I wouldn't be able to post on Slashdot, but I could probably scrounge up enough movies to keep playing for a couple of years. Porn on the other hand, we'd have to get creative.
Congratulations! You just re-invented FidoNet.
Vanuatu? Amazing. Do you know of anybody who believes in "John From"?
OT for this thread, but... yes, this man, for example. There are entire communities on Tanna island that take cargo culture very seriously. And to bring things back on topic (a little), here's a semi-humorous article I wrote about cargo culture and development.
Broadband access, of course. I'd imagine that narrowly edged out security, stability, access to medical care, and clean drinking water.
[I replied to this once already, but for some reason, slashdot truncated my response. Here's the full deal....]
How can you contact the police or the doctor if you don't have working comms? How can you get access to better education without distance learning? How can you advocate for better sanitation unless you have some means to contact others?
Communications is infrastructure. While it's not the only piece of the puzzle, it's a critical, fundamental one. Also, communications breeds wealth. I've been helping out a little with a national telecommunications strategy in Vanuatu, considered a Least Developed Country by the UN. In a little over a year since we implemented telecoms market liberalisation, teledensity (phones per population) has tripled. National cellular coverage has increased from about 20% of the population to nearly 80%. The government of Vanuatu estimates that this has lead to an increased in GDP of over 1%. Papua New Guinea estimates the impact for them at over 2%.
For a more comprehensive look at the correlation between improved telecoms infrastructure and economic growth, take a look at the Pacific Economic Survey for 2008. It has some very well-presented data that deals with this issue on a regional basis.
The UN report is correct, as far as it goes, but it neglects the fact that the biggest leap is from zero to one - that is, the greatest impact happens when people have any access at all to basic communications. Living as I do in a country with some of the highest Internet fees in the world (USD 55 for 128Kbps to USD 500 for 1Mbps), I've learned the hard way how to keep in touch using only a nominal Internet connection. For most people here, their only choice is GPRS mobile service available at USD 4/MB (total upload/download).
Is high cost Internet a hindrance? Unquestionably. Is it a priority? You bet your boots. This country recently faced a tsunami warning, is heading into hurricane season and has a volcano that's recently been upgraded to level 2 (no earth shattering kaboom yet, but needs watching). The only way the people close to the volcano were able to get a warning out was via HF radio to a nearby island, which relayed the warning to the national capital. Given that there's a lake in the caldera separated by only 2 metres of stone from the magma chamber, the potential for a Krakatoa-scale event is quite high. You can bet that people want to know when this vocano stirs, but communications infrastructure is so poor that the explosion/tidal wave would reach us before the warning did.
I write a weekly column about these things for a national newspaper, so I can speak with some assurance when I tell you that improving communications saves lives. In fact, where the volcano is concerned, this is an issue that affects people throughout the Pacific, from Japan and Australia to the western US and Canada.
(I'd link to my blog, but our Internet service here is so poor that it's offline right at the moment.)
We don't have huge issues with hunger here, and there's virtually no homelessness, but health and education are significant problems. Most of the development work in these two sectors is predicated on improving communications. Even economic interests admit that they need adequate comms in order to work at all. The linchpin of the National Bank of Vanuatu's rural finance scheme is a mobile phone-based finance system coupled with increased rural presence. Each new office is accompanied by its own VSAT terminal in order to function. The Bank is far-sighted enough to have signed agreements sharing that data stream with other information services in order to maximise community benefit.
To sum up: Without solid communications infrastructure, development is rendered many times more difficult than it should be. Improving access to information networks is something the entire world should be investing in, if only out of enlightened self-interest.
Broadband access, of course. I'd imagine that narrowly edged out security, stability, access to medical care, and clean drinking water.
How can you contact the doctor if you don't have working comms? How can you get access to better education without distance learning? How can you advocate for better sanitation unless you have some means to contact others?
Communications is infrastructure. While it's not the only piece of the puzzle, it's a critical, fundamental one. Also, communications breeds wealth. I've been helping out a little with a national telecommunications strategy in Vanuatu, considered a Least Developed Country by the UN. In a little over a year since we implemented telecoms market liberalisation, teledensity (phones per population) has tripled. National cellular coverage has increased from about 20% of the population to nearly 80%. The government of Vanuatu estimates that this has lead to an increased in GDP of over1%. Papua New Guinea estimates the impact for them at over 2%
The report is correct, as far as it goes, but it neglects the fact that the biggest leap is from zero to one - that is, the greatest impact
With all respect, you are completely missing the point.
The people who are at this moment buying and installing Windows 7 are mostly going to be desktop users upgrading from an earlier Windows release.
And I missed the point how? I gave 4 different scenarios, covering most use cases, including the 'average desktop'. In every case, the experience led me to conclude that a sweeping pronouncement that only fools upgrade just isn't valid.
If you need further data: Ubuntu's upgrade process is so smooth you can simply start it running in the background and continue working. After some time, the system tells you to reboot and that's that. (I generally toss the LiveCD into the machine first just to be sure my hardware's going to be properly supported after the upgrade, but I'm a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy.)
Mac OSX is reasonably easy as well. Boot the new DVD, wait a while, restart.
I then speculated that the tendency to generalise might be a result of inexperience. I was apparently wrong about that.
My point stands: Upgrades for most OSes are mostly straightforward.
And if these people **REALLY** believe that upgrading any OS in this fashion, let alone MS Windows, will end up giving them a nice clean install afterwards, then they probably shouldn't be anywhere near a computer in the first place.
You're generalising. I've had:
In fact, while I have on rare occasions found it easier to install afresh than to upgrade, that's been the exception, not the rule.
The problem is not n00bs who are naive enough not to plan their way through an upgrade. The problem is junior and intermediate geeks who think the sum of their knowledge and experience is all there is. Upgrades require care and attention and planning. Just because it's currently beyond your capacity to do it doesn't mean it can't be done.
Hmm. Perl6 is kind of tempting, although I imagine it'll only be really interesting once people port most of CPAN over to it.
From the Perl6 FAQ:
So go ahead, move on to Perl 6 and enjoy yourself.
No, it's a warning beacon advising more civilized species of interstellar travelers to keep away from from a star system inhabited by homo sapiens sapiens.
Actually, it's a banner. When we finally decipher it, we'll read, "Do Not Feed The Monkeys."
Well, actually, ".syeknoM ehT deeF toN oD" If you know what I mean.
Why not a compromise that limits the bandwidth advantage a company can give to X percent? That way they can give their own content enough of a boost to justify investing in smaller towns etc., but not enough to throw rivals into pure molasses.
I've stated this before, so I won't bother repeating myself. Here's the summary: Network Neutrality is a fundamental design principle that defines the Internet. As such, it is not negotiable.
furthermore, the internet has done exceptionally well so far without such rules. i think we're better off without them, in spite of the few incidences of filtering and blocking some providers have tried.
The Internet has done exceptionall well so far because of such rules. It blossomed where other networks (AOL, CompuServe et alia) died on the vine precisely because it is an agnostic end-to-end network by design. Recently, in response to moves to subvert these fundamental elements of the Internet, the Obama administration has decided that this set of general principles deserves to be formalised at the regulatory level. They're not proposing anything new, they're simply recognising what makes the Internet what it is.
Recently telcos have begun to realise that collusive, predatory practices serve their short-term interests better than the current open regime. The rise of Google has put the fear into them because it makes it vividly apparent that, unless they actually begin to run their businesses efficiently, someone who gets this whole Open thing is going to come along and eat their lunch.
The telcos don't fear regulation. They fear competition.