That argument makes sense in primary and secondary schools, where children are being taught. For the most part in college (at least in the US, where this law school is), adults are paying to be taught. As long as they don't get in anyone else's way (that is, disrupt the environment for others), it's their own business.
If the timetable for that school is anything like others, she made a major change to the class in the middle of a semester, meaning that students currently in the class can't just switch to another teacher or drop the class and get a refund. If I were a student of hers, I'd certainly be upset about that (and worried that she'd do it over something else). If some of these students had known from the beginning she wasn't going to allow laptops, would they have still taken the class?
As for whether it was a good idea to ban the laptops...I think by the time someone's in college, it's their responsibility to take care of themselves. Let them do what they think works for them, as long as it doesn't bother anyone else. Professors all have their quirks, though, and they can generally be tolerated and worked around.
If someone is deciding which project to donate to, and there are several which they've found useful, the attitude of the communities involved and their spokesmen WILL affect which one gets the money.
Then why do most other major F/OSS communities NOT have this problem?
The reason this is happening to OpenBSD isn't because they're relying on donations and support money...It's because many of the prominent members of their community have alienated those who would otherwise be willing to shell out cash. Bad salesmanship will kill businesses and organizations alike.
There are people who don't use them, and they usually aren't "idiots". They're generally part-time or former IE users who switched for security reasons, not ease-of-use, and treat the interface the same way they treated IE's.
A friend of mine who is fairly computer literate and uses (the official) Netscape didn't know it had tabs until I showed him a few days ago.
The "people who have a large investment in ActiveX" don't take up 75% of IE's userbase. The people who don't have an inclination to look for or don't know about anything else do. I never called them "lazy" or "uneducated".
Saying I "want everyone to be like me" doesn't even make sense given the original post. Did you get to the second paragraph before you knee-jerked?
I don't think the parent post is flamebait, though I think he's missing something.
What you're talking about is what takes place between F/OSS projects working on the same thing; each takes ideas from the others while coming up with its own ideas, which may be copied.
Sometimes it happens in battles between commercial products, but often each starts implementing things differently for the sole purpose of breaking compatibility with the other. The result is documents, pages, et cetera that will only work with one company's product. There's no progress there.
I don't know about a bright future, but it's not going away any time soon. I'm not sure how massive a screw-up it would take for IE to lose its largest customer base - the people who can't be bothered to look for anything else or don't know anything else exists.
As long as the Gecko crowd and Opera manage to hold on to enough marketshare to force web developers to use REAL standards instead of Microsoft's so that my browser of choice works, I'll be content.
There's a communications company in Georgia called SITA that uses them. Coffee cups with the "Unisys" logo on them turn up in garage sales and thrift stores a lot around here.
Not exactly. It just requires one that's "good enough for the task", that more technicians have been trained on, and that has enough mindshare for Whoever's In Charge to jump at it.
Microsoft's strategy has never been to be the best, or even to "not suck". They fight for hearts and minds.
Remember the line from Pirates of Silicon Valley? Jobs: "We have better stuff!" Gates: "It doesn't matter."
I know that NetBSD will run on many Macs, though not the older ones with NuBus (ie, my 7100/80). I doubt many people (if any) have tried to get Solaris running on one.
I'm not sure why you'd need or want to boot either on a laptop, unless you're one of the OS developers or have a job with very special requirements. That said, I wouldn't judge anyone for trying just because it's there.;)
He was trying to be funny. I think the last part was meant to be interpreted as a faux-shocked voice (eg, some of them don't even have web access on their cell phones!).
Seriously though, a lot of new technology isn't worth the amount of cash you have to fork over if you want it. I never even bothered to get an LCD screen (much less a plasma) because I don't see enough of an improvemnt over a decent CRT to justify the increased cost....Especially since after LCDs came out, you can pick up a good CRT for ten bucks at a flea market, thrift store, etc.
Am I supposed to turn pale and say "Oh, that's completely different!" or something?
I'd say that it's their own business in both cases. I guess it sucks for their kids, but it's worth it to avoid a situation where the government forces "progress" on everyone, regardless of whether or not they want it.
Well, this isn't an American company, though Taiwan relies very heavily on the US. It would probably be easier for the RIAA to lobby to make them illegal in the US than it would be for them to pursue a foreign company. I think they'll have to just deal with it in this case.
"Is this simply a combination of luddites and a statistical quirk, or is the Internet reaching its saturation point in the U.S.?"
Maybe it's reached its saturation point because of those "luddites"? There are plenty of people who live as comfortably as they wish without the Internet and have no desire to get it, and those people aren't going to die out for a few decades. Spend some time in Oklahoma or Arkansas.
I kinda wonder why this is supposed to matter. Anyone (with VERY few exceptions) who wants Internet access can get it, either at home or at a library. Just because a few people don't want it doesn't mean the nation's going to fall back to the stone age. I'd concentrate on expanding broadband to more suburbian and rural areas, myself.
"Do you think corporal punishment and rape is an appropriate punishment for a non-violent crime or not?"
I don't see anything wrong with corporal punishment that doesn't have a long-term effect. For a teenager, a mild beating that leaves him bruised is almost certainly LESS damaging than jail-time. Note that this stops a good bit short of maiming, flogging, et cetera. It used to be that parents would do this, but it's becoming rare now, especially in Europe and more Leftist US states.
I don't like the fact that rape is used as a deterrent. That's basically the prison system finding a way around the "cruel and unusual punishment" provision by turning a blind eye. It's also a good way to drive someone absolutely insane so that they turn to more brutal crimes themselves.
That has nothing to do with what he said. He didn't say the thief would be in the right. He said he'd be hard-put to feel sympathy for someone who didn't even take basic security measures.
If someone walks through a bad area of town wearing jewelry in the middle of the night and gets mugged, I'll still think the criminal should be captured and convicted, but I won't shed any tears for the victim. If another person walked through the same area of town at 7 PM showing nothing valuable, and got mugged, I'd be more sympathetic.
One of the biggest defenses for allowing the sharing of exploit code is that security experts have to be able to share it and communicate about it in order to do what they do, either professionally or as hobbyists. There's no way to prohibit open sharing of exploit code without crippling security forums, newslists, et cetera.
Of course, if the person sharing it is also encouraging its misuse, there's already a law for dealing with them.
"(Identity) theft has increased by 500% since 1999 and now costs the UK economy £1.3bn a year, forcing defences against this crime to evolve rapidly."
"If, as noted in another post [slashdot.org], only 10% of this crime is attributed to on-line activities, then we're talking a paltry £1.3 million a year. "
You might want to check that again. Ten percent of 1.3 billion would be 130 million, not 1.3 million. That's big enough to warrant attention.
Having said that, most identity theft could be prevented by common-sense measures on the part of both customers and stores, banks, et cetera.
Close to 100% of desktops will play.mpgs, and they'll work on all major platforms with ease. You don't have to use "non-standard" codecs.
The fact that it was a Linux-related event makes it even more ridiculous that they'd choose.wmv...It's like having an alternative browser site that won't render in Firefox unless you tweak thirty options.
I know you were joking, but that's actually a good point. The worse the sentence someone's going to get, the less that person has to lose by commiting further crimes.
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That argument makes sense in primary and secondary schools, where children are being taught. For the most part in college (at least in the US, where this law school is), adults are paying to be taught. As long as they don't get in anyone else's way (that is, disrupt the environment for others), it's their own business.
If the timetable for that school is anything like others, she made a major change to the class in the middle of a semester, meaning that students currently in the class can't just switch to another teacher or drop the class and get a refund. If I were a student of hers, I'd certainly be upset about that (and worried that she'd do it over something else). If some of these students had known from the beginning she wasn't going to allow laptops, would they have still taken the class?
As for whether it was a good idea to ban the laptops...I think by the time someone's in college, it's their responsibility to take care of themselves. Let them do what they think works for them, as long as it doesn't bother anyone else. Professors all have their quirks, though, and they can generally be tolerated and worked around.
If someone is deciding which project to donate to, and there are several which they've found useful, the attitude of the communities involved and their spokesmen WILL affect which one gets the money.
Then why do most other major F/OSS communities NOT have this problem?
The reason this is happening to OpenBSD isn't because they're relying on donations and support money...It's because many of the prominent members of their community have alienated those who would otherwise be willing to shell out cash. Bad salesmanship will kill businesses and organizations alike.
There are people who don't use them, and they usually aren't "idiots". They're generally part-time or former IE users who switched for security reasons, not ease-of-use, and treat the interface the same way they treated IE's.
A friend of mine who is fairly computer literate and uses (the official) Netscape didn't know it had tabs until I showed him a few days ago.
The "people who have a large investment in ActiveX" don't take up 75% of IE's userbase. The people who don't have an inclination to look for or don't know about anything else do. I never called them "lazy" or "uneducated".
Saying I "want everyone to be like me" doesn't even make sense given the original post. Did you get to the second paragraph before you knee-jerked?
I don't think the parent post is flamebait, though I think he's missing something.
What you're talking about is what takes place between F/OSS projects working on the same thing; each takes ideas from the others while coming up with its own ideas, which may be copied.
Sometimes it happens in battles between commercial products, but often each starts implementing things differently for the sole purpose of breaking compatibility with the other. The result is documents, pages, et cetera that will only work with one company's product. There's no progress there.
I don't know about a bright future, but it's not going away any time soon. I'm not sure how massive a screw-up it would take for IE to lose its largest customer base - the people who can't be bothered to look for anything else or don't know anything else exists.
As long as the Gecko crowd and Opera manage to hold on to enough marketshare to force web developers to use REAL standards instead of Microsoft's so that my browser of choice works, I'll be content.
There's a communications company in Georgia called SITA that uses them. Coffee cups with the "Unisys" logo on them turn up in garage sales and thrift stores a lot around here.
Not exactly. It just requires one that's "good enough for the task", that more technicians have been trained on, and that has enough mindshare for Whoever's In Charge to jump at it.
Microsoft's strategy has never been to be the best, or even to "not suck". They fight for hearts and minds.
Remember the line from Pirates of Silicon Valley?
Jobs: "We have better stuff!"
Gates: "It doesn't matter."
20 billion, actually. The proportion's about what I'd expect.
I know that NetBSD will run on many Macs, though not the older ones with NuBus (ie, my 7100/80). I doubt many people (if any) have tried to get Solaris running on one.
;)
I'm not sure why you'd need or want to boot either on a laptop, unless you're one of the OS developers or have a job with very special requirements. That said, I wouldn't judge anyone for trying just because it's there.
He was trying to be funny. I think the last part was meant to be interpreted as a faux-shocked voice (eg, some of them don't even have web access on their cell phones!).
...Especially since after LCDs came out, you can pick up a good CRT for ten bucks at a flea market, thrift store, etc.
Seriously though, a lot of new technology isn't worth the amount of cash you have to fork over if you want it. I never even bothered to get an LCD screen (much less a plasma) because I don't see enough of an improvemnt over a decent CRT to justify the increased cost.
Am I supposed to turn pale and say "Oh, that's completely different!" or something?
I'd say that it's their own business in both cases. I guess it sucks for their kids, but it's worth it to avoid a situation where the government forces "progress" on everyone, regardless of whether or not they want it.
Well, this isn't an American company, though Taiwan relies very heavily on the US. It would probably be easier for the RIAA to lobby to make them illegal in the US than it would be for them to pursue a foreign company. I think they'll have to just deal with it in this case.
"Is this simply a combination of luddites and a statistical quirk, or is the Internet reaching its saturation point in the U.S.?"
Maybe it's reached its saturation point because of those "luddites"? There are plenty of people who live as comfortably as they wish without the Internet and have no desire to get it, and those people aren't going to die out for a few decades. Spend some time in Oklahoma or Arkansas.
I kinda wonder why this is supposed to matter. Anyone (with VERY few exceptions) who wants Internet access can get it, either at home or at a library. Just because a few people don't want it doesn't mean the nation's going to fall back to the stone age. I'd concentrate on expanding broadband to more suburbian and rural areas, myself.
I think you're a bit confused. Algorithms ARE what's being patented by "software patents". Full applications are already covered by copyright law.
Yes, RMS hits a long fly to left field, but his arguments on this issue are pretty solid.
Because non-scientists read scientific articles, too, out of curiosity.
Jackassed elitism makes the wedge between literati and laymen worse. Just say no.
I'm not the GP, but:
"Do you think corporal punishment and rape is an appropriate punishment for a non-violent crime or not?"
I don't see anything wrong with corporal punishment that doesn't have a long-term effect. For a teenager, a mild beating that leaves him bruised is almost certainly LESS damaging than jail-time. Note that this stops a good bit short of maiming, flogging, et cetera. It used to be that parents would do this, but it's becoming rare now, especially in Europe and more Leftist US states.
I don't like the fact that rape is used as a deterrent. That's basically the prison system finding a way around the "cruel and unusual punishment" provision by turning a blind eye. It's also a good way to drive someone absolutely insane so that they turn to more brutal crimes themselves.
That has nothing to do with what he said. He didn't say the thief would be in the right. He said he'd be hard-put to feel sympathy for someone who didn't even take basic security measures.
If someone walks through a bad area of town wearing jewelry in the middle of the night and gets mugged, I'll still think the criminal should be captured and convicted, but I won't shed any tears for the victim. If another person walked through the same area of town at 7 PM showing nothing valuable, and got mugged, I'd be more sympathetic.
One of the biggest defenses for allowing the sharing of exploit code is that security experts have to be able to share it and communicate about it in order to do what they do, either professionally or as hobbyists. There's no way to prohibit open sharing of exploit code without crippling security forums, newslists, et cetera.
Of course, if the person sharing it is also encouraging its misuse, there's already a law for dealing with them.
"(Identity) theft has increased by 500% since 1999 and now costs the UK economy £1.3bn a year, forcing defences against this crime to evolve rapidly."
"If, as noted in another post [slashdot.org], only 10% of this crime is attributed to on-line activities, then we're talking a paltry £1.3 million a year. "
You might want to check that again. Ten percent of 1.3 billion would be 130 million, not 1.3 million. That's big enough to warrant attention.
Having said that, most identity theft could be prevented by common-sense measures on the part of both customers and stores, banks, et cetera.
Close to 100% of desktops will play .mpgs, and they'll work on all major platforms with ease. You don't have to use "non-standard" codecs.
.wmv...It's like having an alternative browser site that won't render in Firefox unless you tweak thirty options.
The fact that it was a Linux-related event makes it even more ridiculous that they'd choose
1. Some females play video games. We've gotten that for YEARS; it's about as revolutionary at this point as minorities going to college.
2. Disliking "sophmoric humor" in games isn't a "female" thing. It's an "I'm-not-twelve" thing.
I know you were joking, but that's actually a good point. The worse the sentence someone's going to get, the less that person has to lose by commiting further crimes.