Most US voters either don't care about the U.N. at all or are positively against that corrupt clique of furriners.
Messing around with their T.V., on the other hand is something they care about very deeply. (Judging by the size of US couch potato(e)s, more than anything else.) IF the word gets out to the spuds, this is one of the few things that will motivate them to get off their butts to express their displeasure.
Which is not to say, of course, that the congresscritters won't take the gamble, if the money is right.
From TFA:
""Having your FOSS project depend on a non-free tool can be a big problem in terms of adoption."
Even worse, this makes it clear that using patent-encumbered software has a genuinely unpleasant viral effect on all your software.
The pro-patent folks will eventually realize that the best solution is to avoid ALL patent-encumbered software COMPLETELY -- and look even more skeptically at all proprietary software, too. This will have the opposite effect of what they had intended.
In partnership with the Boy and Girl Scouts of Amerika, we at McDonalds have helped create a business support merit badge that is earned in just the way you have described.
[Patent Pending on this business method].
Evolution is pretty much an obvious fact.
The THEORY of evolution is Natural Selection: The theory that tries to explain the observed fact of evolution.
And yes, even reputable scientists do not completely agree on natural selection. Other (natural) forces are also at work.
Besides, just because a theory has problems, does not mean that it is false.
It should be perfectly fine to discuss the problems with the theory of evolution (natural selection) without dragging in other, much more speculative explanations like Intelligent design.
ID does not rise to the level of an alternative theory because it is not really testable - it is truly a speculation. Worse, even if true, it means that the universe is unpredictable, because if it is God who causes every sparrow to fall, and who keeps the planets in their orbits, and who decides the results of DNA combinations, then you can predict nothing, since He may change his mind at any time. So, if you want to live in a universe that is at least a little predictable and understandable, you must ignore ID, even if you believe it to be true! At least when you are trying to breed roses, racehorses or trying to design spacecraft.
It does impose a set of costs, however. Secure software usually has barriers to access (logins, passwords, etc) is usually slower (to gain access, if nothing else), adds an additional implementation cost, and (to be truly secure) is never finished.
However..
If you get hacked, or your data goes into the black hole, or something else bad happens, then there is a much greater cost you must bear. - Sometimes THAT cost is catastrophic.
But as long as nothing ever goes wrong, and you can be certain it never will, then security is a bad thing.
Of course, sometimes, you truly don't care, or need to, in which case, security is also a bad thing.
Look at the concept of most Wikis - anybody can post anything - no security against most forms of hacking. That is the intent.
But of course, when you do care about bad things, your level of paranoia should at least greater than the level of how much you care, and not necessarily related to the level of threat, which you probably cannot estimate accurately.
Originaly intended to encourage the creation of new ideas and protect the 'little guy', patents now do the opposite.
But that is the new intention: It is like finding a hammer on the sidewalk - originally intended to construct shelters, we now see that it would make a perfect tool to bludgeon people over the head to take their money.
Basically, we've discovered a new, profitable use for an old tool!
Because fully open standards are more easily accessable (forever?), they hold their value longer. Why choose encumbered software if the unencumbered is just as good? This is true even if the cost for each is the same.
Why even spend time reading the agreement if there is an alternative that doesn't require spending that time, or consulting legal?
Proprietary's only advantage would be if it offset all of this by being MUCH less expensive.
Morality aside... Isn't this (if it actually works!) a type of denial of service attack? Those are clearly illegal. True, it is not targeting a specifically named server, but does that mean it is any less illegal because it attacks a class of machines instead of just one?
In addition to a design doc, which you may or may not need to update, depending on how I interpret your immediate task, you really should have a maintenance document.
Design Docs tell the reader how you intend to build something. In many shops (depending on the SDLC version, if any, that they use), it has little value after the design review.
As a roving consultant, I've seen a lot of crappy documents and SDLC (et.al.) procedures, and what has the greatest value for the programmers who come later is a Maintenance document that specifies:
1. The overall philosophy of the design: Why specific design choices were made.
2. What things did you want to implement (and why) but were postponed to a later version.
3. What design decisions were specifically rejected (and the reason).
4. Where are the system's weaknesses?
5. What are the coding standards specific to this particular project?
The Maintenance Doc provides guidance to the people who have to work on this stuff after you're gone (and to you, unless your memory is perfect). More than anything else, they will need to know the why of the design, not the what.
In my perfect world, the maintenance doc would be the main appendix to the design doc. However, in most shops, the SDLC & its policies & procedures will prohibit that, and usually acknowledge neither the existance nor desirability of a Software Maintenance Document. Good Luck.
Moreover, agreements must (by definition) be mutual and freely entered into.
Attempts to ram increasing quantities of junk down our throats fail on both points. They broadcast (by air or web) this stuff in hopes people will watch the ads, made more palatable by some amount of content desired by some of the viewers (& surfers). The hopes of others are not a binding contract on me.
The speed of light, "c" is a theoretical number, like e, or pi, or the cosmological constant. It probably does not exist in the real world. It is slower in the BECs mentioned in the article, slower in glass or water than in air, and slower in a gravitational field - the reasons for refraction and bending of light beams.
Since a pure vacumn, totally free of gravity may not (probably CANNOT) exist, real light never travels at c, always at some lower value.
While Choicepoint is not mentioned in
TFA, If you don't think they and their like-minded competitors are salivating on getting their hands on everyone's DNA, then you have not been paying attention.
IBM does the collection, Choicepoint could do the harvesting, it all sounds just wonderful, doesn't it?
I wonder what the going rate for Briteny Spear's DNA is?
I used to work at UPS (in the accounting office). At that time, and probably still, UPS and FedEx were required to have their rates (within the US, at least) approved by the U.S. Postal Service, which kept those rates artificially high. Not, I think, that UPS or FedEx ever object too much to that. If the Federal government were not orchistrating this scheme, it would be an illegal trust (cartel?).
From the Macromedia website:
"When Macromedia Flash content is being played, the settings you select for Flash Player are used in place of options you may have set in your browser."
Time to experiment with Firefox and see for sure if it blocks as expected..
As a consultant who takes lots of short term contracts over the last 25 years, I've seen a WIDE sampling of the industry. This number was high 25 years ago and we were promised then that more processes would reduce the number of faild projects. It has not. I agree with most posters that management is to blame almost all the time, for a variety of reasons. A process-based shop typically adopts processes so they can: 1. Add lots of billable documentation specialists, 2. Avoid responsibilty for bad decisions by pointing out: But we're CMM Level 3!
I've seen the highest success rates at shops that are results-focused rather than process-focused, where CMM & its allies are used as a subset of many tools rather than as sacred cows worshiped in their own right. The very highest successes I've seen had almost none of these processes beyond version control and coding standards, but that may have been because the teams involved where way above average. And that is the delemma: Without good decisions & people, these processes won't help, and with the good decisions & the best people, they are not needed as much.
There is strong evidence that the Minoan clay tablets represent the temporary, "scratch-pad" records of that civilization. No other written records have been found (I'm not counting the Phaistos disk). This raises the obvious speculation that they may have put their permanent records on papyrus, which was available to them as an import item. The clay tablets survived thanks to burning, but the papyrus (if it was used) may have gone up in smoke.
Stone - lasts about a million years.
Clay - 100 years - (10,000 years if burned!!)
Parchment/Vellum - 1000 years unless eaten by bugs.
Papyrus/Paper - 500 years, MUCH longer if kept dry.
Acidic Paper - 100 years or less.
Notice the trend - it is NOT toward longer-lived media. Volitility seems to trump Archivability every time, and possibly for different reasons in each age.
Slashdot Mirror
Messing around with their T.V., on the other hand is something they care about very deeply. (Judging by the size of US couch potato(e)s, more than anything else.)
IF the word gets out to the spuds, this is one of the few things that will motivate them to get off their butts to express their displeasure.
Which is not to say, of course, that the congresscritters won't take the gamble, if the money is right.
Bread and Circuses!
Even worse, this makes it clear that using patent-encumbered software has a genuinely unpleasant viral effect on all your software.
The pro-patent folks will eventually realize that the best solution is to avoid ALL patent-encumbered software COMPLETELY -- and look even more skeptically at all proprietary software, too. This will have the opposite effect of what they had intended.
The second requirement to be in the US Congress is Cowardice. The first is a tie with Ambition, Arrogance, and greed.
In partnership with the Boy and Girl Scouts of Amerika, we at McDonalds have helped create a business support merit badge that is earned in just the way you have described.
[Patent Pending on this business method].
The THEORY of evolution is Natural Selection: The theory that tries to explain the observed fact of evolution.
And yes, even reputable scientists do not completely agree on natural selection. Other (natural) forces are also at work.
Besides, just because a theory has problems, does not mean that it is false.
It should be perfectly fine to discuss the problems with the theory of evolution (natural selection) without dragging in other, much more speculative explanations like Intelligent design.
ID does not rise to the level of an alternative theory because it is not really testable - it is truly a speculation. Worse, even if true, it means that the universe is unpredictable, because if it is God who causes every sparrow to fall, and who keeps the planets in their orbits, and who decides the results of DNA combinations, then you can predict nothing, since He may change his mind at any time.
So, if you want to live in a universe that is at least a little predictable and understandable, you must ignore ID, even if you believe it to be true! At least when you are trying to breed roses, racehorses or trying to design spacecraft.
It does impose a set of costs, however. Secure software usually has barriers to access (logins, passwords, etc) is usually slower (to gain access, if nothing else), adds an additional implementation cost, and (to be truly secure) is never finished.
However..
If you get hacked, or your data goes into the black hole, or something else bad happens, then there is a much greater cost you must bear. - Sometimes THAT cost is catastrophic.
But as long as nothing ever goes wrong, and you can be certain it never will, then security is a bad thing.
Of course, sometimes, you truly don't care, or need to, in which case, security is also a bad thing.
Look at the concept of most Wikis - anybody can post anything - no security against most forms of hacking. That is the intent.
But of course, when you do care about bad things, your level of paranoia should at least greater than the level of how much you care, and not necessarily related to the level of threat, which you probably cannot estimate accurately.
But that is the new intention: It is like finding a hammer on the sidewalk - originally intended to construct shelters, we now see that it would make a perfect tool to bludgeon people over the head to take their money.
Basically, we've discovered a new, profitable use for an old tool!
But who gets to tax this new economy? Sony(the host provider), Japan(shelters sony), USA(has the nukes), New York City(because they want to)??
While this has been modded 'Funny', I'm not sure it shouldn't be labled 'Insightful' or better yet:
Why don't we have a 'Prophetic' mod?
Why even spend time reading the agreement if there is an alternative that doesn't require spending that time, or consulting legal?
Proprietary's only advantage would be if it offset all of this by being MUCH less expensive.
Morality aside...
Isn't this (if it actually works!) a type of denial of service attack? Those are clearly illegal. True, it is not targeting a specifically named server, but does that mean it is any less illegal because it attacks a class of machines instead of just one?
Design Docs tell the reader how you intend to build something. In many shops (depending on the SDLC version, if any, that they use), it has little value after the design review.
As a roving consultant, I've seen a lot of crappy documents and SDLC (et.al.) procedures, and what has the greatest value for the programmers who come later is a Maintenance document that specifies:
1. The overall philosophy of the design: Why specific design choices were made.
2. What things did you want to implement (and why) but were postponed to a later version.
3. What design decisions were specifically rejected (and the reason).
4. Where are the system's weaknesses?
5. What are the coding standards specific to this particular project?
The Maintenance Doc provides guidance to the people who have to work on this stuff after you're gone (and to you, unless your memory is perfect). More than anything else, they will need to know the why of the design, not the what.
In my perfect world, the maintenance doc would be the main appendix to the design doc.
However, in most shops, the SDLC & its policies & procedures will prohibit that, and usually acknowledge neither the existance nor desirability of a Software Maintenance Document.
Good Luck.
I never agreed to read all their crap.
Moreover, agreements must (by definition) be mutual and freely entered into.
Attempts to ram increasing quantities of junk down our throats fail on both points. They broadcast (by air or web) this stuff in hopes people will watch the ads, made more palatable by some amount of content desired by some of the viewers (& surfers). The hopes of others are not a binding contract on me.
The speed of light, "c" is a theoretical number, like e, or pi, or the cosmological constant. It probably does not exist in the real world. It is slower in the BECs mentioned in the article, slower in glass or water than in air, and slower in a gravitational field - the reasons for refraction and bending of light beams.
Since a pure vacumn, totally free of gravity may not (probably CANNOT) exist, real light never travels at c, always at some lower value.
...are not salivating...
Must remember... PREVIEW!
So, will IBM own my DNA, If I send mine in?
While Choicepoint is not mentioned in TFA, If you don't think they and their like-minded competitors are salivating on getting their hands on everyone's DNA, then you have not been paying attention.
IBM does the collection, Choicepoint could do the harvesting, it all sounds just wonderful, doesn't it?
I wonder what the going rate for Briteny Spear's DNA is?
i think the sour grapes was sarcasm
/ 255.htmhttp://www.mythfolklore.net/aesopica/oxford /255.htm>
You are right, of course.
I sometimes think it's a pity we don't have a widely-recognized emoticon to spell out things like sarcasm.
But that would defeat the whole purpose, wouldn't it?
If anyone cares, here is the origin of the "sour grapes" reference:
ahref=http://www.mythfolklore.net/aesopica/oxford
We americans are better suited for the higher-level jobs in IT. Mere coding can be done by anyone. We didn't WANT to win this contest or those grapes.
I used to work at UPS (in the accounting office). At that time, and probably still, UPS and FedEx were required to have their rates (within the US, at least) approved by the U.S. Postal Service, which kept those rates artificially high.
Not, I think, that UPS or FedEx ever object too much to that.
If the Federal government were not orchistrating this scheme, it would be an illegal trust (cartel?).
DRRM = Digital Right to Restrict Management
I'll define it:
If you do something I don't do, you are perverted.
If you do something I do, you are normal.
Since most people measure themselves with their own yardstick, most people are normal.
It's the rest of the world that's sick.
From the Macromedia website: "When Macromedia Flash content is being played, the settings you select for Flash Player are used in place of options you may have set in your browser."
Time to experiment with Firefox and see for sure if it blocks as expected..
As a consultant who takes lots of short term contracts over the last 25 years, I've seen a WIDE sampling of the industry.
This number was high 25 years ago and we were promised then that more processes would reduce the number of faild projects.
It has not.
I agree with most posters that management is to blame almost all the time, for a variety of reasons.
A process-based shop typically adopts processes so they can:
1. Add lots of billable documentation specialists,
2. Avoid responsibilty for bad decisions by pointing out: But we're CMM Level 3!
I've seen the highest success rates at shops that are results-focused rather than process-focused, where CMM & its allies are used as a subset of many tools rather than as sacred cows worshiped in their own right. The very highest successes I've seen had almost none of these processes beyond version control and coding standards, but that may have been because the teams involved where way above average.
And that is the delemma: Without good decisions & people, these processes won't help, and with the good decisions & the best people, they are not needed as much.
There is strong evidence that the Minoan clay tablets represent the temporary, "scratch-pad" records of that civilization. No other written records have been found (I'm not counting the Phaistos disk). This raises the obvious speculation that they may have put their permanent records on papyrus, which was available to them as an import item. The clay tablets survived thanks to burning, but the papyrus (if it was used) may have gone up in smoke.
Stone - lasts about a million years. Clay - 100 years - (10,000 years if burned!!) Parchment/Vellum - 1000 years unless eaten by bugs. Papyrus/Paper - 500 years, MUCH longer if kept dry. Acidic Paper - 100 years or less. Notice the trend - it is NOT toward longer-lived media. Volitility seems to trump Archivability every time, and possibly for different reasons in each age.