The OLPC is never only about getting technology to children, at least that's not what I heard when it started. It was about building up the poorer nations with education and technology, not just "get the technology in the hands of as many children as possible."
It was a mission to improve these nations and communities by making them competitive and independent.
I guess Microsoft's billions can corrupt anything they want. It's now just about building markets for Windows.
Rated at 5000 watts ~~ 50amp peak, that should run your house.
The question is if the $1~$2 biodiesel running a generator is cheaper than buying electricity. Remember, also, you can feed back into the grid and reduce your electric bill.
Pretty much anything that can be done in Java can be done in PHP5. The problem with PHP is that most of the literature on PHP is written in PHP3 style, which is utterly 1997, predates.NET and is chronologically equivalent to Java 1.1
With PHP 4.3 and higher, you can do your OO programming and wrap your objects into classes, however most PHP books treat OO and classes as if they were radioactive. Blame the authors of many PHP books for being stuck in the PHP3 mindset and passing on bad/archaic programming and design techniques.
Is it a rule on Slashdot that if you disagree with someone you have to automatically assume they do not know what they are talking about or know less than you?
AFAIK, my account on PHP.net still has commit access. I have written several PHP extensions, one of which is being used at a MAJOR internet service provider.
I "know" PHP well and I still stand by my opinion.
Your karma-blow would be more useful if you'd say what you think is better...
Then it wouldn't be a troll now would it?
Seriously, OK. What is a "better" language? Its hard to say exactly. For web sites, there is a subtle difference between the need for mere "scripting" on top of a database (like a CMS or something) and more extensive software development.
I guess, PHP is good enough for scripting and Java useful for more extensive development (as a rule of thumb, not a law), but don't ignore the utility of C/C++ for back end service system like databases, search, and recommendations systems. I don't see the value of adding a perl or python if you are already using one interpretive system. (Yes, java is "interpretive" and no, I'm not going to debate "if you run it like..." arguments.)
Answers to complex questions are difficult to make simple and clear cut. There is a lot of common sense in the notion of using the right tool for the job, but many people use personal preference over a dry technical evaluation of the requirements. There are also some tools that are "better" in quality than other irrespective of the job, for instance MySQL vs PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL is better.
(And yes, on Slashdot showing a preference, say for PostgreSQL over MySQL, marks you as a troll, but there are technical reasons to use PostgreSQL over MySQL while the converse is hardly true. So flame away and mod me down, like I said, I expect to be seen as a troll.)
IBM is somewhat different, as they did business with MicroSoft before it was "Microsoft." The dirty dealings and underhanded crap that BillG and company did caused IBM to pull away,
Sure, IBM does "business" with Microsoft, but their relation AFAIK is of a standard OEM/ISV. I think OS/2 gave IBM a taste for what is involved with being a Microsoft "partner."
Being a Microsoft "Partner" is akin to playing "cowboy" and always being the horse.
people seem to think that even trying to work with MS in any shape or form is a pact with Satan himself.
I would like to see an example where a "big" company did business with Microsoft and did not end up selling out or going out of business. Even DEC caved into Microsoft,
In a trial, with a jury, they are introducing their opinions as testimony. Even though the facts have been proved this theory to be wrong, this is EXACTLY what they have been waiting for.
Linux and UNIX are very similar. Just as a Toyota is similar to a Ford, 4 wheels, gas powered motor, disk brakes, etc. Hell take a tundra and an F-150 and put them side by side. Besides aesthetic differences, explain to me how one is "clearly" different than the other. Using SCO's logic, the Tundra contains a Ford.
They will use the similarities to confuse the jury who have no clue about the history of "*NIX* beginning with Multics. I certainly hope Novell is ready.
PARANOID FEAR: Novell is working with SCO to establish in a court of law, by losing, that Linux is the property of Novell.
I am suspicious of RIAA, not because of Music, but because the things they are pushing for only tangentially have anything to do with Music.
RIAA is supposed to be a watchdog for a "for profit" business/industry. OK, but all studies conclude that file sharers buy music more than those who do not. File sharing is the new way for people to discover new music. Its replacing the radio. Nothing RIAA is doing is actually helping the industry for which it is supposed to be working.
If one were to don their tin-foil hat, and look at a broader view, the motives of RIAA andd MPIAA.
It looks to me, more than protecting music or movies, the *IAAs are more politically motivated to disrupt the democratization of communication. Never before in human history has the ability to share and disseminate information been as easy and accessible. Almost anyone with access to a computer can share information with anyone else with a computer.
The politics of "real" democracy where corporations and governments can't control who says what to whom or what dirty secret is made public is terrifying to the powers that be. RIAA, MPIAA, et. al are making what can only be a desperate fictitious but plausible argument in an effort to shut down the internet. Comcast, in a similar vein, wants it to be more like cable TV where we pay to "read" the wire, and entities pay to "write" to the wire.
*IAA, politicians, and corporate america HATE the best part of the internet. They want it to be a controlled delivery system, not a free conduit of communication.
OK, to understand why this is wrong, you need to accept some facts.
(1) Microsoft illegally maintains their monopoly on P.C. type commodity computers.
awe, fuck it. I can't write this one more time. Listen, if you have to ask the question it is most possible that the answer won't do you any good.
Secondly, if you have to ask the question, it is quite likely that you do not take responsibility for your opinions and treat the things you say with the same level of care that would be used by a parrot.
Way back in the old DOS 2.x/3.x when batch file programming was at best a joke and command.com only had 128 bytes (if I recall correctly) of environment space, I wrote my first "open source" program called "batch basic." The code has been long lost and may exist on a 1.2M floppy (or even a 360K floppy). It was a basic interpreter that could be used to script DOS.
Few ATX type computers being produced have a real "power" switch. They have a function button that tells the computer to shut it self mostly down, but power continues to be fed to the system even after shutdown. Even the shutdown is a voluntary step.
The very fact that you can hold down the power function button (for around 10 or 15 seconds) and that will initiate a BIOS function to shut down the system means that BIOS code *can* take over if the system is designed to do so.
My scenario of a system which is not properly initialized by a host OS which causes a reset into a BIOS function to obtain an "approved" OS from the internet (Or obtain a bootstrap loader first) is perfectly reasonable as "netboot" machines are quite common.
This is an interesting development and one which does slightly worry me.
I don't believe in real machine intelligence just yet, but a device that can re-assemble itself after being dis-assembled is a horrible idea.
First it was the "power switch," most computers don't have a power switch. You have to physically unplug them to be sure. Now, they'll put themselves back together, after you take them apart.
Imagine this in the hands of Microsoft, perhaps a computer will re-install Windows after you've installed Linux? (Functionality in the BIOS of course, BIOS code notices Windows has not called the deadman API recently after power-up. BIOS takes over, DHCP the ethernet card, nuke the hard disk and re-install Windows from the net.)
Leave a room of happy Linux machines, return with a miserable set of windows boxes.
Years ago before you could see anything you could imagine googling for, young kids got their porn pictures from National Geographic where tribal womam had breasts exposed or more.
The problem with "titillation" is that, more than subjective, it ignores context. I wrote a "porn filter" for an internet search site 10 years ago, and while I was looking at all sorts of porn, I was not "titillated." I was studying the language, canonical terms, and word usage to create a proper filter.
I posted Tom Lehrer's "smut" earlier, but I think my point was missed. Specifically, the paragraph where it goes: "For filth is in the mind of the beholder, when correctly viewed, everything is lewd, I can tell you things about Peter Pan, and the wizard of Oz is a dirty old man."
"Titillation" can be anything from pictures of women in police uniforms, hell, some people get their rocks off by looking at pictures of women's feet. I don't understand it, but it is true.
Censorship, throughout history, has never had much success in suppressing that which had been targeted. It has, however, been quite successful in suppressing those that disseminate information. and creating an environment of fear.
"I do have a cause, though, it is obscenity. I'm for it! (laughter) Thank you. Unfortunately, the civil liberties types who are fighting this issue have to fight it, owing to the nature of the laws, as a matter of freedom of speech and stifling of free expression and so on. But we know what's really involved: dirty books are fun! That's all there is to it. But you can't get up in a court and say that, I suppose. It's simply a matter of freedom of pleasure, a right which is not guaranteed by the Constitution, unfortunately. Anyway, since people seem to be marching for their causes these days, I have here a march for mine. It's called:"
Smut! Give me smut and nothing but! A dirty novel I can't shut If it's uncut and unsubt-le.
I've never quibbled If it was ribald. I would devour Where others merely nibbled. As the judge remarked the day that he acquitted my Aunt Hortense, "To be smut It must be ut- Terly without redeeming social importance."
Por- Nographic pictures I adore. Indecent magazines galore, I like them more If they're hard core.
Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties, samplers, stained glass windows, tattoos, anything! More, more, I'm still not satisfied!
Stories of tortures Used by debauchers Lurid, licentious and vile, Make me smile. Novels that pander To my taste for candor Give me a pleasure sublime. Let's face it I love slime!
Old books can be indecent books, Though recent books are bolder. For filth, I'm glad to say, Is in the mind of the beholder. When correctly viewed, Everything is lewd. I could tell you things about Peter Pan And the Wizard of Oz - there's a dirty old man!
I thrill To any book like Fanny Hill, And I suppose I always will If it is swill And really fil-thy.
Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately? I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley. But now they're trying to take it all away from us unless We take a stand, and hand in hand we fight for freedom of the press. In other words: Smut! I love it. Ah, the adventures of a slut. Oh, I'm a market they can't glut. I don't know what Compares with smut. Hip, hip, hooray! Let's hear it for the Supreme Court! Don't let them take it away!
Let me preface my comments by saying I develop open source software and I write and manage software for a living.
One of the problems with "open source" software is that there is no consensus about the direction of a project. The developer of a feature has more or less 100% control over how that feature gets developed and exposed to the users. When you make suggestions or offer up patches, even ones which do not break old behavior and only augment with additional behavior, the developer can reject or accept based only on their personal opinions.
90% of the time this is probably best, but there are times when developers don't like additional features, for what ever reasons, and refuse to even consider or discuss it. Saying it isn't necessary or "what" you want to accomplish can be done another way even though it may be more difficult or not exactly what you are asking for. I had some similar issues with many projects, including PHP and PostgreSQL.
In the proprietary world, projects and features are typically managed by people somewhat removed from the implementation. Not always of course, but usually. This leads to a disconnection of the "product" from the "source." Therefor, the make up of the product and features is not based on how the code operates or is developed. That's OK because the developers get paid.
In the "open source" world, there is no such separation. There is no arbitration of suggested features. The developers tend to see suggestions or disagreements as somehow impugning their work.
I expect that people will misinterpret what you mean by shun, or maybe I am.
No you understand it correctly, but you are carrying it a bit further than I had originally envisioned. I am liking your take, but mine was simply about paying them for service, i.e. don't buy products or services from unethical vendors.
I am so sick and tired of this crap. It is nothing less than a republican smear campaign against Al Gore that has been parroted by the puppet media and it has gone on too f*&^king long.
Al Gore never said he "invented" the internet, but he was instrumental in taking Darpa net public as the internet through legislation and the ability to articulate the vision.
So, without Al Gore, Tim Berners-Lee would not have had the foundation on which to build the web.
Al Gore did not "invent" the internet, but it was his persuasion and legislative skills that made it happen. Give the guy a break, he has done some great things and don't let the bogus lies continue to smear him. Take responsibility for your opinions.
Spamming would continue to occur despite any amount of "shunning". It just generates large amounts of revenue for the spammers.
If they were shunned by business, then it could not generate large amounts of revenue. Which is the point of my post.
Ethics are not considered anymore, people don't even care. We applaud the balls it takes to do the most obviously unethical deeds in public, and not say to the effect: "I can't do business with you, my reputation is too important."
That is why spam is profitable. That is why OOXML is an ISO standard. And so it goes.
We need a strong societal repudiation of the violation of ethics. Organizations like Microsoft, SCO, and the like and people like Bill Gates, Darl McBride, etc. need to be made pariahs for the shameless unethical and illegal behavior.
"Spamming" is unethical. The only reason why it is done is because their unethical behavior is not shunned.
yes, very basic. Can you think of anything that isn't done in some other industry a million times? I can't, but maybe I can't see the trees from the forest.
Not knowing their design, there are or should be, some basic transactional techniques that should be used. Some basic techniques for securing the GUI. Stuff like that, not rocket science, of course, but not all 100% trivial.
While there is a whole chorus of people saying "how hard can it be?" Being a very experienced software engineer, I can see some basic issues that need to be handled, but come on now.
It can't add. Think about that. It can't add. I'm not even talking about 876876 + 98895. I'm talking about N=N+1. I suspect that it is a reliance on Microsoft Access or Foxpro database engines by a software engineer with little real database experience.
The problem is so easy to solve correctly and cheaply, that I can't see it being caused by anything other than (a) incompetence: using some numbnuts newbe to do the coding or (b) more likely and worrisome, a requirement that the systems be able to be modified by the polling places.
From TFA: The device contains 150 commands that can dramatically cut the time it takes to gather digital evidence, which is becoming more important in real-world crime, as well as cybercrime. It can decrypt passwords and analyze a computer's Internet activity, as well as data stored in the computer.
Who the hell owns your computer? What happened top the 4th and 5th ammendment?
This is totally unacceptable. Even using an "encypted volume" on Windows, I bet the password is stored in a format which will be decrypted by the tools on this device.
I use Linux, and while my system is on a UPS, it is also on a switch that I can turn off quickly and my home volume is encrypted.
Listen, in our browser history, regardless of how straight and narrow you may live, exists pictures and words that can be used against you in the court of public opinion. Even a recent picture by Fran Lebovitz of a 15year old girl on major news outlets could be called kiddie porn to the press.
The police and government use terror and public destruction to intimidate would-be criminals or people who have the mind to speak against them. It is best not to have your personal data as something they can use against you.
Just remember this: "If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him." Cardinal Richelieu (1585)
Slashdot Mirror
The OLPC is never only about getting technology to children, at least that's not what I heard when it started. It was about building up the poorer nations with education and technology, not just "get the technology in the hands of as many children as possible."
It was a mission to improve these nations and communities by making them competitive and independent.
I guess Microsoft's billions can corrupt anything they want. It's now just about building markets for Windows.
FUCK YOU OLPC!
You could probably make batches of bio-diesel and buy a diesel generator.
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200337757_200337757?cm_ven=Aggregates&cm_cat=Google&cm_pla=Generators%2C%20Portable%20Generators&cm_ite=168100&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=168100
Rated at 5000 watts ~~ 50amp peak, that should run your house.
The question is if the $1~$2 biodiesel running a generator is cheaper than buying electricity. Remember, also, you can feed back into the grid and reduce your electric bill.
If you have a diesel car, that works too.
Pretty much anything that can be done in Java can be done in PHP5. The problem with PHP is that most of the literature on PHP is written in PHP3 style, which is utterly 1997, predates .NET and is chronologically equivalent to Java 1.1
With PHP 4.3 and higher, you can do your OO programming and wrap your objects into classes, however most PHP books treat OO and classes as if they were radioactive. Blame the authors of many PHP books for being stuck in the PHP3 mindset and passing on bad/archaic programming and design techniques.
Is it a rule on Slashdot that if you disagree with someone you have to automatically assume they do not know what they are talking about or know less than you?
AFAIK, my account on PHP.net still has commit access. I have written several PHP extensions, one of which is being used at a MAJOR internet service provider.
I "know" PHP well and I still stand by my opinion.
Your karma-blow would be more useful if you'd say what you think is better...
Then it wouldn't be a troll now would it?
Seriously, OK. What is a "better" language? Its hard to say exactly. For web sites, there is a subtle difference between the need for mere "scripting" on top of a database (like a CMS or something) and more extensive software development.
I guess, PHP is good enough for scripting and Java useful for more extensive development (as a rule of thumb, not a law), but don't ignore the utility of C/C++ for back end service system like databases, search, and recommendations systems. I don't see the value of adding a perl or python if you are already using one interpretive system. (Yes, java is "interpretive" and no, I'm not going to debate "if you run it like..." arguments.)
Answers to complex questions are difficult to make simple and clear cut. There is a lot of common sense in the notion of using the right tool for the job, but many people use personal preference over a dry technical evaluation of the requirements. There are also some tools that are "better" in quality than other irrespective of the job, for instance MySQL vs PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL is better.
(And yes, on Slashdot showing a preference, say for PostgreSQL over MySQL, marks you as a troll, but there are technical reasons to use PostgreSQL over MySQL while the converse is hardly true. So flame away and mod me down, like I said, I expect to be seen as a troll.)
GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
Seriously, ruby is ugly. Really ugly. So amazingly stupidly ugly. It's so ugly, that "ugly" is complaining about being called ruby.
I know it has fans and people who really love it, what can I say? good luck with that.
Yes, I know this is a troll. I've gotten a few +5 "interesting" and thought I'd blow a few karma points and "rail" on ruby.
IBM is somewhat different, as they did business with MicroSoft before it was "Microsoft." The dirty dealings and underhanded crap that BillG and company did caused IBM to pull away,
Sure, IBM does "business" with Microsoft, but their relation AFAIK is of a standard OEM/ISV. I think OS/2 gave IBM a taste for what is involved with being a Microsoft "partner."
Being a Microsoft "Partner" is akin to playing "cowboy" and always being the horse.
people seem to think that even trying to work with MS in any shape or form is a pact with Satan himself.
I would like to see an example where a "big" company did business with Microsoft and did not end up selling out or going out of business. Even DEC caved into Microsoft,
Microsoft's "monopoly" has not been declared illegal as you suggest. Their methods and behavior in maintaining it have been.
Nice try.
In a trial, with a jury, they are introducing their opinions as testimony. Even though the facts have been proved this theory to be wrong, this is EXACTLY what they have been waiting for.
Linux and UNIX are very similar. Just as a Toyota is similar to a Ford, 4 wheels, gas powered motor, disk brakes, etc. Hell take a tundra and an F-150 and put them side by side. Besides aesthetic differences, explain to me how one is "clearly" different than the other. Using SCO's logic, the Tundra contains a Ford.
They will use the similarities to confuse the jury who have no clue about the history of "*NIX* beginning with Multics. I certainly hope Novell is ready.
PARANOID FEAR: Novell is working with SCO to establish in a court of law, by losing, that Linux is the property of Novell.
I am suspicious of RIAA, not because of Music, but because the things they are pushing for only tangentially have anything to do with Music.
RIAA is supposed to be a watchdog for a "for profit" business/industry. OK, but all studies conclude that file sharers buy music more than those who do not. File sharing is the new way for people to discover new music. Its replacing the radio. Nothing RIAA is doing is actually helping the industry for which it is supposed to be working.
If one were to don their tin-foil hat, and look at a broader view, the motives of RIAA andd MPIAA.
It looks to me, more than protecting music or movies, the *IAAs are more politically motivated to disrupt the democratization of communication. Never before in human history has the ability to share and disseminate information been as easy and accessible. Almost anyone with access to a computer can share information with anyone else with a computer.
The politics of "real" democracy where corporations and governments can't control who says what to whom or what dirty secret is made public is terrifying to the powers that be. RIAA, MPIAA, et. al are making what can only be a desperate fictitious but plausible argument in an effort to shut down the internet. Comcast, in a similar vein, wants it to be more like cable TV where we pay to "read" the wire, and entities pay to "write" to the wire.
*IAA, politicians, and corporate america HATE the best part of the internet. They want it to be a controlled delivery system, not a free conduit of communication.
OK, to understand why this is wrong, you need to accept some facts.
(1) Microsoft illegally maintains their monopoly on P.C. type commodity computers.
awe, fuck it. I can't write this one more time. Listen, if you have to ask the question it is most possible that the answer won't do you any good.
Secondly, if you have to ask the question, it is quite likely that you do not take responsibility for your opinions and treat the things you say with the same level of care that would be used by a parrot.
Way back in the old DOS 2.x/3.x when batch file programming was at best a joke and command.com only had 128 bytes (if I recall correctly) of environment space, I wrote my first "open source" program called "batch basic." The code has been long lost and may exist on a 1.2M floppy (or even a 360K floppy). It was a basic interpreter that could be used to script DOS.
Ahh those were the days.
I Do work for IT, and I'm not confused.
Few ATX type computers being produced have a real "power" switch. They have a function button that tells the computer to shut it self mostly down, but power continues to be fed to the system even after shutdown. Even the shutdown is a voluntary step.
The very fact that you can hold down the power function button (for around 10 or 15 seconds) and that will initiate a BIOS function to shut down the system means that BIOS code *can* take over if the system is designed to do so.
My scenario of a system which is not properly initialized by a host OS which causes a reset into a BIOS function to obtain an "approved" OS from the internet (Or obtain a bootstrap loader first) is perfectly reasonable as "netboot" machines are quite common.
What parts do you assert are confused?
This is an interesting development and one which does slightly worry me.
I don't believe in real machine intelligence just yet, but a device that can re-assemble itself after being dis-assembled is a horrible idea.
First it was the "power switch," most computers don't have a power switch. You have to physically unplug them to be sure. Now, they'll put themselves back together, after you take them apart.
Imagine this in the hands of Microsoft, perhaps a computer will re-install Windows after you've installed Linux? (Functionality in the BIOS of course, BIOS code notices Windows has not called the deadman API recently after power-up. BIOS takes over, DHCP the ethernet card, nuke the hard disk and re-install Windows from the net.)
Leave a room of happy Linux machines, return with a miserable set of windows boxes.
Years ago before you could see anything you could imagine googling for, young kids got their porn pictures from National Geographic where tribal womam had breasts exposed or more.
The problem with "titillation" is that, more than subjective, it ignores context. I wrote a "porn filter" for an internet search site 10 years ago, and while I was looking at all sorts of porn, I was not "titillated." I was studying the language, canonical terms, and word usage to create a proper filter.
I posted Tom Lehrer's "smut" earlier, but I think my point was missed. Specifically, the paragraph where it goes: "For filth is in the mind of the beholder, when correctly viewed, everything is lewd, I can tell you things about Peter Pan, and the wizard of Oz is a dirty old man."
"Titillation" can be anything from pictures of women in police uniforms, hell, some people get their rocks off by looking at pictures of women's feet. I don't understand it, but it is true.
Censorship, throughout history, has never had much success in suppressing that which had been targeted. It has, however, been quite successful in suppressing those that disseminate information. and creating an environment of fear.
Censorship is terrorism.
"I do have a cause, though, it is obscenity. I'm for it! (laughter) Thank you. Unfortunately, the civil liberties types who are fighting this issue have to fight it, owing to the nature of the laws, as a matter of freedom of speech and stifling of free expression and so on. But we know what's really involved: dirty books are fun! That's all there is to it. But you can't get up in a court and say that, I suppose. It's simply a matter of freedom of pleasure, a right which is not guaranteed by the Constitution, unfortunately. Anyway, since people seem to be marching for their causes these days, I have here a march for mine. It's called:"
Smut!
Give me smut and nothing but!
A dirty novel I can't shut
If it's uncut
and unsubt-le.
I've never quibbled
If it was ribald.
I would devour
Where others merely nibbled.
As the judge remarked the day that he acquitted my Aunt Hortense,
"To be smut
It must be ut-
Terly without redeeming social importance."
Por-
Nographic pictures I adore.
Indecent magazines galore,
I like them more
If they're hard core.
Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties, samplers, stained
glass windows, tattoos, anything!
More, more, I'm still not satisfied!
Stories of tortures
Used by debauchers
Lurid, licentious and vile,
Make me smile.
Novels that pander
To my taste for candor
Give me a pleasure sublime.
Let's face it I love slime!
Old books can be indecent books,
Though recent books are bolder.
For filth, I'm glad to say,
Is in the mind of the beholder.
When correctly viewed,
Everything is lewd.
I could tell you things about Peter Pan
And the Wizard of Oz - there's a dirty old man!
I thrill
To any book like Fanny Hill,
And I suppose I always will
If it is swill
And really fil-thy.
Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately?
I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley.
But now they're trying to take it all away from us unless
We take a stand, and hand in hand we fight for freedom of the press.
In other words: Smut! I love it.
Ah, the adventures of a slut.
Oh, I'm a market they can't glut.
I don't know what
Compares with smut.
Hip, hip, hooray!
Let's hear it for the Supreme Court!
Don't let them take it away!
Let me preface my comments by saying I develop open source software and I write and manage software for a living.
One of the problems with "open source" software is that there is no consensus about the direction of a project. The developer of a feature has more or less 100% control over how that feature gets developed and exposed to the users. When you make suggestions or offer up patches, even ones which do not break old behavior and only augment with additional behavior, the developer can reject or accept based only on their personal opinions.
90% of the time this is probably best, but there are times when developers don't like additional features, for what ever reasons, and refuse to even consider or discuss it. Saying it isn't necessary or "what" you want to accomplish can be done another way even though it may be more difficult or not exactly what you are asking for. I had some similar issues with many projects, including PHP and PostgreSQL.
In the proprietary world, projects and features are typically managed by people somewhat removed from the implementation. Not always of course, but usually. This leads to a disconnection of the "product" from the "source." Therefor, the make up of the product and features is not based on how the code operates or is developed. That's OK because the developers get paid.
In the "open source" world, there is no such separation. There is no arbitration of suggested features. The developers tend to see suggestions or disagreements as somehow impugning their work.
I expect that people will misinterpret what you mean by shun, or maybe I am.
No you understand it correctly, but you are carrying it a bit further than I had originally envisioned. I am liking your take, but mine was simply about paying them for service, i.e. don't buy products or services from unethical vendors.
Everyone knows that Algore invented the Internet.
I am so sick and tired of this crap. It is nothing less than a republican smear campaign against Al Gore that has been parroted by the puppet media and it has gone on too f*&^king long.
Al Gore never said he "invented" the internet, but he was instrumental in taking Darpa net public as the internet through legislation and the ability to articulate the vision.
So, without Al Gore, Tim Berners-Lee would not have had the foundation on which to build the web.
Al Gore did not "invent" the internet, but it was his persuasion and legislative skills that made it happen. Give the guy a break, he has done some great things and don't let the bogus lies continue to smear him. Take responsibility for your opinions.
Spamming would continue to occur despite any amount of "shunning". It just generates large amounts of revenue for the spammers.
If they were shunned by business, then it could not generate large amounts of revenue. Which is the point of my post.
Ethics are not considered anymore, people don't even care. We applaud the balls it takes to do the most obviously unethical deeds in public, and not say to the effect: "I can't do business with you, my reputation is too important."
That is why spam is profitable. That is why OOXML is an ISO standard. And so it goes.
It is like the definition of PORN. Unfortunately, it is "I know it when I see it."
I will continue to say it every time I can.
We need a strong societal repudiation of the violation of ethics. Organizations like Microsoft, SCO, and the like and people like Bill Gates, Darl McBride, etc. need to be made pariahs for the shameless unethical and illegal behavior.
"Spamming" is unethical. The only reason why it is done is because their unethical behavior is not shunned.
yes, very basic. Can you think of anything that isn't done in some other industry a million times?
I can't, but maybe I can't see the trees from the forest.
Not knowing their design, there are or should be, some basic transactional techniques that should be used. Some basic techniques for securing the GUI. Stuff like that, not rocket science, of course, but not all 100% trivial.
While there is a whole chorus of people saying "how hard can it be?" Being a very experienced software engineer, I can see some basic issues that need to be handled, but come on now.
It can't add. Think about that. It can't add. I'm not even talking about 876876 + 98895. I'm talking about N=N+1. I suspect that it is a reliance on Microsoft Access or Foxpro database engines by a software engineer with little real database experience.
The problem is so easy to solve correctly and cheaply, that I can't see it being caused by anything other than (a) incompetence: using some numbnuts newbe to do the coding or (b) more likely and worrisome, a requirement that the systems be able to be modified by the polling places.
From TFA:
The device contains 150 commands that can dramatically cut the time it takes to gather digital evidence, which is becoming more important in real-world crime, as well as cybercrime. It can decrypt passwords and analyze a computer's Internet activity, as well as data stored in the computer.
Who the hell owns your computer? What happened top the 4th and 5th ammendment?
This is totally unacceptable. Even using an "encypted volume" on Windows, I bet the password is stored in a format which will be decrypted by the tools on this device.
I use Linux, and while my system is on a UPS, it is also on a switch that I can turn off quickly and my home volume is encrypted.
Listen, in our browser history, regardless of how straight and narrow you may live, exists pictures and words that can be used against you in the court of public opinion. Even a recent picture by Fran Lebovitz of a 15year old girl on major news outlets could be called kiddie porn to the press.
The police and government use terror and public destruction to intimidate would-be criminals or people who have the mind to speak against them. It is best not to have your personal data as something they can use against you.
Just remember this:
"If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him."
Cardinal Richelieu (1585)