While intensive computer users may appreciate the flexibility and power of the CLI, the average user doesn't and never will. The average user wants things to work and isn't interested or capable of fixing them if they don't./. is of course rife with OS enthusiasts, who are knowledgeable about their OS and configuring it, programming etc. We are not the best sample audience for really determining what the average person wants. I think the average user wants an OS with the reliability of their toaster for the most part: simple interface, predictable results, and it doesn't get in the way of doing what they want it to do. I can see this POV now. I run OS/X and for the most part I never think about the UI itself, I focus on what I am using my computer to do. When I ran MS OSes (from DOS up through XP/2000) I spent a lot more time configuring things and fixing problems. When I ran linux, it was the same only the difficulty of fixing problems was greater - although the problems themselves were a lot less common. I never got to the point where I said "Fuckit, I will write my own driver" though, as a few here have no doubt done. Linux is IMHO the way of the future, but it won't get there until we have a version that never requires the average user to access the CLI unless they want to. And it must support Windows games of course, because that is the driving limitation on adoption I think.
Although I think I must have had an improved model as I believe the one I used was 180 baud. Used to run it connected to a secure teletype machine and printer, all of which was connected to an HF radio. We could send messages up to about 3000m depending on conditions:P Actually the process was to punch up the message on a tape first, then feed the tape through the TT machine to send the message. You had to get the message header perfectly formatted or it would be refused at the other end (generating an error message which required a response with a perfectly formed header - or you got an error message response to your error message etc. Fun times were had by all). Believe it or not I miss that technology:)
Although not as much as I miss running a BBS. It was always massive fun to hear the modem go off, do its handshake, and then go check the PC to see who was connecting and from where etc. The web is more userfriendly overall, but it just isn't as personal as the BBS community was. I don't miss my phone bills though...
Its incidents like this that have produced a lot of the hatred towards the US overseas.
Its important, if you claim the moral imperative, to show that you are ensuring your armed forces are living up to it. While I think the invasion of Afghanistan was the correct move, and I support the troops over there wholeheartedly (including those from Canada, my home country), I think Iraq was actually a mistake, or at the least has been grossly mismanaged. All the US is achieving is to produce a few thousand more people who hate the US in the end.
All this shows is that Bush, Cheney etc (who are ultimately responsible for the horrendous abuses of the Geneva convention that have occurred in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo bay), really should be tried as war criminals. That won't happen because the US has evidently decided they are not subject to the same rules that they insist be applied to everyone else, but it should happen if the US truly was dedicated to supporting the goals of its Constitution and the agreements it has signed in the past.
We might want our government to push back and assert our sovereignty but the governments that get elected seem inclined to just suck up to the US and take it. The US is rather like the biggest baddest junkyard dog in the yard: whatever it wants it gets or you get beat up until it does. You may not want that to be the view of the US from the rest of the world but I am afraid it often is. You may extole the virtues of democracy and freedom but if I country exercises those results and chooses to do something that doesn't agree with US foreign policy objectives they get slammed and insulted (see France, Germany, Canada).
and that means that when the US gestures, the government up here gets down on its knees and moistens its lips. Anything the US tells Canada to do, I expect Harper will bend over backwards (or forwards) to accomplish immediately. Thats whats been normal for Conservative Govts in the past at any rate, and Harper is more conservative than most. We have turned over people who didn't commit a crime here in Canada, we have turned a blind eye to abuse of our citizens by US officials, you name it. Sometimes I wish my government would get a spine and decide to do things because they are right, and that might include telling the US "no" on something occasionally. Its not that I am anti-US, not by any means, its just that I would like my government to act like its independent, rather than a government thats been findlandized.
Well I am biased in that I *like* PHP, despite its flaws. However, speaking to the argument that Java might be a better choice, I did work on one project which we essentially completed in PHP as a first draft, and then the lead designer decided that PHP wouldn't be scalable enough (i.e. he decided he didn't like it, since he had no evidence to point to), and we rebuilt the whole thing in Java instead. PHP development time: 6 months, Java Reegineering: 2 years more. The end result was efficient and made good use of Java's strengths, but I can't honestly say it was a superior product, and the additional development time spent on adapting it to Java could have been spent revising and improving the PHP version 4 times over. PHP is quick to develop it, quick to make changes to, and good enough for many jobs. There is a reason why sites like Facebook are using it so heavily. Purist programmers may not like it for a variety of reasons that may be entirely justified, but in many cases PHP is the right tool for the job and that is what should really matter. Java is also an excellent tool, but I think the development time is greater in the end, and the results are not necessarily all that much better. It likely comes down to a matter of preference, as other languages like Python or Ruby would probably be just as useful in the end.
As an aside, why does the OP not mention that you can write your own extensions to PHP in C++. Wouldn't that be a better option where you see code that is running too slow: concentrate on only those bits where it might really have an effect.
In some institutions the security rules are absolutes. I think it sounds like Childs did exactly the right thing: he obeyed the security policies of his organization to the letter, since he would be criminally liable for not doing so. I know when I was in the military and handling TS documents, we had clear rules as to who was allowed access to material and facilities and when they were allowed access. If I had failed to obey those rules I would have been liable and punishable. He really didn't have any choice in the matter IMHO. Now there are lots of people who seem to subscribe to the idea that "Your Boss is an absolute despot with all rights over your person" concept of employment, and I am sorry for them. I hope I never have to work in an environment like that. As long as there is a clear policy over who is granted the rights to security information, and the employee follows it, I don't see the problem. This is a case of people who are clearly unknowledgeable about their own security policies being given too much authority - and incidently proving Child's point that they were not skilled enough or responsible enough to be entrusted with the the "keys to the kingdom" - and he wasn't authorized by those same policies to hand the passwords over in any case. He is damned if he did and damned if he didn't. If he had handed them over against policy, and anything had gone wrong, he would have been held liable and ended up in jail on charges. I don't honestly know why this is being blown so much out of proportion. I sincerely hope he is exonerated and compensated for the time he spent in jail. Of course in our modern corporate climate, I expect he will be nailed and sent to jail for 10 more years. I don't expect justice in NA these days, it just seems too optimistic:P
Yes under Capitalism, its assumed that those who have or make more money are indeed superior, and the laws are designed to favour them. The courts tend to favour them, and the poor suffer as much or more as they do under Communism. Either way the guys on the bottom of the social tree are screwed and live miserable lives, the folks on the top live lives of ease and luxury. While its true that anyone can theoretically make it from the bottom of the social scale to the top, there are in fact a lot of barriers to doing so, generally supported and enforced by those at the top of the tree. Since in my opinion Corporations (the citizens of a capitalist system, or at least the ones who tend to matter the most) are inherent amoral, if not evil, I can't say I see Capitalism as in any way superior to Communism. Each one supports a few at the top and a mass of downtrodden at the bottom. Capitalism is all about self interest and personal gain over the interests of others. If turning profits hurts others, that is immaterial. The assumption I suppose, is they are all assumed to be struggling to advance themselves and pursuing their own interests, and I presume the assumption is that everyone is equally entitled to screw everyone else equally. Now this does work primarily because people are selfish and self-interested.
Communism presupposes a better class of person who is willing to work for the benefits of their community. I think it works well enough in cases where you know all of your community, but breaks down when you get to communities that are too large. The reason it breaks down is because someone is always selfish and self-interested and abuses the system.
I am not sure what is the best system, but I am sure its not Communism, and I am sure its not Capitalism. Therefore I support a Socialist approach that sees the Government supply some essential services and lets corporations do the rest. I just think those corporations need to be kept under control, rather than allowed to run roughshod over the poor (See things like Bhopal India).
I am pleasantly surprised it got modded up. I expected flame bait to be honest. The article is positive about France, but when I posted my response, the ONLY other responses were SurrenderMonkey jokes.
If there is one thing that is certain in this world, its that if someone says "The French" or "France" within hearing of any US Citizen, the immediate response will be an endless string of "Surrender" or "SurrenderMonkey" Jokes.
Caveat: I am not French just to clarify that. I am (English) Canadian, and I don't even particularly like the French myself.
It gets awfully tiring to be reminded of just how fucking bigotted the US is in this way. You should get over yourselves already. Yes, the French got their asses kicked in WWII, whatever. Any nation invaded by Germany at that time would have suffered the same fate (and many of them did). You got your asses kicked in Vietnam, even if you don't want to admit it. You pulled your forces out before anyone had to surrender of course.
All these jokes serve to accomplish is to remind me just how fucking ignorant, narrow minded, bigotted and offensive the US can be at times. They make you look like nothing more than a nation of assholes. Then you wonder why the peoples of many other nations find Americans offensive.
Of course none of you seem to have enough education or enough wit to recall that during the Napoleonic period, France was the most respected and feared nation on earth. They conquered pretty much all of Europe and it took the combined might of England, The Austro-Hungarian Empire, Prussia, Russia and others to eventually defeat them after 20 years of warfare. At that point in time the US couldn't even carry out a successful invasion of Canada, and we (as the British) burnt the White House in response.
I for one would like to see this fucking "meme" be laid to rest. It was always present but seems to have been resurrected when the French decided not to commit forces to the first Gulf War (because it wasn't authorized by the UN I believe).
Now, queue all the responses from people calling me a "liberal", "faggot", "commie", "pinko" etc, because I criticized the US (I am none of those things by the way). What I am, is tired of seeing US citizens act like a bunch of fucking ignorant assholes, and then wondering why people think they are a bunch of fucking ignorant assholes:P
Yes, yes I have met many very decent and nice Americans, they just don't seem to post in response to their fellow citizens offensive shit that crops up like this every few days.
It will let me post to my blog. I have a Twitter account only because I was interested to see how it worked. I have made exactly 2 Tweets. Once I realized i would need friends who cared what I was doing, I realized it wasn't for me. I am happily living a rather dull existence:)
I have just realized a hitch with using this for updating my blog: I don't have a blog, and with few friends who would want to read it, not much reason to start one.
I know its old fashioned but if I think of interesting things to say, I say them to my wife or my friends face to face:P
I have sat with headphones on and no music playing just to keep the endless prattling of idiots around me from being a distraction. People have no ability to just shut the fuck up most of the time and the constant irritation is usually enough to reduce my productivity immensely. I cannot imagine an intelligent office manager dictating that programmers cannot wear headphones. They must be completely ignorant of what level of concentration can be required to program something complex. I would seriously consider quitting over it, even though it seems a small issue. However, the problem should be self solving, productivity will drop, errors will increase and the manager will likely see the error of his reasoning. For some strange reason though, I *can* program at home when my wife is talking to me and the TV is playing, go figure. Its much less of a distraction than 2 other people talking to each other about something that holds no interest to me.
Nothing would make me want to visit the US in this current climate. I am sure some of the stories of abusive attitudes on the part of US officials are gross exaggerations, but if any of them are true, then I can't think of a reason that would make me want to travel south of the border. Too much power seems to have been given to people who are not paid well, probably not that well educated, and under a lot of stress. My only experiences with doing so were years ago mind you, and were generally unpleasant but not overly so in entering the US, and simple and peaceful crossing back into Canada.
If I don't have the concept wrong, this is likely just the result of information coming from ECHELON. The later is a military project set up to monitor communications around the world, for the purpose of developing SIGINT. Since it is usually illegal for the Government of a western democracy to spy on its citizens, the US, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and Australia have reportedly arranged to spy on each others citizens and then report the results to the nation of that Citizen. If this is true, then its entirely possible that your queries generated a report on Echelon and this was passed on to someone who decided to at least check out your IP and see what was reported back. It may even have been entirely automated and the results merely collated to see if anything could be developed from it. Entirely speculation on my part, and the whole concept of Echelon is subject to some doubt - although since I can imagine the possibility of it being built, and since having it built would be a significant SIGINT advantage, I can't imagine why it wouldn't be in existence. Theres a good likelihood it isn't called Echelon of course, I suspect thats more likely to be the name of one part of the whole thing - and I bet it doesn't run as smoothly as we would imagine it does:P
I find it fascinating. I also don't doubt the rumours mentioned in the Wikipedia article that imply it has been used to offer advantages to US companies. The US Gov't has a bit of a history of using military means to support US Corporations in the past, this would seem a natural extension of that. Since this article here on/. is concerned with the difficulty of filtering out relevant and important information, I would bet a lot of the data that has to be so filtered comes from ECHELON, and that the major problem it faces on a daily basis is the huge amount of data that has to be filtered to be of any use.
Well, I think its too bad you can't make the distinction between a Socialist party and a Communist party, as they are highly different, but to each their own. I tend to view the Conservatives as being damned close to Fascist at times and I do know they are not the same thing in reality. For me the great evil in the western world is the rise of Corporate Capitalism, as I think the bigger corporations are controlling things to the point where they render Democracy's benefits somewhat doubtful. As such I prefer a bit of Socialism to counter the Corporatism that seems so powerful these days. Luckily we live in a Democracy and can have opposing views:)
I agree the other choices weren't much better. Canada has produced a sad lot of political leaders in recent years. I don't like any of them particularly, and the voter isn't left with much of a choice. However, IMHO anyone has to be better than Harper. You are of course welcome to your own opinion. Personally, despite their dismal track record I think its time the NDP got a shot at things, if only to shake things up. The Marijuana party or the Greens - not so much. Any party with specific narrow agenda is never going to be my primary choice. The way I see it, the Liberals of many years ago switched from being Liberals to be "Conservative Light", and the current Conservatives are merely "Ultra Conservatives". We don't have a really Liberal party any more, and even the NDP are less socialist than they used to be. The whole political framework has shifted to the right in Canada. Mind you, even the most right-wing politician in Canada is to the left of the Republicans in the US, so perhaps I should be thankful for what we have anyways.
Because here in Canada we have been following the same evolution of Capitalism that the US has adopted: companies (or groups of them) are superior to individuals and are held to a different standard. By all rights they should be forced to pay the billions in damages that they have earned by violating the laws they use as justification to get music downloaders to pay in court. They should get bit in the ass by the same principles they have been applying. I am far too cynical to believe this will happen though, as I am sure many of you are. The right bribes will be paid to the right Canadian politicians and they will pay a few million in damages and that will be that. I don't trust Harper's government further than I can puke (and I almost do everytime I remember that we elected him. I am ashamed my country could possibly do so), and I expect them to suck up to the big music industry corporations and settle things quietly in their favour. I sincerely hope I am wrong but I am far too cynical to think it will happen. We have government by corporation these days and they determine the laws and penalties.
In all 3 of those cases, its morally wrong and reprehensible of the Police/DA to charge the guy. I know this goes on but its wrong and those who so abuse the system should themselves be punished. 1) If there is no evidence, then they shouldn't charge him - you know, perhaps he didn't do anything wrong. He evidently deleted the files and did so in a manner he couldn't access them any longer, what else is someone supposed to do? 2) If they have a fucking quota, then let them bust people who deserve busting - or they don't deserve the funding. Why does everything in Gov't cost so damn much again? Oh right, its because people protect their personal "empire" first and foremost and do their job only secondarily much of the time. 3) If he pissed someone off, and someone has a personal agenda they choose to pursue regardless of any legal violations, then they should be put in fucking jail themselves. If he had tons of copyrighted stuff - charge him with that, that won't leave him with the lifelong stigma of being charged for child porn. Charging him for the child porn he immediately deleted (assuming he did so), is purely vindictive, and should be heavily punished when its abused by a government official in any capacity. I think he ought to get the EFF to help him. While of course I haven't RTF (this is/.), this sounds like a gross miscarriage if the summary is correct at all (and at the risk of repeating myself this is/., so who knows).
So the first one's free, but I bet they make up for it in volume - so to speak:P
They could probably take a marketing tip from my local coffee shop - buy 6 coffees and get your card punched each time, and you get the 7th one free. I bet that would work well anywhere that Brothels are legal, which I presume by the article comments they are in Denmark. I always thought living in Denmark might be a great idea...
I think the level of informed posting on slashdot has steadily decreased over the past 5 years or so. We still get very informed posts from very intelligent people but they tend to get lost in the sea of inane internet memes, required replies and general stupidity one finds on most messageboards. Thankfully we have the moderation feature, but it would be helpful if I could turn off display of +5 Funny because that seems to be about 80% of the stuff that filters to the top. Yes, I make just as many idiotic rote responses as anyone else:P I am not trying to be pedantic, just observing.
Isn't the majority of news reporting focused on delivery for someone with a grade 8 education? I thought I read that somewhere. This would seem to support it. Sadly, I think a lot of the people I meet regularly might have some trouble with understanding things at that level:(
Well they did make a movie, kinda. Its called "The Warriors" and its based on the comic, which was based on the original story of the 10000. I admits its not the same thing of course.
You can expect it will get produced at some point - and be about as historically accurate as that piece of shit 300. No one has any interest in producing actually historical films these days, I presume because the audience is too stupid and or ignorant to be thrilled at seeing a famous event and famous people portrayed. Plus of course Hollywood doesn't want to risk not getting the audience with the right special effects. I wonder how many current fans of 300 there would be if they realized the Spartans evidently encouraged their men to be homosexual? Not that theres anything wrong with that if it suits your tastes, but I bet many are ignorant of that.
Sorry you pushed my 300 button:) I really despise that piece of utter shit.
Whereas, as someone who used non-Apple systems (DOS,Windows, Linux, FreeBSD) etc on and off, on IBM-PC style hardware from about 1988 to 2007 or so, then switched to an Imac, I have to say I am *entirely* pleased with the results. I will never willingly buy another system again I suspect. I run OS/X and XP using bootcamp, and the hardware on my Imac is working just fine. I got tired of constantly updating drivers, replacing video cards, switching motherboards etc. I feel my time using Windows systems was a constant race to stay current and a constant drain on my wallet. Now, I have spent enough money to get my Imac (~$1200 + tax here in Canada) and since I can't update hardware (other than buying more RAM), since the system has behaved pretty much perfectly, since Apple updates the drivers for me with minimal action on my part, because OS/X is a fantastic OS (and XP is all I need for games), and because the hardware of the Imac itself is really nicely designed, I don't need to worry, and I don't feel it cost me any more than my constant scrabble to upgrade crappy PC systems did in the end. At some point I will need to upgrade the iMac and then it will be one big bill for a high quality product instead of multiple small bills to buy new components again. I am totally converted over to being a mac user - and its not that I am somehow under the sway of Jobs unreality sphere, its that the product that Apple is producing is - for me at least - completely superior to the options I have seen. As long as that is true, I will be an Apple customer. When something better comes along I will likely switch. I think there are a lot of anti-Apple folks out there who have never seriously given a Mac running OS/X a good try. As for the taking offense at Apple's smugness in its ads, well I can see that might be irritating but it goes away once you have bought a Mac and seen how much better designed it is than its Windows compatriots. As an example of well designed: my wife had a mac laptop. We bought her a new one. We opened up the new laptop and plugged it in while it sat on the livingroom table next to her old one, with the intention of copying her files from the old one to the new one via our wifi connection, or by burning a CD etc. During the startup process for setting up the new laptop (5 mins or so), it autodetected our network and we set that up, then it asked if she wanted to copy the files from her old laptop (which it had detected via wifi) over to the new one and after telling it to do so, it did, copying account information, files etc over flawlessly. It was a very slick setup process and I have yet to see anything comparable under Windows. The whole of OS/X seems that well designed, and that's why I prefer it. In my opinion the slightly smug attitude is well deserved. With MS Windows I expect it to have problems and am seldom disappointed. I can usually fix those problems of course but I anticipate encountering them and there is usuallyl something that goes wrong to whatever degree. With OS/X I expect no problems and so far thats been the case the majority of the time. Half the problems I encounter turn out to be me having chosen a wrong setting on something, not a problem with a driver or the OS itself.
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While intensive computer users may appreciate the flexibility and power of the CLI, the average user doesn't and never will. The average user wants things to work and isn't interested or capable of fixing them if they don't. /. is of course rife with OS enthusiasts, who are knowledgeable about their OS and configuring it, programming etc. We are not the best sample audience for really determining what the average person wants.
I think the average user wants an OS with the reliability of their toaster for the most part: simple interface, predictable results, and it doesn't get in the way of doing what they want it to do.
I can see this POV now. I run OS/X and for the most part I never think about the UI itself, I focus on what I am using my computer to do. When I ran MS OSes (from DOS up through XP/2000) I spent a lot more time configuring things and fixing problems. When I ran linux, it was the same only the difficulty of fixing problems was greater - although the problems themselves were a lot less common. I never got to the point where I said "Fuckit, I will write my own driver" though, as a few here have no doubt done.
Linux is IMHO the way of the future, but it won't get there until we have a version that never requires the average user to access the CLI unless they want to. And it must support Windows games of course, because that is the driving limitation on adoption I think.
Although I think I must have had an improved model as I believe the one I used was 180 baud. Used to run it connected to a secure teletype machine and printer, all of which was connected to an HF radio. We could send messages up to about 3000m depending on conditions :P :)
Actually the process was to punch up the message on a tape first, then feed the tape through the TT machine to send the message. You had to get the message header perfectly formatted or it would be refused at the other end (generating an error message which required a response with a perfectly formed header - or you got an error message response to your error message etc. Fun times were had by all). Believe it or not I miss that technology
Although not as much as I miss running a BBS. It was always massive fun to hear the modem go off, do its handshake, and then go check the PC to see who was connecting and from where etc. The web is more userfriendly overall, but it just isn't as personal as the BBS community was. I don't miss my phone bills though...
Its incidents like this that have produced a lot of the hatred towards the US overseas.
Its important, if you claim the moral imperative, to show that you are ensuring your armed forces are living up to it. While I think the invasion of Afghanistan was the correct move, and I support the troops over there wholeheartedly (including those from Canada, my home country), I think Iraq was actually a mistake, or at the least has been grossly mismanaged. All the US is achieving is to produce a few thousand more people who hate the US in the end.
All this shows is that Bush, Cheney etc (who are ultimately responsible for the horrendous abuses of the Geneva convention that have occurred in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo bay), really should be tried as war criminals. That won't happen because the US has evidently decided they are not subject to the same rules that they insist be applied to everyone else, but it should happen if the US truly was dedicated to supporting the goals of its Constitution and the agreements it has signed in the past.
We might want our government to push back and assert our sovereignty but the governments that get elected seem inclined to just suck up to the US and take it. The US is rather like the biggest baddest junkyard dog in the yard: whatever it wants it gets or you get beat up until it does. You may not want that to be the view of the US from the rest of the world but I am afraid it often is. You may extole the virtues of democracy and freedom but if I country exercises those results and chooses to do something that doesn't agree with US foreign policy objectives they get slammed and insulted (see France, Germany, Canada).
and that means that when the US gestures, the government up here gets down on its knees and moistens its lips.
Anything the US tells Canada to do, I expect Harper will bend over backwards (or forwards) to accomplish immediately. Thats whats been normal for Conservative Govts in the past at any rate, and Harper is more conservative than most.
We have turned over people who didn't commit a crime here in Canada, we have turned a blind eye to abuse of our citizens by US officials, you name it.
Sometimes I wish my government would get a spine and decide to do things because they are right, and that might include telling the US "no" on something occasionally. Its not that I am anti-US, not by any means, its just that I would like my government to act like its independent, rather than a government thats been findlandized.
Well I am biased in that I *like* PHP, despite its flaws. However, speaking to the argument that Java might be a better choice, I did work on one project which we essentially completed in PHP as a first draft, and then the lead designer decided that PHP wouldn't be scalable enough (i.e. he decided he didn't like it, since he had no evidence to point to), and we rebuilt the whole thing in Java instead. PHP development time: 6 months, Java Reegineering: 2 years more.
The end result was efficient and made good use of Java's strengths, but I can't honestly say it was a superior product, and the additional development time spent on adapting it to Java could have been spent revising and improving the PHP version 4 times over.
PHP is quick to develop it, quick to make changes to, and good enough for many jobs. There is a reason why sites like Facebook are using it so heavily. Purist programmers may not like it for a variety of reasons that may be entirely justified, but in many cases PHP is the right tool for the job and that is what should really matter. Java is also an excellent tool, but I think the development time is greater in the end, and the results are not necessarily all that much better. It likely comes down to a matter of preference, as other languages like Python or Ruby would probably be just as useful in the end.
As an aside, why does the OP not mention that you can write your own extensions to PHP in C++. Wouldn't that be a better option where you see code that is running too slow: concentrate on only those bits where it might really have an effect.
In some institutions the security rules are absolutes. I think it sounds like Childs did exactly the right thing: he obeyed the security policies of his organization to the letter, since he would be criminally liable for not doing so. :P
I know when I was in the military and handling TS documents, we had clear rules as to who was allowed access to material and facilities and when they were allowed access. If I had failed to obey those rules I would have been liable and punishable.
He really didn't have any choice in the matter IMHO. Now there are lots of people who seem to subscribe to the idea that "Your Boss is an absolute despot with all rights over your person" concept of employment, and I am sorry for them. I hope I never have to work in an environment like that. As long as there is a clear policy over who is granted the rights to security information, and the employee follows it, I don't see the problem.
This is a case of people who are clearly unknowledgeable about their own security policies being given too much authority - and incidently proving Child's point that they were not skilled enough or responsible enough to be entrusted with the the "keys to the kingdom" - and he wasn't authorized by those same policies to hand the passwords over in any case.
He is damned if he did and damned if he didn't. If he had handed them over against policy, and anything had gone wrong, he would have been held liable and ended up in jail on charges.
I don't honestly know why this is being blown so much out of proportion. I sincerely hope he is exonerated and compensated for the time he spent in jail.
Of course in our modern corporate climate, I expect he will be nailed and sent to jail for 10 more years. I don't expect justice in NA these days, it just seems too optimistic
Yes under Capitalism, its assumed that those who have or make more money are indeed superior, and the laws are designed to favour them. The courts tend to favour them, and the poor suffer as much or more as they do under Communism.
Either way the guys on the bottom of the social tree are screwed and live miserable lives, the folks on the top live lives of ease and luxury.
While its true that anyone can theoretically make it from the bottom of the social scale to the top, there are in fact a lot of barriers to doing so, generally supported and enforced by those at the top of the tree.
Since in my opinion Corporations (the citizens of a capitalist system, or at least the ones who tend to matter the most) are inherent amoral, if not evil, I can't say I see Capitalism as in any way superior to Communism. Each one supports a few at the top and a mass of downtrodden at the bottom.
Capitalism is all about self interest and personal gain over the interests of others. If turning profits hurts others, that is immaterial. The assumption I suppose, is they are all assumed to be struggling to advance themselves and pursuing their own interests, and I presume the assumption is that everyone is equally entitled to screw everyone else equally.
Now this does work primarily because people are selfish and self-interested.
Communism presupposes a better class of person who is willing to work for the benefits of their community. I think it works well enough in cases where you know all of your community, but breaks down when you get to communities that are too large. The reason it breaks down is because someone is always selfish and self-interested and abuses the system.
I am not sure what is the best system, but I am sure its not Communism, and I am sure its not Capitalism. Therefore I support a Socialist approach that sees the Government supply some essential services and lets corporations do the rest. I just think those corporations need to be kept under control, rather than allowed to run roughshod over the poor (See things like Bhopal India).
I am pleasantly surprised it got modded up. I expected flame bait to be honest. The article is positive about France, but when I posted my response, the ONLY other responses were SurrenderMonkey jokes.
If there is one thing that is certain in this world, its that if someone says "The French" or "France" within hearing of any US Citizen, the immediate response will be an endless string of "Surrender" or "SurrenderMonkey" Jokes.
Caveat: I am not French just to clarify that. I am (English) Canadian, and I don't even particularly like the French myself.
It gets awfully tiring to be reminded of just how fucking bigotted the US is in this way. You should get over yourselves already.
Yes, the French got their asses kicked in WWII, whatever. Any nation invaded by Germany at that time would have suffered the same fate (and many of them did). You got your asses kicked in Vietnam, even if you don't want to admit it. You pulled your forces out before anyone had to surrender of course.
All these jokes serve to accomplish is to remind me just how fucking ignorant, narrow minded, bigotted and offensive the US can be at times. They make you look like nothing more than a nation of assholes. Then you wonder why the peoples of many other nations find Americans offensive.
Of course none of you seem to have enough education or enough wit to recall that during the Napoleonic period, France was the most respected and feared nation on earth. They conquered pretty much all of Europe and it took the combined might of England, The Austro-Hungarian Empire, Prussia, Russia and others to eventually defeat them after 20 years of warfare. At that point in time the US couldn't even carry out a successful invasion of Canada, and we (as the British) burnt the White House in response.
I for one would like to see this fucking "meme" be laid to rest. It was always present but seems to have been resurrected when the French decided not to commit forces to the first Gulf War (because it wasn't authorized by the UN I believe).
Now, queue all the responses from people calling me a "liberal", "faggot", "commie", "pinko" etc, because I criticized the US (I am none of those things by the way). What I am, is tired of seeing US citizens act like a bunch of fucking ignorant assholes, and then wondering why people think they are a bunch of fucking ignorant assholes :P
Yes, yes I have met many very decent and nice Americans, they just don't seem to post in response to their fellow citizens offensive shit that crops up like this every few days.
It will let me post to my blog. I have a Twitter account only because I was interested to see how it worked. I have made exactly 2 Tweets. Once I realized i would need friends who cared what I was doing, I realized it wasn't for me. I am happily living a rather dull existence :)
I have just realized a hitch with using this for updating my blog: I don't have a blog, and with few friends who would want to read it, not much reason to start one.
I know its old fashioned but if I think of interesting things to say, I say them to my wife or my friends face to face :P
And their prices will drop accordingly :P
I have sat with headphones on and no music playing just to keep the endless prattling of idiots around me from being a distraction. People have no ability to just shut the fuck up most of the time and the constant irritation is usually enough to reduce my productivity immensely. I cannot imagine an intelligent office manager dictating that programmers cannot wear headphones. They must be completely ignorant of what level of concentration can be required to program something complex. I would seriously consider quitting over it, even though it seems a small issue.
However, the problem should be self solving, productivity will drop, errors will increase and the manager will likely see the error of his reasoning.
For some strange reason though, I *can* program at home when my wife is talking to me and the TV is playing, go figure. Its much less of a distraction than 2 other people talking to each other about something that holds no interest to me.
Nothing would make me want to visit the US in this current climate. I am sure some of the stories of abusive attitudes on the part of US officials are gross exaggerations, but if any of them are true, then I can't think of a reason that would make me want to travel south of the border. Too much power seems to have been given to people who are not paid well, probably not that well educated, and under a lot of stress.
My only experiences with doing so were years ago mind you, and were generally unpleasant but not overly so in entering the US, and simple and peaceful crossing back into Canada.
If I don't have the concept wrong, this is likely just the result of information coming from ECHELON. The later is a military project set up to monitor communications around the world, for the purpose of developing SIGINT. :P
Since it is usually illegal for the Government of a western democracy to spy on its citizens, the US, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and Australia have reportedly arranged to spy on each others citizens and then report the results to the nation of that Citizen.
If this is true, then its entirely possible that your queries generated a report on Echelon and this was passed on to someone who decided to at least check out your IP and see what was reported back. It may even have been entirely automated and the results merely collated to see if anything could be developed from it. Entirely speculation on my part, and the whole concept of Echelon is subject to some doubt - although since I can imagine the possibility of it being built, and since having it built would be a significant SIGINT advantage, I can't imagine why it wouldn't be in existence. Theres a good likelihood it isn't called Echelon of course, I suspect thats more likely to be the name of one part of the whole thing - and I bet it doesn't run as smoothly as we would imagine it does
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_(signals_intelligence)
I find it fascinating. I also don't doubt the rumours mentioned in the Wikipedia article that imply it has been used to offer advantages to US companies. The US Gov't has a bit of a history of using military means to support US Corporations in the past, this would seem a natural extension of that. /. is concerned with the difficulty of filtering out relevant and important information, I would bet a lot of the data that has to be so filtered comes from ECHELON, and that the major problem it faces on a daily basis is the huge amount of data that has to be filtered to be of any use.
Since this article here on
Well, I think its too bad you can't make the distinction between a Socialist party and a Communist party, as they are highly different, but to each their own. I tend to view the Conservatives as being damned close to Fascist at times and I do know they are not the same thing in reality. :)
For me the great evil in the western world is the rise of Corporate Capitalism, as I think the bigger corporations are controlling things to the point where they render Democracy's benefits somewhat doubtful. As such I prefer a bit of Socialism to counter the Corporatism that seems so powerful these days.
Luckily we live in a Democracy and can have opposing views
I agree the other choices weren't much better. Canada has produced a sad lot of political leaders in recent years. I don't like any of them particularly, and the voter isn't left with much of a choice. However, IMHO anyone has to be better than Harper. You are of course welcome to your own opinion. Personally, despite their dismal track record I think its time the NDP got a shot at things, if only to shake things up.
The Marijuana party or the Greens - not so much. Any party with specific narrow agenda is never going to be my primary choice.
The way I see it, the Liberals of many years ago switched from being Liberals to be "Conservative Light", and the current Conservatives are merely "Ultra Conservatives". We don't have a really Liberal party any more, and even the NDP are less socialist than they used to be. The whole political framework has shifted to the right in Canada.
Mind you, even the most right-wing politician in Canada is to the left of the Republicans in the US, so perhaps I should be thankful for what we have anyways.
Because here in Canada we have been following the same evolution of Capitalism that the US has adopted: companies (or groups of them) are superior to individuals and are held to a different standard. By all rights they should be forced to pay the billions in damages that they have earned by violating the laws they use as justification to get music downloaders to pay in court. They should get bit in the ass by the same principles they have been applying.
I am far too cynical to believe this will happen though, as I am sure many of you are. The right bribes will be paid to the right Canadian politicians and they will pay a few million in damages and that will be that. I don't trust Harper's government further than I can puke (and I almost do everytime I remember that we elected him. I am ashamed my country could possibly do so), and I expect them to suck up to the big music industry corporations and settle things quietly in their favour.
I sincerely hope I am wrong but I am far too cynical to think it will happen. We have government by corporation these days and they determine the laws and penalties.
In all 3 of those cases, its morally wrong and reprehensible of the Police/DA to charge the guy. I know this goes on but its wrong and those who so abuse the system should themselves be punished. /.), this sounds like a gross miscarriage if the summary is correct at all (and at the risk of repeating myself this is /., so who knows).
1) If there is no evidence, then they shouldn't charge him - you know, perhaps he didn't do anything wrong. He evidently deleted the files and did so in a manner he couldn't access them any longer, what else is someone supposed to do?
2) If they have a fucking quota, then let them bust people who deserve busting - or they don't deserve the funding. Why does everything in Gov't cost so damn much again? Oh right, its because people protect their personal "empire" first and foremost and do their job only secondarily much of the time.
3) If he pissed someone off, and someone has a personal agenda they choose to pursue regardless of any legal violations, then they should be put in fucking jail themselves. If he had tons of copyrighted stuff - charge him with that, that won't leave him with the lifelong stigma of being charged for child porn. Charging him for the child porn he immediately deleted (assuming he did so), is purely vindictive, and should be heavily punished when its abused by a government official in any capacity.
I think he ought to get the EFF to help him. While of course I haven't RTF (this is
So the first one's free, but I bet they make up for it in volume - so to speak :P
They could probably take a marketing tip from my local coffee shop - buy 6 coffees and get your card punched each time, and you get the 7th one free. I bet that would work well anywhere that Brothels are legal, which I presume by the article comments they are in Denmark. I always thought living in Denmark might be a great idea...
Gotta give a huge thumbs up to John Scalzi's "Old Man's War"
I think the level of informed posting on slashdot has steadily decreased over the past 5 years or so. We still get very informed posts from very intelligent people but they tend to get lost in the sea of inane internet memes, required replies and general stupidity one finds on most messageboards. Thankfully we have the moderation feature, but it would be helpful if I could turn off display of +5 Funny because that seems to be about 80% of the stuff that filters to the top. Yes, I make just as many idiotic rote responses as anyone else :P
I am not trying to be pedantic, just observing.
Isn't the majority of news reporting focused on delivery for someone with a grade 8 education? I thought I read that somewhere. This would seem to support it. :(
Sadly, I think a lot of the people I meet regularly might have some trouble with understanding things at that level
Well they did make a movie, kinda. Its called "The Warriors" and its based on the comic, which was based on the original story of the 10000. I admits its not the same thing of course.
You can expect it will get produced at some point - and be about as historically accurate as that piece of shit 300. No one has any interest in producing actually historical films these days, I presume because the audience is too stupid and or ignorant to be thrilled at seeing a famous event and famous people portrayed. Plus of course Hollywood doesn't want to risk not getting the audience with the right special effects. I wonder how many current fans of 300 there would be if they realized the Spartans evidently encouraged their men to be homosexual? Not that theres anything wrong with that if it suits your tastes, but I bet many are ignorant of that.
Sorry you pushed my 300 button :) I really despise that piece of utter shit.
Whereas, as someone who used non-Apple systems (DOS,Windows, Linux, FreeBSD) etc on and off, on IBM-PC style hardware from about 1988 to 2007 or so, then switched to an Imac, I have to say I am *entirely* pleased with the results. I will never willingly buy another system again I suspect. I run OS/X and XP using bootcamp, and the hardware on my Imac is working just fine.
I got tired of constantly updating drivers, replacing video cards, switching motherboards etc. I feel my time using Windows systems was a constant race to stay current and a constant drain on my wallet. Now, I have spent enough money to get my Imac (~$1200 + tax here in Canada) and since I can't update hardware (other than buying more RAM), since the system has behaved pretty much perfectly, since Apple updates the drivers for me with minimal action on my part, because OS/X is a fantastic OS (and XP is all I need for games), and because the hardware of the Imac itself is really nicely designed, I don't need to worry, and I don't feel it cost me any more than my constant scrabble to upgrade crappy PC systems did in the end.
At some point I will need to upgrade the iMac and then it will be one big bill for a high quality product instead of multiple small bills to buy new components again.
I am totally converted over to being a mac user - and its not that I am somehow under the sway of Jobs unreality sphere, its that the product that Apple is producing is - for me at least - completely superior to the options I have seen. As long as that is true, I will be an Apple customer. When something better comes along I will likely switch.
I think there are a lot of anti-Apple folks out there who have never seriously given a Mac running OS/X a good try.
As for the taking offense at Apple's smugness in its ads, well I can see that might be irritating but it goes away once you have bought a Mac and seen how much better designed it is than its Windows compatriots.
As an example of well designed: my wife had a mac laptop. We bought her a new one. We opened up the new laptop and plugged it in while it sat on the livingroom table next to her old one, with the intention of copying her files from the old one to the new one via our wifi connection, or by burning a CD etc. During the startup process for setting up the new laptop (5 mins or so), it autodetected our network and we set that up, then it asked if she wanted to copy the files from her old laptop (which it had detected via wifi) over to the new one and after telling it to do so, it did, copying account information, files etc over flawlessly. It was a very slick setup process and I have yet to see anything comparable under Windows. The whole of OS/X seems that well designed, and that's why I prefer it.
In my opinion the slightly smug attitude is well deserved. With MS Windows I expect it to have problems and am seldom disappointed. I can usually fix those problems of course but I anticipate encountering them and there is usuallyl something that goes wrong to whatever degree. With OS/X I expect no problems and so far thats been the case the majority of the time. Half the problems I encounter turn out to be me having chosen a wrong setting on something, not a problem with a driver or the OS itself.