This is just the latest escalation of the erosion of the traditional barriers between teachers and students. In the past, the teacher was the person facing the class, who knew more about the given subject than the students. Sure, there was always the girl in the front of the class who always got 90's and knew all the answers (Christine, I still have a crush on you), but the teacher could still stump them, albeit less often than the average student.
Nowadays, there are students, especially in computer/technical courses, whose knowledge and abilities far exceed the teachers. This change in the balance of power/knowledge must feel threatening to the teachers, since they have less use if the students already know more than they can teach them. People in positions of authority who feel those positions are threatened sometimes go over the top. That's exactly what this is.
BTW, if these students are convicted of a felony over this, will it affect their ability to vote?
Finally, last September, were the parents of the students who were the beneficiaries of these laptops informed that improper use could result in such harsh penalties as their beloved children being unable to go to a decent college, or the loss of their freedom? If so, did they explicitly and informed-ly agree?
What if the massive cluster they have going has acheived sentience, and is controlling the minds of Page and Brin? All this information they're accumulating could be a prelude to the ultra-efficient subjugation of the human race by helpful, deadly, autonymous little Googlebots!
Apple is an iPod company. They've spent a long time and a lot of money carving out mindshare for legal music downloads through iTunes, and portable music players will always be compared to the iPod first. Picture this: Apple released an Intel-based Mac, with an Intel-based OSX (OSXI?)...it gets ported/hacked/forked/whatever to run on standard x86 hardware. Apple makes a nice little show of publicly condemning this practice for a few years, then, succumbing to 'market pressures', releases their Mac OS for generic PCs. A bit after that, they start quietly ramping down their hardware business. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the iTunes/iPod team is split into two groups, one group to develop for Mac OS, and another to develop for Windows. By this time, the RIAA has bought every lawmaker in the world, NGSCB is firmly installed in every piece of hardware and required in order to connect to the Internet, and the only way to obtain music online is through a legal service like iTMS. The Windows version of iTunes is left to stagnate, while the Mac version has active development and continues to improve. Result: people buy Mac OS, to run on their Dell, to be able to use iTunes with their brand new 10TB eighteenth generation iPod until the Windows version 'catches up' with support for the new device, which will be delayed severely when the Windows iTunes team consists of a software engineering student and a janitor.
Sure, we could haul their ass into court then for anti-trust, that seems to have worked perfectly with Microsoft.
I have to differ with you there. I've tried putting a recent Firefox on a Pentium 100, with 32MB RAM, and it brought the system to it's knees. The Internet Explorer that came bundled with 98 works fine. Granted, it can't run any kind of active spyware monitoring process, and I didn't upgrade to IE6 due to the speed concerns, so the user has to be extremely cautious, but at least it will run.
Shouldn't the entire operating system suse a reduced privilege mode by default? I thought that was why they yelled at me in #debian on FreeNode when I logged in as root.
...except the record companies, of course. 100 years is more than likely beyond the lifespan of any given musician, so they can't exactly hide behind the 'it's about the poor artists' on this one. Heck, the Beatles are already halfway there, any bets on whether McCartney will see 2063?
I was talking to a friend about this new Cell processor they were going to have in the PS3, that was supposed to have all these nifty new capabilities, and he was looking at me like I'd grown another head. I asked him why he was looking at me so oddly, and he said, "Dude, Celerons are not that good."
We have similar laws here in Canada, but they are an utter joke. Under the BC Personal Information Protection Act, there are stiff penalties on paper, but the enforcement procedure requires a minimum of six months of attempting to affect things internally to the organization, before an investigator from the privacy commissioner's office will even speak to you. Even then, the investigator doesn't really investigate anything, they just phone the organization who's in violation and ask them nicely to not do that. If the organization doesn't comply, back to square one with the six months of internal pressure. I left a job recently over this very issue...after I was asked to lower the security on the network, exposing insane amounts of client data to the bare internet. If the Act ever gets any teeth, my ass would be on the line. But I guess I needen't have worried, as there's no possibility of enforcement.
I was actually thinking more of it's ability to replicate itself, and whether or not that could be construed as a technological means of violating a copyright (a moot point, in this specific case, since it would not apply).
Imagine a proprietary self-replicating robot, say from HP (or any random company, could be Microsoft, Apple, or Honda, for that matter). If the software development (and don't try to tell me a robot uses no software) was not entirely conducted inhouse, would HP (or other random company) have to pay royalties/licensing fees/whatever for an infinite number of copies/licenses to any outsourced or licensed software used in the robot? If they chose not to pay an infinite amount of money (which would be hard to do), could their device be dinged?
IANAL, and I haven't sat down and read the entire DMCA (I'm Canadian, so no real impetus), but self-replicating CDs would certainly upset the music industry, and the software industry isn't exactly known for not enforcing their DMCA-given 'rights'.
What on Earth makes them think they are qualified to select the best Open Source Initiative of the year? Don't they own download.com, arguably the largest repository of crap-filled closed-source downloadables? This sounds like the Winston-Salem Environmental & Health awards...
How did you sign up/where did you give your address out?
The one that troubles me, I had only given to my case worker, who handles my provincial disability stuff. I created that email account solely for communication with her, and hadn't given it to anyone else. It should never have left that privileged bit, but it did somehow.
We just had a provincial election here in British Columbia yesterday. During the campaign, my email was bombarded by spam, from all the parties fielding candidates. I received an average of fifteen political emails per day, on each of my email accounts. Interestingly, one of these accounts was created for, and only known to, the Ministry of Human Resources, a part of the government, and it received just as much spam as the others. If the government is directly sending, or is complicit in the sending of unsolicited email, what makes you think a law against it will be followed or enforced?
Quite frankly, if I ever meet the bastards who wrote this crap [and who thought that it would be some kinduva nifty-cool business plan to go around inserting "infinitely large" subtrees into people's registries], then I will be sorely tempted to shoot them and throw their God-damned corpses in a swamp.
Perhaps you can find a 'registry' to shove that 'infinitely large tree' up.
Perhaps it's time to find a less ambiguous word to describe a system failure. I'm sure I wasn't the only one whose first glance at the article caught a much different meaning than was intended. Crash works fine in contexts where it doesn't already have a use, but when you refer to cars or planes, it does.
Put another way, I could theoretically provide instructions for replacing Windows' HTML renderer with Gecko, but that doesn't mean that it's a Free (or even Open Source) system.
Please, please, please do this! I would love to use a non-Microsoft HTML renderer in IE and see how the sites deal with that configuration.
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This is just the latest escalation of the erosion of the traditional barriers between teachers and students. In the past, the teacher was the person facing the class, who knew more about the given subject than the students. Sure, there was always the girl in the front of the class who always got 90's and knew all the answers (Christine, I still have a crush on you), but the teacher could still stump them, albeit less often than the average student.
Nowadays, there are students, especially in computer/technical courses, whose knowledge and abilities far exceed the teachers. This change in the balance of power/knowledge must feel threatening to the teachers, since they have less use if the students already know more than they can teach them. People in positions of authority who feel those positions are threatened sometimes go over the top. That's exactly what this is.
BTW, if these students are convicted of a felony over this, will it affect their ability to vote?
Finally, last September, were the parents of the students who were the beneficiaries of these laptops informed that improper use could result in such harsh penalties as their beloved children being unable to go to a decent college, or the loss of their freedom? If so, did they explicitly and informed-ly agree?
Darn. Us Canadians are stuck downloading the stuff for nothing, due to 'licensing restrictions'.
What if the massive cluster they have going has acheived sentience, and is controlling the minds of Page and Brin? All this information they're accumulating could be a prelude to the ultra-efficient subjugation of the human race by helpful, deadly, autonymous little Googlebots!
Just avoid this article totally and moderate an actual discussion.
Here's the odd vision I have:
Apple is an iPod company. They've spent a long time and a lot of money carving out mindshare for legal music downloads through iTunes, and portable music players will always be compared to the iPod first. Picture this: Apple released an Intel-based Mac, with an Intel-based OSX (OSXI?)...it gets ported/hacked/forked/whatever to run on standard x86 hardware. Apple makes a nice little show of publicly condemning this practice for a few years, then, succumbing to 'market pressures', releases their Mac OS for generic PCs. A bit after that, they start quietly ramping down their hardware business. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the iTunes/iPod team is split into two groups, one group to develop for Mac OS, and another to develop for Windows. By this time, the RIAA has bought every lawmaker in the world, NGSCB is firmly installed in every piece of hardware and required in order to connect to the Internet, and the only way to obtain music online is through a legal service like iTMS. The Windows version of iTunes is left to stagnate, while the Mac version has active development and continues to improve. Result: people buy Mac OS, to run on their Dell, to be able to use iTunes with their brand new 10TB eighteenth generation iPod until the Windows version 'catches up' with support for the new device, which will be delayed severely when the Windows iTunes team consists of a software engineering student and a janitor.
Sure, we could haul their ass into court then for anti-trust, that seems to have worked perfectly with Microsoft.
Firefox = no user left behind.
I have to differ with you there. I've tried putting a recent Firefox on a Pentium 100, with 32MB RAM, and it brought the system to it's knees. The Internet Explorer that came bundled with 98 works fine. Granted, it can't run any kind of active spyware monitoring process, and I didn't upgrade to IE6 due to the speed concerns, so the user has to be extremely cautious, but at least it will run.
Shouldn't the entire operating system suse a reduced privilege mode by default? I thought that was why they yelled at me in #debian on FreeNode when I logged in as root.
Uh, things are going to continue the way they have been going, probably.
I found this essay most unimpressive.
...except the record companies, of course. 100 years is more than likely beyond the lifespan of any given musician, so they can't exactly hide behind the 'it's about the poor artists' on this one. Heck, the Beatles are already halfway there, any bets on whether McCartney will see 2063?
I was talking to a friend about this new Cell processor they were going to have in the PS3, that was supposed to have all these nifty new capabilities, and he was looking at me like I'd grown another head. I asked him why he was looking at me so oddly, and he said, "Dude, Celerons are not that good."
We have similar laws here in Canada, but they are an utter joke. Under the BC Personal Information Protection Act, there are stiff penalties on paper, but the enforcement procedure requires a minimum of six months of attempting to affect things internally to the organization, before an investigator from the privacy commissioner's office will even speak to you. Even then, the investigator doesn't really investigate anything, they just phone the organization who's in violation and ask them nicely to not do that. If the organization doesn't comply, back to square one with the six months of internal pressure. I left a job recently over this very issue...after I was asked to lower the security on the network, exposing insane amounts of client data to the bare internet. If the Act ever gets any teeth, my ass would be on the line. But I guess I needen't have worried, as there's no possibility of enforcement.
I was actually thinking more of it's ability to replicate itself, and whether or not that could be construed as a technological means of violating a copyright (a moot point, in this specific case, since it would not apply).
Imagine a proprietary self-replicating robot, say from HP (or any random company, could be Microsoft, Apple, or Honda, for that matter). If the software development (and don't try to tell me a robot uses no software) was not entirely conducted inhouse, would HP (or other random company) have to pay royalties/licensing fees/whatever for an infinite number of copies/licenses to any outsourced or licensed software used in the robot? If they chose not to pay an infinite amount of money (which would be hard to do), could their device be dinged?
IANAL, and I haven't sat down and read the entire DMCA (I'm Canadian, so no real impetus), but self-replicating CDs would certainly upset the music industry, and the software industry isn't exactly known for not enforcing their DMCA-given 'rights'.
I thought that the OP was supposed to be funny. At least, it made me laugh.
Ah, my work here is done.
If it wasn't, would it's own existence violate the DMCA?
What on Earth makes them think they are qualified to select the best Open Source Initiative of the year? Don't they own download.com, arguably the largest repository of crap-filled closed-source downloadables? This sounds like the Winston-Salem Environmental & Health awards...
Holy smokes, they can build spaceships, land men on the moon, but they can't take an inventory? What else do they have laying around?
How can I read this thread at +1 Not-Uselessly-Hating-Microsoft? Oh, right, this is Slashdot...
They only field questions until May 30th. I wanted to ask them if they wish me happy birthday (the 31st). :(
How did you sign up/where did you give your address out?
The one that troubles me, I had only given to my case worker, who handles my provincial disability stuff. I created that email account solely for communication with her, and hadn't given it to anyone else. It should never have left that privileged bit, but it did somehow.
We just had a provincial election here in British Columbia yesterday. During the campaign, my email was bombarded by spam, from all the parties fielding candidates. I received an average of fifteen political emails per day, on each of my email accounts. Interestingly, one of these accounts was created for, and only known to, the Ministry of Human Resources, a part of the government, and it received just as much spam as the others. If the government is directly sending, or is complicit in the sending of unsolicited email, what makes you think a law against it will be followed or enforced?
Quite frankly, if I ever meet the bastards who wrote this crap [and who thought that it would be some kinduva nifty-cool business plan to go around inserting "infinitely large" subtrees into people's registries], then I will be sorely tempted to shoot them and throw their God-damned corpses in a swamp.
Perhaps you can find a 'registry' to shove that 'infinitely large tree' up.
Perhaps it's time to find a less ambiguous word to describe a system failure. I'm sure I wasn't the only one whose first glance at the article caught a much different meaning than was intended. Crash works fine in contexts where it doesn't already have a use, but when you refer to cars or planes, it does.
That's 80 GB of source code,.......provided on CD
... employees ... of ... comb ... source ... and ... to ... possible ... AIX ... source ... SCO ... improperly ... Linux). ... GB ... code, ... a ... of ... IBM ... provided .... They ... goods ... server ... a ... set ... on ... to ... stolen code."
Watch how you snip your quotes. TFA can also be snipped to read:
"It took more than 400 employees 4,700 hours of work to comb through IBM's...stolen code."
"It took...source code...socked into Linux...on CD...to search for that..."
"... more
Ok, the last one didn't make much sense, but you can edit an article to say anything you like, even the opposite of what it actually said.
Emerge wine. Oddly, then gentoo does pass the genuine Microsoft test. At least on my box, in IE6 (in wine, on gentoo).
Put another way, I could theoretically provide instructions for replacing Windows' HTML renderer with Gecko, but that doesn't mean that it's a Free (or even Open Source) system.
Please, please, please do this! I would love to use a non-Microsoft HTML renderer in IE and see how the sites deal with that configuration.