If people like doing something, they are going to continue to do it, regardless of how "strong" any particular law is.
The way to get someone to stop doing something is not by imposing penalties, it's by creating rewards for doing something different. IMHO, strong laws imply a weakness of society to create balanced, energetic and happy people, who have no need to do wrong. It's much simplier to blame a person for something "wrong" with them then figuring out what causes the need in the first place.
That's pretty funny, that you think journalism (or any other human endevour for that matter) is objective.
As an experiment, let me see if I can explain. Consider the statement "The cat ran out the door." A very simple statement. Should be basically objective, right? Now watch this. "Run" assumes a speed. Speed assumes a relationship to some other speed, either rest or whatever. It's very possible in my reality then that I think the cat is walking out the door. It's not all that fast. Somebody could measure the cat's speed compared against the ground, I guess. But then how fast is the cat moving in relationship to the Earth's speed? Moving on from that, "cat" should be pretty objective. But what if I'm used to calling cats "gerbils" from where I come from and the customs there? Or, what if I think something specific, and are not used to generalizing a "cat" as being similar to something else? Or one better, what if my brain is wired such that the air around the cat is more interesting to me then the cat itself, so I don't even see the cat as the thing moving, but rather the air?
I know what you're saying at this point- that I'm making all this stuff up as a deperate ploy to prove my point. But think about it. If I don't know what to focus on, I can't determine what "cat" means.
All words do is establish an agreed-upon meaning. Meaning = focused energy. One word is meaningless without other words surrounding it and giving it focus. Mearly by using words at all, you are actually creating reality, rather then observing it.
The failure to understand that everything humans do is subjective is the major cause for most of the suffering in this world. People assume their way is the right way because they don't give other people the opportunity to explain their own perception of the same experience.
Of course the opinion of who is an "expert" and who isn't is subjective. EVERYTHING about human interactions is subjective. That's why the best thing you can do is create high quality amounts of metadata, and then let people decide. People are always going to have to decide anyway.
Scenerio of a system that I believe has "good" metadata: Expert A professes to be an expert in Widgets. Expert A posts sample resume-like information which backs up his/her assertation (years experience, degrees, etc.) 1000 random professed non-experts believe Expert A is an expert in Widgets. Experts B and C who are professed professed experts in Something-Related-to-Widgets trust Expert A as an expert in Widgets.
Regardless of all of this, you can choose if you view that person as an expert or not. The metadata is just there to help you make an informed decision. But you see where this is going? Eventually, you can get to a point where the signal-to-noise ratio is pretty small- IF you build in enough metadata that makes sense.
The point of this is that if you are looking for a perfect system, you won't find it. What's popular in the world is typically what's "true". If you're looking for an expert, eventually, you have to just PICK SOMEBODY. What criteria you use to pick is always up to you. You can choose a person you know and trust, you can choose what the general population thinks, you can choose what some person you view as an expert thinks, or you can choose based upon "scientific" data that says the X thing is the correct choice.
Regardless, it always comes down to you choosing. The point is the increase the chances that who you pick matches as closely as possible who you are looking for.
You're forgetting one thing. Mac users are still going to want Mac apps.
Just becuase it may become possible for a bunch of new PC apps to get ported to the Mac doesn't mean it's a good idea. No matter how trivial it is to make a Mac version for X program, the program still has to make money being sold AS a Mac program. I.E. if the program sucks or is some stupid trivial thing, most Mac users will balk and the program won't sell.
In other words, let the market be the market. More competition = better. Don't bias Mac program = Good and Window program = Bad. What Mac on Intel means is that it's easier for the good windows programs to come over to the mac. The bad ones coming over simply won't sell, and will die off just like all bad programs do.
"Get tough on crime" is equivalent to desiring a mouse to get off a track, and accomplishing that end by forcing the track to move faster. What the mouse knows is how to move on the track, not how to be off the track. The mouse needs to not only be taught they how and why to be off the track, but the desire and habit needs to be created to align to that end. Otherwise the mouse is just going to climb right back on the track whenever it feels threatened.
Such is the same with any person and their habits, their unconscious mind, which is the real driver of all human activity. The unconscious doesn't understand right from wrong- it only understands what we focus on. Getting someone who committed a "crime" to do nothing but focus on their crime, and focus on their anger at being punished for their crime, is not a productive way of changing them so that they are unwilling to commit those crimes in the future. All that will happen is they will resent their fear of the law which oppresses them. It's like creating a society of a bunch of walking time bombs, ready at any moment to explode.
The essential "problem" is that kids are smarter then parents and teachers with respect to technology. Kids know this. Which is one of the reasons they engage in such acts. They think they won't be caught- because most of the time, they won't (unless they are foolish in the way they hack, which could happen). This is adults' greatest fear, really- kids who are smarter then them. Which is why everyone freaks out when some case like this comes into the spotlight. It's like parents blind themselves for the sole purpose so that they can act all protective/judgemental when suddenly their kids do something "they don't know about".
Or if the kid is caught, typically he/she knows that the consequences won't be all that bad. They might get grounded I suppose. But a lot of times, the parents are the ones who are blamed and have to take responsiblity for the kid's crime. (Example: RIAA suing downloaders)
Now some people say that kids don't understand the law yet (they are too young), so they shouldn't be responsible. My opinion: that's a complete load of crap. Heck, most PARENTS don't understand the law- that's why they have to employ lawyers. Declaring to some kid that he's ignorant and so letting him off the hook is akin to teaching a criminal that someone else will take the blame for their crimes, so they don't have to worry about it. Kids learn that, then later when they grow up and become REAL threats to society, and people wonder why.
If I had any "recommendations", it would be these:
1) Adults, you MUST make a serious effort to learn technology so that you have at least a reasonable understanding of what young people are doing on computers. Age is not an excuse. It's bullshit that you are "so old I can't learn like I did when I was 18". That's just a ridiculus society-driven belief, which is not in the least bit true. Maybe you have a few less brain cells, yes. But more times then not, you're just BS-ing yourself because you're too lazy to learn. Stop fooling yourself and do some friggin work, instead of assuming your kids at fault for what you yourself don't understand.
2) Kids need to be treated more like people, rather then "kids"- i.e. people who somehow don't know anything just because "they haven't been alive long enough". For god sake, if kids know things about computers that you don't, what does that say about your belief that kids are ignorant? Time is not a good indicator of ablity. Only results are an indicator of ability. Just because a kid hasn't been around "long enough" doesn't mean they don't have the ability- ESPECIALLY when they demonstrate that ability by doing something.
3) So basically, if a kid does a crime, then take appropriate action. Parents should not be allowed to "protect" their kids from ligitimently committed crimes. Just make the crime fit the action, as well as the person who did it. It would be appropriate to hold a session with the 80-100 to explain to them why what they did was unacceptable, and have them do something like work on a project to improve school security. Or, it may be appropriate to take no action against the kid if the school cannot prove that they had a program in place to teach the kids what actions on their computer are/are not acceptable. It is fair that a person be given every opportunity to know and understand the law before any judgement for breaking that law is given.
Way back before iPods were all that popular, I bought a $400 1st generation iPod, and soon after a FM transmitter/charger (one of the first available. I think it was after the iTrip came out- possibly after the 2nd gen iPod came out, because it had a switch for use with either). I wish I could remember the brand, but it was all white, connected at the top, and had a snakelike plasic arm you could adjust via turning little screws on the pieces.
The only thing I can think of is either the company didn't patent it, or the patent office is so screwed up that nobody knows it was already patented. Take your pick.
Um sorry, but your wife should have done that from the beginning. Why in the world would she just make some kind of "generic" resume, instead of doing research as to the kind of person that perticular job wants and targeting her resume for that?
Honestly, finding a job should not be that big a deal. Finding a GOOD job that pays well and has all the benifits you want, that's a bit tougher. But getting hired at a fast food place? Unless you're a moron who has no people skills and no desire to learn, that should not be a problem. If you aren't getting a job, instead of blaming the government, your skills, or whatever, start looking at what you can do differently. Even walking around homeless on the street can teach you lessons, if you would only look for them.
Look, I'm not a republican in the least. But I agree with republicans in that most of the time, the reason people are not finding work is because they are unwilling to learn how to be different then they are. In other words, if a jobless person stays the same, with all their current habits and beliefs, then they will NEVER find work. NEVER. Because they are not in the habit of finding work. Their very nature is to be jobless, because that's what they are doing. That's what led up to now, the things they did, the habits they formed, it all equaled joblessness. So the fault is in THEM, not in the government, not in the job market, not anyone else- THEM.
One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If I could tell jobless people one thing, I would tell them that 90% of success is all in your brain and the way you think about yourself and your world, not in what specific skills you have at the moment. With the right outlook, the right skills can be learned, regardless of your past or where you where you are right now where you THINK you can't learn anything.
Here are some ways to get people going: 1) Successful people believe they create their lives, rather then believing that life happens to them. Hopelessness is weak. And it's untrue- it assumes that person didn't have even one success in their lives, which is impossible. 2) Successful people look for what they are doing right, rather then what they are doing wrong. You get more of what you focus on. If you focus on what's wrong with you, you will actually attract more crap into your life. 3) Successful people don't blame, complain, or justify themselves. They take full accountablity for their lives and their situation. In other words, they come from a place of acknowledging what they do or not do by CHOICE, not because someone "forced" them to do anything.
There are many more, but if you want to get a clue, read The Millionaire Mind by T Harv Eker.
a program called "Program". Yea, that'd be cool. It would fit right in with programs called "Pages" and "Numbers".
Common, apple. The "Macs are for noobs & kiddies" bandwagon is only gaining in speed with these completely childish and stupid program names. Show a little imagination, for god sake.
Here apple has one of the most powerful operating systems on the planet, an OS that often makes the average unix/linux geek drool, and they are going to put out a program called "Numbers".
Apple really needs to get off the whole "Macs are easy to use" thing. Easy to use is good. Trivializing to pointlessness is bad.
IMHO, I never "got" the whole precedent thing here in the US. Is it a crime for a person to change their mind? Were older judges more wise in making their decisions then newer judges? Why should history be more powerful then doing what's right?
The comparision to Prohibition is an appropriate one. When a large number of people oppose a particular law, it's the laws problem, not the peoples problem. You simply can't argue against perception, and the perception of most people from the "mp3 era" is that file swapping is not theft.
Whether it is or is not theft isn't the issue, the issue is the RIAA's refusal to take advantage of the situation by creating new products and services which mesh with the perceptions of consumers. Intstead they use their efforts to sue people who are only going to spend more time being careful before they go about pirating again. The lawsuits accomplish nothing but create an environment of anger and desire for retribution.
There is a time for focusing on the problem and then there is a time for focusing on the solution. The RIAA spends most of their time in the former.
Um, isn't the point of installing Netscape 8 to use it as your web browser instead of IE? In other words, WHO CARES if Netscape breaks IE in the process of being installed?
God sakes, microsoft has a hissy fit every time people install alternatives, but then on their own time they feel perfectly justified in hijacking filetypes or even breaking other programs on purpose to keep people from using 3rd parties. People blame the authors of those program, instead of microsoft who caused the original problem by tying their old and pathetic web browser into the operating system.
I would have preferred it better if Netscape UNINSTALLED IE in the process of being installed.
"Greasemonkey will cause you nothing but headaches"
Greasemonkey is user-installed. What a user chooses to do with a content provider's website is their own business. NEXT.
"...may even be a good reason to delay that Firefox pilot you're planning"
Fearmongering. Greasemonkey has no immediate affect on IT managers. Greasemonkey cannot "break" a website, nor can it change any content permanently. If you don't like users using it, then deny users the ability to install extensions. Or install the extensions you "approve" of and deny the rest. Or let users do what they want and refuse to answer their support questions. Whatever you want to do. Greasemonkey does not magically make doing IT any different then any other software install.
... is not more computer programs. What is needed is ways of either:
(A) Modeling and mapping a person's existing brain (the way they think right now) so that the tool acts as a natural extension of their existing habits and patterns of being.
(B) A systematic way of training people to build habits (preferably using accellerated learning techniques) to use the program in a way which will be effective and benificial for them.
The problem with modern computer programs is they offer features, but the way they get people to USE those features is extremely poor. Solution 1: read a long and tedious manual. Solution 2: read a long a tedious online help guide. Solution 3: "guess" what the program can do and go on a web forum to ask questions for stuff that doesn't work as you expect it to.
And all of these strategies fail. How many people use 2% of Office's feature set? How many people use the entire feature set of ANY program they bought?
And this is why software companies can keep selling new versions with new features. People are ALL READY not effective with the software version they have right in front of them, so they buy because they think the new features will become the effective person they know they could be.
I guess my key point out of all of this is software companies should STOP selling programs simply with MORE FEATURES! Create systems which help people USE the features in the program the most effecive way, which is 1000X better and more valuable.
And your problem with this is... what? Gates is a businessman. Businessmen sell product. Or rather, they sell solutions which they hope will benifit the people that buy them. If you don't want those solutions, don't use them. Use someone elses. Or don't use any at all. Sit at home with your thumb up your ass, if that's what you like doing.
Look at it this way. If nobody liked microsoft's solutions, microsoft wouldn't make any money. Obviously they do, so obviously, some people like what microsoft puts out. They want it or they need it, for whatever reason. Without the want or the need, nothing would sell. There's always more to sell, becuase there's always an unfullfilled need (for most people).
Gates got rich because he was smart and did the right things at the right times. You may not like him, but your thoughts about him just magicially becoming rich because he "got lucky" via his family/genetics/whathaveyou is a complete bunch of bullshit.
It really pisses me off when people think that there must have been some magic bullet that made X person successful, rather then simply smart, hard work on that person's part. Anyone can become successful if you think and do the right things. But it's easier to say that someone else pulled their success out of an alien's ass, instead of figuring out what they did and doing it yourself so you become successful too.
"We are not interested in the game drivers and music drivers that are being added to the kernel. We are interested in a more stable kernel."
Disclaimer: I am not a linux geek, but I am an engineer, so I understand technology and the reasons why geeks do what they do.
That being said, my initial reaction to this story was: "oh man, the fact this is even an issue means linux has a long way to go". Why do I say that? Because it's obvious if linux wants more desktop share, they need to be working on the features that most people are interested in. Namely, games, music, etc. The fact is, games sell machines. Multimedia features sell machines. Look at apple: people are buying macs just to use their iLife programs. Last I checked, a stable kernel was not high on their list of reasons why they made the purchase.
I'm not discounting clean, organized code. Stablity and speed are important. But my general impression of the linux community (from the outside looking in) is that it's one big crab theory gone bad. As soon as one part of the community realizes the truth, that they only way to sell linux is to build into the system features that people actually will buy, the geeky half of the community steps in and whines that linux no longer has clean code and has become "feature bloated".
Look guys, I'd hate to put a lightbulb right up to the obvious, but consumers are not geeks. No matter how clean or efficent the code is made, the average person is simply NOT going to get excited unless the operating system has the FEATURES they want. Ultimately, it comes down to what they heck you can do with the operating system at the user level. If the user's experience is not "doing it" for them, then no amount of "clean code" is going to solve that problem.
And I know that comes as a complete downer to most geeks. We spend 10 hours a day tweaking our setups, getting everything just "perfect", and expect to be rewarded comparably. The sad thing is, most people don't care. They don't care what the code looks like, they don't care about how much time it took, and they don't care about our "brilliant" hacks. The important thing to them is what they can do with it.
So what is the solution? Easy: split up linux for the different markets. One market is for geeks, like the above gentleman who want a stable kernel and nothing else. The second market is for consumers that play games, listen to music, etc. Geeks get their geektoy, and consumers get what they want. But the community is not going to be able to make a version of linux that will appeal totally to both markets, since the markets are COMPLETELY different. (Again, geeks aren't consumers.)
- Nobody can stop anyone from posting information on the internet. It's simply impossible.
- The internet isn't governed by the US government. There's nothing the governement can do to stop people posting information, except to lock down the entire internet like the Chinese do. That won't happen because the media in this country is too powerful.
- It doesn't matter if bloggers are journalists or not. If I write something on a piece of paper, photocopy it, and give it to 100 people, am I a journalist? The socially acceptable opinion would be: "No". The real question is not over journalism, the question is over trust. And nothing, absolutely NOTHING on the internet can be trusted, because it's damn near impossible to tag any piece of information definitively to a person. So the answer becomes: choose who you trust carefully.
The big piece of all of this is the slow realization that it's becoming no longer necessary to go to school for 20 years to learn the "proper" way of doing something. Not when people have a resource like the net, and can quickly become an expert in nearly any subject (highly technical subjects still probably require degrees.) Where "journalists" are getting pissed off is simply a lack of acknowledgement that the times have changed and the barrier to entry has become much smaller then they would like to admit.
...when asked about freedom of speech we think about general principles, abstractions.
Abstractions are easier to ignore when it suits our purpose.
A good example is most Christans in this country. The Bible speaks of sharing the word with others. Here's a specific thing that we've been told we have to do, no questions asked. But do most people actually do it? Nope. They go about their lives as normal, say they've sinned and go back to church next week and say they're sorry. That way, they don't ever have to take on any responsiblity to change. God forgives us even if we're weak, sniveling morons.
As Jeseph would say: "You can't handle the truth."
No, sorry, I think people are perfectly qualified to understand that they don't want their private data on the web.
Competency is relative. Is a person competent to make a personal decision? Of course. But that doesn't mean they decide things which are in their own best interest. Given the choice, most people would decide to stay subconscious. To do what they've always been doing: not necessarily what they choose to do or what is in their best interest to do.
What the article is suggesting and what most people don't understand is that the framework of how something is worded, for most people, greatly influences their decision. It's psychology. People of course are going to be afraid someone will abuse their personal information, even if the context is wrong and that result is unlikely of ever happening. (Nobody I personally know has been subject to Identity Theft- it's simply not a likely thing to happen and thus not worth the wasted energy worrying about it.)
Basically it's "bah, I'm the important one. You don't matter."
This is true for all people. Even the smartest person in the world, who has a wide variety of choice available to them, is going to be self-centered. Because that's just how people work. There is nothing wrong with it. Where we get screwed up is when people refuse to believe that everyone has different and has different strengths and weaknesses. A smart person has more value to society then a dumb one. It doesn't mean that the dumb one is an unworthy person, but trying ignore the difference between the two extremes, when we know the difference exists, is simply disregarding facts.
Anyway, the orginal point remains. Most polls are complete crap- not because of the wording, but because there's no data as to why people are making any particular choice, what their background is, what their belief systems are, etc. It's trying to chuck down WAY too much data into a teeny-weeny space, and then making some outlandish conclusion based on that. The process itself is simply flawed for telling anyone any useful information about what people believe.
They all revert to the true nature of humanity. Like a Disney World ride operator, who might say for the first day or so "Ah, the magic of it all." but by day three is saying "Fuck I hate this place."
Excuse me, but that's cultural bullshit. There is no "true nature of humanity". The reason people focus on the negative is because we've been programmed to: watching television, reading news, etc. all that crap is typically negative. That doesn't mean it's the true nature of people: it's only a bad habit we've formed over time.
If you don't like your job, leave. You don't have to stay there. You CHOOSE to stay there, but it's not an absolute. There are no absolutes, only perceptions and what things we choose to give meaning for.
If you don't like other people, then maybe it's your problem instead of theirs. You choose your reaction to them. If you want to piss and moan about how everyone is stupid/negative, then all you are doing is let them control you. STOP IT. If someone sucks, teach them what you know, or move into an environment with people who aren't that way.
BTW, the only reason the net tends to get negative is because there is no accountablity because everything is anonymous. In other words, people can be complete assholes with nothing to stop them from doing so. Without accountablity, there is no integrity. And integrity is what the world lacks the most.
"We are concerned about security on an open standard environment like that. We are also concerned about some of the scalability issues that we are seeing on our clients on a global basis. Also, we are somewhat cautious about what happened with Unix - it splintered into eight applications..."
I love how a person can raise concerns about an issue without presenting any justification as to why the concerns exist. As if asking more and more negative sounding questions adds some sort of weight to the opinion that "linux must be bad".
-WHY do you think an open standard environment has any inherent bearing on security? -PROVIDE EXAMPLES why linux is not scalable. -WHY would linux necessarily go the path of unix when linux is totally different?
Conclusion: stupid article, typical fearmongering. The fact this is an "aliance" adds absolutely no weight to the irresponsiblity of the conclusions.
Slashdot Mirror
If people like doing something, they are going to continue to do it, regardless of how "strong" any particular law is.
The way to get someone to stop doing something is not by imposing penalties, it's by creating rewards for doing something different. IMHO, strong laws imply a weakness of society to create balanced, energetic and happy people, who have no need to do wrong. It's much simplier to blame a person for something "wrong" with them then figuring out what causes the need in the first place.
That's pretty funny, that you think journalism (or any other human endevour for that matter) is objective.
As an experiment, let me see if I can explain. Consider the statement "The cat ran out the door." A very simple statement. Should be basically objective, right? Now watch this. "Run" assumes a speed. Speed assumes a relationship to some other speed, either rest or whatever. It's very possible in my reality then that I think the cat is walking out the door. It's not all that fast. Somebody could measure the cat's speed compared against the ground, I guess. But then how fast is the cat moving in relationship to the Earth's speed? Moving on from that, "cat" should be pretty objective. But what if I'm used to calling cats "gerbils" from where I come from and the customs there? Or, what if I think something specific, and are not used to generalizing a "cat" as being similar to something else? Or one better, what if my brain is wired such that the air around the cat is more interesting to me then the cat itself, so I don't even see the cat as the thing moving, but rather the air?
I know what you're saying at this point- that I'm making all this stuff up as a deperate ploy to prove my point. But think about it. If I don't know what to focus on, I can't determine what "cat" means.
All words do is establish an agreed-upon meaning. Meaning = focused energy. One word is meaningless without other words surrounding it and giving it focus. Mearly by using words at all, you are actually creating reality, rather then observing it.
The failure to understand that everything humans do is subjective is the major cause for most of the suffering in this world. People assume their way is the right way because they don't give other people the opportunity to explain their own perception of the same experience.
Where the problem lies is what is possible to experiment vs what must be theorized and somehow extrapolated to the present day.
Of course the opinion of who is an "expert" and who isn't is subjective. EVERYTHING about human interactions is subjective. That's why the best thing you can do is create high quality amounts of metadata, and then let people decide. People are always going to have to decide anyway. Scenerio of a system that I believe has "good" metadata: Expert A professes to be an expert in Widgets. Expert A posts sample resume-like information which backs up his/her assertation (years experience, degrees, etc.) 1000 random professed non-experts believe Expert A is an expert in Widgets. Experts B and C who are professed professed experts in Something-Related-to-Widgets trust Expert A as an expert in Widgets. Regardless of all of this, you can choose if you view that person as an expert or not. The metadata is just there to help you make an informed decision. But you see where this is going? Eventually, you can get to a point where the signal-to-noise ratio is pretty small- IF you build in enough metadata that makes sense. The point of this is that if you are looking for a perfect system, you won't find it. What's popular in the world is typically what's "true". If you're looking for an expert, eventually, you have to just PICK SOMEBODY. What criteria you use to pick is always up to you. You can choose a person you know and trust, you can choose what the general population thinks, you can choose what some person you view as an expert thinks, or you can choose based upon "scientific" data that says the X thing is the correct choice. Regardless, it always comes down to you choosing. The point is the increase the chances that who you pick matches as closely as possible who you are looking for.
You're forgetting one thing. Mac users are still going to want Mac apps.
Just becuase it may become possible for a bunch of new PC apps to get ported to the Mac doesn't mean it's a good idea. No matter how trivial it is to make a Mac version for X program, the program still has to make money being sold AS a Mac program. I.E. if the program sucks or is some stupid trivial thing, most Mac users will balk and the program won't sell.
In other words, let the market be the market. More competition = better. Don't bias Mac program = Good and Window program = Bad. What Mac on Intel means is that it's easier for the good windows programs to come over to the mac. The bad ones coming over simply won't sell, and will die off just like all bad programs do.
"Get tough on crime" is equivalent to desiring a mouse to get off a track, and accomplishing that end by forcing the track to move faster. What the mouse knows is how to move on the track, not how to be off the track. The mouse needs to not only be taught they how and why to be off the track, but the desire and habit needs to be created to align to that end. Otherwise the mouse is just going to climb right back on the track whenever it feels threatened.
Such is the same with any person and their habits, their unconscious mind, which is the real driver of all human activity. The unconscious doesn't understand right from wrong- it only understands what we focus on. Getting someone who committed a "crime" to do nothing but focus on their crime, and focus on their anger at being punished for their crime, is not a productive way of changing them so that they are unwilling to commit those crimes in the future. All that will happen is they will resent their fear of the law which oppresses them. It's like creating a society of a bunch of walking time bombs, ready at any moment to explode.
It's a difficult thing.
The essential "problem" is that kids are smarter then parents and teachers with respect to technology. Kids know this. Which is one of the reasons they engage in such acts. They think they won't be caught- because most of the time, they won't (unless they are foolish in the way they hack, which could happen). This is adults' greatest fear, really- kids who are smarter then them. Which is why everyone freaks out when some case like this comes into the spotlight. It's like parents blind themselves for the sole purpose so that they can act all protective/judgemental when suddenly their kids do something "they don't know about".
Or if the kid is caught, typically he/she knows that the consequences won't be all that bad. They might get grounded I suppose. But a lot of times, the parents are the ones who are blamed and have to take responsiblity for the kid's crime. (Example: RIAA suing downloaders)
Now some people say that kids don't understand the law yet (they are too young), so they shouldn't be responsible. My opinion: that's a complete load of crap. Heck, most PARENTS don't understand the law- that's why they have to employ lawyers. Declaring to some kid that he's ignorant and so letting him off the hook is akin to teaching a criminal that someone else will take the blame for their crimes, so they don't have to worry about it. Kids learn that, then later when they grow up and become REAL threats to society, and people wonder why.
If I had any "recommendations", it would be these:
1) Adults, you MUST make a serious effort to learn technology so that you have at least a reasonable understanding of what young people are doing on computers. Age is not an excuse. It's bullshit that you are "so old I can't learn like I did when I was 18". That's just a ridiculus society-driven belief, which is not in the least bit true. Maybe you have a few less brain cells, yes. But more times then not, you're just BS-ing yourself because you're too lazy to learn. Stop fooling yourself and do some friggin work, instead of assuming your kids at fault for what you yourself don't understand.
2) Kids need to be treated more like people, rather then "kids"- i.e. people who somehow don't know anything just because "they haven't been alive long enough". For god sake, if kids know things about computers that you don't, what does that say about your belief that kids are ignorant? Time is not a good indicator of ablity. Only results are an indicator of ability. Just because a kid hasn't been around "long enough" doesn't mean they don't have the ability- ESPECIALLY when they demonstrate that ability by doing something.
3) So basically, if a kid does a crime, then take appropriate action. Parents should not be allowed to "protect" their kids from ligitimently committed crimes. Just make the crime fit the action, as well as the person who did it. It would be appropriate to hold a session with the 80-100 to explain to them why what they did was unacceptable, and have them do something like work on a project to improve school security. Or, it may be appropriate to take no action against the kid if the school cannot prove that they had a program in place to teach the kids what actions on their computer are/are not acceptable. It is fair that a person be given every opportunity to know and understand the law before any judgement for breaking that law is given.
Unbelievable.
Way back before iPods were all that popular, I bought a $400 1st generation iPod, and soon after a FM transmitter/charger (one of the first available. I think it was after the iTrip came out- possibly after the 2nd gen iPod came out, because it had a switch for use with either). I wish I could remember the brand, but it was all white, connected at the top, and had a snakelike plasic arm you could adjust via turning little screws on the pieces.
The only thing I can think of is either the company didn't patent it, or the patent office is so screwed up that nobody knows it was already patented. Take your pick.
Um sorry, but your wife should have done that from the beginning. Why in the world would she just make some kind of "generic" resume, instead of doing research as to the kind of person that perticular job wants and targeting her resume for that?
Honestly, finding a job should not be that big a deal. Finding a GOOD job that pays well and has all the benifits you want, that's a bit tougher. But getting hired at a fast food place? Unless you're a moron who has no people skills and no desire to learn, that should not be a problem. If you aren't getting a job, instead of blaming the government, your skills, or whatever, start looking at what you can do differently. Even walking around homeless on the street can teach you lessons, if you would only look for them.
Look, I'm not a republican in the least. But I agree with republicans in that most of the time, the reason people are not finding work is because they are unwilling to learn how to be different then they are. In other words, if a jobless person stays the same, with all their current habits and beliefs, then they will NEVER find work. NEVER. Because they are not in the habit of finding work. Their very nature is to be jobless, because that's what they are doing. That's what led up to now, the things they did, the habits they formed, it all equaled joblessness. So the fault is in THEM, not in the government, not in the job market, not anyone else- THEM.
One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If I could tell jobless people one thing, I would tell them that 90% of success is all in your brain and the way you think about yourself and your world, not in what specific skills you have at the moment. With the right outlook, the right skills can be learned, regardless of your past or where you where you are right now where you THINK you can't learn anything.
Here are some ways to get people going:
1) Successful people believe they create their lives, rather then believing that life happens to them. Hopelessness is weak. And it's untrue- it assumes that person didn't have even one success in their lives, which is impossible.
2) Successful people look for what they are doing right, rather then what they are doing wrong. You get more of what you focus on. If you focus on what's wrong with you, you will actually attract more crap into your life.
3) Successful people don't blame, complain, or justify themselves. They take full accountablity for their lives and their situation. In other words, they come from a place of acknowledging what they do or not do by CHOICE, not because someone "forced" them to do anything.
There are many more, but if you want to get a clue, read The Millionaire Mind by T Harv Eker.
If anyone is interested, I have the other half of the Noc List.
a program called "Program". Yea, that'd be cool. It would fit right in with programs called "Pages" and "Numbers".
Common, apple. The "Macs are for noobs & kiddies" bandwagon is only gaining in speed with these completely childish and stupid program names. Show a little imagination, for god sake.
Here apple has one of the most powerful operating systems on the planet, an OS that often makes the average unix/linux geek drool, and they are going to put out a program called "Numbers".
Apple really needs to get off the whole "Macs are easy to use" thing. Easy to use is good. Trivializing to pointlessness is bad.
Posting the information and pretending to be her is fraud.
Welcome to the internet my friend, where identity can not be confirmed. And if identity can not be confirmed, then neither can ownship.
IMHO, I never "got" the whole precedent thing here in the US. Is it a crime for a person to change their mind? Were older judges more wise in making their decisions then newer judges? Why should history be more powerful then doing what's right?
The comparision to Prohibition is an appropriate one. When a large number of people oppose a particular law, it's the laws problem, not the peoples problem. You simply can't argue against perception, and the perception of most people from the "mp3 era" is that file swapping is not theft.
Whether it is or is not theft isn't the issue, the issue is the RIAA's refusal to take advantage of the situation by creating new products and services which mesh with the perceptions of consumers. Intstead they use their efforts to sue people who are only going to spend more time being careful before they go about pirating again. The lawsuits accomplish nothing but create an environment of anger and desire for retribution.
There is a time for focusing on the problem and then there is a time for focusing on the solution. The RIAA spends most of their time in the former.
Um, isn't the point of installing Netscape 8 to use it as your web browser instead of IE? In other words, WHO CARES if Netscape breaks IE in the process of being installed?
God sakes, microsoft has a hissy fit every time people install alternatives, but then on their own time they feel perfectly justified in hijacking filetypes or even breaking other programs on purpose to keep people from using 3rd parties. People blame the authors of those program, instead of microsoft who caused the original problem by tying their old and pathetic web browser into the operating system.
I would have preferred it better if Netscape UNINSTALLED IE in the process of being installed.
I love this comment.
"Greasemonkey will cause you nothing but headaches"
Greasemonkey is user-installed. What a user chooses to do with a content provider's website is their own business. NEXT.
"...may even be a good reason to delay that Firefox pilot you're planning"
Fearmongering. Greasemonkey has no immediate affect on IT managers. Greasemonkey cannot "break" a website, nor can it change any content permanently. If you don't like users using it, then deny users the ability to install extensions. Or install the extensions you "approve" of and deny the rest. Or let users do what they want and refuse to answer their support questions. Whatever you want to do. Greasemonkey does not magically make doing IT any different then any other software install.
... is not more computer programs. What is needed is ways of either:
(A) Modeling and mapping a person's existing brain (the way they think right now) so that the tool acts as a natural extension of their existing habits and patterns of being.
(B) A systematic way of training people to build habits (preferably using accellerated learning techniques) to use the program in a way which will be effective and benificial for them.
The problem with modern computer programs is they offer features, but the way they get people to USE those features is extremely poor. Solution 1: read a long and tedious manual. Solution 2: read a long a tedious online help guide. Solution 3: "guess" what the program can do and go on a web forum to ask questions for stuff that doesn't work as you expect it to.
And all of these strategies fail. How many people use 2% of Office's feature set? How many people use the entire feature set of ANY program they bought?
And this is why software companies can keep selling new versions with new features. People are ALL READY not effective with the software version they have right in front of them, so they buy because they think the new features will become the effective person they know they could be.
I guess my key point out of all of this is software companies should STOP selling programs simply with MORE FEATURES! Create systems which help people USE the features in the program the most effecive way, which is 1000X better and more valuable.
And your problem with this is... what? Gates is a businessman. Businessmen sell product. Or rather, they sell solutions which they hope will benifit the people that buy them. If you don't want those solutions, don't use them. Use someone elses. Or don't use any at all. Sit at home with your thumb up your ass, if that's what you like doing.
Look at it this way. If nobody liked microsoft's solutions, microsoft wouldn't make any money. Obviously they do, so obviously, some people like what microsoft puts out. They want it or they need it, for whatever reason. Without the want or the need, nothing would sell. There's always more to sell, becuase there's always an unfullfilled need (for most people).
Gates got rich because he was smart and did the right things at the right times. You may not like him, but your thoughts about him just magicially becoming rich because he "got lucky" via his family/genetics/whathaveyou is a complete bunch of bullshit. It really pisses me off when people think that there must have been some magic bullet that made X person successful, rather then simply smart, hard work on that person's part. Anyone can become successful if you think and do the right things. But it's easier to say that someone else pulled their success out of an alien's ass, instead of figuring out what they did and doing it yourself so you become successful too.
"We are not interested in the game drivers and music drivers that are being added to the kernel. We are interested in a more stable kernel."
Disclaimer: I am not a linux geek, but I am an engineer, so I understand technology and the reasons why geeks do what they do.
That being said, my initial reaction to this story was: "oh man, the fact this is even an issue means linux has a long way to go". Why do I say that? Because it's obvious if linux wants more desktop share, they need to be working on the features that most people are interested in. Namely, games, music, etc. The fact is, games sell machines. Multimedia features sell machines. Look at apple: people are buying macs just to use their iLife programs. Last I checked, a stable kernel was not high on their list of reasons why they made the purchase.
I'm not discounting clean, organized code. Stablity and speed are important. But my general impression of the linux community (from the outside looking in) is that it's one big crab theory gone bad. As soon as one part of the community realizes the truth, that they only way to sell linux is to build into the system features that people actually will buy, the geeky half of the community steps in and whines that linux no longer has clean code and has become "feature bloated".
Look guys, I'd hate to put a lightbulb right up to the obvious, but consumers are not geeks. No matter how clean or efficent the code is made, the average person is simply NOT going to get excited unless the operating system has the FEATURES they want. Ultimately, it comes down to what they heck you can do with the operating system at the user level. If the user's experience is not "doing it" for them, then no amount of "clean code" is going to solve that problem.
And I know that comes as a complete downer to most geeks. We spend 10 hours a day tweaking our setups, getting everything just "perfect", and expect to be rewarded comparably. The sad thing is, most people don't care. They don't care what the code looks like, they don't care about how much time it took, and they don't care about our "brilliant" hacks. The important thing to them is what they can do with it.
So what is the solution? Easy: split up linux for the different markets. One market is for geeks, like the above gentleman who want a stable kernel and nothing else. The second market is for consumers that play games, listen to music, etc. Geeks get their geektoy, and consumers get what they want. But the community is not going to be able to make a version of linux that will appeal totally to both markets, since the markets are COMPLETELY different. (Again, geeks aren't consumers.)
Wow. The public really is blind.
- Nobody can stop anyone from posting information on the internet. It's simply impossible.
- The internet isn't governed by the US government. There's nothing the governement can do to stop people posting information, except to lock down the entire internet like the Chinese do. That won't happen because the media in this country is too powerful.
- It doesn't matter if bloggers are journalists or not. If I write something on a piece of paper, photocopy it, and give it to 100 people, am I a journalist? The socially acceptable opinion would be: "No". The real question is not over journalism, the question is over trust. And nothing, absolutely NOTHING on the internet can be trusted, because it's damn near impossible to tag any piece of information definitively to a person. So the answer becomes: choose who you trust carefully.
The big piece of all of this is the slow realization that it's becoming no longer necessary to go to school for 20 years to learn the "proper" way of doing something. Not when people have a resource like the net, and can quickly become an expert in nearly any subject (highly technical subjects still probably require degrees.) Where "journalists" are getting pissed off is simply a lack of acknowledgement that the times have changed and the barrier to entry has become much smaller then they would like to admit.
...when asked about freedom of speech we think about general principles, abstractions.
Abstractions are easier to ignore when it suits our purpose.
A good example is most Christans in this country. The Bible speaks of sharing the word with others. Here's a specific thing that we've been told we have to do, no questions asked. But do most people actually do it? Nope. They go about their lives as normal, say they've sinned and go back to church next week and say they're sorry. That way, they don't ever have to take on any responsiblity to change. God forgives us even if we're weak, sniveling morons.
As Jeseph would say: "You can't handle the truth."
No, sorry, I think people are perfectly qualified to understand that they don't want their private data on the web.
Competency is relative. Is a person competent to make a personal decision? Of course. But that doesn't mean they decide things which are in their own best interest. Given the choice, most people would decide to stay subconscious. To do what they've always been doing: not necessarily what they choose to do or what is in their best interest to do.
What the article is suggesting and what most people don't understand is that the framework of how something is worded, for most people, greatly influences their decision. It's psychology. People of course are going to be afraid someone will abuse their personal information, even if the context is wrong and that result is unlikely of ever happening. (Nobody I personally know has been subject to Identity Theft- it's simply not a likely thing to happen and thus not worth the wasted energy worrying about it.)
Basically it's "bah, I'm the important one. You don't matter."
This is true for all people. Even the smartest person in the world, who has a wide variety of choice available to them, is going to be self-centered. Because that's just how people work. There is nothing wrong with it. Where we get screwed up is when people refuse to believe that everyone has different and has different strengths and weaknesses. A smart person has more value to society then a dumb one. It doesn't mean that the dumb one is an unworthy person, but trying ignore the difference between the two extremes, when we know the difference exists, is simply disregarding facts.
Anyway, the orginal point remains. Most polls are complete crap- not because of the wording, but because there's no data as to why people are making any particular choice, what their background is, what their belief systems are, etc. It's trying to chuck down WAY too much data into a teeny-weeny space, and then making some outlandish conclusion based on that. The process itself is simply flawed for telling anyone any useful information about what people believe.
Excuse me, but that's cultural bullshit. There is no "true nature of humanity". The reason people focus on the negative is because we've been programmed to: watching television, reading news, etc. all that crap is typically negative. That doesn't mean it's the true nature of people: it's only a bad habit we've formed over time.
If you don't like your job, leave. You don't have to stay there. You CHOOSE to stay there, but it's not an absolute. There are no absolutes, only perceptions and what things we choose to give meaning for.
If you don't like other people, then maybe it's your problem instead of theirs. You choose your reaction to them. If you want to piss and moan about how everyone is stupid/negative, then all you are doing is let them control you. STOP IT. If someone sucks, teach them what you know, or move into an environment with people who aren't that way.
BTW, the only reason the net tends to get negative is because there is no accountablity because everything is anonymous. In other words, people can be complete assholes with nothing to stop them from doing so. Without accountablity, there is no integrity. And integrity is what the world lacks the most.
"We are concerned about security on an open standard environment like that. We are also concerned about some of the scalability issues that we are seeing on our clients on a global basis. Also, we are somewhat cautious about what happened with Unix - it splintered into eight applications..."
I love how a person can raise concerns about an issue without presenting any justification as to why the concerns exist. As if asking more and more negative sounding questions adds some sort of weight to the opinion that "linux must be bad".
-WHY do you think an open standard environment has any inherent bearing on security?
-PROVIDE EXAMPLES why linux is not scalable.
-WHY would linux necessarily go the path of unix when linux is totally different?
Conclusion: stupid article, typical fearmongering. The fact this is an "aliance" adds absolutely no weight to the irresponsiblity of the conclusions.