No.
The UKian Government has proved beyond doubt it is incapable of looking after sensitive personal data. The Government employs these private companies without any recourse for penalties, with massive rewards for the Boards, and no comeback for us proles who pay their wages.
If you're interested, here's some googlewords for you: Devil's Kitchen, LPUK, Guido Fawkes.
I understand that Bastard Old Holborn and many others will be taking an interesting walk on the 5th of November.
If Kylix is anything like Delphi or C++ Builder on Windows this is exactly what Linux needs.
Coming from a Win32 background I'm shocked with the lack of decent RAD tools for Linux. A decent IDE, with class completion and interactive debugging is a must for Linux. There are tools out there, eg RHIDE but these are more 3.5GL than 4GL. Make it easy for the developers to get a pretty front end to a database, and you're up and running. I anticipate Kylix being able to do this, admirably. And if you want to get down to the bare metal, I'm pretty sure Kylix will not stand in your way.
Of course, the only problem is getting enough desktops running Linux so Kylix can be profitable. That's a whole other wave on a whole other ocean...
I have to say that Borland compilers & IDEs *rock* - the only better environment I've ever been in was the now defunct Watcom...
Come on now, live a little!!! It'll make those Friday afternoon team meetings go by quicker; if all the techs are carrying one... (Would that make a Beowulf cluster?)
1) This isn't about apologies. It's about political manoevering by China or the US to use as a bargaining chip in any forthcoming negotiations.
2) The internet will not democratise China. The internet will not democratise China. The internet will not democratise China. Say it with me again, Katz, the internet will not democratise China. There are far too many inroads into China for western culture, but the internet is the smallest and easiest controlled. Wonder where those "billions" of dollars are going on "infrastructure"? I'd bet a pound to a penny you could get a good Echelon-type system together for even one billion...
Katz once again has believed the market hype of the media whores who pushed the whole "internet will change all our lives".
Look at all the good things on the internet today - you can share files, you can seek tech help, you can waste time on weblogs... You can buy a holiday, you can research a car spec, all these things are good and possible.
What is evil about the internet? Kiddie pr0n, corporations subverting open standards, and marketing. Without marketing there wouldn't be 35 spam messages sitting in my inbox. Without marketing we wouldn't have had the boom bust dotcom era.
The meltdown in dotcom stocks is a symptom of how marketing and PR are destroying everything that's is good in the world, and not just on the net. Why do people get killed for their Nikes? Because the killers saw the marketing and *had* to have the trainers.
The fact of the matter is the Internet has improved my life. It's easy to download latest patches & drivers and look for help when I'm at work. I can plan evenings out with my friends over email, or offer them sympathy if they're down. I can track down hard to find books. Small things, but my life is arguably better than pre internet days.
What the marketers saw was communities like the WELL and thought that was for everybody. The thing about places like that is that they attract a similar kind of people, where these people can then found communities.
Most of the more cohesive communities online that I belong to are tech based. I think this is because us techs resent the way the internet has turned out and look for our own little oasis, free from the lusers that infest the net today. These communities are the envy of the media luvvies who push the net-chages-everything argument, because the media people are now realising that you can't build it - it must be allowed to grow. And most lusers aren't willing to go through that curve.
In short, as ntk.net says - "They stole our revolution. Now we're stealing it back".
But I can see the lawyers rubbing their hands already.
OK, on the one hand, we have unwitting users sharing their HDD's inadvertently to the internet. On the other hand, as the article says, they had to click to share that folder; it was a conscious decision on their part to share it.
On the plus side, there is no big single entity to sue here like with Napster, only individuals. And those individuals can always say "Ooops, I didn't realise _everyone_ could see my files!", so the suing company will burn wedges of cash tracking people down just to see them roll over. Again, the legal vultures are circling..
Great idea using Usenet, though. And everyone thought that Usenet was dead!:) The one thing that is potentially scary to Joe Public, is the scanning aspect of this. Allowing users to voluntarily upload their details to Usenet, and with a check in the Sniff program that ensures only the share you intended to publish is free of a password, and you've potentially got the Next Big Thing.
Oh, I did read the article, but I was expecting some research at least to go into these unfounded statements.
Oh, of course, it's Katz on/., my mistake...
Again, a US centric/. article - if Katz would take his USian specs off and done some digging, it would have been nice to see where the rest of the world is on this. And Katz neatly ignores the issue if a company has incorrect data on you.
Here in the UK we _do_ have rights of data access. For once our Government has done something quite well.
The Data Protection Act Was originally drafted in 1984 (the irony!) and has been amended a few times since. In action, it works - I have requested credit profiles for myself for the nominal charge of UK £1, and received the information quickly and without quibble.
Pity about the mess that is RIP, though... Stand has a good writeup about it...
I hate spam. Imagine showing your Mum how to use email, and she dials up, checks the email and gets "XXX hot cum loving teens.com" messages - not good.
This is one area of the Internet that does need a regulatory body to clamp down on these scumbags. And I believe one of the free email address websites even has a "bulk mail" option...
I don't know how to make this work, or if it is even possible. But in the UK, you pay per minute for your internet connection (it's getting better, but slowly though), and these spammers are effectively stealing from me. But it is not in the interests of government to clamp down on it (hey, it's internet advertising, right? We gotta help those dotcom's make some money so we can claim to be "wired" as a nation) and whilst the efforts of RBL and others are welcome, I still get 25+ emails a day of crap I just delete.
Harry Harrison's The Stainless Steel Rat
Aaah, but "Slippery" Jim DiGriz went right out of his way to avoid killing... Wonder what happened to Harry Harrison?
If you 've never read any SSR, do yourself a favour and get all the books!!!:)
Why, what does it mean over there?
Over here (in Great Britain), wank used to be _really_ rude, but due to over use (maybe through TV), it's not really that rude any more. C*nt is about the most offensive swearword in Great Britain right now, I think. But what will happen when that gets overused? I wonder if anybody has plotted a league table of swear words, in order of offensiveness, and compared it over the years...
Mind you, I can just imagine Great Aunt Hilda being stopped in the street by a MORI pollster, and asked to rank the following swearwords in order...
A poor precedent to set.
This is the first step in censoring; the more that "the authorities" take upon themselves to regulate, the more they will assume to be their right to regulate. Mostly to protect themselves, I think; for example I can see the next logical step in this being "Oh, that's too similar to [large corporation]'s domain name".
The only rule domain registrars should actively enforce, is that the domain itself does not currently exist. That way, they don't have to encase the registration in x different rules and disclaimers to protect themselves from lawsuits.
Scary precedent.
Wouldn't it be possible for a user to specify his own "license agreement"
I wonder that, too - and I also wonder what happened to all those people who put "Unsolicited email sent to the my email address will be charged at £50" as their.sig or on their webpage... Have any of these people ever had any success in claiming their "fines"?
Because, despite making tools that frankly kick anything MS had delivered for developing in Windows, Borland still are going down the tubes, IMHO.
And it's a shame. Ever used Delphi or C++ Builder? They rock. None of this pissing about with message pumps or maps, just get in there and _write your code_. If you want to do low down and nasty stuff, you can, with a minimum of effort. And the compiler spits out some very tight code. MS stole some Borland people a while back, but Borland still have a keen competitive edge.BR
I thought Kylix was about to resurrect Borland's finances, but if they release this as free beer, it will be great for the OSS people, but suicide for Borland. Don't get me wrong, I love free beer as much as the next man, but I _would_ shell out for Kylix as I trust Borland to bring some serious quality tools to Linux. And the ease of use of Delphi / C++ Builder will bring many, many Win32 programmers across. The Bearded Gurus amongst you may not want this, but even a Win32 coder brings another pair of eyes to see those bugs...
the idea of placing a chip behind the retina to record all of the events of a life and reconstruct that life from them. Which is a terrifically bad idea
Nope, it'd be great. You can remember the best shag of your life, all in glorious technicolour, you can remember your first child being born, from your own perspective, and what the mountains looked like in winter.
And as a side bonus, you can check to see what kind of arse you made of yourself at the pub last night...:)
And just imagine what Quake would look like if these implants were two way!!!
What about Interbase?
I'm a bit confused about the whole deal, Interbase is now Open Source, which is nice, but is it free beer? The website (here says it is freely downloadable and open source) but is it free as in beer?
Interbase is a nice database for small to mid range deployments. Fast, small, and rock solid. But nobody is getting behind it - the Interbase section on sourceforge has no files released yet.
Any other/.'ers out there with links to what is really going on? I gather there was some grief and a splinter group has been formed (FireBird?)
"Designed by a computer, built by a robot, driven by a moron.
"Designed by a computer, built by a robot..."
Was an advertising slogan in Britain for German cars a few years back, and a lot of them had this displayed on a sticker on the back windshield.
Someone else spraypainted the "driven by a moron" just after the sticker on one of these cars.
The car in question had been driven through a shop window...
Slashdot Mirror
The BBC has lost its objectivity though. http://obotheclown.blogspot.com/2009/01/spot-odd-one-out.html
No. The UKian Government has proved beyond doubt it is incapable of looking after sensitive personal data. The Government employs these private companies without any recourse for penalties, with massive rewards for the Boards, and no comeback for us proles who pay their wages. If you're interested, here's some googlewords for you: Devil's Kitchen, LPUK, Guido Fawkes. I understand that Bastard Old Holborn and many others will be taking an interesting walk on the 5th of November.
Coming from a Win32 background I'm shocked with the lack of decent RAD tools for Linux. A decent IDE, with class completion and interactive debugging is a must for Linux. There are tools out there, eg RHIDE but these are more 3.5GL than 4GL. Make it easy for the developers to get a pretty front end to a database, and you're up and running. I anticipate Kylix being able to do this, admirably. And if you want to get down to the bare metal, I'm pretty sure Kylix will not stand in your way.
Of course, the only problem is getting enough desktops running Linux so Kylix can be profitable. That's a whole other wave on a whole other ocean...
I have to say that Borland compilers & IDEs *rock* - the only better environment I've ever been in was the now defunct Watcom...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Come on now, live a little!!! It'll make those Friday afternoon team meetings go by quicker; if all the techs are carrying one... (Would that make a Beowulf cluster?)
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
2) The internet will not democratise China. The internet will not democratise China. The internet will not democratise China. Say it with me again, Katz, the internet will not democratise China. There are far too many inroads into China for western culture, but the internet is the smallest and easiest controlled. Wonder where those "billions" of dollars are going on "infrastructure"? I'd bet a pound to a penny you could get a good Echelon-type system together for even one billion...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Katz once again has believed the market hype of the media whores who pushed the whole "internet will change all our lives".
Look at all the good things on the internet today - you can share files, you can seek tech help, you can waste time on weblogs... You can buy a holiday, you can research a car spec, all these things are good and possible.
What is evil about the internet? Kiddie pr0n, corporations subverting open standards, and marketing. Without marketing there wouldn't be 35 spam messages sitting in my inbox. Without marketing we wouldn't have had the boom bust dotcom era.
The meltdown in dotcom stocks is a symptom of how marketing and PR are destroying everything that's is good in the world, and not just on the net. Why do people get killed for their Nikes? Because the killers saw the marketing and *had* to have the trainers.
The fact of the matter is the Internet has improved my life. It's easy to download latest patches & drivers and look for help when I'm at work. I can plan evenings out with my friends over email, or offer them sympathy if they're down. I can track down hard to find books. Small things, but my life is arguably better than pre internet days.
What the marketers saw was communities like the WELL and thought that was for everybody. The thing about places like that is that they attract a similar kind of people, where these people can then found communities.
Most of the more cohesive communities online that I belong to are tech based. I think this is because us techs resent the way the internet has turned out and look for our own little oasis, free from the lusers that infest the net today. These communities are the envy of the media luvvies who push the net-chages-everything argument, because the media people are now realising that you can't build it - it must be allowed to grow. And most lusers aren't willing to go through that curve.
In short, as ntk.net says - "They stole our revolution. Now we're stealing it back".
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
OK, on the one hand, we have unwitting users sharing their HDD's inadvertently to the internet. On the other hand, as the article says, they had to click to share that folder; it was a conscious decision on their part to share it.
On the plus side, there is no big single entity to sue here like with Napster, only individuals. And those individuals can always say "Ooops, I didn't realise _everyone_ could see my files!", so the suing company will burn wedges of cash tracking people down just to see them roll over. Again, the legal vultures are circling..
Great idea using Usenet, though. And everyone thought that Usenet was dead!
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Mind you, if the alternative is frying slowly under an angry sun, I suppose it would be worth tossing the whole Earth onto the scales of chance...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Oh, of course, it's Katz on
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Here in the UK we _do_ have rights of data access. For once our Government has done something quite well. The Data Protection Act Was originally drafted in 1984 (the irony!) and has been amended a few times since. In action, it works - I have requested credit profiles for myself for the nominal charge of UK £1, and received the information quickly and without quibble.
Pity about the mess that is RIP, though... Stand has a good writeup about it...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
For the ultimate in overclocking!!! Built in liquid nitrogen bath for your motherboard!!!
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
This is one area of the Internet that does need a regulatory body to clamp down on these scumbags. And I believe one of the free email address websites even has a "bulk mail" option...
I don't know how to make this work, or if it is even possible. But in the UK, you pay per minute for your internet connection (it's getting better, but slowly though), and these spammers are effectively stealing from me. But it is not in the interests of government to clamp down on it (hey, it's internet advertising, right? We gotta help those dotcom's make some money so we can claim to be "wired" as a nation) and whilst the efforts of RBL and others are welcome, I still get 25+ emails a day of crap I just delete.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Aaah, but "Slippery" Jim DiGriz went right out of his way to avoid killing... Wonder what happened to Harry Harrison?
If you 've never read any SSR, do yourself a favour and get all the books!!!
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Hmm, I'm sorry, but I'd want a better guarantee than _that_!!!
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Over here (in Great Britain), wank used to be _really_ rude, but due to over use (maybe through TV), it's not really that rude any more. C*nt is about the most offensive swearword in Great Britain right now, I think. But what will happen when that gets overused? I wonder if anybody has plotted a league table of swear words, in order of offensiveness, and compared it over the years...
Mind you, I can just imagine Great Aunt Hilda being stopped in the street by a MORI pollster, and asked to rank the following swearwords in order...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
This is the first step in censoring; the more that "the authorities" take upon themselves to regulate, the more they will assume to be their right to regulate. Mostly to protect themselves, I think; for example I can see the next logical step in this being "Oh, that's too similar to [large corporation]'s domain name".
The only rule domain registrars should actively enforce, is that the domain itself does not currently exist. That way, they don't have to encase the registration in x different rules and disclaimers to protect themselves from lawsuits.
Scary precedent.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
I wonder that, too - and I also wonder what happened to all those people who put "Unsolicited email sent to the my email address will be charged at £50" as their
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
I found this on IRC earlier, transcript follows:
17 w45 m3!!! 1 0wn3d j00 4nd d3l373d 411 j00r mp3 f1l3zzz!!! ph33r m33, 1 4m u171m473 31337 h4xx0r d00d!!!
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Mmm, crispy duck and dumplings!
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
And it's a shame. Ever used Delphi or C++ Builder? They rock. None of this pissing about with message pumps or maps, just get in there and _write your code_. If you want to do low down and nasty stuff, you can, with a minimum of effort. And the compiler spits out some very tight code. MS stole some Borland people a while back, but Borland still have a keen competitive edge.BR I thought Kylix was about to resurrect Borland's finances, but if they release this as free beer, it will be great for the OSS people, but suicide for Borland. Don't get me wrong, I love free beer as much as the next man, but I _would_ shell out for Kylix as I trust Borland to bring some serious quality tools to Linux. And the ease of use of Delphi / C++ Builder will bring many, many Win32 programmers across. The Bearded Gurus amongst you may not want this, but even a Win32 coder brings another pair of eyes to see those bugs...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Nope, it'd be great. You can remember the best shag of your life, all in glorious technicolour, you can remember your first child being born, from your own perspective, and what the mountains looked like in winter.
And as a side bonus, you can check to see what kind of arse you made of yourself at the pub last night...
And just imagine what Quake would look like if these implants were two way!!!
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
I'm a bit confused about the whole deal, Interbase is now Open Source, which is nice, but is it free beer? The website (here says it is freely downloadable and open source) but is it free as in beer?
Interbase is a nice database for small to mid range deployments. Fast, small, and rock solid. But nobody is getting behind it - the Interbase section on sourceforge has no files released yet.
Any other
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
"Designed by a computer, built by a robot..."
Was an advertising slogan in Britain for German cars a few years back, and a lot of them had this displayed on a sticker on the back windshield.
Someone else spraypainted the "driven by a moron" just after the sticker on one of these cars.
The car in question had been driven through a shop window...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.