Katz never claimed that the Clinton administration was particularly net-friendly. He is just stating that he expects to see the Bush admin pursue a much more active policy than Clinton did.
I am a java programmer, so obviously I'm a bit biased towards OO techniques; even so, I do recognize that OOD does have its failings and agree with several of the author's points. My major gripe with his article is that it seems to be one big rant against OO with very little in the way of decent alternatives. He lists all of these problems with OO, but never really says how similar tasks would be accomplished in a non-OO language except for some very trivial cases. Even when he talks about C, he is critical; so my question is, what techniques/languages does he suggest we use? VB? Pascal?
Unless he can answer that question, I don't think he has made a decent point for abandoning OOD.
You are right in that the impact of the tunnel itself would be relatively small, but you are overlooking the fact that they also have to build the railroads to connect to the tunnel. This would need to go over land/permafrost and would have an environmental impact.
Half the posts for this fuck-up seem to be griping about how/. is going downhill, etc. I think people are overreacting here. Yes, this is a screw up, and it is not the first, but neither is it one of many. Considering the number of links that are posted a week, the number of mistakes is relatively small, and in nearly every case, the staff has been quick to post a retraction/update. This is more than can be said for a lot dead-tree magazines who are actually publishing their own content as facts.
Keep in mind that the article is about the most influential games, not necessary the most popular.
Quake is significant because it introduced internet-wide gaming on a large scale along with the first real support for user mods (Doom allowed mods, but it was more of a hack than a standard game feature.)
Half-Life is considered important because it showed that the Quake format could be used for more than just multiplayer and shooters. It demonstrated the ability to create a consistent and engrossing story that progressed relatively naturally through the game. Of course one could argue that the original System Shock did the same, but it did not have the impact that Half-Life did.
Nobody has ever claimed that recycling will save the world; this is why it is the 3 Rs: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. But the fact is that it is a very important component. Recycling is important not only to keep down resource usage, but also to prevent certain toxic chemicals, etc from improperly reentering the environment. A common example with computers is lead in computer monitors. By recycling the monitor, you can not only reclaim reusable components, but you can also extract the lead and other hazardous materials so that they can safely be disposed of.
The fact is that eventually something like this is going to become mandated due to environmental and resource concerns. Once that happens, the recycling and disposal costs will be built into the purchase cost. IBM is simply getting a jump on this by starting an independent program now. Since they cannot influence the purchase price, they need to charge a disposal fee.
BTW, most cities already do charge a disposal fee for computers, TVs, etc since they qualify as hazardous waste. It might not be 30 dollars, but it is not something you can do for free.
In the case of abandonware, people break copywright law because they simply have no alternative. Programs end up on abandonware sites specifically because they are not obtainable through any other legitimate means usually because the software is out-of-date.
Unlike the whole free music debate, this is not a case of people wanting the programs for free. They just want to have access to the programs period. Unless software companies suddenly start licensing out-of-date software, abandonware sites do have a legitimate and useful purpose.
Actually, TSR long has not existed as a company for awhile now. Wizard of the Coasts owns the D&D franchise along with the TSR trademark and is doing its best to avoid the mistakes TSR made in the past. Of course WotC is owned by Hasbro I believe.
Guns are physical objects which are purchased from registered suppliers(generally); thus eliminating their sale and making possession illegal can actually be enforced.
Software on the other hand, has no physical form (aside from a print out) and particularly with hacking software, is not something that is enforced. Unless they are planning on maintaining extensive surveys of the web and/or executing some sort of mind control, they really can't do anything to reduce the proliferation of the software. They might be able to drive it underground to some degree, but considering a lot of this stuff already exists on the fringes of the net, its not going to make much of a diffence. All it will do is inconvenience those people who have a legitimate use for the software.
Your logic is a bit off. One could argue in some cases that a lack of education/ignorance might actually increase the chance that a person will vote because they will be more easily swayed by the media and campaign propoganda, and consequently will feel they have more to lose.
What is more significant than education is the perceived value of voting. A person could have analysed the candidates in minute detail and come to the conclusion that none of them are really worth voting for (many people don't believe in voting for the lesser or 2 evils); thus they chose not to vote since are current system does not offer a reall ability to express a negative vote.
In a simpler case, a person might be have been out of the country, or too busy with work/family to adequately understand the issues. I don't think it is in any way fair to criticize them for choosing to not vote rather than vote for someone who could be a mistake. (its kinda like the some standardized tests, making your best guess can actually penalize you)
Note that a similar concept was proposed in Robert Heinlein's book Starship Troopers (which was nothing like the godawful movie). Rather than competance though, it was military service which granted you full citizenship and the right to vote (other types of service might also have been valid, its been awhile since I read this). Thus, if you wanted to participate, you had to indicate it by your actions.
Part of the reason I have not voted up to now (and probably still won't) is that I do not take the time to full research the issues and candidates; consequently, I do not feel it is appropriate for me to vote on something I know nothing about.
What makes/.'s political bias any more of a problem than its linux bias? Its not like Rob and Co are making claims to being unbiased. They have clearly indicated that they are generally anti-Republican (which is more than you can say for a lot of national and region papers).
At least the articles they are posting are providing some element to discuss other than the actual politics. In this article, its the tendency of the press to reiterate falacies long after they've been disproved, and yesterday, it was Brin's question of the potential results of a repeal of the inheritance tax.
There is also the fact that you can turn off the politics subject entirely, which I believe Rob mentioned when he first started posting these articles.
I'm curious why there never seems to much discussion over limited monitoring tools. If its possible to completely block a web page, then it also should be possible to flag when certain pages are accessed and then notify a system monitor. The monitor can then contact the offending user and inform them they are violating school/library policy. If the student has a valid reason to be accessing prohibitted sites, they can still be permitted.
Of course there are a lot of issues with this, including privacy and the objectiveness of the monitor, but it does seem like a better alternative than total blocking. This is particularly true for schools where internet access should exist primarily for research, not random surfing (at least during regular hours).
Actually, I would tend to think that adding a tax to the cost of a burner would do very little to dissuade any serious pirates since the extra tax would presumably not be significant compared to the money they make selling pirated software. The only pirates who it would dissuade are those who copy software and give it away.
In the meantime, everyone who has a legitimate use for burners gets screwed.
Read the book Hackers by Stephen Levy. It goes into a fair amount of detail about the activities of RMS and other old school hackers. On of the things that is pointed out a several points is that many of the early hackers believed in complete freedom of information because locking things behind closed doors stifled learning (thus the reason that many hackers are also locksmiths on the side). Unfortunately, passwords and other security measures no longer exist to secure just information, they also secure systems, etc. A missing/bad password on your system can result in some spammer abusing your smtp host, or something similar.
The problem with switching to DVD style cases is that you are moving from a somewhat renewable resource (trees) to plastic, which is only renewable over a very long time period. Much as I'd like the smaller boxes, I'd prefer the packaging be something which has a chance of biodegrading. Plus, DVD style cases will only work for single CD/DVD games.
So what do you do when it fails to detect that it's you 2% of the time? Unless they can achieve 100% reliability on this, I can't imagine it ever flying. Plus, what happens if you injure one or both of your hands, or, god forbid, you take a professional typing course. Presumably this will affect your typing rhythm, which means that suddenly, you can't access your own legally purchased music.
Actually, a voucher system like that is already in place to some degrees. Company are given so many vouchers each year which they can either use by polluting to which they can sell to other companies who are going to exceed there own supply.
I think you are jumping the gun here. It'll be several more months before the decision on what action to take is renedered, and then it'll be several more years of appeals before it is implemented. By that time, natural market pressures presumably will have weakened the MS monopoly to a reasonable level.
Even if a quick resolution is put in place and MS is split up next year, this does not mean that the computer industry will fragment. In general, it is the tendency of computer systems to converge on common standards rather than to diverge. Only when a company is intentially trying to deviate (eg: embrace and extend) or a new technology offers significant enough benefits will standards shift or break.
I know this is not common to everyone, but for me, sound quality is one of the number one reasons for me to purchase a CD rather than to simply hork a copy of the MP3. You take a song encoded at 128/44 and route it into a good stereo and then compare it to the same song played direct from the CD and there are worlds of difference. Granted, this does not stop your avg student who's best stereo might in fact be there comp, but it can make a difference a few years down the road when they have some money and actually want a decent recording.
Divx was a slightly different monster. With Divx, you paid for a copy of the media, but then had to pay everytime you wanted to watch it. In essence, it was a rental which you did not have to return. It offered no significant technical benefits over VHS and was overpriced to top it off.
The ideas being proposed here are different. Most of the ideas proposed here suggest paying a relatively innocuous fee everytime you wish to listen to a song. This has the nice benefit that you only pay for the songs that you want to listen to and it really doesn't cost much unless you listen to them a lot (in which case, you could simply buy the CD). Depending on how it is implemented, you would not even have a copy on your comp, but would instead simply be paying for the stream. There are a lot of problems with this; the biggest being how do you listen to the music if you are not online, but this is nowhere nearly as bad as Divx, which was simply a blatant attempt to screw the consumer.
You are correct that people will always come up with cracks on protection/sales schemes, but this does not mean everyone will use the crack. If the pricing schemes are reasonable enough, people are generally willing to pay for a product. Of course what qualifies as reasonable varies widely and is heavily dependent on age, personality, etc. Even so, I don't think the threat of cracking is as great a threat as you make it out to be.
I recently read the second book of Richard Feynman annecdotes (I can't remember the title), of which over half is dedicated to the research he did as part of the commission to research the Challenger accident. He tells of numerous places where documentation was in error, or tests were performed inaccurately, etc. This was of course 15 years ago, so a lot could have changed, but NASA definitely has a history of having screwed up, particularly when it comes to communication between depts, etc.
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Katz never claimed that the Clinton administration was particularly net-friendly. He is just stating that he expects to see the Bush admin pursue a much more active policy than Clinton did.
I am a java programmer, so obviously I'm a bit biased towards OO techniques; even so, I do recognize that OOD does have its failings and agree with several of the author's points. My major gripe with his article is that it seems to be one big rant against OO with very little in the way of decent alternatives. He lists all of these problems with OO, but never really says how similar tasks would be accomplished in a non-OO language except for some very trivial cases. Even when he talks about C, he is critical; so my question is, what techniques/languages does he suggest we use? VB? Pascal?
Unless he can answer that question, I don't think he has made a decent point for abandoning OOD.
You are right in that the impact of the tunnel itself would be relatively small, but you are overlooking the fact that they also have to build the railroads to connect to the tunnel. This would need to go over land/permafrost and would have an environmental impact.
Half the posts for this fuck-up seem to be griping about how /. is going downhill, etc. I think people are overreacting here. Yes, this is a screw up, and it is not the first, but neither is it one of many. Considering the number of links that are posted a week, the number of mistakes is relatively small, and in nearly every case, the staff has been quick to post a retraction/update. This is more than can be said for a lot dead-tree magazines who are actually publishing their own content as facts.
Keep in mind that the article is about the most influential games, not necessary the most popular.
Quake is significant because it introduced internet-wide gaming on a large scale along with the first real support for user mods (Doom allowed mods, but it was more of a hack than a standard game feature.)
Half-Life is considered important because it showed that the Quake format could be used for more than just multiplayer and shooters. It demonstrated the ability to create a consistent and engrossing story that progressed relatively naturally through the game. Of course one could argue that the original System Shock did the same, but it did not have the impact that Half-Life did.
Nobody has ever claimed that recycling will save the world; this is why it is the 3 Rs: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. But the fact is that it is a very important component. Recycling is important not only to keep down resource usage, but also to prevent certain toxic chemicals, etc from improperly reentering the environment. A common example with computers is lead in computer monitors. By recycling the monitor, you can not only reclaim reusable components, but you can also extract the lead and other hazardous materials so that they can safely be disposed of.
The fact is that eventually something like this is going to become mandated due to environmental and resource concerns. Once that happens, the recycling and disposal costs will be built into the purchase cost. IBM is simply getting a jump on this by starting an independent program now. Since they cannot influence the purchase price, they need to charge a disposal fee.
BTW, most cities already do charge a disposal fee for computers, TVs, etc since they qualify as hazardous waste. It might not be 30 dollars, but it is not something you can do for free.
In the case of abandonware, people break copywright law because they simply have no alternative. Programs end up on abandonware sites specifically because they are not obtainable through any other legitimate means usually because the software is out-of-date.
Unlike the whole free music debate, this is not a case of people wanting the programs for free. They just want to have access to the programs period. Unless software companies suddenly start licensing out-of-date software, abandonware sites do have a legitimate and useful purpose.
Actually, TSR long has not existed as a company for awhile now. Wizard of the Coasts owns the D&D franchise along with the TSR trademark and is doing its best to avoid the mistakes TSR made in the past. Of course WotC is owned by Hasbro I believe.
Guns are physical objects which are purchased from registered suppliers(generally); thus eliminating their sale and making possession illegal can actually be enforced.
Software on the other hand, has no physical form (aside from a print out) and particularly with hacking software, is not something that is enforced. Unless they are planning on maintaining extensive surveys of the web and/or executing some sort of mind control, they really can't do anything to reduce the proliferation of the software. They might be able to drive it underground to some degree, but considering a lot of this stuff already exists on the fringes of the net, its not going to make much of a diffence. All it will do is inconvenience those people who have a legitimate use for the software.
Your logic is a bit off. One could argue in some cases that a lack of education/ignorance might actually increase the chance that a person will vote because they will be more easily swayed by the media and campaign propoganda, and consequently will feel they have more to lose.
What is more significant than education is the perceived value of voting. A person could have analysed the candidates in minute detail and come to the conclusion that none of them are really worth voting for (many people don't believe in voting for the lesser or 2 evils); thus they chose not to vote since are current system does not offer a reall ability to express a negative vote.
In a simpler case, a person might be have been out of the country, or too busy with work/family to adequately understand the issues. I don't think it is in any way fair to criticize them for choosing to not vote rather than vote for someone who could be a mistake. (its kinda like the some standardized tests, making your best guess can actually penalize you)
Note that a similar concept was proposed in Robert Heinlein's book Starship Troopers (which was nothing like the godawful movie). Rather than competance though, it was military service which granted you full citizenship and the right to vote (other types of service might also have been valid, its been awhile since I read this). Thus, if you wanted to participate, you had to indicate it by your actions.
Part of the reason I have not voted up to now (and probably still won't) is that I do not take the time to full research the issues and candidates; consequently, I do not feel it is appropriate for me to vote on something I know nothing about.
What makes /.'s political bias any more of a problem than its linux bias? Its not like Rob and Co are making claims to being unbiased. They have clearly indicated that they are generally anti-Republican (which is more than you can say for a lot of national and region papers).
At least the articles they are posting are providing some element to discuss other than the actual politics. In this article, its the tendency of the press to reiterate falacies long after they've been disproved, and yesterday, it was Brin's question of the potential results of a repeal of the inheritance tax.
There is also the fact that you can turn off the politics subject entirely, which I believe Rob mentioned when he first started posting these articles.
I'm curious why there never seems to much discussion over limited monitoring tools. If its possible to completely block a web page, then it also should be possible to flag when certain pages are accessed and then notify a system monitor. The monitor can then contact the offending user and inform them they are violating school/library policy. If the student has a valid reason to be accessing prohibitted sites, they can still be permitted.
Of course there are a lot of issues with this, including privacy and the objectiveness of the monitor, but it does seem like a better alternative than total blocking. This is particularly true for schools where internet access should exist primarily for research, not random surfing (at least during regular hours).
Actually, I would tend to think that adding a tax to the cost of a burner would do very little to dissuade any serious pirates since the extra tax would presumably not be significant compared to the money they make selling pirated software. The only pirates who it would dissuade are those who copy software and give it away.
In the meantime, everyone who has a legitimate use for burners gets screwed.
Read the book Hackers by Stephen Levy. It goes into a fair amount of detail about the activities of RMS and other old school hackers. On of the things that is pointed out a several points is that many of the early hackers believed in complete freedom of information because locking things behind closed doors stifled learning (thus the reason that many hackers are also locksmiths on the side). Unfortunately, passwords and other security measures no longer exist to secure just information, they also secure systems, etc. A missing/bad password on your system can result in some spammer abusing your smtp host, or something similar.
The problem with switching to DVD style cases is that you are moving from a somewhat renewable resource (trees) to plastic, which is only renewable over a very long time period. Much as I'd like the smaller boxes, I'd prefer the packaging be something which has a chance of biodegrading. Plus, DVD style cases will only work for single CD/DVD games.
So what do you do when it fails to detect that it's you 2% of the time? Unless they can achieve 100% reliability on this, I can't imagine it ever flying. Plus, what happens if you injure one or both of your hands, or, god forbid, you take a professional typing course. Presumably this will affect your typing rhythm, which means that suddenly, you can't access your own legally purchased music.
Actually, a voucher system like that is already in place to some degrees. Company are given so many vouchers each year which they can either use by polluting to which they can sell to other companies who are going to exceed there own supply.
Its interesting that they do not include .doc files in the list even though courtesy of VBA, those files can also execute malicious code.
I think you are jumping the gun here. It'll be several more months before the decision on what action to take is renedered, and then it'll be several more years of appeals before it is implemented. By that time, natural market pressures presumably will have weakened the MS monopoly to a reasonable level.
Even if a quick resolution is put in place and MS is split up next year, this does not mean that the computer industry will fragment. In general, it is the tendency of computer systems to converge on common standards rather than to diverge. Only when a company is intentially trying to deviate (eg: embrace and extend) or a new technology offers significant enough benefits will standards shift or break.
I know this is not common to everyone, but for me, sound quality is one of the number one reasons for me to purchase a CD rather than to simply hork a copy of the MP3. You take a song encoded at 128/44 and route it into a good stereo and then compare it to the same song played direct from the CD and there are worlds of difference. Granted, this does not stop your avg student who's best stereo might in fact be there comp, but it can make a difference a few years down the road when they have some money and actually want a decent recording.
Divx was a slightly different monster. With Divx, you paid for a copy of the media, but then had to pay everytime you wanted to watch it. In essence, it was a rental which you did not have to return. It offered no significant technical benefits over VHS and was overpriced to top it off.
The ideas being proposed here are different. Most of the ideas proposed here suggest paying a relatively innocuous fee everytime you wish to listen to a song. This has the nice benefit that you only pay for the songs that you want to listen to and it really doesn't cost much unless you listen to them a lot (in which case, you could simply buy the CD). Depending on how it is implemented, you would not even have a copy on your comp, but would instead simply be paying for the stream. There are a lot of problems with this; the biggest being how do you listen to the music if you are not online, but this is nowhere nearly as bad as Divx, which was simply a blatant attempt to screw the consumer.
You are correct that people will always come up with cracks on protection/sales schemes, but this does not mean everyone will use the crack. If the pricing schemes are reasonable enough, people are generally willing to pay for a product. Of course what qualifies as reasonable varies widely and is heavily dependent on age, personality, etc. Even so, I don't think the threat of cracking is as great a threat as you make it out to be.
I recently read the second book of Richard Feynman annecdotes (I can't remember the title), of which over half is dedicated to the research he did as part of the commission to research the Challenger accident. He tells of numerous places where documentation was in error, or tests were performed inaccurately, etc. This was of course 15 years ago, so a lot could have changed, but NASA definitely has a history of having screwed up, particularly when it comes to communication between depts, etc.