.. because you picked web development as a field. So if you're willing to work for a little less (or nothing) for a bit, you can get a decent portfolio of good looking websites out there. The portfolio will speak for itself if you document used technology and interesting background on your own website.
And I'm saying you're lucky because if you were a Java developer writing middleware or working basically any other development job out of immediate view, you'd have a hard time showing off your work without it being free and open.
.. is to create a properly reference-able and searchable log of your communications. A "paper trail" so to speak. And having worked with Atos on several projects, I can see why scrapping email makes sense for them in this light.
If my brain is only 80% sure that a remembered fact is accurate, I'm glad the result is "I don't know" when I try to remember it. People don't "remember more than they think", but the brain apparently stores a lot of junk that doesn't meet it's built-in (or trained) criteria for proper remembrance. Big surprise there...
What would be interesting is to see how the level of certainty needed to remember something changes over time and whether it is actually something that is taught or inherently built into the brain's structure.
I would like to thank you and most of the other people in this thread for demonstrating that programmers are still uncool (at least the ones you're likely to find posting on/.)
I think the flaw in this plan lies in getting that app to run on a million iPhone's whilst maintaining your anonymity as a developer...
Unless you consider yourself the digital equivalent of a digital suicide bomber and considering getting sued into a hole in the ground is worth it if it gets a few million iPhone IDs out there. Even though Apple will be selling all those iPhone owners the next model in a year or so.
What's keeping me on on Windows myself is the same as many people here: games. The fact that consoles are a decent alternative for some games and other games are now available on Mac or Linux-based alternatives is inconsequential. Some games I really like to play are Windows-PC only. And besides, I have a lot of older games on that platform that I don't feel like throwing out yet, nor do I feel thrilled at trying to get them to work in another environment. Games are for exactly those moments in which I do not want to be bothered with system administration issues.
But apart from that obvious one, my wife is also on Windows and I don' t like the added overhead from having different OSes in the same network, requiring me to keep different types of systems up to date and working. I know it can all work nicely together and in the past I've put in the effort, but right now ease of use is a serious factor.
And then there's customers. Since my customers use Windows on the desktop almost exclusively, I will always need to be able to develop for Windows and test on Windows; so the laptop I use for work runs Windows. I also like the fact that I can quickly identify with problems they have and use everyday experience to help solve their problems instead of having to turn them down with a smug "I don't have that problem because I am on Linux/Max OS" (which is what I see colleagues do and which is why my phone rings when the customer needs someone for whatever).
As far as licensing goes, it's not so bad. I only have two boxes that I paid a Windows license for (a gaming rig and a media center). All the other devices either come with pre-configured Linux-versions installed (like my NAS and a firewall/webserver/mediaserver as well as my routers) or our bosses paid for the proper licenses.
I used to regret not being able to use some of my favorite software on Linux, but free solutions for virtual machines and the maturity of CygWin have solved that problem as well. With stuff like Gimp, InkScape, etc. etc. working just as well on Windows, there is little or no practical reason to switch, just ideological ones.
[..] making Europe a hostile place for social networks.
More like making Europe a hostile place for hostile social networks. Keeping everything around forever, or at least until they decide it's no longer in their interest to keep it around, is the standard mode for social networks. Makes sense, since this is valuable data to mine or sell and implementing features that allow you to clean up after yourself isn't exactly free either.
But given the choice, I'd prefer something like Google+ that puts me in control of my own data - say Diaspora? Sure, companies like Google can still mine the data while I have it out there and I think that's fine. If I didn't, I'd put it somewhere more private. But when I decide I've had enough, I would like to have the freedom to quietly disappear.
I'm not sure if it won't be a problem for sites like the internet archive though. I mean, it's trivial for them to exclude the big ones, but what about smaller community sites that are automatically included? Whose responsibility is it to remove that information and how are users supposed to know something is even on there? Seems to me like the problems starts as soon as a site gets a copy of the data and starts making it available...
A tool to unlock (or 'jailbreak' if you like) Windows Phone devices
I don't know if this is global or local parlance, but over here "unlock" generally refers to removing the SIM-lock from a locked phone, enabling the use of SIMs from any service provider. This is in most cases a breach of contract with the original service provider, unless the contract has since expired.
Jailbreaking refers exclusively to the removal of any restrictions to the installation of applications. Granted, in most cases one has to jailbreak the phone to unlock it, since the unlocking software is generally nowhere to be found in app stores supported by the service provider - for obvious reasons. Whether or not jailbreaking is a breach of contract is up for discussion in some cases and clearly no breach in others.
It seems to me that 'jailbreak' is the term to use here.
I own and regularly use a Xoom and at work several colleagues use other Android tablets - some iPads floating around as well. They all have one thing in common and that's the weight that gets uncomfortable after more than a few minutes of use. Most people feel the need to put it down on the table, or rest it on their lap.
If someone has poor eyesight and frail arms, I can see this being a real problem - the weight will be even more of a problem, while the need to hold it closer to one's face is greater.
You have an invention you're convinced could make money, but yet you do not succeed in convincing anyone with the means to develop it that it will make money? (Rossi apparently did and although I don't believe he is a genius physicist or chemist, I do think he is a clever businessman)
You're allowed to publish whatever you like, where I come from, so what totalitarian state are you living in? Or did you mean you were unable to get it published in the peer-reviewed publication of your choice? (Rossi was and so he found publicity in another way, since you can always find people who are willing to print outrageous claims)
Getting ideas to the public is trivial since we have the internet. Making money off of a good idea is not trivial, but really good ideas tend to find investors or get ripped off with lawsuits ensuing soon after. If you're withholding a really good idea for 15 years because of the chance of yourself not making 100% of the proceeds, you have to ask yourself who exactly is in the wrong here... also, it's not very good business on your part, choosing the certainty of no profit for anyone over the uncertainty of great profit to yourself (apart from the ethics of willfully withholding a good idea).
[...] is this punishment simply too harsh for someone who perhaps didn't realize how seriously his actions would be taken by the authorities?
Yes, because if the authorities had not taken his actions seriously, the way he acted would have been just fine? It's not like it's about the whole affair being morally reprehensible to begin with..?
You don't get punished for being caught, you get punished for being wrong/or and breaking the rules. The fact that they need to catch you to be able to deliver punishment shouldn't figure into the decision making process.
Unlike the Star Wars situation, nobody sofar seems to be intent on modifying the original Blade Runner at an attempt to substitute it. Making a prequel or sequel doesn't modify the original in any meaningful way, although having the same director on does muddy the water somewhat. Quite frankly I would have preferred another director picking up this project for exactly that reason.
This is exactly the whole problem with "outrage at [ (lack of ) Feature X ] of [ game Y ]" in general.
Gamers act like they have some sort of right to be included in the release of the next version of their favorite game. Sometimes developers go out of their way to include them, for PR purposes or to maintain a hold of a very niche target audience. For example, CCP keeping support for graphics hardware in their EVE Online that seems ancient by regular FPS and even MMO standards. In other cases, developers go in the opposite direction and exclude the majority, like in the case of Crysis and its hardware requirements at the time.
So yes, if Blizzard decides it can do without people living in remote locations buying this title, they will exclude them. They have every right to and they already did so before with their cash cow WoW, so it's not like they need those people to make the product viable.
The comparison with an OS is just silly. Are you seriously saying that you feel the need to be able to play a specific type of game is at all comparable to having access to an up to date operating system? If there is a market in catering to the need of the remote and otherwise internet-less customers, some companies will certainly jump in and provide products. There's a market for OSes, even there, I doubt there is one for primarily multiplayer games. But if there isn't, it's tough luck. I don't expect to see a lot of sushi restaurants, massage parlors, champagne bars or vegetarian quicky marts in rural areas either.
Nobody says you have to like.Net for anything, you're entitled to your negative opinion.
But there is something wrong with this type of reasoning: platform X does not fulfill all my expectations of it, therefore platform X is all a mistake.
Otherwise, along the same lines, one could easily argue that "Java was all a mistake" and considering that most developers have left it by now, "C++ was all a mistake" too. Now the entire field of software development is quickly starting to look like "it's all a mistake". Unless of course this is your actual opinion, which begs the question if there was a particular reason to focus on.Net.
14 hours ago, he said: "Yes, all rumors are true: I'm hosting a 13-episode, 21st century version of COSMOS, to air on FOX in 2013: http://n.pr/nBEz44 "
Disclaimer: I have no Facebook or Google+ account (and I plan to have neither).
So, you "plan to have neither", which infers a change from a current situation in which you apparently do not have neither. So that implies you were using "or" exclusively and we are led to the conclusion you have both? (congratulations, so do I)
I disagree with the reasoning of the rest of your post. When someone is the market leader, most eyes are on them (I wish they weren't, I'm still hoping Diaspora will take off). But if your terms of use allow removing ads from competitors, you only have to weigh the Streisand effect against the effectiveness of those ads. Apparently, either Facebook has shown poor judgement or these were some really good ads. That's all there is to it.
Any conclusions about their state of mind ("scared") or intentions ("do not trust") is mere speculation on your part. The facts do not contradict your speculations, but they don't follow from them either. I also disagree that Facebook doesn't have anything others don't - they have customers, i.e. eyeballs and they have contracts with the likes of Zynga and that's making them a metric truckload of money every day. Money someone else *could* be making, but isn't. That's the whole point of the game.
Unless someone offers something Facebook does not have, taking away their customers will be very hard indeed. And I don't think "Circles" is the answer here, though Google is doing a decent job of integrating many of its other offerings in Google+.
Let's say there was a phone directory that listed people, 90% of whom were child molesters with a high degree of certainty. Wouldn't it make sense to use that phonebook and the company that maintained it, to get a hold of the molesters, assuming the problem was getting sufficiently out of hand and there were few or no other ways to get to this group?
And if the point of said directory would be exclusively to bring these molesters together, wouldn't it be fair to shut down the company itself as well? According to TFA the site reported “The domain of the site you are trying to access was closed on suspicion of forming a criminal organization to commit professional copyright infringement.”
Now, you may argue that child molestation is more rare, well hidden and (far) more serious than piracy (if that is even what you'd want to call it). But that won't change the fact that something illegal and organized in the opinion of the powers that be was going on here. And whether you're of the opinion that it should be legal, or that the offenders should be prosecuted, getting the thing to court is worthwhile.
Your comment is so out of touch with reality that it has me wondering if I'm feeding a troll here. Clearly you've never seen online bullying in progress at its worst. And as far as bullies on the playground go: if you think the main problem of getting bullied is the risk of physical harm, you're clearly in the dark about what bullying really is about.
The Wikipedia lemma has it right where it says "Bullying is abusive treatment [...] involving an imbalance in power. [...] The "imbalance of power" may be social power and/or physical power." Social power, social media, get where the bullying might come in?
You're effectively arguing: "Patents don't kill open source, people do".
This statement is true in the same way as the guns-related one, and it detracts from the discussion at hand in the same way the guns-related one does.
A decent illustration of how this is irrelevant and counterproductive here http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-gunskill.htm and I'm sure the/. readership has no problems translating this example to the open source domain.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not so naïve to believe US politics (or any Western country's politics for that matter) are free of corruption. But you're right there on the other end of the spectrum: making everyone supporting a political cause with money suspect.
If you think that's somehow helpful, power to you, but I don't see how it is. Of course you could be of the opinion that supporting a political cause with money is a bad thing for exactly that reason, but believing that would stop everyone from doing it would be no less naïve...
But a weak article. "Devs" amount to mister Baker here. And for his trouble, he receives free advertising on/. and in the Guardian. So, we now know that one developer had this problem; it was handled by Google, though not entirely to his satisfaction; he got free publicity for complaining. What did we learn?
Slashdot Mirror
... did James Cameron fund some research to get the marketing machine for Titanic 3D going?
.. because you picked web development as a field. So if you're willing to work for a little less (or nothing) for a bit, you can get a decent portfolio of good looking websites out there. The portfolio will speak for itself if you document used technology and interesting background on your own website.
And I'm saying you're lucky because if you were a Java developer writing middleware or working basically any other development job out of immediate view, you'd have a hard time showing off your work without it being free and open.
.. is to create a properly reference-able and searchable log of your communications. A "paper trail" so to speak. And having worked with Atos on several projects, I can see why scrapping email makes sense for them in this light.
If my brain is only 80% sure that a remembered fact is accurate, I'm glad the result is "I don't know" when I try to remember it. People don't "remember more than they think", but the brain apparently stores a lot of junk that doesn't meet it's built-in (or trained) criteria for proper remembrance. Big surprise there...
What would be interesting is to see how the level of certainty needed to remember something changes over time and whether it is actually something that is taught or inherently built into the brain's structure.
I would like to thank you and most of the other people in this thread for demonstrating that programmers are still uncool (at least the ones you're likely to find posting on /.)
I think the flaw in this plan lies in getting that app to run on a million iPhone's whilst maintaining your anonymity as a developer...
Unless you consider yourself the digital equivalent of a digital suicide bomber and considering getting sued into a hole in the ground is worth it if it gets a few million iPhone IDs out there. Even though Apple will be selling all those iPhone owners the next model in a year or so.
What's keeping me on on Windows myself is the same as many people here: games. The fact that consoles are a decent alternative for some games and other games are now available on Mac or Linux-based alternatives is inconsequential. Some games I really like to play are Windows-PC only. And besides, I have a lot of older games on that platform that I don't feel like throwing out yet, nor do I feel thrilled at trying to get them to work in another environment. Games are for exactly those moments in which I do not want to be bothered with system administration issues.
But apart from that obvious one, my wife is also on Windows and I don' t like the added overhead from having different OSes in the same network, requiring me to keep different types of systems up to date and working. I know it can all work nicely together and in the past I've put in the effort, but right now ease of use is a serious factor.
And then there's customers. Since my customers use Windows on the desktop almost exclusively, I will always need to be able to develop for Windows and test on Windows; so the laptop I use for work runs Windows. I also like the fact that I can quickly identify with problems they have and use everyday experience to help solve their problems instead of having to turn them down with a smug "I don't have that problem because I am on Linux/Max OS" (which is what I see colleagues do and which is why my phone rings when the customer needs someone for whatever).
As far as licensing goes, it's not so bad. I only have two boxes that I paid a Windows license for (a gaming rig and a media center). All the other devices either come with pre-configured Linux-versions installed (like my NAS and a firewall/webserver/mediaserver as well as my routers) or our bosses paid for the proper licenses.
I used to regret not being able to use some of my favorite software on Linux, but free solutions for virtual machines and the maturity of CygWin have solved that problem as well. With stuff like Gimp, InkScape, etc. etc. working just as well on Windows, there is little or no practical reason to switch, just ideological ones.
[..] making Europe a hostile place for social networks.
More like making Europe a hostile place for hostile social networks. Keeping everything around forever, or at least until they decide it's no longer in their interest to keep it around, is the standard mode for social networks. Makes sense, since this is valuable data to mine or sell and implementing features that allow you to clean up after yourself isn't exactly free either.
But given the choice, I'd prefer something like Google+ that puts me in control of my own data - say Diaspora? Sure, companies like Google can still mine the data while I have it out there and I think that's fine. If I didn't, I'd put it somewhere more private. But when I decide I've had enough, I would like to have the freedom to quietly disappear.
I'm not sure if it won't be a problem for sites like the internet archive though. I mean, it's trivial for them to exclude the big ones, but what about smaller community sites that are automatically included? Whose responsibility is it to remove that information and how are users supposed to know something is even on there? Seems to me like the problems starts as soon as a site gets a copy of the data and starts making it available...
A tool to unlock (or 'jailbreak' if you like) Windows Phone devices
I don't know if this is global or local parlance, but over here "unlock" generally refers to removing the SIM-lock from a locked phone, enabling the use of SIMs from any service provider. This is in most cases a breach of contract with the original service provider, unless the contract has since expired.
Jailbreaking refers exclusively to the removal of any restrictions to the installation of applications. Granted, in most cases one has to jailbreak the phone to unlock it, since the unlocking software is generally nowhere to be found in app stores supported by the service provider - for obvious reasons. Whether or not jailbreaking is a breach of contract is up for discussion in some cases and clearly no breach in others.
It seems to me that 'jailbreak' is the term to use here.
I own and regularly use a Xoom and at work several colleagues use other Android tablets - some iPads floating around as well. They all have one thing in common and that's the weight that gets uncomfortable after more than a few minutes of use. Most people feel the need to put it down on the table, or rest it on their lap. If someone has poor eyesight and frail arms, I can see this being a real problem - the weight will be even more of a problem, while the need to hold it closer to one's face is greater.
You have an invention you're convinced could make money, but yet you do not succeed in convincing anyone with the means to develop it that it will make money? (Rossi apparently did and although I don't believe he is a genius physicist or chemist, I do think he is a clever businessman)
You're allowed to publish whatever you like, where I come from, so what totalitarian state are you living in? Or did you mean you were unable to get it published in the peer-reviewed publication of your choice? (Rossi was and so he found publicity in another way, since you can always find people who are willing to print outrageous claims)
Getting ideas to the public is trivial since we have the internet. Making money off of a good idea is not trivial, but really good ideas tend to find investors or get ripped off with lawsuits ensuing soon after. If you're withholding a really good idea for 15 years because of the chance of yourself not making 100% of the proceeds, you have to ask yourself who exactly is in the wrong here... also, it's not very good business on your part, choosing the certainty of no profit for anyone over the uncertainty of great profit to yourself (apart from the ethics of willfully withholding a good idea).
[...] is this punishment simply too harsh for someone who perhaps didn't realize how seriously his actions would be taken by the authorities?
Yes, because if the authorities had not taken his actions seriously, the way he acted would have been just fine? It's not like it's about the whole affair being morally reprehensible to begin with..?
You don't get punished for being caught, you get punished for being wrong/or and breaking the rules. The fact that they need to catch you to be able to deliver punishment shouldn't figure into the decision making process.
Unlike the Star Wars situation, nobody sofar seems to be intent on modifying the original Blade Runner at an attempt to substitute it. Making a prequel or sequel doesn't modify the original in any meaningful way, although having the same director on does muddy the water somewhat. Quite frankly I would have preferred another director picking up this project for exactly that reason.
Also, http://xkcd.com/566/ (in particular the bottom strip, of course)
This is exactly the whole problem with "outrage at [ (lack of ) Feature X ] of [ game Y ]" in general.
Gamers act like they have some sort of right to be included in the release of the next version of their favorite game. Sometimes developers go out of their way to include them, for PR purposes or to maintain a hold of a very niche target audience. For example, CCP keeping support for graphics hardware in their EVE Online that seems ancient by regular FPS and even MMO standards. In other cases, developers go in the opposite direction and exclude the majority, like in the case of Crysis and its hardware requirements at the time.
So yes, if Blizzard decides it can do without people living in remote locations buying this title, they will exclude them. They have every right to and they already did so before with their cash cow WoW, so it's not like they need those people to make the product viable.
The comparison with an OS is just silly. Are you seriously saying that you feel the need to be able to play a specific type of game is at all comparable to having access to an up to date operating system? If there is a market in catering to the need of the remote and otherwise internet-less customers, some companies will certainly jump in and provide products. There's a market for OSes, even there, I doubt there is one for primarily multiplayer games. But if there isn't, it's tough luck. I don't expect to see a lot of sushi restaurants, massage parlors, champagne bars or vegetarian quicky marts in rural areas either.
Nobody says you have to like .Net for anything, you're entitled to your negative opinion.
But there is something wrong with this type of reasoning: platform X does not fulfill all my expectations of it, therefore platform X is all a mistake.
Otherwise, along the same lines, one could easily argue that "Java was all a mistake" and considering that most developers have left it by now, "C++ was all a mistake" too. Now the entire field of software development is quickly starting to look like "it's all a mistake". Unless of course this is your actual opinion, which begs the question if there was a particular reason to focus on .Net.
You say "follow", but you clearly don't mean that in the Twitter sense ( http://twitter.com/#!/neiltyson )
14 hours ago, he said: "Yes, all rumors are true: I'm hosting a 13-episode, 21st century version of COSMOS, to air on FOX in 2013: http://n.pr/nBEz44 "
Disclaimer: I have no Facebook or Google+ account (and I plan to have neither).
So, you "plan to have neither", which infers a change from a current situation in which you apparently do not have neither. So that implies you were using "or" exclusively and we are led to the conclusion you have both? (congratulations, so do I)
I disagree with the reasoning of the rest of your post. When someone is the market leader, most eyes are on them (I wish they weren't, I'm still hoping Diaspora will take off). But if your terms of use allow removing ads from competitors, you only have to weigh the Streisand effect against the effectiveness of those ads. Apparently, either Facebook has shown poor judgement or these were some really good ads. That's all there is to it.
Any conclusions about their state of mind ("scared") or intentions ("do not trust") is mere speculation on your part. The facts do not contradict your speculations, but they don't follow from them either. I also disagree that Facebook doesn't have anything others don't - they have customers, i.e. eyeballs and they have contracts with the likes of Zynga and that's making them a metric truckload of money every day. Money someone else *could* be making, but isn't. That's the whole point of the game.
Unless someone offers something Facebook does not have, taking away their customers will be very hard indeed. And I don't think "Circles" is the answer here, though Google is doing a decent job of integrating many of its other offerings in Google+.
Let's say there was a phone directory that listed people, 90% of whom were child molesters with a high degree of certainty. Wouldn't it make sense to use that phonebook and the company that maintained it, to get a hold of the molesters, assuming the problem was getting sufficiently out of hand and there were few or no other ways to get to this group?
And if the point of said directory would be exclusively to bring these molesters together, wouldn't it be fair to shut down the company itself as well? According to TFA the site reported “The domain of the site you are trying to access was closed on suspicion of forming a criminal organization to commit professional copyright infringement.”
Now, you may argue that child molestation is more rare, well hidden and (far) more serious than piracy (if that is even what you'd want to call it). But that won't change the fact that something illegal and organized in the opinion of the powers that be was going on here. And whether you're of the opinion that it should be legal, or that the offenders should be prosecuted, getting the thing to court is worthwhile.
I think it's time to move on and build a new garden. And this time, we should maybe not let anyone in but people we know.
Please do, I get the feeling this will be your typical win-win situation. I for one will make sure I'll stay off your lawn.
Your comment is so out of touch with reality that it has me wondering if I'm feeding a troll here. Clearly you've never seen online bullying in progress at its worst. And as far as bullies on the playground go: if you think the main problem of getting bullied is the risk of physical harm, you're clearly in the dark about what bullying really is about.
The Wikipedia lemma has it right where it says "Bullying is abusive treatment [...] involving an imbalance in power. [...] The "imbalance of power" may be social power and/or physical power." Social power, social media, get where the bullying might come in?
You're effectively arguing: "Patents don't kill open source, people do".
This statement is true in the same way as the guns-related one, and it detracts from the discussion at hand in the same way the guns-related one does.
A decent illustration of how this is irrelevant and counterproductive here http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-gunskill.htm and I'm sure the /. readership has no problems translating this example to the open source domain.
... for the next time I need to decide which phone to throw out of a flying airplane.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not so naïve to believe US politics (or any Western country's politics for that matter) are free of corruption. But you're right there on the other end of the spectrum: making everyone supporting a political cause with money suspect.
If you think that's somehow helpful, power to you, but I don't see how it is. Of course you could be of the opinion that supporting a political cause with money is a bad thing for exactly that reason, but believing that would stop everyone from doing it would be no less naïve...
But a weak article. "Devs" amount to mister Baker here. And for his trouble, he receives free advertising on /. and in the Guardian. So, we now know that one developer had this problem; it was handled by Google, though not entirely to his satisfaction; he got free publicity for complaining. What did we learn?
Dawkins crawls into the ground and turns in what may once become his grave every time he sees the word meme applied to what are essentially just fads.