Its not mandatory that you use the service. If you're concerned about your documents being surveilled, you're still free to leave them on your personal computer and encrypt them as heavily as you want.
I understand the point you're trying to make, but I really wouldn't mind having something like this. As a college student, I often have multiple unsynchronized copies of term papers in different places. A service like Writely helps keep everything up-to-date, and in one place.
As for privacy, if you want to search through my History of Science term paper, be my guest.
By telling the stockholders that this is having a negative impact on shareholder value, they are attempting to foment a coup
Right. But, until that coup happens, Google isn't beholden to the analysts. That said, I'm not sure how Google ought to proceed on this. If they give in to the pressure for quarterly performance, they'll have to cut innovation. After all, you can't be investing in iffy things like GMail if you have to meet a certain revenue number every quarter. However, if they don't give some kind of earnings guidance the shareholders will revolt.
Their money was good enough for you to take and use; accountability to their requirements is only appropriate.
Yes, but I don't see the investors complaining. The only ones I see complaining are analysts. Do analysts represent the official corporate line of their investors? How many of these analysts actually hold Google stock?
Don't you think it's fair to say in this case that Google's unlimited (or at the very least a couple of gigs) worth of storage is a little better than Yahoo Briefcase's 30mb?
Yes, but again, Google isn't really doing anything innovative. Like with GMail, they're probably taking conventional "online storage", putting a ton more storage behind it and slapping a pretty UI on top.
Not to say that it won't be successful, but its hardly something new.
Not really. According to this study (http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/), certain radio frequencies are greatly amplified by tinfoil helmets, making it far easier for the government to spy on your thoughts.
There is an old parable about a guy who sat his refrigerator on his lawn with a "Take for Free" sign on it.
The parable and the discussion don't really match up very well. In the parable, people don't take the fridge because there might be something wrong with it. After all why else would the guy want to give away his fridge for nothing, unless it was costing more (in terms of taking up space, etc.) to keep it rather than give it away? Once the guy demanded something in return for the fridge, people's suspicions were eased somewhat.
However, the current discussion is about making stuff for free and giving it away to get your name recognition up, and then charging for your wares after you have a reputation for quality.
The Iranian mullahs are filthy rich. Osama bin Laden was a multimillionaire before his funds were frozen. All of the September-11th hijackers were middle class and college educated.
While poverty plays a role in motivating terrorists, ideological reasons should not be overlooked.
So what you're basically saying is "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem".
Essentially, yes, because the issue is that extremists are being allowed to do evil things in the name of Islam while the peaceable minority does nothing to stand up and repudiate them.
All that is required for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.
It's funny that Malcolm X was preaching to Islam, then.
That has nothing to do with Islamic extremism. Malcolm X advocated Islam because white supremacist elements had claimed Christianity in the South. The movement towards Islam was a reaction against the racist elements present within the Southern church hierarchy.
If you're looking to use examples from the civil rights movement, why don't you look at the comingling of Evangelicals and the KKK during the '50s and '60s. In that case also, the KKK and its extremist Christian cheerleaders claimed to be upholding "Christian" values, while the majority stood by and failed to repudiate them.
All of your points are valid. However, the point remains that its a lot easier to see these benefits after the implementation than before. If one is trying to convince a reluctant manager who has been using Windows products throughout their career, having some 3rd party sources to back up your word can only be beneficial.
Often, especially in business settings, you have to convert others in order to be allowed to use Linux. For all its improvements on the desktop, the place that Linux really shines is still the server room. Since servers are shared infrastructure, any changes to the servers usually involves getting the okay from upper management. In order to get this permission, you have to be able to say that Linux is going to save the business money over the long run, not just in initial installations costs. These TCO studies help to do that, in addition to helping you counter naysayers who are going to be throwing the Microsoft sponsored TCO studies at you.
And as a whole Muslims don't threaten death either, its just a very voacal MINORITY of them that do.
But why doesn't the silent majority in Islam stand up and vocally reject the extremists? When Pat Robertson made comments about "taking out" Hugo Chavez, the White House publicly repudiated him. When he made comments about God having forsaken the people of Dover, PA for their ditching of Intelligent Design, other theologians went on TV and vocally announced that Pat Robertson does not speak for Christianity.
Where were the majority of Muslims when the mullahs of Iran announced a death sentence on Salman Rushdie? Where are the majority of Muslims when Osama bin Laden comes out with his fatwas saying that Western society is corrupt and should either be destroyed or converted?
Having a silent majority, in most cases, is about as good as having no majority at all.
/*I'd probably pay upwards of $1000 for one when it comes out. That's still cheaper than a bleeding edge computer needed to play any of the ridiculously bloated PC games out there.*/
Hmmm, let's consider that for a sec. I just built a machine with 3 GHz P4, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, and an ATI Radeon x800 (256 MB), with mouse, keyboard, and 17" monitor for about $800. Its not sate of the art, but its pretty damn close, and besides, its upgradeable (unlike your PS3).
Hell, for a thousand, I could buy an XBox 360 and a nice HDTV to play it on.
/*It would be possible to have a P2P routing infrastructure but still have a centralised DNS system.*/
How? Current DNS systems rely on the fact that a server has a fixed IP address. Unless you want to assign a fixed address every computer on the internet (IPv6?), or run some kind of dynamic DNS system, this isn't possible.
I agree that no one can own open source software, as it's released from the moment of its creation. However, what Google is trying to say is that they don't want to control or influence open source development. Instead, I think that Google wants to find a way to encourage the current evolutionary process by which many projects are tried, and only the most viable get the critical mass of developers needed for continued growth.
As far as Google's vested interest, I'd say that Google has an interest in identifying promising open-source efforts to integrate into their offerings.
/*Actually, I have never heard of D being used in any kind of project.*/
Well there is Torus Trooper (http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/windows/tt_e .html). Its not huge, or terribly useful, but it and all of the other little games written by that author are developed in D, using the BulletML library.
These games are quite fun, too, in an old-fashioned arcade sort of way.
And while the wiki entry doesn't mention using this for direct computation, it is indeed possible.*/
Its true that others speculated that bubble memory could be used for computations, but this experiment has produced working gates from this technology. Also, these gates seem to be much smaller (hence faster) than bubble memory structures.
/*I'm sure putting a new UI on a steam engine would do it some good, but only to a point.*/
I agree that there needs to be a combination of new technology and user interface design. What Shuttleworth, like many others, is pointing out is that open-source development tends to produce an abundance of geek toys, but not necessarily an abundance of adequate user interfaces. It just seems to be a new take on the old "Linux won't ever popular unless a corporation gets behind it and does some UI work..." saw.
As far as I can see, the only thing that's significant here is that Mark Shuttleworth is saying it.
/*I can't think of one thing that my grandmother (who is as far from a geek as one can get) uses every day that wasn't once a shiny geek toy to someone.*/
Yes, but the reason that its still not a "shiny geek toy", but is a grandmother-friendly tool is that someone went to the trouble of putting a proper user interface on it and testing for widespread (read: real-world) application. The article just restates a problem that many others have seen with open-source projects: the geeks create all sort of shiny toys and efficient frameworks, but nobody actually bothers to test it for ease-of-use, or put a decent user-interface on top.
/*leet speak would be a must here to keep the message size down.*/
How's that? As I see it, 1337 5p33k only replaces letters with numbers and other symbols. To be effective as a method of compression, it'd have to omit letters entirely. I'd be more in favor of using abbreviations and omitting letters like in Unix directory paths (e.g. usr for "user").
/*The hope is that the same mistake doesn't get repeated for whoever has the lead on dealing with the cyberwar stuff.*/
We have someone in charge of cyberwar? I know that there was some sort of cybersecurity coordination post created by Clinton, but I lost track of it in the huge shuffle that followed the consolidation of the Department of Homeland Security.
The issue isn't that the government had "no idea" that the disaster was going to be as bad as it was. The "Hurricane Pam" drill solved that. The problem was that the government *knew* what the potential problems were and *still* failed to address them.
I fear the same thing will occur due to this cybersecurity drill. The drill will point out problems, but the entire exercise will be treated like Cassandra and will be forgotten about until the actual disaster hits. Then everyone will remember the drill.
Of course it doesn't help that the government has been almost laughably inept when it comes to integrating new technology (ex: the never implemented FBI case management/data sharing system).
/* Only that the poor reputation of the consumer version tarnishs the image of the corperate version.*/
Not necessarily. After all, Trend Micro, which doesn't have much of a name among the home antivirus market has a fairly large presence on the corporate side.
Slashdot Mirror
Screw them, change the passwords, remove administrator access, and shut down the servers and then leave for a week. See what happens.
They fire you and hire someone else to clean up the mess and take your job. Or they offshore the work to India.
In both cases, the company is hurt a lot less than you are.
Its not mandatory that you use the service. If you're concerned about your documents being surveilled, you're still free to leave them on your personal computer and encrypt them as heavily as you want.
I understand the point you're trying to make, but I really wouldn't mind having something like this. As a college student, I often have multiple unsynchronized copies of term papers in different places. A service like Writely helps keep everything up-to-date, and in one place.
As for privacy, if you want to search through my History of Science term paper, be my guest.
By telling the stockholders that this is having a negative impact on shareholder value, they are attempting to foment a coup
Right. But, until that coup happens, Google isn't beholden to the analysts. That said, I'm not sure how Google ought to proceed on this. If they give in to the pressure for quarterly performance, they'll have to cut innovation. After all, you can't be investing in iffy things like GMail if you have to meet a certain revenue number every quarter. However, if they don't give some kind of earnings guidance the shareholders will revolt.
Their money was good enough for you to take and use; accountability to their requirements is only appropriate.
Yes, but I don't see the investors complaining. The only ones I see complaining are analysts. Do analysts represent the official corporate line of their investors? How many of these analysts actually hold Google stock?
Don't you think it's fair to say in this case that Google's unlimited (or at the very least a couple of gigs) worth of storage is a little better than Yahoo Briefcase's 30mb?
Yes, but again, Google isn't really doing anything innovative. Like with GMail, they're probably taking conventional "online storage", putting a ton more storage behind it and slapping a pretty UI on top.
Not to say that it won't be successful, but its hardly something new.
/* the tinfoil hat was a GOOD idea!!!!*/
Not really. According to this study (http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/), certain radio frequencies are greatly amplified by tinfoil helmets, making it far easier for the government to spy on your thoughts.
There is an old parable about a guy who sat his refrigerator on his lawn with a "Take for Free" sign on it.
The parable and the discussion don't really match up very well. In the parable, people don't take the fridge because there might be something wrong with it. After all why else would the guy want to give away his fridge for nothing, unless it was costing more (in terms of taking up space, etc.) to keep it rather than give it away? Once the guy demanded something in return for the fridge, people's suspicions were eased somewhat.
However, the current discussion is about making stuff for free and giving it away to get your name recognition up, and then charging for your wares after you have a reputation for quality.
The Iranian mullahs are filthy rich. Osama bin Laden was a multimillionaire before his funds were frozen. All of the September-11th hijackers were middle class and college educated.
While poverty plays a role in motivating terrorists, ideological reasons should not be overlooked.
So what you're basically saying is "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem".
Essentially, yes, because the issue is that extremists are being allowed to do evil things in the name of Islam while the peaceable minority does nothing to stand up and repudiate them.
All that is required for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.
It's funny that Malcolm X was preaching to Islam, then.
That has nothing to do with Islamic extremism. Malcolm X advocated Islam because white supremacist elements had claimed Christianity in the South. The movement towards Islam was a reaction against the racist elements present within the Southern church hierarchy.
If you're looking to use examples from the civil rights movement, why don't you look at the comingling of Evangelicals and the KKK during the '50s and '60s. In that case also, the KKK and its extremist Christian cheerleaders claimed to be upholding "Christian" values, while the majority stood by and failed to repudiate them.
All of your points are valid. However, the point remains that its a lot easier to see these benefits after the implementation than before. If one is trying to convince a reluctant manager who has been using Windows products throughout their career, having some 3rd party sources to back up your word can only be beneficial.
The best thing to do is to use it yourself.
Often, especially in business settings, you have to convert others in order to be allowed to use Linux. For all its improvements on the desktop, the place that Linux really shines is still the server room. Since servers are shared infrastructure, any changes to the servers usually involves getting the okay from upper management. In order to get this permission, you have to be able to say that Linux is going to save the business money over the long run, not just in initial installations costs. These TCO studies help to do that, in addition to helping you counter naysayers who are going to be throwing the Microsoft sponsored TCO studies at you.
And as a whole Muslims don't threaten death either, its just a very voacal MINORITY of them that do.
But why doesn't the silent majority in Islam stand up and vocally reject the extremists? When Pat Robertson made comments about "taking out" Hugo Chavez, the White House publicly repudiated him. When he made comments about God having forsaken the people of Dover, PA for their ditching of Intelligent Design, other theologians went on TV and vocally announced that Pat Robertson does not speak for Christianity.
Where were the majority of Muslims when the mullahs of Iran announced a death sentence on Salman Rushdie? Where are the majority of Muslims when Osama bin Laden comes out with his fatwas saying that Western society is corrupt and should either be destroyed or converted?
Having a silent majority, in most cases, is about as good as having no majority at all.
Or I could do the other thing that I described in my post above: XBox 360 + HDTV = $400 + $600 = $1000.
And, as long as we're taking into account economic factors, I get the additional benefit of getting the goods right now, vs. in 2007.
/*I'd probably pay upwards of $1000 for one when it comes out. That's still cheaper than a bleeding edge computer needed to play any of the ridiculously bloated PC games out there.*/
Hmmm, let's consider that for a sec. I just built a machine with 3 GHz P4, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, and an ATI Radeon x800 (256 MB), with mouse, keyboard, and 17" monitor for about $800. Its not sate of the art, but its pretty damn close, and besides, its upgradeable (unlike your PS3).
Hell, for a thousand, I could buy an XBox 360 and a nice HDTV to play it on.
/*It would be possible to have a P2P routing infrastructure but still have a centralised DNS system.*/
How? Current DNS systems rely on the fact that a server has a fixed IP address. Unless you want to assign a fixed address every computer on the internet (IPv6?), or run some kind of dynamic DNS system, this isn't possible.
I agree that no one can own open source software, as it's released from the moment of its creation. However, what Google is trying to say is that they don't want to control or influence open source development. Instead, I think that Google wants to find a way to encourage the current evolutionary process by which many projects are tried, and only the most viable get the critical mass of developers needed for continued growth.
As far as Google's vested interest, I'd say that Google has an interest in identifying promising open-source efforts to integrate into their offerings.
/*Actually, I have never heard of D being used in any kind of project.*/
e .html). Its not huge, or terribly useful, but it and all of the other little games written by that author are developed in D, using the BulletML library.
Well there is Torus Trooper (http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/windows/tt_
These games are quite fun, too, in an old-fashioned arcade sort of way.
/*But this seems a lot like bubble memory to me.
And while the wiki entry doesn't mention using this for direct computation, it is indeed possible.*/
Its true that others speculated that bubble memory could be used for computations, but this experiment has produced working gates from this technology. Also, these gates seem to be much smaller (hence faster) than bubble memory structures.
/*I'm sure putting a new UI on a steam engine would do it some good, but only to a point.*/
I agree that there needs to be a combination of new technology and user interface design. What Shuttleworth, like many others, is pointing out is that open-source development tends to produce an abundance of geek toys, but not necessarily an abundance of adequate user interfaces. It just seems to be a new take on the old "Linux won't ever popular unless a corporation gets behind it and does some UI work..." saw.
As far as I can see, the only thing that's significant here is that Mark Shuttleworth is saying it.
/*I can't think of one thing that my grandmother (who is as far from a geek as one can get) uses every day that wasn't once a shiny geek toy to someone.*/
Yes, but the reason that its still not a "shiny geek toy", but is a grandmother-friendly tool is that someone went to the trouble of putting a proper user interface on it and testing for widespread (read: real-world) application. The article just restates a problem that many others have seen with open-source projects: the geeks create all sort of shiny toys and efficient frameworks, but nobody actually bothers to test it for ease-of-use, or put a decent user-interface on top.
/*leet speak would be a must here to keep the message size down.*/
How's that? As I see it, 1337 5p33k only replaces letters with numbers and other symbols. To be effective as a method of compression, it'd have to omit letters entirely. I'd be more in favor of using abbreviations and omitting letters like in Unix directory paths (e.g. usr for "user").
/*The hope is that the same mistake doesn't get repeated for whoever has the lead on dealing with the cyberwar stuff.*/
We have someone in charge of cyberwar? I know that there was some sort of cybersecurity coordination post created by Clinton, but I lost track of it in the huge shuffle that followed the consolidation of the Department of Homeland Security.
The issue isn't that the government had "no idea" that the disaster was going to be as bad as it was. The "Hurricane Pam" drill solved that. The problem was that the government *knew* what the potential problems were and *still* failed to address them.
I fear the same thing will occur due to this cybersecurity drill. The drill will point out problems, but the entire exercise will be treated like Cassandra and will be forgotten about until the actual disaster hits. Then everyone will remember the drill.
Of course it doesn't help that the government has been almost laughably inept when it comes to integrating new technology (ex: the never implemented FBI case management/data sharing system).
/* Only that the poor reputation of the consumer version tarnishs the image of the corperate version.*/
Not necessarily. After all, Trend Micro, which doesn't have much of a name among the home antivirus market has a fairly large presence on the corporate side.