I found this to be of some help in understanding people's reactions. Not a fan of pop psych and glib oversimlification, but it seems accurate to me. I experienced the "window" he mentions, Tuesday and Wednesday in particular, with heightened perception... more recently I'm simply grateful to be alive. And incredibly sad. What a terrible terrible waste. Anyway I wanted to share this for those that haven't seen it. Peace.
The dazed look on the faces of those surviving the blasts in New York is the face of psychic numbing. This numbing is the normal reaction we experience when we are suddenly and deeply overwhelmed with events that are more than we can handle. We begin to "space out," and at the same time, shut down outer stimulation because we have taken in more than we can possibly manage. It's like the governor on an appliance that shuts down or turns off when it is in danger of falling apart.
The effects of psychic numbing will be like a rock thrown into a pond and the ensuing ripples. The closer you are to the epicenter of the tragedy, the worse your numbing may be.
Here's what to expect: "spacing out," losing your train of thought, as you find yourself dazed, unable to focus attention; having to have things repeated to you because you are lost in thoughts; sensations of tingling or numbness in the extremities; nervous habits; poor sleep and bad dreams; catastrophic images being replayed in the mind; fear and an unwillingness to stray too far from places of safety and security; , outrage; guilt an shame that one is not reacting like one should; and for some, morbid fascination with the gory details of the events.
Even while numbness sets in, something else happens. A mental "window" opens for a period of time that shocks us into an appreciation of our existence in a more poignant way than our everyday awareness allows for. We become more sensitized to the simple beauty of our being alive and the importance of those who matter to us. Suddenly the important things in our lives jump forward in bold relief. The window tends not to stay open for too long, as we slowly drift back into our common mentality.
Here's what you can do: Allow your feelings to be experienced and expressed. Be gentle with yourself and those around you. Make room for others to have different reactions than you do, understanding everybody copes a bit differently. Do not expect to be functioning at your normal level for a while and take on only responsibilities that you can handle. And use the "window" to let in the deeper truths of your existence.
Also my Linux server and dual-boot linux/win2k dev machine and wife's windows laptop all are happily easily connected simultaneously without any hassle.
I'm not a sysadmin by nature; having an appliance that is secure and easy has allowed me to keep focusing on the stuff I'm interested in.
Our application uses J2EE. Configuring the app so that web devlopers without extensive Java experience can make things happen was made MUCH easier by configuring a single flexible display Servlet (rather than many disparate function-specific servlets), which calls methods and returns JSPs, basically connecting the front end to worker beans and EJBs. The displayServlet in turn is configured using a single xml file which defines every service, every entry point into the app, and is remarkably simple to understand, use and maintain. And it is so much more powerful than using a straight text config file.
The point is, there are many incredibly useful places for XML to contribute to web dev and app dev without XML ever being sent to a browser.
Yes, XSLT is a hassle, and no, web developers are not likely to move quickly to a technology that requires strict adherence to syntax rules and well-formed code, and no, browsers are not likely to have decent support for XML display anytime soon... BUT XML and Java are excellent together, and this doesn't even touch on data feeds which are exponentially more reliable and configurable and maintainable using XML than any other format...
Ok I'm meandering now. Just a big fan, having used XML extensively over the last year or so.
Our lead web developer when I started at my current job was telecommuting from Greece. The office is located in Brookline, MA, USA.
I have his job now, he moved on to a different position within the company... and still lives in Greece. He's been a HUGE contributor, is accessible through the early afternoon by phone or email, and generally it worked very very well.
Just anecdotal, but it can work with the right person.
Gloria Blue is the Executive Secretary of the Trade Policy Staff Committee.
My brother recently sent her this letter.
Please read it and consider sending similar letters.
***
August 17, 2001
Gloria Blue
Executive Secretary, Trade Policy Staff Committee
Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
1724 F. St., NW, Fifth Floor
Washington, DC 20508
David E. Weekly
950 Pershing Avenue
San Jose, CA 95126
Dear Gloria,
I would like to take a few moments of your day to express to you
some opinions my colleagues and I share regarding the intellectual
property provisions contained within the draft FTAA agreement. I am
writing you today as a concerned citizen of the United States and an
entrepreneur, computer scientist, innovator, and engineer.
I have been working with computers for the last seventeen years of
my life. I have performed for-hire and contract innovation and
consulting for numerous companies, including Casio Research, myplay,
Scout Electromedia, atWeb (now part of AOL), Warner Music,
HearMe/MPlayer, and most recently Legato Systems. I have assisted
research at Harvard's Physics Labs in antimatter recombination
simulations, MIT's Lincoln Laboratories in pattern recognition, and
Stanford's Graphics Labs with optimization of 3D mesh alignment
algorithms. I have been interviewed as a technical expert and quoted
in the New York Times, Fortune, Forbes Digital, Wired, USA Today, the
LA Times, C|Net, and others. I have spoken at and moderated panels at
several technology-oriented conferences. I have written articles for
the international technology press and analyses for paid-for limited
distribution. I have several patents pending.
I mention these things to you so that you can see that the
grounding for my views on intellectual property is as someone who has
made their income for the last decade solely on the production of
intellectual property. I am, in short, a knowledge worker.
The measures in the FTAA agreement restricting the reverse
engineering of software binds the hands of consumers and knowledge
workers in unacceptable ways. We have already seen the United States
ridiculed for its perversely stifling measures in the DMCA,
specifically those dealing with anti-circumvention. As I was a DEFCON
9 attendee, Dmitri Sklyarov's arrest was all the more immediate and
cutting; it made me embarrassed to be an American among my
international peers. In a land that boasts of its freedoms, the irony
of being unable to speak or publish has not been missed: not on
Skylarov nor Edward Felten nor Eric Corley.
One hearing at Stanford that I attended, held by the US Copyright
Office, left a deep impression upon me. Librarians explained to
Marybeth Peters, the Registrar of Copyrights, that without
circumvention, it was unclear how they would preserve eBooks and other
similar publisher-controlled formats for the reading pleasure of
future generations. After the hearing I was talking to Sony's
general counsel about the case. "You know what," he said to me
conspiratorially, "this is all just about people wanting stuff for
free."
The problem is that this goes much beyond a simple line of
"should intellectual property be free or be paid for?" It's
clear that intellectual property needs compensation; otherwise I would
not be able to earn a living! What publishers want to do, however, is
not merely charge for the copying of material (for which they have a
copyright and hence a justifiable right), but to control fully the use
of their work. There exists no such thing as a "use-right" that
a company can purchase in the physical world: to demand that only
males can read such and such a book and only on alternate Tuesdays
while drinking Orange Fanta. It would be preposterous and outrageous.
But to use the FTAA agreement to force member nations to ratify a
bill that would prevent circumvention of arbitrary protection schemes
is to hand companies such a right. Because, given the above, it would
be illegal to modify the equivalent digital content to enable it to
play on Wednesdays as well, even if you had fully purchased a
copy. The rights of consumers would rest in the hands of the
publishers, who have very little interest in maintaining consumer
rights.
In my personal opinion, this quandary results because we have made
consumer rights a declarative right and not an assertive right; no
person is allowed to take away your rights directly, but if a piece of
software does it, and a person directs the software, and you are not
permitted to countermand the software, then it is as good as if a
person had directly taken away your rights. Consumers have no direct
legal ground upon which to say "you are not permitted to take away
my right to read books that I've bought buy where and when I'd
like, listen to music the same, and watch movies the same!" But
they do have this as an ethical right; for what reason was copyright
assigned but to make sure that works were spread and freely consumed
since a profit could be assured for the publisher from their sale? For
what reason were patents established, but to enable the sharing of
ideas, no longer afraid that others would steal and profit from them?
But these concepts are being infringed upon most directly.
A coworker of mine today spontaneously recounted his frustrations
at traveling to Europe on business with a portable DVD player and
being unable to view any purchased or even rented DVDs there, even
ones unavailable in the US, because of region encoding differences. He
declared his desire to circumvent the region encoding protections, not
for the purpose of making even a single copy of a DVD, but simply so
that the DVD he had purchased would be capable of playing on a player
that he had purchased! This is a right that the movie industry has
already taken away from all people.
I am a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
which seeks
to repeal (and indeed prevent future passage of) such laws as the
DMCA. While making my living from the sale of intellectual property, I
do not seek to control its usage; nor do I believe that any knowledge
worker has the right to control how their work is used -- only how
it is copied.
I was asked recently by Wired News if I really meant the above;
namely, would I not object if the government of China were to use Rage
Against the Machine (RATM) to promote communism -- should not RATM
be able to veto such usage? To which I replied that RATM had no such
right and neither should the Chinese government have the power to
prevent RATM from using Chinese symbols (flags, etc.) to promote
RATM's music. The street runs both ways and should. Free speech,
allowing the publicly accusing and the publicly accused to both be
heard, works on a similar flavor of justice.
To forget this and forgo the distinctions between copyright and
usage rights is to produce an Orwellian future for the citizens of the
world, and furthermore to stifle academic research, knowledge sharing,
and the roots of intellectual inquiry that led us to our current
prosperity, even in "recession."
I hope, pray, and trust that you and your office will see to it
that the corresponding portions of the FTAA agreement are removed, to
give citizens justice and justice her due.
I graduated from Virginia in 1996.
The UVA Honor Code is agreed to and signed by every incoming freshman as a condition of enrollment, and every exam and paper is also accompanied by a summary of the Honor Code forbidding cheating and is signed then as well.
The terms are clear, and these students clearly violated them. However, I do not think summarily expelling them is warranted. They made a very lazy and stupid mistake, and kudos to the instructor for catching them. But expulsion is too extreme. Most students, and all programmers, have, at one point or another, taken another's work without giving due credit. Even given conclusive evidence that these students meant to deceive the professor and violate the honor code, and clearly cheated, to destroy their academic careers seems too harsh. The honor code is not taken as seriously in the student body as the administration would like to believe, and using these kids as examples isn't necessarily just. A semester or two of academic probation -- and the scare they've already received -- will teach them a lesson.
I'm awaiting flames, many people will get indignant and question my sense of honor and academic integrity, but I think an honest self-evaluation for most people would result in some level of sympathy. Caught in your darkest hour, making your worst mistake, have you done so much better than these?
Just $0.02 from someone who believes people take some things too seriously.
If it takes longer accurately to recall information than it does to find it - with references and additional information - then the loss of memory under discussion is perhaps not such a big deal after all.
...before my career as a web developer began, I worked for Milberg on class-action suits against insurance companies (this was in 96).
At the time I thought we were the good guys, fighting the big baddies on behalf of the people.
Learned during the course of that year just what a bunch of greedy ruthless sons of bitches the partners at MWBHL were. The partners pocketed more than 100 million from the suit. Average plaintiff (many of whom had lost their life's savings to the insurance companies) received on the order of $1,000. Left the legal field altogether after that. Web app dev is a lot more fulfilling....
Hi
I used to work for Milberg as a contract paralegal before I switched paths and started programming. They are indeed scoundrels. In the class-action suits brought against Prudential and John Hancock (and other insurance companies) they pocketed over $95 million USD. The average plaintiff (who had been defrauded of tens of thousands of dollars) received a few hundred to maybe $1000. Partners who did not even work on these cases pocketed obscene amounts of cash.
At first we felt like we were the good guys, taking on the big bad insurance crooks -- but in the end it was just a bunch of lawyers getting rich. Helped make my career change easier...
Come on folks, I know there's an anti-Java contingent out there but when you discuss non-C implementations of Python you really shouldn't omit JPython.
Some key differences between JPython and CPython:
Syntax
JPython has a different interpretation of floating point
literals. CPython doesn't allow 001.1 CPython should be
fixed.
JPython supports continue in a try clause. CPython
should be fixed - but don't hold your breath.
Standard types, functions and behavior
JPython string objects support full two-byte Unicode
characters and the functions in the string module are
Unicode-aware. CPython should add Unicode support in the
future, though the details of this are still unclear.
In JPython, 0.1**4 is printed as
1.0000000000000002E-4. In CPython, it is printed 0.0001, even
though it is not actually equal to 0.0001. Both behaviors
are acceptable for now -- this is still being discussed.
JPython sequences support three argument
slices. i.e. range(3)[::-1] == [2,1,0]. CPython should be
fixed.
Every object in JPython is an instance of a class --
there are no types in JPython. i.e. [].__class__ is a sensible
thing to write in JPython. CPython should be fixed - but
don't hold your breath.
Couldn't agree with you more.
Tweedlelyingstiff and tweedleilliteratemoron are not much of a choice...
Bradley is a personal hero of mine and McCain is by all accounts a decent guy and a hero in his own right. And they had more than just real (not to mention relatively well thought-out) positions on the issues; they had character.
BTW the fact that Bradley recently signed on as a spokesperson for and advisor to UPromise - the company I work for - has nothing to do with my opinion.
Just as an entire cottage industry has sprung up around maintaining the well-being of professional athletes, so too must -- and will --- a similar cadre of companies, services and products arise whose raison d'etre is the preservation of the coder's ability to code.
This is a Good Thing(TM).
I struggled with repetetive stress injuries to my wrists and elbows and have been in the fortunate minority, in that I recovered and was able to adjust my habits and environment to prevent recurring problems. For the newbies out there: learn the right habits and stick to them.
For the old school gurus this applies double.
JSP pages must be compiled the very first time they are called. This is where JSP will be MUCH slower than any other scripting solution. This is well documented and obvious, and is reflecteed in these scores. AFTER this first load, though, every subsequent request (until the server is restarted) is MUCH faster as the servlet's contents are resident in memory and do NOT need to be compiled again. And this is where JSP starts to kick the others' tails.
So some benchmark comparing speeds will NOT reflect the real-life performance of JSP (even if they weren't using a better container than tomcat). HIGH VOLUME sites increasingly turn to JSP (WebLogic etc) because of its great performance under heavy load.
Full disclosure to everybody would solve poverty, hunger, war, and almost every other major problem plaguing us!
Can you give even one example, or even a reasonable analogy to support this claim? This is patently absurd.
Open source software works because people _choose_ to sacrifice some small amount of potential individual gain for the sake of a larger net gain - and they directly reap the rewards of participating in and contributing to this development and distribution model. Emphasis on choose.
These same people wish to choose who has access to their personal information, for valid and obvious reasons. Again, the concept of choice is key.
Many or most oss projects begin because those using the particular technology available at a given time/place/price want a better choice, be it an os, a web server, a browser, you name it.
See a pattern here? CHOICE.
There is no conflict. There is no hypocrisy.
The issue is always WHO CHOOSES combined with WHO PROFITS. When anonymous companies profit by trading on my personal and private information, my anger is not hypocritical just because I advocate free software. Not many people think the way to promote oss is cracking proprietary code and making it public. THAT would be hypocritical, to support breaking into private networks with the intent to profit from stealing contents therein. BUT NOBODY SUPPORTS THIS. Which is why your dichotomous view is misguided and silly.
Um, I believe you're wrong. "Begs the question" does not mean "demands the question be asked", regardless of context. This is how it is most commonly misused, but this misuse is nevertheless simply and completely incorrect.
I do agree with your point that language is dynamic, ever-changing and organic. I suppose if enough people continue to misuse this phrase it will enter the general lexicon and the transformation/bastardization will then be more formally recognized. But this hasn't happened yet, so for now it's simply wrong to apply the term this way.
I'm done nitpicking, I am surprised at myself for being so pedantic, and I apologize if I've annoyed or offended you. People who confuse it's with its and they're with their deserve this kind of response, not someone who has used a term in an understandable, if technically incorrect, way, and who obviously has a firm command of the language.
Not to be overly pedantic, but it is a little ironic that your post itself employs one of the most commonly misused phrases in the English lexicon:
BEGS THE QUESTION
An argument which improperly assumes as true the very point the speaker is trying to argue for is said in formal logic to "beg the question." Here is an example of a question-begging argument: "This painting is trash because it is obviously worthless." The speaker is simply asserting the worthlessness of the work, not presenting any evidence to demonstrate that this is in fact the case. Since we never use "begs" with this odd meaning ("to improperly take for granted") in any other phrase, many people mistakenly suppose the phrase implies something quite different: that the argument demands that a question about it be asked. If you're not comfortable with formal terms of logic, it's best to stay away from this phrase, or risk embarrassing yourself.
RIP authorizes employers to monitor employee emails, yes, but the scope of the bill goes far beyond snooping on dimwitted employees who haven't the sense to use discretion on the job.
"...The RIP bill will make the UK the sole G8 economy to allow state access to decryption keys....."
So those suggesting PGP are SOL.
In addition, RIP
"...allows for the interception, surveillance and disclosure of journalistic material without prior judicial authorisation. As it stands, a source may be identified and compromised or action taken to prevent the flow of information without a newspaper even being aware of it, still less being able to challenge any applications for authorisation....."
Freedom of the Press (including its ability freely and privately to communicate with its sources) is a much more serious matter than Freedom of the Employee (to slander his boss, reveal corporate secrets or merely waste company time and bandwidth).
Even though the uWink machines use only a dialup connection, credit card transactions take between five and seven seconds to validate, according to Moore.
This seems incredibly short-sighted to me.
To go to all the trouble of creating and marketing these boxes, getting them into the venues, and connecting them without broadband is just silly. Especially since they accuse the industry of remaining in the dark ages....
/.'ers, hackers, and others interested in keeping unconstitutional federal censorship away from the Internet should strongly consider voting Libertarian.
Slashdot Mirror
Peace.
The dazed look on the faces of those surviving the blasts in New York is the face of psychic numbing. This numbing is the normal reaction we experience when we are suddenly and deeply overwhelmed with events that are more than we can handle. We begin to "space out," and at the same time, shut down outer stimulation because we have taken in more than we can possibly manage. It's like the governor on an appliance that shuts down or turns off when it is in danger of falling apart.
The effects of psychic numbing will be like a rock thrown into a pond and the ensuing ripples. The closer you are to the epicenter of the tragedy, the worse your numbing may be.
Here's what to expect: "spacing out," losing your train of thought, as you find yourself dazed, unable to focus attention; having to have things repeated to you because you are lost in thoughts; sensations of tingling or numbness in the extremities; nervous habits; poor sleep and bad dreams; catastrophic images being replayed in the mind; fear and an unwillingness to stray too far from places of safety and security; , outrage; guilt an shame that one is not reacting like one should; and for some, morbid fascination with the gory details of the events.
Even while numbness sets in, something else happens. A mental "window" opens for a period of time that shocks us into an appreciation of our existence in a more poignant way than our everyday awareness allows for. We become more sensitized to the simple beauty of our being alive and the importance of those who matter to us. Suddenly the important things in our lives jump forward in bold relief. The window tends not to stay open for too long, as we slowly drift back into our common mentality.
Here's what you can do: Allow your feelings to be experienced and expressed. Be gentle with yourself and those around you. Make room for others to have different reactions than you do, understanding everybody copes a bit differently. Do not expect to be functioning at your normal level for a while and take on only responsibilities that you can handle. And use the "window" to let in the deeper truths of your existence.
http://www.thestreet.com/markets/stevenhendlin/100 01043.html
From
Shrink Rap: The Psychic Aftermath of the WTC Disaster
By Steven Hendlin, Ph.D.
Special to TheStreet.com
09/13/2001 08:33 AM EDT
- Cheap ($120 6 months ago)
- Virtually impenetrable
- It DOES support dyndns
- Easy to configure filtersets
- DHCP client and server
- Fast
- Low power consumption
- Solid firmware
- Small footprint
- Cool metallic blue
Seriously, it's virtually flawless.
Also my Linux server and dual-boot linux/win2k dev machine and wife's windows laptop all are happily easily connected simultaneously without any hassle.
I'm not a sysadmin by nature; having an appliance that is secure and easy has allowed me to keep focusing on the stuff I'm interested in.
http://www.netgear.com/product_view.asp?xrp=4&yrp
The point is, there are many incredibly useful places for XML to contribute to web dev and app dev without XML ever being sent to a browser.
Yes, XSLT is a hassle, and no, web developers are not likely to move quickly to a technology that requires strict adherence to syntax rules and well-formed code, and no, browsers are not likely to have decent support for XML display anytime soon... BUT XML and Java are excellent together, and this doesn't even touch on data feeds which are exponentially more reliable and configurable and maintainable using XML than any other format...
Ok I'm meandering now. Just a big fan, having used XML extensively over the last year or so.
I have his job now, he moved on to a different position within the company... and still lives in Greece. He's been a HUGE contributor, is accessible through the early afternoon by phone or email, and generally it worked very very well.
Just anecdotal, but it can work with the right person.
My brother recently sent her this letter.
Please read it and consider sending similar letters.
***
August 17, 2001
Gloria Blue
Executive Secretary, Trade Policy Staff Committee
Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
1724 F. St., NW, Fifth Floor
Washington, DC 20508
Dear Gloria,
I would like to take a few moments of your day to express to you some opinions my colleagues and I share regarding the intellectual property provisions contained within the draft FTAA agreement. I am writing you today as a concerned citizen of the United States and an entrepreneur, computer scientist, innovator, and engineer.
I have been working with computers for the last seventeen years of my life. I have performed for-hire and contract innovation and consulting for numerous companies, including Casio Research, myplay, Scout Electromedia, atWeb (now part of AOL), Warner Music, HearMe/MPlayer, and most recently Legato Systems. I have assisted research at Harvard's Physics Labs in antimatter recombination simulations, MIT's Lincoln Laboratories in pattern recognition, and Stanford's Graphics Labs with optimization of 3D mesh alignment algorithms. I have been interviewed as a technical expert and quoted in the New York Times, Fortune, Forbes Digital, Wired, USA Today, the LA Times, C|Net, and others. I have spoken at and moderated panels at several technology-oriented conferences. I have written articles for the international technology press and analyses for paid-for limited distribution. I have several patents pending.
I mention these things to you so that you can see that the grounding for my views on intellectual property is as someone who has made their income for the last decade solely on the production of intellectual property. I am, in short, a knowledge worker.
The measures in the FTAA agreement restricting the reverse engineering of software binds the hands of consumers and knowledge workers in unacceptable ways. We have already seen the United States ridiculed for its perversely stifling measures in the DMCA, specifically those dealing with anti-circumvention. As I was a DEFCON 9 attendee, Dmitri Sklyarov's arrest was all the more immediate and cutting; it made me embarrassed to be an American among my international peers. In a land that boasts of its freedoms, the irony of being unable to speak or publish has not been missed: not on Skylarov nor Edward Felten nor Eric Corley.
One hearing at Stanford that I attended, held by the US Copyright Office, left a deep impression upon me. Librarians explained to Marybeth Peters, the Registrar of Copyrights, that without circumvention, it was unclear how they would preserve eBooks and other similar publisher-controlled formats for the reading pleasure of future generations. After the hearing I was talking to Sony's general counsel about the case. "You know what," he said to me conspiratorially, "this is all just about people wanting stuff for free."
The problem is that this goes much beyond a simple line of "should intellectual property be free or be paid for?" It's clear that intellectual property needs compensation; otherwise I would not be able to earn a living! What publishers want to do, however, is not merely charge for the copying of material (for which they have a copyright and hence a justifiable right), but to control fully the use of their work. There exists no such thing as a "use-right" that a company can purchase in the physical world: to demand that only males can read such and such a book and only on alternate Tuesdays while drinking Orange Fanta. It would be preposterous and outrageous.
But to use the FTAA agreement to force member nations to ratify a bill that would prevent circumvention of arbitrary protection schemes is to hand companies such a right. Because, given the above, it would be illegal to modify the equivalent digital content to enable it to play on Wednesdays as well, even if you had fully purchased a copy. The rights of consumers would rest in the hands of the publishers, who have very little interest in maintaining consumer rights.
In my personal opinion, this quandary results because we have made consumer rights a declarative right and not an assertive right; no person is allowed to take away your rights directly, but if a piece of software does it, and a person directs the software, and you are not permitted to countermand the software, then it is as good as if a person had directly taken away your rights. Consumers have no direct legal ground upon which to say "you are not permitted to take away my right to read books that I've bought buy where and when I'd like, listen to music the same, and watch movies the same!" But they do have this as an ethical right; for what reason was copyright assigned but to make sure that works were spread and freely consumed since a profit could be assured for the publisher from their sale? For what reason were patents established, but to enable the sharing of ideas, no longer afraid that others would steal and profit from them? But these concepts are being infringed upon most directly.
A coworker of mine today spontaneously recounted his frustrations at traveling to Europe on business with a portable DVD player and being unable to view any purchased or even rented DVDs there, even ones unavailable in the US, because of region encoding differences. He declared his desire to circumvent the region encoding protections, not for the purpose of making even a single copy of a DVD, but simply so that the DVD he had purchased would be capable of playing on a player that he had purchased! This is a right that the movie industry has already taken away from all people.
I am a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which seeks to repeal (and indeed prevent future passage of) such laws as the DMCA. While making my living from the sale of intellectual property, I do not seek to control its usage; nor do I believe that any knowledge worker has the right to control how their work is used -- only how it is copied.
I was asked recently by Wired News if I really meant the above; namely, would I not object if the government of China were to use Rage Against the Machine (RATM) to promote communism -- should not RATM be able to veto such usage? To which I replied that RATM had no such right and neither should the Chinese government have the power to prevent RATM from using Chinese symbols (flags, etc.) to promote RATM's music. The street runs both ways and should. Free speech, allowing the publicly accusing and the publicly accused to both be heard, works on a similar flavor of justice.
To forget this and forgo the distinctions between copyright and usage rights is to produce an Orwellian future for the citizens of the world, and furthermore to stifle academic research, knowledge sharing, and the roots of intellectual inquiry that led us to our current prosperity, even in "recession."
I hope, pray, and trust that you and your office will see to it that the corresponding portions of the FTAA agreement are removed, to give citizens justice and justice her due.
Respectfully Submitted,
David Emmanuel Weekly
cc: Kira Alvarez, Walter Bastian
***
The UVA Honor Code is agreed to and signed by every incoming freshman as a condition of enrollment, and every exam and paper is also accompanied by a summary of the Honor Code forbidding cheating and is signed then as well.
The terms are clear, and these students clearly violated them. However, I do not think summarily expelling them is warranted. They made a very lazy and stupid mistake, and kudos to the instructor for catching them. But expulsion is too extreme. Most students, and all programmers, have, at one point or another, taken another's work without giving due credit. Even given conclusive evidence that these students meant to deceive the professor and violate the honor code, and clearly cheated, to destroy their academic careers seems too harsh. The honor code is not taken as seriously in the student body as the administration would like to believe, and using these kids as examples isn't necessarily just. A semester or two of academic probation -- and the scare they've already received -- will teach them a lesson.
I'm awaiting flames, many people will get indignant and question my sense of honor and academic integrity, but I think an honest self-evaluation for most people would result in some level of sympathy. Caught in your darkest hour, making your worst mistake, have you done so much better than these?
Just $0.02 from someone who believes people take some things too seriously.
If it takes longer accurately to recall information than it does to find it - with references and additional information - then the loss of memory under discussion is perhaps not such a big deal after all.
My brother's essay on Google becoming an extension of his brain touches on this too.
...before my career as a web developer began, I worked for Milberg on class-action suits against insurance companies (this was in 96). At the time I thought we were the good guys, fighting the big baddies on behalf of the people. Learned during the course of that year just what a bunch of greedy ruthless sons of bitches the partners at MWBHL were. The partners pocketed more than 100 million from the suit. Average plaintiff (many of whom had lost their life's savings to the insurance companies) received on the order of $1,000. Left the legal field altogether after that. Web app dev is a lot more fulfilling....
Hi
I used to work for Milberg as a contract paralegal before I switched paths and started programming. They are indeed scoundrels. In the class-action suits brought against Prudential and John Hancock (and other insurance companies) they pocketed over $95 million USD. The average plaintiff (who had been defrauded of tens of thousands of dollars) received a few hundred to maybe $1000. Partners who did not even work on these cases pocketed obscene amounts of cash.
At first we felt like we were the good guys, taking on the big bad insurance crooks -- but in the end it was just a bunch of lawyers getting rich. Helped make my career change easier...
how about the toxicity of the ashes left over?
it's some of the nastiest s*it on the planet.
incinerators are about as innovative as microsoft.
Come on folks, I know there's an anti-Java contingent out there but when you discuss non-C implementations of Python you really shouldn't omit JPython.
Some key differences between JPython and CPython:
Syntax
- JPython has a different interpretation of floating point
literals. CPython doesn't allow 001.1 CPython should be
fixed.
- JPython supports continue in a try clause. CPython
should be fixed - but don't hold your breath.
Standard types, functions and behaviorTweedlelyingstiff and tweedleilliteratemoron are not much of a choice...
Bradley is a personal hero of mine and McCain is by all accounts a decent guy and a hero in his own right. And they had more than just real (not to mention relatively well thought-out) positions on the issues; they had character.
BTW the fact that Bradley recently signed on as a spokesperson for and advisor to UPromise - the company I work for - has nothing to do with my opinion.
This is a Good Thing(TM).
I struggled with repetetive stress injuries to my wrists and elbows and have been in the fortunate minority, in that I recovered and was able to adjust my habits and environment to prevent recurring problems. For the newbies out there: learn the right habits and stick to them. For the old school gurus this applies double.
If you are interested in 3rd party candidates Harry Browne is it. LIBERTARIANS CARE ABOUT YOUR FREEDOM.
So some benchmark comparing speeds will NOT reflect the real-life performance of JSP (even if they weren't using a better container than tomcat). HIGH VOLUME sites increasingly turn to JSP (WebLogic etc) because of its great performance under heavy load.
Can you give even one example, or even a reasonable analogy to support this claim? This is patently absurd.
Open source software works because people _choose_ to sacrifice some small amount of potential individual gain for the sake of a larger net gain - and they directly reap the rewards of participating in and contributing to this development and distribution model. Emphasis on choose.
These same people wish to choose who has access to their personal information, for valid and obvious reasons. Again, the concept of choice is key.
Many or most oss projects begin because those using the particular technology available at a given time/place/price want a better choice, be it an os, a web server, a browser, you name it.
See a pattern here? CHOICE.
There is no conflict.
There is no hypocrisy.
The issue is always WHO CHOOSES combined with WHO PROFITS. When anonymous companies profit by trading on my personal and private information, my anger is not hypocritical just because I advocate free software. Not many people think the way to promote oss is cracking proprietary code and making it public. THAT would be hypocritical, to support breaking into private networks with the intent to profit from stealing contents therein. BUT NOBODY SUPPORTS THIS. Which is why your dichotomous view is misguided and silly.
You are correct, sir.
I do agree with your point that language is dynamic, ever-changing and organic. I suppose if enough people continue to misuse this phrase it will enter the general lexicon and the transformation/bastardization will then be more formally recognized. But this hasn't happened yet, so for now it's simply wrong to apply the term this way.
I'm done nitpicking, I am surprised at myself for being so pedantic, and I apologize if I've annoyed or offended you. People who confuse it's with its and they're with their deserve this kind of response, not someone who has used a term in an understandable, if technically incorrect, way, and who obviously has a firm command of the language.
Cheers.
(taken from http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/begs.html )Not to be overly pedantic, but it is a little ironic that your post itself employs one of the most commonly misused phrases in the English lexicon:
offers some good thoughts on American English as the lingua franca of the Internet, and lists some of the most common and egregious errors in the use of English.
Posters on /. would do well to review the list Paul Brian's compiled. =)
RIP authorizes employers to monitor employee emails, yes, but the scope of the bill goes far beyond snooping on dimwitted employees who haven't the sense to use discretion on the job.
This is from the Guardian Unlimited
(links, info on http://www.fipr.org/rip/index.html)
So those suggesting PGP are SOL.
In addition, RIP
Freedom of the Press (including its ability freely and privately to communicate with its sources) is a much more serious matter than Freedom of the Employee (to slander his boss, reveal corporate secrets or merely waste company time and bandwidth).From the wired story (emphasis mine):
This seems incredibly short-sighted to me.
To go to all the trouble of creating and marketing these boxes, getting them into the venues, and connecting them without broadband is just silly. Especially since they accuse the industry of remaining in the dark ages....
Actually my 96 Mazda Miata (30k miles) cost me $10k.
This thing costs $22,750 (us dollars).
$22,750 retail in us dollars
http://www.harrybrowne2000.org/
censorship away from the Internet should
strongly consider voting
Libertarian.