I see both trends. What matters is which has more momentum. Automation does get rid of jobs, but the jobs it gets rid of tend to be more menial jobs, not "jobs where we can use our brains". To a certain extent, creative jobs will be lost from automation only if the old version has a large menial aspect to it that can be automated away, making the worker more efficient. In the real world, however, the computer seems to add at least as much menial crud as it takes away, so we aren't seeing a lot of this yet.
On the other hand, there is theoretically room for an infinite number of creative jobs. This is only limited by the supply and demand economics of the present system. How many (and what kind) of creative jobs is the economy willing to support? For example, the economy will happily support an programmer or a research scientist, but it's tough to find support for a performance artist or an inventor.
Even worse is the supply issue. How many people have both the ability and the training to thrive in a creative field. I don't know about the rest of the world, but the education system here in the US helps train millions of people to the point where they are barely qualified to flip burgers at a fast food restaurant. Our University systems, on the other hand, are so good that our students can't get in, and can't handle it when they do get in.
So basically, computers aren't the problem, they're getting rid of the crap work. The problem is we need to use the wealth so generated to train and support more creative people, rather than line the wallets of corporate executives.
Why should I prove somthing I never said? I said that MS marketing people have often mentioned they'd like to increase NT's presence at Hotmail, not that there are plans for wholesale conversion.
In addition, it looks like they have increased NT's presence at Hotmail. They added Microsoft Passport to Hotmail, and I am pretty sure that the Passport servers are running NT. So at Hotmail you now have the Solaris/Apache boxes listening to NT machines running brand new software for account authentication. This might be where the exploit lies (or it might not).
Hotmail was originally running on Sun boxes running Solaris. When Microsoft bought it, they ported the software over to NT boxes, and tried running it that way. It crashed and burned so badly, they quickly went back to the Solaris boxes, but their marketing people keep saying that they will be increasing the presence of NT at Hotmail. I don't know if it's still Solaris or if they switched back to NT again.
Regardless, you could crack the most "secure" OS, if it's administered badly. The OS's security features only limit what the best security you can obtain is. If you put a backdoor in your system (usually inadvertently), the best OS in the world won't save you. I would assume that whatever they're running, they screwed up.
Yeah, by those measures it's still a toy. But as a toy it's still powerful enough for little web-backend databases, which it seems to work very well for.
A Honda Civic is a toy, if your standard is a Tractor-Trailer rig. That doesn't make it less useful for the people who only need to run to the store for groceries. I'm glad to see more choices available in Free database servers, even "toys".
contact the Unisys Licensing Department at 215-986-5693 (or fax at 215-986-3090) to ensure that you're safe. If they expect me to pay anything, I'll be sure to keep whoever answers the phone talking for a couple hours.
If you've got a toll-free number for us, more people will do it. I, for one, can't afford to pay for hours of cross-country long distance phone charges, even for a good cause.
The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) needs to be better funded from the Federal Treasury. One big reason why patent searches are so expensive is the PTO is dependant on user fees for operating expenses. This benefits the big companies, hurts the small companies, and locks out the Free Software developer entirely. They also need to improve their library of unpatented prior art, which will cost them money. Whether or not you think software patents should be abolished, this is necessary, to protect against things such as software patents masquerading as hardware patents. The best way to encourage improved PTO funding is by contacting your Congressmen and Senators.
The PTO needs to know that it is not enforcing its own rules properly, and it needs to clean up its act. Congress can't really help here, this is a matter of the executive branch. Write to the Commissioner of the PTO (Q. Todd Dickenson), his boss, the Secretary of Commerce (William M. Daley), or his boss the President of the United States (some guy from Arkansas). Apparently the PTO has been making some changes since the Compton's Multimedia Patent embarrassment, but some encouragement from the people would be helpful. Again, even if you feel software patents should be abolished, that won't take the PTO out of the picture, and they still need to follow their procedures better.
Lastly, if you do want software patents abolished, make sure to do the above, and join and support the League for Programming Freedom. Collective effort is critical for any headway to be made here, and the LPF is the best focus for such effort out there.
Actually corporations have the exact same rights. Corporations are basically considered a person.
First off, the original poster wasn't saying that corporations don't have the same right of privacy, he was saying they shouldn't. There's a big difference.
Secondly they are and they aren't considered people under the law. They are granted the same rights as a person, and then a few extra rights as a corporate entity, yet they have less responsibilities, and are subject to less punishment for wrongdoing. When was the last time you saw a company go to jail for fraud or theft? Go to jury duty? Vote (yes, they buy votes for their candidates, but they don't vote directly)?
Personally, I think this is the wrong way to go about it. A company is not a person, it is an organization. Organizations cannot be given the same responsibilities as people, therefore they should not be given the same rights.
I don't know Scott Berinato's number, per se, but here's a URL with all sorts of direct contacts into PC-Week. Does anyone know which office Scott works out of, to narrow the search down?
Newton hardware, as great as it was for its time, is poorly documented in Apple tradition.
Poor documentation may be a Macintosh tradition, its not an Apple tradition. I remember when the Apple ][ came with not only more documentation than any PC's today come with, but included in the documentation were tidbits like the complete and commented assembly code of what's in each of the ROMs. I miss the Woz.
Even with the Macintosh, you can get more complete and accurate documentation than some systems I can think of (you just gotta pay for it).
It looks to me like this draft is saying: A) The author feels nobody explains IP Addressing well; B) There is some discrepancy between the standard decimal representation of an IP address and the standard binary representation of it; C) The original class A/B/C method of assigning IP addresses is obsolete; D) The 32 bit IPv4 system could be used for another hundred years without upgrading to IPv6 if you use some obscure addressing scheme that appears to depend on B, above, and hiding some of the address in the subnet mask; E) Adopting this scheme will be easier than teaching people how to use IPv6.
Well, point A is obvious, if he considers this draft to be a "logical...explanation", than no previous documentation would quite pass muster.
He provides no clear evidence for point B. The number 119 is the same if you represent it in decimal (119) or binary (01110111). If this is not the case, I want to hear it from a mathemetician, not an IETF draft.
Point C is true, that's why we no longer use it. He apparently has either not read or not understood RFC 950, which describes how to get away from the unnecessarily coarse class A/B/C system, without using his equally coarse class A-1/A-2/A-3/B-1/... system.
Point D is not adequately documented to be of any use to anyone. The current IPv4 address allocation scheme still has a lot of wasted addresses, which could extend its life if tapped. I can't even tell if this scheme taps them, or if it just pushes big words around on the page.
Point E is false in this instance, since fully grocking this draft is much harder than understanding and implementing IPv6. Even if it is translated and better explained, I doubt any scheme to tap a significant number of wasted IPv4 addresses would be easier than just upgrading to IPv6. This is because most of the waste is considered "expansion space" by the owners of the network addresses. Any use of these addresses would require not only reprogramming many routers, but spending a lot more time maintaining the resulting routing tables as addresses here and there get used.
The bottom line, IPv4's not dead yet, but IPv6 is still inevitable, and this paper proposes nothing coherant.
Since when are "leeks, sprouts and pine nuts" exotic vegetables? Anyway, I've always wanted to try some of the bug delicacies, but I've lacked the opportunity (i.e. being at a place I'd trust to do it well, with enough money to actually get something).
The lifting of the injunction means that Microsoft can use Sun's trademarks on all sorts of crap. Further muddying the already murky waters of Java development, particularly on the Pointy-Haired Boss level.
Also, while the judge said that Sun was likely to win the breach of contract case, he said he didn't see any copyright infringement case there. If Sun wins the breach of contract case, all that happens is some cash changes hands from Microsoft to Sun, big whoop. For it to mean anything to people outside of Sun, the court needs to be ruling on the copyright infringement part of the case. Such a ruling has the potential to have much stiffer penalties, and more effect on how Microsoft does business.
Go to Rebel.com and get yourself a Netwinder. They are small, cost "something like standard x86 prices", and as far as I know, completely fanless. They use a low power StrongARM processor, and if I remember correctly, just use a standard 9V DC power adaptor as its power supply. The whole thing runs in 15 Watts.
Agreed, the Demoroniser improperly points the finger at Microsoft. While Microsoft is a big offender, it's not the only one, Jon Katz is probably still having trouble with his Macintosh tools. Still, the Demoroniser should work for him, or if not, it can be made to work with little effort on the part of him or one of his friends.
First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews,and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me. -- Rev. Martin Niemoller (1945)
Again (or is it still), we find ourselves in a society which demonizes unpopular segments of the population. Law enforcement demands the tools to deal with these demons, because they claim we won't be safe unless they can do whatever they want to fight "for our safety". If we give them what they ask for, and they are successful at wiping out the demons, they will pick a new group to be demons, maybe even a group you are a part of.
Law Enforcement is supposed to be there to serve and protect. By supplying them with the right to spy and invade, they will feel they have the obligation to, and no longer serve or protect. This has been true throughout history, I see no sign that this is any different. They need to be limited.
He who surrenders liberty for security deserves neither. -- Ben Franklin
[Note, both quotes are found in many different forms, there is no authoritative version, please don't bother correcting me because the quote I gave doesn't match the way you heard it]
I should know, I am online for considerably more than four hours a day (usually from 8-12). I also have a hard time leaving the net for days at a time. The hard time I have is that my boss starts charging my vacation time, or if I disappear too long, he'd stop paying me.
Any study that takes an arbitrary length of time, and says "if you go past that line, you need help" is a joke. It's an attempt by some little known psychiatrist to get his name associated with a currently faddish syndrome. It does nothing to help identify the problem, it does nothing to help people who have a real problem, it just gets his name in the paper.
There are real people who have serious net addictions, to the point where it destroys any part of their lives that isn't online. These people need help, not misguided studies.
For many years, ENIAC was the first electronic, non-classified computer. It was solidly beat out by Turing & VonNeumann's COLOSSUS. Both ENIAC and COLOSSUS were beat out by electromechanical computers, like Conrad Zuse's Z3 (1941) and Harvard's Mark1 (1944).
BWP stands for Bristol Workshops in Photography. I guess Katz is afraid of wedding photos. I never realized the profit margins of photo studios could be that high.:-)
There seems to be a lot of BWP bashing going on here, so I figured I'd put my two cents in in support of the movie. Yes, the movie was cheaply made, but a lot of research and planning went into it, it wasn't just a throwaway piece. The pre-release marketing (the Sci-Fi channel mockumentary and the website) were well targeted, and not as annoying as most marketing. The hype after everyone realized how well the movie was doing is very very annoying, but that doesn't make the movie any less good.
I'm not saying everyone will like the movie, but I certainly did. The actors were very beleivable (not necessarily sympathetic or competant, but they weren't supposed to be). The director set the mood well, and left enough to the imagination to scare the wits out of me. Seeing Freddy jump out of the shadows and disembowel sombody doesn't scare me. Seeing a pile of rocks outside a tent, that is scary, but only if you have some idea what the rocks are. At the theater I went to, only two people left during the credits; I'm used to seeing only two or three people remain to watch the credits (one's usually me).
I fear that a lot of the movie went above people's heads, and those are the people bashing the movie or yawning. Others haven't even seen the movie and are just bashing the hype. Bash the hype all you want, but the movie was well done.
Slashdot Mirror
I see both trends. What matters is which has more momentum. Automation does get rid of jobs, but the jobs it gets rid of tend to be more menial jobs, not "jobs where we can use our brains". To a certain extent, creative jobs will be lost from automation only if the old version has a large menial aspect to it that can be automated away, making the worker more efficient. In the real world, however, the computer seems to add at least as much menial crud as it takes away, so we aren't seeing a lot of this yet.
On the other hand, there is theoretically room for an infinite number of creative jobs. This is only limited by the supply and demand economics of the present system. How many (and what kind) of creative jobs is the economy willing to support? For example, the economy will happily support an programmer or a research scientist, but it's tough to find support for a performance artist or an inventor.
Even worse is the supply issue. How many people have both the ability and the training to thrive in a creative field. I don't know about the rest of the world, but the education system here in the US helps train millions of people to the point where they are barely qualified to flip burgers at a fast food restaurant. Our University systems, on the other hand, are so good that our students can't get in, and can't handle it when they do get in.
So basically, computers aren't the problem, they're getting rid of the crap work. The problem is we need to use the wealth so generated to train and support more creative people, rather than line the wallets of corporate executives.
----
$ nslookup
> 207.82.250.251
Name: wya-pop.hotmail.com
Address: 207.82.250.251
> set querytype=any
> wya-pop.hotmail.com
wya-pop.hotmail.com preference = 20, mail exchanger = mail.hotmail.com
wya-pop.hotmail.com internet address = 207.82.250.251
hotmail.com nameserver = ns1.hotmail.com
hotmail.com nameserver = ns3.hotmail.com
hotmail.com nameserver = ns1.jsnet.com
mail.hotmail.com internet address = 216.33.151.135
ns1.hotmail.com internet address = 207.82.250.83
ns3.hotmail.com internet address = 209.185.130.68
ns1.jsnet.com internet address = 209.1.113.3
----
Why should I prove somthing I never said? I said that MS marketing people have often mentioned they'd like to increase NT's presence at Hotmail, not that there are plans for wholesale conversion.
In addition, it looks like they have increased NT's presence at Hotmail. They added Microsoft Passport to Hotmail, and I am pretty sure that the Passport servers are running NT. So at Hotmail you now have the Solaris/Apache boxes listening to NT machines running brand new software for account authentication. This might be where the exploit lies (or it might not).
----
Hotmail was originally running on Sun boxes running Solaris. When Microsoft bought it, they ported the software over to NT boxes, and tried running it that way. It crashed and burned so badly, they quickly went back to the Solaris boxes, but their marketing people keep saying that they will be increasing the presence of NT at Hotmail. I don't know if it's still Solaris or if they switched back to NT again.
Regardless, you could crack the most "secure" OS, if it's administered badly. The OS's security features only limit what the best security you can obtain is. If you put a backdoor in your system (usually inadvertently), the best OS in the world won't save you. I would assume that whatever they're running, they screwed up.
----
Yeah, by those measures it's still a toy. But as a toy it's still powerful enough for little web-backend databases, which it seems to work very well for.
A Honda Civic is a toy, if your standard is a Tractor-Trailer rig. That doesn't make it less useful for the people who only need to run to the store for groceries. I'm glad to see more choices available in Free database servers, even "toys".
----
kato wrote:
contact the Unisys Licensing Department at 215-986-5693 (or fax at 215-986-3090) to ensure that you're safe. If they expect me to pay anything, I'll be sure to keep whoever answers the phone talking for a couple hours.
If you've got a toll-free number for us, more people will do it. I, for one, can't afford to pay for hours of cross-country long distance phone charges, even for a good cause.
----
A few thing are needed:
The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) needs to be better funded from the Federal Treasury. One big reason why patent searches are so expensive is the PTO is dependant on user fees for operating expenses. This benefits the big companies, hurts the small companies, and locks out the Free Software developer entirely. They also need to improve their library of unpatented prior art, which will cost them money. Whether or not you think software patents should be abolished, this is necessary, to protect against things such as software patents masquerading as hardware patents. The best way to encourage improved PTO funding is by contacting your Congressmen and Senators.
The PTO needs to know that it is not enforcing its own rules properly, and it needs to clean up its act. Congress can't really help here, this is a matter of the executive branch. Write to the Commissioner of the PTO (Q. Todd Dickenson), his boss, the Secretary of Commerce (William M. Daley), or his boss the President of the United States (some guy from Arkansas). Apparently the PTO has been making some changes since the Compton's Multimedia Patent embarrassment, but some encouragement from the people would be helpful. Again, even if you feel software patents should be abolished, that won't take the PTO out of the picture, and they still need to follow their procedures better.
Lastly, if you do want software patents abolished, make sure to do the above, and join and support the League for Programming Freedom. Collective effort is critical for any headway to be made here, and the LPF is the best focus for such effort out there.
----
dirty writes:
Actually corporations have the exact same rights. Corporations are basically considered a person.
First off, the original poster wasn't saying that corporations don't have the same right of privacy, he was saying they shouldn't. There's a big difference.
Secondly they are and they aren't considered people under the law. They are granted the same rights as a person, and then a few extra rights as a corporate entity, yet they have less responsibilities, and are subject to less punishment for wrongdoing. When was the last time you saw a company go to jail for fraud or theft? Go to jury duty? Vote (yes, they buy votes for their candidates, but they don't vote directly)?
Personally, I think this is the wrong way to go about it. A company is not a person, it is an organization. Organizations cannot be given the same responsibilities as people, therefore they should not be given the same rights.
----
I don't know Scott Berinato's number, per se, but here's a URL with all sorts of direct contacts into PC-Week. Does anyone know which office Scott works out of, to narrow the search down?
/contacts/editorial.shtm /html/editorial/edit_beatlist.shtm
http://www.pcweekmar.com/html
http://www.pcweekmar.com
----
andrewgaul wrote:
Newton hardware, as great as it was for its time, is poorly documented in Apple tradition.
Poor documentation may be a Macintosh tradition, its not an Apple tradition. I remember when the Apple ][ came with not only more documentation than any PC's today come with, but included in the documentation were tidbits like the complete and commented assembly code of what's in each of the ROMs. I miss the Woz.
Even with the Macintosh, you can get more complete and accurate documentation than some systems I can think of (you just gotta pay for it).
----
It looks to me like this draft is saying:
A) The author feels nobody explains IP Addressing well;
B) There is some discrepancy between the standard decimal representation of an IP address and the standard binary representation of it;
C) The original class A/B/C method of assigning IP addresses is obsolete;
D) The 32 bit IPv4 system could be used for another hundred years without upgrading to IPv6 if you use some obscure addressing scheme that appears to depend on B, above, and hiding some of the address in the subnet mask;
E) Adopting this scheme will be easier than teaching people how to use IPv6.
Well, point A is obvious, if he considers this draft to be a "logical...explanation", than no previous documentation would quite pass muster.
He provides no clear evidence for point B. The number 119 is the same if you represent it in decimal (119) or binary (01110111). If this is not the case, I want to hear it from a mathemetician, not an IETF draft.
Point C is true, that's why we no longer use it. He apparently has either not read or not understood RFC 950, which describes how to get away from the unnecessarily coarse class A/B/C system, without using his equally coarse class A-1/A-2/A-3/B-1/... system.
Point D is not adequately documented to be of any use to anyone. The current IPv4 address allocation scheme still has a lot of wasted addresses, which could extend its life if tapped. I can't even tell if this scheme taps them, or if it just pushes big words around on the page.
Point E is false in this instance, since fully grocking this draft is much harder than understanding and implementing IPv6. Even if it is translated and better explained, I doubt any scheme to tap a significant number of wasted IPv4 addresses would be easier than just upgrading to IPv6. This is because most of the waste is considered "expansion space" by the owners of the network addresses. Any use of these addresses would require not only reprogramming many routers, but spending a lot more time maintaining the resulting routing tables as addresses here and there get used.
The bottom line, IPv4's not dead yet, but IPv6 is still inevitable, and this paper proposes nothing coherant.
----
Maybe she bites the head off of Microsoft in front of a carnival audience?
----
Since when are "leeks, sprouts and pine nuts" exotic vegetables? Anyway, I've always wanted to try some of the bug delicacies, but I've lacked the opportunity (i.e. being at a place I'd trust to do it well, with enough money to actually get something).
----
Can you get a Windows refund if you buy a machine shipped with CE, and then wipe CE off of the machine?
----
The lifting of the injunction means that Microsoft can use Sun's trademarks on all sorts of crap. Further muddying the already murky waters of Java development, particularly on the Pointy-Haired Boss level.
Also, while the judge said that Sun was likely to win the breach of contract case, he said he didn't see any copyright infringement case there. If Sun wins the breach of contract case, all that happens is some cash changes hands from Microsoft to Sun, big whoop. For it to mean anything to people outside of Sun, the court needs to be ruling on the copyright infringement part of the case. Such a ruling has the potential to have much stiffer penalties, and more effect on how Microsoft does business.
----
Go to Rebel.com and get yourself a Netwinder. They are small, cost "something like standard x86 prices", and as far as I know, completely fanless. They use a low power StrongARM processor, and if I remember correctly, just use a standard 9V DC power adaptor as its power supply. The whole thing runs in 15 Watts.
----
Agreed, the Demoroniser improperly points the finger at Microsoft. While Microsoft is a big offender, it's not the only one, Jon Katz is probably still having trouble with his Macintosh tools. Still, the Demoroniser should work for him, or if not, it can be made to work with little effort on the part of him or one of his friends.
----
First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.
-- Rev. Martin Niemoller (1945)
Again (or is it still), we find ourselves in a society which demonizes unpopular segments of the population. Law enforcement demands the tools to deal with these demons, because they claim we won't be safe unless they can do whatever they want to fight "for our safety". If we give them what they ask for, and they are successful at wiping out the demons, they will pick a new group to be demons, maybe even a group you are a part of.
Law Enforcement is supposed to be there to serve and protect. By supplying them with the right to spy and invade, they will feel they have the obligation to, and no longer serve or protect. This has been true throughout history, I see no sign that this is any different. They need to be limited.
He who surrenders liberty for security deserves
neither.
-- Ben Franklin
[Note, both quotes are found in many different forms, there is no authoritative version, please don't bother correcting me because the quote I gave doesn't match the way you heard it]
----
Interesting article, but you've got those annoying question marks again. Might I suggest The Demoroniser.
----
I should know, I am online for considerably more than four hours a day (usually from 8-12). I also have a hard time leaving the net for days at a time. The hard time I have is that my boss starts charging my vacation time, or if I disappear too long, he'd stop paying me.
Any study that takes an arbitrary length of time, and says "if you go past that line, you need help" is a joke. It's an attempt by some little known psychiatrist to get his name associated with a currently faddish syndrome. It does nothing to help identify the problem, it does nothing to help people who have a real problem, it just gets his name in the paper.
There are real people who have serious net addictions, to the point where it destroys any part of their lives that isn't online. These people need help, not misguided studies.
----
For many years, ENIAC was the first electronic, non-classified computer. It was solidly beat out by Turing & VonNeumann's COLOSSUS. Both ENIAC and COLOSSUS were beat out by electromechanical computers, like Conrad Zuse's Z3 (1941) and Harvard's Mark1 (1944).
----
A lot of shaves and haircuts.
----
BWP stands for Bristol Workshops in Photography. I guess Katz is afraid of wedding photos. I never realized the profit margins of photo studios could be that high. :-)
----
There seems to be a lot of BWP bashing going on here, so I figured I'd put my two cents in in support of the movie. Yes, the movie was cheaply made, but a lot of research and planning went into it, it wasn't just a throwaway piece. The pre-release marketing (the Sci-Fi channel mockumentary and the website) were well targeted, and not as annoying as most marketing. The hype after everyone realized how well the movie was doing is very very annoying, but that doesn't make the movie any less good.
I'm not saying everyone will like the movie, but I certainly did. The actors were very beleivable (not necessarily sympathetic or competant, but they weren't supposed to be). The director set the mood well, and left enough to the imagination to scare the wits out of me. Seeing Freddy jump out of the shadows and disembowel sombody doesn't scare me. Seeing a pile of rocks outside a tent, that is scary, but only if you have some idea what the rocks are. At the theater I went to, only two people left during the credits; I'm used to seeing only two or three people remain to watch the credits (one's usually me).
I fear that a lot of the movie went above people's heads, and those are the people bashing the movie or yawning. Others haven't even seen the movie and are just bashing the hype. Bash the hype all you want, but the movie was well done.
----
If you want to see the website, and don't want or can't use the plugin that the main page requires, go to http://www.blairwitch.com/mythology.html, you can access the content of the site without needing plugins (just don't hit the "Home" link).
----