While a nuisance, one could turn javascript on, load the page, disable javascript, and look around? Or save the page? Yes, I know, some javascript can get in the way of both - one more reason I have it off (though mainly as I dislike pop-ads and scrolling stuff where I expect an URL to be..)
Then one could go back to the page and do what was needed, possibly in either very direct 'I've been here before' patterns or in very weird artistic 'take this, bozo' patterns of mouse movement.
Would any record be kept? Who would see it? If I 'wrote' nastygrams with the mouse.. would anyone care? I doubt it, but the idea is mildly amusing.
Of course a competing site could simply announce they don't do this sort of thing (and actually not do it!) and gain an immediate and cost-free customer good will advantage.
Elizabeth Rather (of Forth Inc.) mentioned once on comp.lang.forth that she encountered two groups, both of which used Forth, but for radically different things. It was something like this:
One claimed "It's great for controlling telescopes and other small obscure things, but we'd wouldn't dream on it for anything big."
The other group claimed, "It's wonderful for our large project, but no way we'd ever use this for anything like a machinery control system."
Forth is what one makes it, and what one believes it to be.
I suspect the real reason Forth is not popular is that it is not popular. Other languages are taught in schools or have a certain 'coolness' to them (C, Java, Perl). As for the practicality, Forth was not originally a corporate development nor was it was it a university project. It was just Chuck Moore getting a real-world problem solved.
The RPN scares some people (who should know better, really), and there is the false idea that there are no variables, just stack. Well, anyone who has done assembly (or uses an HP calculator..) has dealt with RPN. And the stack is a nice quick tool, but variables are there for the big work. The one real issue is that with Forth there is the assumption that the Programmer is God, and God knows WTH he is doing. So the compiler doesn't whine about every little thing, but lets you shoot yourself in the foot. The assumption is that you meant to do that, or you would not have done that.
Sure badly written and undocumented Forth is 'write-only' and takes a great effort to decipher. Other languages can be jsut as bad, if one writes poorly. But a development group can agree on a few coding conventions and get along and generate readable Forth.
A 100,000 line project would need to be well planned and agreed upon... but is that not true for any 100,000 line project in any language?
One interesting comment I've seen (likely in Starting Forth) is something to the effect of "You don't solve the problem with Forth. You find out what language would make the solution trivial, and write that language with Forth."
An admission: I do Forth for a living, for now. It has been decreed by those who do not actually program that new development will be in C. Why? Because "it's easy to find a C programmer." So I'll end up working in C soon. (And they have as much trouble finding _good_ C programmers as finding _good_ Forth programmers.)
I work at a place that is shipping products with embedded 68hc11 (8 bit!), with 80186, and with 80386 processors.
Why? Because they do the job at a decent price. Would we love to use a big, better, faster processor? Yep. But we need to keep price down, and in some cases, keep power way down. Like getting several days use out of batteries, or getting a product with an 'intrinsically safe' rating. This is not 'explosion proof' (contain any spark or blow-up inside the case) but 'can't even make a spark'.
Our ideal processor, just like everyone else's dream, would be infinitely fast/powerful, use no power, and cost nothing. Since that doesn't exist, choices get made. Sometimes an older x86 is the right choice.
"Durable (lexan coated?) enough to exist without a case."
While Lexan is tough in one sense, it is subject to chemical attack. Ammonia, in many glass cleaners, does a number on Lexan as does citric acid. Also, Lexan isn't hard in the context of scratch resistance.
Nylon, while not usable for anything needing transparency, is also tough, takes dyes/colorants well, and is almost immune to chemical attack (though that also means you can't easily bond it). Not tough enough? Reinforce it with glass fiber. 33% glass fiber filled nylon is some pretty tough stuff.
ABS is another fairly rugged plastic. The colorants may be a bit more limited and there is some chemical activity, but this stuff is still a decent choice.
The real trick may be to have designed strength a decent wall thickness so that if dropped, it can take it without turning to shards.
What's wrong with not knowing what channel you're watching? Does it really matter that it's on NBC, or CBS, or BBC? If it's a good television show, they're going to watch it.
This is the main thing that the networks (and other "content providers") need to realize. People aren't 'loyal [network du jour] viewers' but will go where they perceive the best value is. At least, some will. Channel surfing doesn't happen just because it's possible, but because the channel that was being viewed ceased to be desirable. This could be from a lousy program, or an annoying commercial.
Good programs won't get skipped/surfed by.. and clever, non-annoying commercials actually get watched. Annoying may get a veiwer's attention, but it also get the viewer's hand on the remote. One person I know has suggested that those who make and approve a commercial be required to view it every 10-15 minutes during their workday for two weeks before it can air. Then if they scream for it to stop, it shouldn't air. I doubt this will ever happen, but the idea is appealing.
"You" want to change the basic nature of something so it works like something else?
Let's see here...
Did anyone change the basic nature of the automobile so that it could take a saddle, be steered by reins, and respond to spurs or a whip, leg pressure, and start and stop with vocal commands?
Maybe someone did try it. A quick look around reveals that if someone did, they had no real success. But many did learn to use a steering wheel, pedals, and levers... and got along rather well with a new item with a new nature.
Congratulations guys, you're on your way to failure.. AGAIN.
Actually you CAN see Venus in daylight, but you must know exactly where to look. Finding Venus in daylight isn't as easy as at night, of course. Having the moon as a guide just before the event will help.
I can understand this not being on the main/. page but it is nice to have it here. While occultations of planets by the moon aren't super rare, they aren't that common either. The moon occults many stars, but the planets not as often, being so many fewer of them and not always in the right place.
Timing of occultations of stars is (was?) considered useful for getting better info about the moon's orbit and such. Occultations of planets aren't considered, last I checked, to be scientifically useful - but they are a neat thing to see.
Alternate sources: Why pay site X when you can get the same or similar from site Y?
Tradition: The web and 'net has long been (mostly) free. People don't like the idea of this changing, it feels like a door being slammed shut in their faces.
Hassle: Goes with alternate sources and tradition. A payment scheme is another thing to deal with. "Automatic payment" even if it was harmless, 'feels wrong' and like it could be abused. Look at how the 'free registration' sites gets treeted here.. now imagine anyone who dislikes that price (free of direct monetary cost, but allow a cookie or remember yet another password) tolerating a payment based system.
Judging: A site has to charge up front or not get paid. But a viewer wants to know he's getting his money's worth before parting with his money. A free sample is needed, at the least.
It comes down to value and availability: What content is there that would be considered of such value that it merits being paid for, has no free alternatives, and would be worth the hassle? And if this happens, how long before someone decides to make a free version? I'm not saying there won't be paid-for content (there already is, but it ratehr limited in focus, I suspect), but it will have to be 'something special' for it to work well.
While "perfection" is impossible, it is possible to get very close and to lower risk. There is no zero risk, even doing nothing has a risk.
The idea is to take into consideration what could go wrong, and assume that everything that could fail, would all do so at once, and design for that. If the worst case failure mode is that a reaction self-quenches with no radiation release, that is 'perfect' for the application. It might still not be ideal, as it could make a mess within a containment structure, but this is far preferable to the failure modes encountered at Chernobyl, Windscale, Three Mile Island, or Brown's Ferry.
As for the 'too cheap to meter', that one will not be true anytime soon (for any means of generation), and as I recall if the speech it was taken from is read fully in context it wasn't that we'd have cheap energy 'tomorrow' but that if we (humanity) worked things right, someday in the distant future our succeeding generations would have that benefit from our work and research.
The waste products are a concern as fission is inherently dirty and I'd far prefer fusion to fission power, but fusion is still 20+ years away... just like it has been for the last 50 years. In 20 years, I expect workable fusion power to still be "20 years away."
Prepending every application name with a letter (or three) does grate, IMO. But this is a bit silly. Hrmm, is there a KWord? Or a GWord? Or maybe Adobe is actually in the right here.
My "favorite" is the 'Konsole'...I keep expecting to see CCCP in the title bar for some reason.
Silliness: Will Gnome get a program (mostly) named spot?
I happened to be shopping last night and the girl at the checkout couldn't get over that I had purchased a comic book. After a bit it came clear, she mistook me for a minister that has the misfortune of looking like me.
This was just a harmless incident and cleared up quickly. Now, imagine I knew of this situation and set out to cause confusion. (No, I don't plan on it. I have better things to do with my time). It could take a while to get it sorted out.
Re:anti-bsd posts up 75% on slashdot!!!!!
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that's Maynard's "cute" way of refering to the GPL
s/"cute"/accurate/
It is viral. I've seen GP* supporters come out and say it is viral as well and maintain that that is a good thing. Jay is merely saying it is a bad thing. If you actually bother to look through his postings you will also discover why he thinks that is a bad thing. Why not have people choose a license with their eyes wide open? If someone really wants to GPL, fine. But a newcomer should not be led to believe that GPL is the One True License... at least not without seeing alternatives and then making up their own mind. I see no men of straw in his statements.
What could possibly be next? The Garbage, Recycling and Sanitation companies installing meters [...] ?
While not (yet) for marketing reasons, this isn't that strange an idea. I do know of one system designed to weigh trash as it is picked up - I almost worked on it. The idea is to then bill by weight of refuse rather than charge a flat fee. It wouldn't be a great leap to sell a list of 'trash producers' with total weights to marketing types since more trash means a household likely makes more purchases and is a suitable target for 'family' advertising. I suppose low-volume households would be targets for 'singles' product or environmental solicitations.
Further off topic: The town I live in neatly deals with payment for garbage collection service by not dealing with it -- sort of. What happens is that two competing garbage pickup services each sell their own specially colored trash bags at the local stores. The price for these bags is high (they ain't just Glad bags) but covers the collection costs. Don't like yellow service? Buy the blue bags (or vice versa). I like this as it allows competition, privacy (no one selling info on how much junk I toss out), and does somewhat encourage wiser us of resources.
Not that Katz doesn't have a point or two, but the title is rather off-putting...
I learned long ago that most calls for attention that start with "Yo!" aren't worth my time. At least he didn't use the stale and oh-so-tired lousy coach phrase "Listen up!" which really isn't worth my time. When I hear that one, I know there is nothing of any use to me following it, so why should I bother?
See, it is possible for attention-grabbers to lose what they seek by the mere act of seeking it.
As for pop-ups on web pages, turn scripting off. This may make the web 'boring' to those who need constant stimulation, but it's blessed relief for those of us who want to think about actual content. I would like my browser of choice[1] to allow by-page selection of scripting, for the precious few pages that use scripting for something genuinely useful.
In a way, these are examples of the open source model in action.
Newton experimented. Edison experimented. Tesla experimented. Most experiments were failures. Most experiments ARE failures. But without risk of failure, there is no chance of success either.
Da Vinci paid the bills with a day job. Most people do. While there are some programmers paid to work on open source projects, a good many more do proprietary work to pay the bills and do open source work as a hobby.
So Linus experimented. And one of the experiments, at least, appears to be successful. Linus has a day job to pay the bills. And still works with Linux. It looks like he's in common and good company - just, like a few, more well known for one of his successes.
I am curious about this 'machine to talk with the dead' though. I recall reading that when asked what he doing once, a sly Edison replied he was working on a machine that would let you hear the voices of the dead. The phonograph appeared not much later.
It is generally considered easier to make a spheriodal surface, and even correct it to paraboloidal than to make a truly flat surface. Maybe this isn't the case, but the test gear for spheroidal surface is very, very simple while tests for flatness depend upon having a reference flat surface or a rather complicated setup to get around the lack of such a reference.
It is true that buying a small diagonal mirror is cheaper than buying a larger objective. Now, price a curved and a flat mirror of the same size and see which is more expensive. And then ponder why this is the case.
There may be a relation. I too suspect they have cause and effect (if they are such) reversed. The idea of the body using a non-ideal state as a baseline is intriguing.
And quite right, there is no escape. One can't (couldn't) simply walk away, go home. So flight was out. Fight? Only works if you have an overwhelming advantage - and often backfires. So many stories have been posted (other articles) along the lines of "..and when I finally did fight back, it was me that got punished, not the.." Just ignore them? Only rarely, and only in the mild cases does this work. Been there, tried that. "Just ignore them and they go away" is either wishful thinking or psychobabble.
So what's that leave? Stress. The bad kind. And then people wonder "What went wrong?" when someone remains in low spirits, feels that 'the world" is against them, or snaps.. whether they aim at others or themselves.
What would solve this? I'm not absolutely sure. I know what won't work though. Restricting (censoring?) games won't. More gun laws won't. Profiling really won't. None of these does more than try to appear to Do Something.. with easy yet useless metrics. None actually solves the problem.
Responsible parenting would certainly help, but how is that acheived? And it would have to be at least near universal. Being "raised right" isn't of much comfort when those around you are not. Teachers and school administrators not playing favorites and not turning a blind eye to things would help. Even better if they dug when an "incident" occurred and found out not "who threw the first punch" as it were, but if it was brought on. Some means of escape, beyond living in a world of one's own, just between one's ears, would also help. Alas I have no idea how to make that workable.
I'd love to see a clever hack. This is a problem that is hard to solve and will take people of much greater cleverness than those who inflict it. The solution, in the end, may even be simple. Getting it implemented will be the real trick. I wish I was clever enough.
While I dislike the idea of informants, especially uninformed or misinformed fols (and even more so the anonymous informants) this is a matter of responsibility.
Did she do the right thing? Maybe.. out of context the 'threat' is meaningless, how did she know he wasn't explaining a group in some RPG? She didn't. But she did do as instructed. If this was a real threat, then it was good she did so. She carried out her responsibility AS SHE UNDERSTOOD IT TO BE.
Did the school overreact? Almost certainly. Without properly investigating, such actions as they took are excessive, if not outright criminal. Did the school act responsibly here? No. They have a duty to see everyone can safely learn and that INCLUDES the accused. The only exception is if the accusation leads to evidence that the threat is real. They have denied him that (safe education), unless he and his family moves sufficiently far away. Not an action taken lightly.
The school also has a responsibility to the girl who acted AS THE SCHOOL DIRECTED her to. They want kids to inform, they had better back up the informers even if they (the school) botch things.
And again the school failed to act responsibly. And had better put things right if the informer is mistaken, wrong, or outright lying.
There are consequences for actions. The boy has experienced this. The girl has experienced this.
Right or wrong, both have experienced that. Now the school wants to exempt itself? Excuse me, what lesson are they teaching here? "We're more equal than you." perhaps? The one party with two responsibilities, which it already failed on one, now tries to absolve itself the other?
The only lesson the school is teaching is that it's safest to say nothing and keep everything between your ears. Such a love of freedom, that.
I can see where personal _possession_ of such items would perhaps be problematic. This, however, is not about merely preventing possession (unless much was lost in translation) but about preventing viewership, eliminating knowledge of the existance of the items.
While the US First Amendment does not carry legal weight in France, the principle it is based upon is worth considering: That the best treatment for bad speech (thought, etc.) is to counter it with good speech, not to try to ignore it and hope it goes away by itself. It never goes away by itself.
Not having dealt with the FBI, I don't know about the details of that.
I can say from time working for USPS that it is VERY stressed that NOTHING gets opened by anyone, except the Postmaster. And the Postmaster has to have a damned good reason to open something. A partial address isn't a good reason. A missing address might be. Yes, they even stress that looking at postcards is a Bad Thing. Of course you have to look at the address, but dwelling.. no. Usually the postmaster doesn't see most of the mail (the notice to the postmaster on junk mail is joke, the important it proclaims itself, the more worthless it is. It was also amusing to see the 'one of these three people won' with the top name always changing...) What happens is mot mail just goes through. Occasionally something happens like a missing address on first or second class mail or a sort machine-mangle and those get moved up the chain of command as it were
The office I was at was very scrupulous. If third class (_junk_ mail, though they had another names, 'bulk business mail' for it) mail had coins and there was any breakage or leakage, the coins were collected and the Postmaster got to deal with them. More than once I left a coin, that had fallen from my own pocket, on the floor where it fell. It wasn't worth the risk of picking of it up again.
Not saying that law enforcement cannot intercept mail, but saying that not just anyone can and it isn't done routinely as it seems Carnivore permits.
Do you use envelopes for your snailmail letters, or do you only use postcards that are (more easily) readable?
Do you have curtains or blinds in your office or residence, and use them rather than leave them open?
Do you leave meeting room and bedroom and other doors open, allowing anyone to look in as they please?
Do you use transparent trash bags?
How about a transparent backpack or briefcase?
No?
Gee, what do you have to hide?
It's about privacy. No one here is saying that the FBI shouldn't go after criminals. But the wanton removal of privacy is a removal of freedom. And the removal of freedom must be always guarded against.
If you really are comfortable with being monitored by government, there's this warm island some miles of Florida...
Slashdot Mirror
How about this?
While a nuisance, one could turn javascript on, load the page, disable javascript, and look around? Or save the page? Yes, I know, some javascript can get in the way of both - one more reason I have it off (though mainly as I dislike pop-ads and scrolling stuff where I expect an URL to be..)
Then one could go back to the page and do what was needed, possibly in either very direct 'I've been here before' patterns or in very weird artistic 'take this, bozo' patterns of mouse movement.
Would any record be kept? Who would see it? If I 'wrote' nastygrams with the mouse.. would anyone care? I doubt it, but the idea is mildly amusing.
Of course a competing site could simply announce they don't do this sort of thing (and actually not do it!) and gain an immediate and cost-free customer good will advantage.
Elizabeth Rather (of Forth Inc.) mentioned once on comp.lang.forth that she encountered two groups, both of which used Forth, but for radically different things. It was something like this:
One claimed "It's great for controlling telescopes and other small obscure things, but we'd wouldn't dream on it for anything big."
The other group claimed, "It's wonderful for our large project, but no way we'd ever use this for anything like a machinery control system."
Forth is what one makes it, and what one believes it to be.
I suspect the real reason Forth is not popular is that it is not popular. Other languages are taught in schools or have a certain 'coolness' to them (C, Java, Perl). As for the practicality, Forth was not originally a corporate development nor was it was it a university project. It was just Chuck Moore getting a real-world problem solved.
The RPN scares some people (who should know better, really), and there is the false idea that there are no variables, just stack. Well, anyone who has done assembly (or uses an HP calculator..) has dealt with RPN. And the stack is a nice quick tool, but variables are there for the big work. The one real issue is that with Forth there is the assumption that the Programmer is God, and God knows WTH he is doing. So the compiler doesn't whine about every little thing, but lets you shoot yourself in the foot. The assumption is that you meant to do that, or you would not have done that.
Sure badly written and undocumented Forth is 'write-only' and takes a great effort to decipher. Other languages can be jsut as bad, if one writes poorly. But a development group can agree on a few coding conventions and get along and generate readable Forth.
A 100,000 line project would need to be well planned and agreed upon... but is that not true for any 100,000 line project in any language?
One interesting comment I've seen (likely in Starting Forth) is something to the effect of "You don't solve the problem with Forth. You find out what language would make the solution trivial, and write that language with Forth."
An admission: I do Forth for a living, for now. It has been decreed by those who do not actually program that new development will be in C. Why? Because "it's easy to find a C programmer." So I'll end up working in C soon. (And they have as much trouble finding _good_ C programmers as finding _good_ Forth programmers.)
I work at a place that is shipping products with embedded 68hc11 (8 bit!), with 80186, and with 80386 processors.
Why? Because they do the job at a decent price. Would we love to use a big, better, faster processor? Yep. But we need to keep price down, and in some cases, keep power way down. Like getting several days use out of batteries, or getting a product with an 'intrinsically safe' rating. This is not 'explosion proof' (contain any spark or blow-up inside the case) but 'can't even make a spark'.
Our ideal processor, just like everyone else's dream, would be infinitely fast/powerful, use no power, and cost nothing. Since that doesn't exist, choices get made. Sometimes an older x86 is the right choice.
"Isn't Slashdot pro-competition?"
Folks are pro FAIR competition.
"Durable (lexan coated?) enough to exist without a case."
While Lexan is tough in one sense, it is subject to chemical attack. Ammonia, in many glass cleaners, does a number on Lexan as does citric acid. Also, Lexan isn't hard in the context of scratch resistance.
Nylon, while not usable for anything needing transparency, is also tough, takes dyes/colorants well, and is almost immune to chemical attack (though that also means you can't easily bond it). Not tough enough? Reinforce it with glass fiber. 33% glass fiber filled nylon is some pretty tough stuff.
ABS is another fairly rugged plastic. The colorants may be a bit more limited and there is some chemical activity, but this stuff is still a decent choice.
The real trick may be to have designed strength a decent wall thickness so that if dropped, it can take it without turning to shards.
What's wrong with not knowing what channel you're watching? Does it really matter that it's on NBC, or CBS, or BBC? If it's a good television show, they're going to watch it.
This is the main thing that the networks (and other "content providers") need to realize. People aren't 'loyal [network du jour] viewers' but will go where they perceive the best value is. At least, some will. Channel surfing doesn't happen just because it's possible, but because the channel that was being viewed ceased to be desirable. This could be from a lousy program, or an annoying commercial.
Good programs won't get skipped/surfed by.. and clever, non-annoying commercials actually get watched. Annoying may get a veiwer's attention, but it also get the viewer's hand on the remote. One person I know has suggested that those who make and approve a commercial be required to view it every 10-15 minutes during their workday for two weeks before it can air. Then if they scream for it to stop, it shouldn't air. I doubt this will ever happen, but the idea is appealing.
"You" want to change the basic nature of something so it works like something else?
Let's see here...
Did anyone change the basic nature of the automobile so that it could take a saddle, be steered by reins, and respond to spurs or a whip, leg pressure, and start and stop with vocal commands?
Maybe someone did try it. A quick look around reveals that if someone did, they had no real success. But many did learn to use a steering wheel, pedals, and levers... and got along rather well with a new item with a new nature.
Congratulations guys, you're on your way to failure.. AGAIN.
Actually you CAN see Venus in daylight, but you must know exactly where to look. Finding Venus in daylight isn't as easy as at night, of course. Having the moon as a guide just before the event will help.
I can understand this not being on the main /. page but it is nice to have it here. While occultations of planets by the moon aren't super rare, they aren't that common either. The moon occults many stars, but the planets not as often, being so many fewer of them and not always in the right place.
Timing of occultations of stars is (was?) considered useful for getting better info about the moon's orbit and such. Occultations of planets aren't considered, last I checked, to be scientifically useful - but they are a neat thing to see.
Alternate sources: Why pay site X when you can get the same or similar from site Y?
Tradition: The web and 'net has long been (mostly) free. People don't like the idea of this changing, it feels like a door being slammed shut in their faces.
Hassle: Goes with alternate sources and tradition. A payment scheme is another thing to deal with. "Automatic payment" even if it was harmless, 'feels wrong' and like it could be abused. Look at how the 'free registration' sites gets treeted here.. now imagine anyone who dislikes that price (free of direct monetary cost, but allow a cookie or remember yet another password) tolerating a payment based system.
Judging: A site has to charge up front or not get paid. But a viewer wants to know he's getting his money's worth before parting with his money. A free sample is needed, at the least.
It comes down to value and availability: What content is there that would be considered of such value that it merits being paid for, has no free alternatives, and would be worth the hassle? And if this happens, how long before someone decides to make a free version? I'm not saying there won't be paid-for content (there already is, but it ratehr limited in focus, I suspect), but it will have to be 'something special' for it to work well.
While "perfection" is impossible, it is possible to get very close and to lower risk. There is no zero risk, even doing nothing has a risk.
The idea is to take into consideration what could go wrong, and assume that everything that could fail, would all do so at once, and design for that. If the worst case failure mode is that a reaction self-quenches with no radiation release, that is 'perfect' for the application. It might still not be ideal, as it could make a mess within a containment structure, but this is far preferable to the failure modes encountered at Chernobyl, Windscale, Three Mile Island, or Brown's Ferry.
As for the 'too cheap to meter', that one will not be true anytime soon (for any means of generation), and as I recall if the speech it was taken from is read fully in context it wasn't that we'd have cheap energy 'tomorrow' but that if we (humanity) worked things right, someday in the distant future our succeeding generations would have that benefit from our work and research.
The waste products are a concern as fission is inherently dirty and I'd far prefer fusion to fission power, but fusion is still 20+ years away... just like it has been for the last 50 years. In 20 years, I expect workable fusion power to still be "20 years away."
Hit 'em with an even better name.
Prepending every application name with a letter (or three) does grate, IMO. But this is a bit silly. Hrmm, is there a KWord? Or a GWord? Or maybe Adobe is actually in the right here.
My "favorite" is the 'Konsole'...I keep expecting to see CCCP in the title bar for some reason.
Silliness: Will Gnome get a program (mostly) named spot?
...but cameras can't ask.
I happened to be shopping last night and the girl at the checkout couldn't get over that I had purchased a comic book. After a bit it came clear, she mistook me for a minister that has the misfortune of looking like me.
This was just a harmless incident and cleared up quickly. Now, imagine I knew of this situation and set out to cause confusion. (No, I don't plan on it. I have better things to do with my time). It could take a while to get it sorted out.
that's Maynard's "cute" way of refering to the GPL
s/"cute"/accurate/
It is viral. I've seen GP* supporters come out and say it is viral as well and maintain that that is a good thing. Jay is merely saying it is a bad thing. If you actually bother to look through his postings you will also discover why he thinks that is a bad thing. Why not have people choose a license with their eyes wide open? If someone really wants to GPL, fine. But a newcomer should not be led to believe that GPL is the One True License... at least not without seeing alternatives and then making up their own mind. I see no men of straw in his statements.
What could possibly be next? The Garbage, Recycling and Sanitation companies installing meters [...] ?
While not (yet) for marketing reasons, this isn't that strange an idea. I do know of one system designed to weigh trash as it is picked up - I almost worked on it. The idea is to then bill by weight of refuse rather than charge a flat fee. It wouldn't be a great leap to sell a list of 'trash producers' with total weights to marketing types since more trash means a household likely makes more purchases and is a suitable target for 'family' advertising. I suppose low-volume households would be targets for 'singles' product or environmental solicitations.
Further off topic: The town I live in neatly deals with payment for garbage collection service by not dealing with it -- sort of. What happens is that two competing garbage pickup services each sell their own specially colored trash bags at the local stores. The price for these bags is high (they ain't just Glad bags) but covers the collection costs. Don't like yellow service? Buy the blue bags (or vice versa). I like this as it allows competition, privacy (no one selling info on how much junk I toss out), and does somewhat encourage wiser us of resources.
Not that Katz doesn't have a point or two, but the title is rather off-putting...
I learned long ago that most calls for attention that start with "Yo!" aren't worth my time. At least he didn't use the stale and oh-so-tired lousy coach phrase "Listen up!" which really isn't worth my time. When I hear that one, I know there is nothing of any use to me following it, so why should I bother?
See, it is possible for attention-grabbers to lose what they seek by the mere act of seeking it.
As for pop-ups on web pages, turn scripting off. This may make the web 'boring' to those who need constant stimulation, but it's blessed relief for those of us who want to think about actual content. I would like my browser of choice[1] to allow by-page selection of scripting, for the precious few pages that use scripting for something genuinely useful.
[1] Opera. Whichever platform.
In a way, these are examples of the open source model in action.
Newton experimented. Edison experimented. Tesla experimented. Most experiments were failures. Most experiments ARE failures. But without risk of failure, there is no chance of success either.
Da Vinci paid the bills with a day job. Most people do. While there are some programmers paid to work on open source projects, a good many more do proprietary work to pay the bills and do open source work as a hobby.
So Linus experimented. And one of the experiments, at least, appears to be successful. Linus has a day job to pay the bills. And still works with Linux. It looks like he's in common and good company - just, like a few, more well known for one of his successes.
I am curious about this 'machine to talk with the dead' though. I recall reading that when asked what he doing once, a sly Edison replied he was working on a machine that would let you hear the voices of the dead. The phonograph appeared not much later.
It is generally considered easier to make a spheriodal surface, and even correct it to paraboloidal than to make a truly flat surface. Maybe this isn't the case, but the test gear for spheroidal surface is very, very simple while tests for flatness depend upon having a reference flat surface or a rather complicated setup to get around the lack of such a reference.
It is true that buying a small diagonal mirror is cheaper than buying a larger objective. Now, price a curved and a flat mirror of the same size and see which is more expensive. And then ponder why this is the case.
There may be a relation. I too suspect they have cause and effect (if they are such) reversed. The idea of the body using a non-ideal state as a baseline is intriguing.
And quite right, there is no escape. One can't (couldn't) simply walk away, go home. So flight was out. Fight? Only works if you have an overwhelming advantage - and often backfires. So many stories have been posted (other articles) along the lines of "..and when I finally did fight back, it was me that got punished, not the.." Just ignore them? Only rarely, and only in the mild cases does this work. Been there, tried that. "Just ignore them and they go away" is either wishful thinking or psychobabble.
So what's that leave? Stress. The bad kind. And then people wonder "What went wrong?" when someone remains in low spirits, feels that 'the world" is against them, or snaps.. whether they aim at others or themselves.
What would solve this? I'm not absolutely sure. I know what won't work though. Restricting (censoring?) games won't. More gun laws won't. Profiling really won't. None of these does more than try to appear to Do Something.. with easy yet useless metrics. None actually solves the problem.
Responsible parenting would certainly help, but how is that acheived? And it would have to be at least near universal. Being "raised right" isn't of much comfort when those around you are not. Teachers and school administrators not playing favorites and not turning a blind eye to things would help. Even better if they dug when an "incident" occurred and found out not "who threw the first punch" as it were, but if it was brought on. Some means of escape, beyond living in a world of one's own, just between one's ears, would also help. Alas I have no idea how to make that workable.
I'd love to see a clever hack. This is a problem that is hard to solve and will take people of much greater cleverness than those who inflict it. The solution, in the end, may even be simple. Getting it implemented will be the real trick. I wish I was clever enough.
Quite true. Where I work there are a several "programmers" doing embedded systems. All of them (us) have engineering or EIT backgrounds.
Well, there IS one CS type. He does Windows.
While I dislike the idea of informants, especially uninformed or misinformed fols (and even more so the anonymous informants) this is a matter of responsibility.
Did she do the right thing? Maybe.. out of context the 'threat' is meaningless, how did she know he wasn't explaining a group in some RPG? She didn't. But she did do as instructed. If this was a real threat, then it was good she did so. She carried out her responsibility AS SHE UNDERSTOOD IT TO BE.
Did the school overreact? Almost certainly. Without properly investigating, such actions as they took are excessive, if not outright criminal. Did the school act responsibly here? No. They have a duty to see everyone can safely learn and that INCLUDES the accused. The only exception is if the accusation leads to evidence that the threat is real. They have denied him that (safe education), unless he and his family moves sufficiently far away. Not an action taken lightly.
The school also has a responsibility to the girl who acted AS THE SCHOOL DIRECTED her to. They want kids to inform, they had better back up the informers even if they (the school) botch things.
And again the school failed to act responsibly. And had better put things right if the informer is mistaken, wrong, or outright lying.
There are consequences for actions. The boy has experienced this. The girl has experienced this.
Right or wrong, both have experienced that. Now the school wants to exempt itself? Excuse me, what lesson are they teaching here? "We're more equal than you." perhaps? The one party with two responsibilities, which it already failed on one, now tries to absolve itself the other?
The only lesson the school is teaching is that it's safest to say nothing and keep everything between your ears. Such a love of freedom, that.
I can see where personal _possession_ of such items would perhaps be problematic. This, however, is not about merely preventing possession (unless much was lost in translation) but about preventing viewership, eliminating knowledge of the existance of the items.
While the US First Amendment does not carry legal weight in France, the principle it is based upon is worth considering: That the best treatment for bad speech (thought, etc.) is to counter it with good speech, not to try to ignore it and hope it goes away by itself. It never goes away by itself.
Not having dealt with the FBI, I don't know about the details of that.
I can say from time working for USPS that it is VERY stressed that NOTHING gets opened by anyone, except the Postmaster. And the Postmaster has to have a damned good reason to open something. A partial address isn't a good reason. A missing address might be. Yes, they even stress that looking at postcards is a Bad Thing. Of course you have to look at the address, but dwelling.. no. Usually the postmaster doesn't see most of the mail (the notice to the postmaster on junk mail is joke, the important it proclaims itself, the more worthless it is. It was also amusing to see the 'one of these three people won' with the top name always changing...) What happens is mot mail just goes through. Occasionally something happens like a missing address on first or second class mail or a sort machine-mangle and those get moved up the chain of command as it were
The office I was at was very scrupulous. If third class (_junk_ mail, though they had another names, 'bulk business mail' for it) mail had coins and there was any breakage or leakage, the coins were collected and the Postmaster got to deal with them. More than once I left a coin, that had fallen from my own pocket, on the floor where it fell. It wasn't worth the risk of picking of it up again.
Not saying that law enforcement cannot intercept mail, but saying that not just anyone can and it isn't done routinely as it seems Carnivore permits.
Really now?
Do you use envelopes for your snailmail letters, or do you only use postcards that are (more easily) readable?
Do you have curtains or blinds in your office or residence, and use them rather than leave them open?
Do you leave meeting room and bedroom and other doors open, allowing anyone to look in as they please?
Do you use transparent trash bags?
How about a transparent backpack or briefcase?
No?
Gee, what do you have to hide?
It's about privacy. No one here is saying that the FBI shouldn't go after criminals. But the wanton removal of privacy is a removal of freedom. And the removal of freedom must be always guarded against.
If you really are comfortable with being monitored by government, there's this warm island some miles of Florida...
I suspect any language can be obfuscated, often by accident. Now how about this:
De-obfuscated INTERCAL
Of course, this might take a while.