So is Slashdot. Neither are an unbiased, open community anymore and as such no longer serve their intended purpose. Perhaps that was the goal all along.
I tend to doubt that was the goal, but having thought about it, sadly I think it is inevitable that this will happen. Even if Slashdot or SourceForge or even Wikipedia were started with the purest of 'open community' intentions, when such an effort succeeds, what have you created? An organization with increasing costs with your greatest asset being your good reputation. And unfortunately, the easiest and likely most profitable ways to monetize that reputation are those that will most sell out those original intentions. Even if the founders remain principled and resist doing that, members of the organization will eventually leave and be replaced, then, oh well, a few ads won't hurt...then, we need more ad revenue...eventually, you're doing things like shoveling toolbars until that reputation is shit.
It sucks and I wish I knew the solution, but it happens all too often IMO.
I think the public figures "if I'm not doing anything wrong, why should I care about spying".
Part of the problem is that they remain ignorant and/or unconcerned that recent history is filled with examples of surveillance on people who were "not doing anything wrong"...well, other than expressing opinions unpopular with those in power. (MLK being perhaps the most famous example.) Unless one thinks that pesky activists of whatever political stripe don't serve any useful purpose to society or even one's own personal interests, there is much more to be worried about than just whether or not they're spying on *you personally*. That aspect seems to get lost in this debate.
So instead of "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear"...it should be more like "if you have nothing to *say* and don't care about others who might have something to say, well, then you have nothing to fear...maybe."
Yes, because as anyone who's familiar with Lessig's work knows, he's *so* hot-headed, overly emotional, and generally unreasonable. Watch the 'angry man' rave!
I'm assuming you meant that to be funny, but I've had to estimate time for an estimate on a number of occasions. Yes, it sounds recursive, but it's usually for cases where the research for the actual estimate is the the biggest part of the project, and once the research is done, the coding itself goes relatively quickly.
While I agree that these items are closely related, in my opinion, these were the *easiest* thing on the list. After all, this is what programmers are trained and paid to do, and for me this is the most enjoyable part of programming.
Of all the items on the list, the one I'd put closest to the top is 'time estimates', since in anything other than the most trivial cases it is an exercise in predicting problems yet unknown.
But the one that would be on the very top of my list isn't there: Interfacing with god-awful third-party software, and tracking down the inevitable breakages when said software gets updated. This facet of my job has become more and more prevalent over the years, where I have to chase down a problem for which I have no good diagnostic tools, no access to the source code, and as a result spend hours of fruitless and frustrating poke-and-hope troubleshooting, or searching Google eight way to Sunday hoping to word your problem in some way that corresponds to some other poor soul who might have the same problem. (This xkcd is a good illustration of that dynamic.)
I guess to some extent it depends if by 'hard' you mean "challenging" or "so frustratingly, brain-numbingly tedious that you want to gouge your eyeballs out". Yes, good design is 'hard' in the first sense, but I feel good after a day of that kind of work, but that second kind of 'hard' work makes me wonder why I became a programmer in the first place. Unfortunately, it seems that over time there's less of the former and more of the latter.
Then pay the tax for not getting insurance and please don't go to the hospital when you're sick or injured unless you have cash up front.
First of all, although I'm a US citizen, I live in Canada, so I have no particular stake in this. I'm just pointing out the logical and legal deficiency in equating requiring someone to purchase auto insurance (which can be avoided if you don't drive) and requiring someone to purchase health insurance (which you can't avoid at all).
I'm not saying the mandate is evil per se, but it *is* unprecedented. And as someone who has experienced both the US and Canadian healthcare systems, and fully acknowledges that the Canadian system has its issues, Obamacare does seem like an unnecessarily intrusive clusterfuck, mostly for reasons to appease the insurance industry and having little to do with improving the quality or cost/benefit balance of US healthcare. Frankly, I'm glad to not have to deal with it.
To further bolster your point, in cases of conflict of interest, it is not simply about whether there is actual corruption, but also whether there is the appearance of or the potential for corruption...the reason being that even if there is no actual malice going on, any potential conflict of interest will allow people to assume there *is* malfeasance happening, which will erode trust in the institution in question. Thus "never ascribe to malice..." is quite beside the point in such cases...if there's any question that there could be malice, you already have a problem.
The whole "Never ascribe to malice" thing was written by a very malicious person.
It is attributed to Robert J. Hanlon, though the idea predates him by at least 200 years.
That said, most people seem to miss the important clarifications of this adage: 1) the key word is "adequately", otherwise stupidity becomes the perfect cover for malice; 2) the "Heinlein's razor" variant that says "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice,"; 3) the corollary known as Grey's Law: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
Far too often, I hear read people talking about various gov't bureaucracy, bloat, and largesse and thus declare gov't as "incompetent". Far too seldom do they ask the question "incompetent for whom?"
OK, then explain Canada. Very similar to Australia demographically...lots of land, with 90% of the population living on something like 5% of the land. I live in a relatively out-of-the-way part of BC, and I get rock solid 25Mbps down, 5Mbps up for less that $70/month. Many of my friends in densely populated parts of the US can't get that.
There is *really* no point in going after the low-hanging fruit because (1) they probably don't have a lot of money or property to seize (2) there is no real way to spin the arrest of a bunch of potheads as anything interesting to the public.
...unless your purpose is to intimidate the average users by prosecuting a few as 'examples' to the rest. Remember the RIAA/MPAA lawsuits against random downloaders? Do you really think they did that because the targets had money, or that the results weren't 'interesting' to the public? True, that's not an act by law enforcement, but the fact that over 3/4 million people continue to be arrested for simple pot possession in the US each year is ample evidence that law enforcement is quite happy to randomly target 'low hanging fruit'.
Not all that hard if you're a) one of those people, b) give a shit, and c) want to hang out with other people like that.
Whenever I think of Mensa, I always think of the Groucho Marx quote "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member", and Bill Hicks' bit about the People Who Hate People Party.
Now we have to take the understood intention of the first party into account?
After reading the bill's summary, I'm not sure how this law could ever be enforced, mostly due to issue of intent.
They readily admit that they can't generally identify who posted the pics/vids to such sites. If you can't even establish who posted it, how can you determine their intent beyond a reasonable doubt? Unless you can prove that the person who took the pic/vid in fact posted it, anyone charged could reasonably claim someone else was able to access the pic/vid from their phone/computer and uploaded it without either party's consent. And if you can prove the person uploaded it and establish their intent, then it seems to me you don't need this law to at least be able to (excuse the phrase) sue the pants off them.
Slashdot Mirror
Writing about Neurobiology is like Dancing about Particle Physics. Or something like that....
So is Slashdot. Neither are an unbiased, open community anymore and as such no longer serve their intended purpose. Perhaps that was the goal all along.
I tend to doubt that was the goal, but having thought about it, sadly I think it is inevitable that this will happen. Even if Slashdot or SourceForge or even Wikipedia were started with the purest of 'open community' intentions, when such an effort succeeds, what have you created? An organization with increasing costs with your greatest asset being your good reputation. And unfortunately, the easiest and likely most profitable ways to monetize that reputation are those that will most sell out those original intentions. Even if the founders remain principled and resist doing that, members of the organization will eventually leave and be replaced, then, oh well, a few ads won't hurt...then, we need more ad revenue...eventually, you're doing things like shoveling toolbars until that reputation is shit.
It sucks and I wish I knew the solution, but it happens all too often IMO.
I said it before, and I'll say it again:
If you have nothing to say, you have nothing to fear.
The answer is 1 penny plus 1 cup.
Another valid answer could be "2 girls minus 5 pennies" , though I suspect that would result in psychological counseling for 5-6 year olds.
Someone isn't a fan.. I detect a little bit of bias.
Maybe he works for Lenovo, and is dreading the day he has to say "Dude, where's my job?"
Maybe they simply believe when the government says that "Twerk shall set you free."
So that's the fix... uninstall Windows?
Close...the problem was that the machine was running Windows XPee.
I think the public figures "if I'm not doing anything wrong, why should I care about spying".
Part of the problem is that they remain ignorant and/or unconcerned that recent history is filled with examples of surveillance on people who were "not doing anything wrong"...well, other than expressing opinions unpopular with those in power. (MLK being perhaps the most famous example.) Unless one thinks that pesky activists of whatever political stripe don't serve any useful purpose to society or even one's own personal interests, there is much more to be worried about than just whether or not they're spying on *you personally*. That aspect seems to get lost in this debate.
So instead of "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear"...it should be more like "if you have nothing to *say* and don't care about others who might have something to say, well, then you have nothing to fear...maybe."
I think this "angry mob" is just a angry man.
Yes, because as anyone who's familiar with Lessig's work knows, he's *so* hot-headed, overly emotional, and generally unreasonable. Watch the 'angry man' rave!
/sarcasm
Oh man, Forbidden Zone...what a bizarre flick!!
On the subject of bizarre pop culture references to the Tar Pits, one should also add Captain Beefheart's Smithsonian Institute Blues.
Don't you know, you could make more money as a butcher.
I'm assuming you meant that to be funny, but I've had to estimate time for an estimate on a number of occasions. Yes, it sounds recursive, but it's usually for cases where the research for the actual estimate is the the biggest part of the project, and once the research is done, the coding itself goes relatively quickly.
"there are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors"
I think you made a mistake...the should read "10 hard things"...
The head and tail of the list
9. Designing a solution
1. Naming things
are pretty much two sides of the same coin.
And these *are* the hardest things on the list.
While I agree that these items are closely related, in my opinion, these were the *easiest* thing on the list. After all, this is what programmers are trained and paid to do, and for me this is the most enjoyable part of programming.
Of all the items on the list, the one I'd put closest to the top is 'time estimates', since in anything other than the most trivial cases it is an exercise in predicting problems yet unknown.
But the one that would be on the very top of my list isn't there: Interfacing with god-awful third-party software, and tracking down the inevitable breakages when said software gets updated. This facet of my job has become more and more prevalent over the years, where I have to chase down a problem for which I have no good diagnostic tools, no access to the source code, and as a result spend hours of fruitless and frustrating poke-and-hope troubleshooting, or searching Google eight way to Sunday hoping to word your problem in some way that corresponds to some other poor soul who might have the same problem. (This xkcd is a good illustration of that dynamic.)
I guess to some extent it depends if by 'hard' you mean "challenging" or "so frustratingly, brain-numbingly tedious that you want to gouge your eyeballs out". Yes, good design is 'hard' in the first sense, but I feel good after a day of that kind of work, but that second kind of 'hard' work makes me wonder why I became a programmer in the first place. Unfortunately, it seems that over time there's less of the former and more of the latter.
Ouch, my eyes!! You'd think someone with something insightful to say about development would re-think that GeoCities-esque web design.
Then pay the tax for not getting insurance and please don't go to the hospital when you're sick or injured unless you have cash up front.
First of all, although I'm a US citizen, I live in Canada, so I have no particular stake in this. I'm just pointing out the logical and legal deficiency in equating requiring someone to purchase auto insurance (which can be avoided if you don't drive) and requiring someone to purchase health insurance (which you can't avoid at all).
I'm not saying the mandate is evil per se, but it *is* unprecedented. And as someone who has experienced both the US and Canadian healthcare systems, and fully acknowledges that the Canadian system has its issues, Obamacare does seem like an unnecessarily intrusive clusterfuck, mostly for reasons to appease the insurance industry and having little to do with improving the quality or cost/benefit balance of US healthcare. Frankly, I'm glad to not have to deal with it.
Not if you don't drive. That's an important distinction from mandated health insurance.
You misspelled "sammich". :-)
To further bolster your point, in cases of conflict of interest, it is not simply about whether there is actual corruption, but also whether there is the appearance of or the potential for corruption...the reason being that even if there is no actual malice going on, any potential conflict of interest will allow people to assume there *is* malfeasance happening, which will erode trust in the institution in question. Thus "never ascribe to malice..." is quite beside the point in such cases...if there's any question that there could be malice, you already have a problem.
The whole "Never ascribe to malice" thing was written by a very malicious person.
It is attributed to Robert J. Hanlon, though the idea predates him by at least 200 years.
That said, most people seem to miss the important clarifications of this adage: 1) the key word is "adequately", otherwise stupidity becomes the perfect cover for malice; 2) the "Heinlein's razor" variant that says "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice,"; 3) the corollary known as Grey's Law: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
Far too often, I hear read people talking about various gov't bureaucracy, bloat, and largesse and thus declare gov't as "incompetent". Far too seldom do they ask the question "incompetent for whom?"
OK, then explain Canada. Very similar to Australia demographically...lots of land, with 90% of the population living on something like 5% of the land. I live in a relatively out-of-the-way part of BC, and I get rock solid 25Mbps down, 5Mbps up for less that $70/month. Many of my friends in densely populated parts of the US can't get that.
There is *really* no point in going after the low-hanging fruit because (1) they probably don't have a lot of money or property to seize (2) there is no real way to spin the arrest of a bunch of potheads as anything interesting to the public.
...unless your purpose is to intimidate the average users by prosecuting a few as 'examples' to the rest. Remember the RIAA/MPAA lawsuits against random downloaders? Do you really think they did that because the targets had money, or that the results weren't 'interesting' to the public? True, that's not an act by law enforcement, but the fact that over 3/4 million people continue to be arrested for simple pot possession in the US each year is ample evidence that law enforcement is quite happy to randomly target 'low hanging fruit'.
Not all that hard if you're a) one of those people, b) give a shit, and c) want to hang out with other people like that.
Whenever I think of Mensa, I always think of the Groucho Marx quote "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member", and Bill Hicks' bit about the People Who Hate People Party.
+1, begin Stampede.
Now we have to take the understood intention of the first party into account?
After reading the bill's summary, I'm not sure how this law could ever be enforced, mostly due to issue of intent.
They readily admit that they can't generally identify who posted the pics/vids to such sites. If you can't even establish who posted it, how can you determine their intent beyond a reasonable doubt? Unless you can prove that the person who took the pic/vid in fact posted it, anyone charged could reasonably claim someone else was able to access the pic/vid from their phone/computer and uploaded it without either party's consent. And if you can prove the person uploaded it and establish their intent, then it seems to me you don't need this law to at least be able to (excuse the phrase) sue the pants off them.