When I read the above comments the first time, I assumed they were jokes at the fact that it was Cisco that was being fined (and in an act of revenge they stop their routers from working, which presumably run most of the Internet). I never thought it was a joke at Brazil's expense.
Then I read your comment, then read the above comments again. Nope, still a Cisco reference
If you are going to teach yourself, I highly recommend firstly finding out how you learn. Knowing that you learn better by reading, or by hearing, or by drawing, modelling or however can save you a lot of time later on. A quick google search shows a few sites. As with all internet quizzes, never rely on one, but do a few. My girlfriend recently went back to Uni and after determining her learning sytle is doing much better now.
That said, I do maths at Uni and still occasionally forget some of the specifics about the basics. For that reason, I still have all of my high-school text books and even a few second-third-forth hand. One of them is particually good at one thing, another is concise at another. So, my suggestion is to go to second hand book stores and garage sales and pick up a couple of these. Few people want these after school and if the textbook was fazed out, they wouldn't of been able to sell it. As a result, you can often pick these up for $5-$10, especially if you aren't worried about it being brand new.
I'm not sure about you, but we (Windows mostly) use email filtering, web content filtering, anti virus and firewalls. Then you have the personal costs of running, maintaining and administering these products (such as releasing false positive emails, updating anti virus). Then I suppose you can count the fact we have a server for WSUS as an ongoing cost. We have very little in the way of wireless networks, but if we did, they would be another cost (more administration then anything).
When I think about it, it probably isn't 20% of the total expenses, but it would have to be close.
Usability has been a big area of growth in the Linux distribution department for a while now. Just to let you know, this article is about the linux kernel, which is "Linux", but not what you are talking about. (I'm sure my analogy falls flat somewhere) Consider the kernel like the engine of your car. What the engine looks like and how it works have little to do with how you actually drive the car, although the performance of the engine directly effects the performance of the entire vehicle, it does not (really) effect whether you can "drive" this car well or not.
If you have some concerns about the usability of Linux distros, the two main areas you should voice them to are the KDE people and the GNOME people. These projects are the ones that develop the "Desktop Environments" that are the equivilent to the steering wheel, seats and the whole look and feel of the car/operating system. Both projects have methods for you to voice your concerns and ideas. If you are looking for usability over features, I believe GNOME is the better option, though I haven't used it much. I personally prefer KDE for myself, but you sound like you may already have a preference, having tried Linux a bit yourself.
This is good news. I've been looking for a word processor with a good set of features without the bloat. I've been trying KOffice for a little while now, not quite used to it yet, but it is looking to take over, at least for myself. Reading on the features that will be available soon, I'm really looking forward to this release.
I always thought the reason scalpers can charge so much is the "I couldn't get tickets and will pay anything to go". People pay scalpers for the convenience, not just the admission price.
I've always thought that school had very little to do with actual "textbook" learning and more about learning to interact with others. Sure, you learn to add and multiply, but the social skills that are (meant to be) learnt in school are the most important.
I've always also thought that if most of your learning is done at school, you'll never acheive much. Learning shouldn't stop at the end of the last period.
Quoted from above: Translation: I'm a lazy cultural bigot, so everyone think and talk like me so I don't have any problems. If I'm not interested, it's not worth preserving. That's what you said. Keep that in mind next time you attack someone else for expressing their opinion.
Anyway, I do believe that there is something to be found culturally in different languages. However I only speak English and have no intention in the short term to learn anything else. The main reason for this is that I have no need for it. My culture is in English. This is because I am Australian and the majority of my ancestors are English.
I don't feel saddened by the loss of languages. They had something, it worked for a little while, but then something better comes along. Make a note of it and move on. To carry on the equivilent of the computer-analogy of before, write a convertor from the old format to the new format, in case we find anything on backup that we might need later. That doesn't mean we need to keep using the old format.
If there seriously are a lack of linguists to note these languages, then let them prove to us why we should spend money to make a note of all these languages. While it can be important, there are much more critical things that we as a world wide society need to do.
I am happy with my current wage. I am a uni student that works part time 3 days/wk as IT support and earn almost double what some of my friends are per hour.
I might of slightly missed the tone of your post, but I believe it is always best for both parties to settle out of court, assuming that an agreement can be reached. The SLFC should ask for a damages payout to settle out of court. If they don't agree, then take it to court. Court should be a last option under any circumstance, not a benchmark or requirement.
Forcing a company to settle for damages out of court can be almost as worthy as winning an intense court battle, but happens settlements are a lot quicker.
I'd say the chances of it only effecting this number are quite high. I'm not the only one that recognised this as the 16bit number (see some of the other posts in this thread).
I'd wager a fair amount of money to say that numbers under 65535 are represented as 16 bit ints but anything over that number is changed on the backend to possibly a 32bit number. This allows faster calculations of smaller numbers (which happen quite a lot) while still allowing higher numbers to be used. The developers created this system, but forgot to test the edge cases (though it can be argued that they don't test any cases before release). If it were to happen to any other number, it would either be at the 8 bit number (though I doubt it) or at the 32/64 bit number they use for the larger values.
I generally find those who think programming "very good" AI is easy usually haven't tried it themselves. What you are talking about is a rule based system (or expert system). The problem with these systems is that no matter how many rules, you can never account for all possible scenarios and once an exploit is found, it stays there. In a scenario with very few possibilties (say, PacMan), creating AI is easy to do with a set of perfect rules. However in more complex environments such as a FPS, RTS or pretty much anything else made today, the possibilities are too numerous. As the possibilities grow, the number of rules that would be needed usually grows exponentially with it, with no promise of a non-exploitable solution.
That said, good AI often isn't needed in many situations where "good enough, but add more enemies" will make a game hard. I look forward to the day when the last level of a FPS is you versus the boss. Same health, same guns and ammo, no advantages to either player. Just you versus the AI. Most games make the final levels harder by either increasing the health of the opponent and/or adding advantages like giving him a rocket launcher and you only a pistol.
Put the PC in the living room. Let them have their own PC if they want, but it's in the living room.
It has been shown for many reasons not to put a computer (or even a TV) in the child's bedroom.
Yes, there will be times you won't be there and they can go and look up porn. Simply log all internet sites visited by the kid. Wait until a couple of days later and ask "Did you find anything worth looking at when you were looking at hotpornsite.xxx?".
If the kid isn't computer literate, they won't even know how you found out. If they are, you shouldn't expect to outsmart them at their game. In that case, just threaten to cancel the net if they don't stop. Also, come home earlier unexpectedly a few times a month. No software in the world replaces a parent.
I've always considered the best method is a combination of none and some. Have a license key that activates the program. Link the license key to the purchaser. If >x licenses are activated, notify the purchaser. If they didn't know about it, void their last serial number and give them a new one. If this happens too many times (like twice), stop issuing new serial numbers.
This removes the problem of false negatives (since all activations count) and eventually copied serial numbers will be found as the pirated software spreads.
You can then do as Citrix does, freely deploy the client software (helpful if you loose the CD) on your website, and sell only licenses instead.
Not the worst place if someone here has had a similar experience. Considering that nearly everybody on this forum uses a computer, most on this forum use or have experience with Linux and most (ok, some) people here are willing to help others, this isn't a bad place to ask first rather then pay a lawyer.
If no such advice comes up (such as "read the 'Warrenty and repairs act of 1999'" or something akin) then go and talk to your lawyer. If that advice does show, he can walk back into the shop and say "According to the warrenty and repairs act of 1999 you are olbiged to fix this problem, or risk a lawsuit and possible termination of your right to sell future products". Apparently (I'm not in the UK) this is a large chain of stores, but the owner might just be a fanchisee. In that case, he can't afford to have the bad publicity of a lawsuit compared to the mere fixing of a hinge.
I would be very suprised if there isn't a law in place in the UK (I am fairly sure that this wouldn't legally happen is Australia) to protect the consumer against this.
What you said is true, but unfortionate in that it doesn't force people to learn how to speak to one another. You can't (at least, not right now that I know of) interview for a job by email. I always hate just emailing important things to other people. You can leave an email sit there, but you have to answer a phone call, or at least acknowledge that you know of the issue. An email can simply be discarded as "Oh, I haven't read that one yet". I prefer to phone to talk, and any important details get emailed. Any non-important issues are emailed, with a follow up call when they (invariably) haven't got back to me within a week.
Maybe it is just where I work, but I can't rely on other people to read emails, despite it being corporate policy.
That would be good, but I do want at least one new story a week.
The point of this story isn't to point out that Linux servers are cheaper/better/faster, its to point out that the Linux platform got some publicity. For those trying to get everyone switching to Linux for their desktops, publicity is their one major problem (as well as many smaller problems, but thats an argument for another story).
Remember when Microsoft said that Linux infringes on their patents but they weren't going to sue? They were never going to sue, they just wanted the good publicity of "playing fair" with the competition that "steals all their hard work".
Anyway, my point is to look at the publicity, ignore the details.
I understand the reason why this story is on the front page, and I understand that the reader might have concerns about the privacy implications. That doesn't mean that a "news story" should contain such forcing language: The Surveillance Society of Great Britain has taken another turn for the worse
This sentence imposes the view that this move is obviously bad, when in fact, although I really hate privacy breaches and measures that remove privacy, I like this idea. It gives some legal weight to these fines, and will hopefully do their part to stop people littering mindlessly. While anti-social behaviour is a bit ambiguous in terminology, I'm sure that if you are given a fine with evidence on camera, then the reason can't be that frivilous.
The obvious downside is that Microsoft/MSN would lose customers... What, nobody noticed that the article is one ninemsn (Australia's MSN website)? This website has been known to have one-sided (Microsoft's side) stories and "news".
This only partially correct. As far as the shop is concerned, its the same as stealing one off the shelf. First, read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken _window It's not a strict example of whats going on here, but its very related. If someone came in and stole a copy of windows, the net effect would be -1(profit of selling Windows) and -1(retailer cost of getting in Windows). If a tech installed a pirated copy of Windows, the net effect is still -1 (profit of selling Windows), and still -1 cost of getting in a copy of Windows, since this copy hasn't been sold, and is just now sitting there. Now, you could argue that the copy of Windows could still be sold to someone else, but the store could just get in another copy of windows, which also increases the profit for the store. And also, the point comes up, what if everyone that came into the store asked only for pirated versions? The store would loose all the money it gets from Windows sales. I'm a Linux advocate working in a small computer shop that deals pretty much only in Windows (working for the devil, I know...). While I don't like the idea, almost all of our customers do not know how to use a computer. They need to know that they can get support for their computer when they need it. While they could get support for Linux, they don't know that, and for all I know, I could just be "selling" the idea to them if I try to convince them otherwise. What this means, ignoring even any lawsuits, if we were to loose our ability to sell Windows, we would just plain go out of business. My point is, not only does the shop still loose the money it would of lost by having a physical copy stolen, it also potentially loses the ability to even sell Windows. Sure, the physical object is still there, but the profit line (the only reason the business is running) is at the same loss, potentially even worse off. I don't like Microsoft, but they have put up their software (however crap that might be), and their price (however much that might be). If you don't like their rules, don't play their game.
Sorry, I was referring to ADSL broadband. Which, still requires the copper. Basically, I live in a semi-rural town, so, ADSL2 is available in town, but not just out of town (where I am), but no cable. Worse still is at my parents house (where I stay during the week at uni)... they live in the bush, but close enough to an exchange to "get" broadband, but the wires are apparently not good enough with no plans on upgrading. So, instead, they are forced to use dialup that connects at most 22kb/s.
Also, despite the fact I am a mobile using under-30, I have plans on slowly moving away from being "always available". Since getting my mobile, it used to be always on me. I have now started to leave it in the other room when watching a movie/tv/relaxing/studying (instead of just putting it on silent or getting distracted by it). My life is much better for it, rather then responding to non-critical messages ASAP. I would like to start leaving it at home, but I don't think I'd go that far yet, but I have made a sound profile that doesn't ring or vibrate, so I don't even know its ringing, but I still don't have to wait until it loads up if I want to make a call.
I am not sure about anywhere else in the world, or even if the technology demands it, but in Australia, you need a landline to get broadband. That is the only reason that alot of people I know still have a landline (and paying $AU20 a month for it). Other then that, my mobile trumps home phone everytime. It's alot better for me, as I am rarely home (and yes, I am under 30).
Slashdot Mirror
When I read the above comments the first time, I assumed they were jokes at the fact that it was Cisco that was being fined (and in an act of revenge they stop their routers from working, which presumably run most of the Internet). I never thought it was a joke at Brazil's expense.
Then I read your comment, then read the above comments again. Nope, still a Cisco reference
If you are going to teach yourself, I highly recommend firstly finding out how you learn. Knowing that you learn better by reading, or by hearing, or by drawing, modelling or however can save you a lot of time later on. A quick google search shows a few sites. As with all internet quizzes, never rely on one, but do a few. My girlfriend recently went back to Uni and after determining her learning sytle is doing much better now.
That said, I do maths at Uni and still occasionally forget some of the specifics about the basics. For that reason, I still have all of my high-school text books and even a few second-third-forth hand. One of them is particually good at one thing, another is concise at another. So, my suggestion is to go to second hand book stores and garage sales and pick up a couple of these. Few people want these after school and if the textbook was fazed out, they wouldn't of been able to sell it. As a result, you can often pick these up for $5-$10, especially if you aren't worried about it being brand new.
I'm not sure about you, but we (Windows mostly) use email filtering, web content filtering, anti virus and firewalls. Then you have the personal costs of running, maintaining and administering these products (such as releasing false positive emails, updating anti virus). Then I suppose you can count the fact we have a server for WSUS as an ongoing cost. We have very little in the way of wireless networks, but if we did, they would be another cost (more administration then anything).
When I think about it, it probably isn't 20% of the total expenses, but it would have to be close.
Usability has been a big area of growth in the Linux distribution department for a while now. Just to let you know, this article is about the linux kernel, which is "Linux", but not what you are talking about. (I'm sure my analogy falls flat somewhere) Consider the kernel like the engine of your car. What the engine looks like and how it works have little to do with how you actually drive the car, although the performance of the engine directly effects the performance of the entire vehicle, it does not (really) effect whether you can "drive" this car well or not.
If you have some concerns about the usability of Linux distros, the two main areas you should voice them to are the KDE people and the GNOME people. These projects are the ones that develop the "Desktop Environments" that are the equivilent to the steering wheel, seats and the whole look and feel of the car/operating system. Both projects have methods for you to voice your concerns and ideas. If you are looking for usability over features, I believe GNOME is the better option, though I haven't used it much. I personally prefer KDE for myself, but you sound like you may already have a preference, having tried Linux a bit yourself.
This is good news. I've been looking for a word processor with a good set of features without the bloat. I've been trying KOffice for a little while now, not quite used to it yet, but it is looking to take over, at least for myself. Reading on the features that will be available soon, I'm really looking forward to this release.
I always thought the reason scalpers can charge so much is the "I couldn't get tickets and will pay anything to go". People pay scalpers for the convenience, not just the admission price.
I've always thought that school had very little to do with actual "textbook" learning and more about learning to interact with others. Sure, you learn to add and multiply, but the social skills that are (meant to be) learnt in school are the most important.
I've always also thought that if most of your learning is done at school, you'll never acheive much. Learning shouldn't stop at the end of the last period.
Quoted from above:
Translation: I'm a lazy cultural bigot, so everyone think and talk like me so I don't have any problems. If I'm not interested, it's not worth preserving. That's what you said. Keep that in mind next time you attack someone else for expressing their opinion.
Anyway, I do believe that there is something to be found culturally in different languages. However I only speak English and have no intention in the short term to learn anything else. The main reason for this is that I have no need for it. My culture is in English. This is because I am Australian and the majority of my ancestors are English.
I don't feel saddened by the loss of languages. They had something, it worked for a little while, but then something better comes along. Make a note of it and move on. To carry on the equivilent of the computer-analogy of before, write a convertor from the old format to the new format, in case we find anything on backup that we might need later. That doesn't mean we need to keep using the old format.
If there seriously are a lack of linguists to note these languages, then let them prove to us why we should spend money to make a note of all these languages. While it can be important, there are much more critical things that we as a world wide society need to do.
I am happy with my current wage. I am a uni student that works part time 3 days/wk as IT support and earn almost double what some of my friends are per hour.
I might of slightly missed the tone of your post, but I believe it is always best for both parties to settle out of court, assuming that an agreement can be reached. The SLFC should ask for a damages payout to settle out of court. If they don't agree, then take it to court. Court should be a last option under any circumstance, not a benchmark or requirement.
Forcing a company to settle for damages out of court can be almost as worthy as winning an intense court battle, but happens settlements are a lot quicker.
I'd say the chances of it only effecting this number are quite high.
I'm not the only one that recognised this as the 16bit number (see some of the other posts in this thread).
I'd wager a fair amount of money to say that numbers under 65535 are represented as 16 bit ints but anything over that number is changed on the backend to possibly a 32bit number. This allows faster calculations of smaller numbers (which happen quite a lot) while still allowing higher numbers to be used. The developers created this system, but forgot to test the edge cases (though it can be argued that they don't test any cases before release). If it were to happen to any other number, it would either be at the 8 bit number (though I doubt it) or at the 32/64 bit number they use for the larger values.
I generally find those who think programming "very good" AI is easy usually haven't tried it themselves.
What you are talking about is a rule based system (or expert system). The problem with these systems is that no matter how many rules, you can never account for all possible scenarios and once an exploit is found, it stays there. In a scenario with very few possibilties (say, PacMan), creating AI is easy to do with a set of perfect rules. However in more complex environments such as a FPS, RTS or pretty much anything else made today, the possibilities are too numerous. As the possibilities grow, the number of rules that would be needed usually grows exponentially with it, with no promise of a non-exploitable solution.
That said, good AI often isn't needed in many situations where "good enough, but add more enemies" will make a game hard. I look forward to the day when the last level of a FPS is you versus the boss. Same health, same guns and ammo, no advantages to either player. Just you versus the AI. Most games make the final levels harder by either increasing the health of the opponent and/or adding advantages like giving him a rocket launcher and you only a pistol.
Couldn't agree more. I usually start writing in KWrite then convert to OOo to do formatting. When I am at work, I just open MS Word.
I would wager that moves like "Evan Almighty" cost the industry more then piracy.
Put the PC in the living room. Let them have their own PC if they want, but it's in the living room.
It has been shown for many reasons not to put a computer (or even a TV) in the child's bedroom.
Yes, there will be times you won't be there and they can go and look up porn. Simply log all internet sites visited by the kid. Wait until a couple of days later and ask "Did you find anything worth looking at when you were looking at hotpornsite.xxx?".
If the kid isn't computer literate, they won't even know how you found out. If they are, you shouldn't expect to outsmart them at their game. In that case, just threaten to cancel the net if they don't stop. Also, come home earlier unexpectedly a few times a month.
No software in the world replaces a parent.
I've always considered the best method is a combination of none and some. Have a license key that activates the program. Link the license key to the purchaser. If >x licenses are activated, notify the purchaser. If they didn't know about it, void their last serial number and give them a new one. If this happens too many times (like twice), stop issuing new serial numbers.
This removes the problem of false negatives (since all activations count) and eventually copied serial numbers will be found as the pirated software spreads.
You can then do as Citrix does, freely deploy the client software (helpful if you loose the CD) on your website, and sell only licenses instead.
Not the worst place if someone here has had a similar experience. Considering that nearly everybody on this forum uses a computer, most on this forum use or have experience with Linux and most (ok, some) people here are willing to help others, this isn't a bad place to ask first rather then pay a lawyer.
If no such advice comes up (such as "read the 'Warrenty and repairs act of 1999'" or something akin) then go and talk to your lawyer. If that advice does show, he can walk back into the shop and say "According to the warrenty and repairs act of 1999 you are olbiged to fix this problem, or risk a lawsuit and possible termination of your right to sell future products". Apparently (I'm not in the UK) this is a large chain of stores, but the owner might just be a fanchisee. In that case, he can't afford to have the bad publicity of a lawsuit compared to the mere fixing of a hinge.
I would be very suprised if there isn't a law in place in the UK (I am fairly sure that this wouldn't legally happen is Australia) to protect the consumer against this.
What you said is true, but unfortionate in that it doesn't force people to learn how to speak to one another.
You can't (at least, not right now that I know of) interview for a job by email.
I always hate just emailing important things to other people. You can leave an email sit there, but you have to answer a phone call, or at least acknowledge that you know of the issue. An email can simply be discarded as "Oh, I haven't read that one yet". I prefer to phone to talk, and any important details get emailed. Any non-important issues are emailed, with a follow up call when they (invariably) haven't got back to me within a week.
Maybe it is just where I work, but I can't rely on other people to read emails, despite it being corporate policy.
That would be good, but I do want at least one new story a week.
The point of this story isn't to point out that Linux servers are cheaper/better/faster, its to point out that the Linux platform got some publicity. For those trying to get everyone switching to Linux for their desktops, publicity is their one major problem (as well as many smaller problems, but thats an argument for another story).
Remember when Microsoft said that Linux infringes on their patents but they weren't going to sue? They were never going to sue, they just wanted the good publicity of "playing fair" with the competition that "steals all their hard work".
Anyway, my point is to look at the publicity, ignore the details.
I understand the reason why this story is on the front page, and I understand that the reader might have concerns about the privacy implications. That doesn't mean that a "news story" should contain such forcing language:
The Surveillance Society of Great Britain has taken another turn for the worse
This sentence imposes the view that this move is obviously bad, when in fact, although I really hate privacy breaches and measures that remove privacy, I like this idea. It gives some legal weight to these fines, and will hopefully do their part to stop people littering mindlessly. While anti-social behaviour is a bit ambiguous in terminology, I'm sure that if you are given a fine with evidence on camera, then the reason can't be that frivilous.
*checks link again*
Nope, APC article, NineMSN website. This also has nothing to do with linux. It's an MSN issue, not a Windows issue.
The obvious downside is that Microsoft/MSN would lose customers... What, nobody noticed that the article is one ninemsn (Australia's MSN website)? This website has been known to have one-sided (Microsoft's side) stories and "news".
This only partially correct. As far as the shop is concerned, its the same as stealing one off the shelf. First, read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken _window It's not a strict example of whats going on here, but its very related. If someone came in and stole a copy of windows, the net effect would be -1(profit of selling Windows) and -1(retailer cost of getting in Windows). If a tech installed a pirated copy of Windows, the net effect is still -1 (profit of selling Windows), and still -1 cost of getting in a copy of Windows, since this copy hasn't been sold, and is just now sitting there. Now, you could argue that the copy of Windows could still be sold to someone else, but the store could just get in another copy of windows, which also increases the profit for the store. And also, the point comes up, what if everyone that came into the store asked only for pirated versions? The store would loose all the money it gets from Windows sales.
I'm a Linux advocate working in a small computer shop that deals pretty much only in Windows (working for the devil, I know...). While I don't like the idea, almost all of our customers do not know how to use a computer. They need to know that they can get support for their computer when they need it. While they could get support for Linux, they don't know that, and for all I know, I could just be "selling" the idea to them if I try to convince them otherwise. What this means, ignoring even any lawsuits, if we were to loose our ability to sell Windows, we would just plain go out of business.
My point is, not only does the shop still loose the money it would of lost by having a physical copy stolen, it also potentially loses the ability to even sell Windows. Sure, the physical object is still there, but the profit line (the only reason the business is running) is at the same loss, potentially even worse off.
I don't like Microsoft, but they have put up their software (however crap that might be), and their price (however much that might be). If you don't like their rules, don't play their game.
Sorry, I was referring to ADSL broadband. Which, still requires the copper. Basically, I live in a semi-rural town, so, ADSL2 is available in town, but not just out of town (where I am), but no cable. Worse still is at my parents house (where I stay during the week at uni)... they live in the bush, but close enough to an exchange to "get" broadband, but the wires are apparently not good enough with no plans on upgrading. So, instead, they are forced to use dialup that connects at most 22kb/s.
Also, despite the fact I am a mobile using under-30, I have plans on slowly moving away from being "always available". Since getting my mobile, it used to be always on me. I have now started to leave it in the other room when watching a movie/tv/relaxing/studying (instead of just putting it on silent or getting distracted by it). My life is much better for it, rather then responding to non-critical messages ASAP. I would like to start leaving it at home, but I don't think I'd go that far yet, but I have made a sound profile that doesn't ring or vibrate, so I don't even know its ringing, but I still don't have to wait until it loads up if I want to make a call.
I am not sure about anywhere else in the world, or even if the technology demands it, but in Australia, you need a landline to get broadband. That is the only reason that alot of people I know still have a landline (and paying $AU20 a month for it). Other then that, my mobile trumps home phone everytime. It's alot better for me, as I am rarely home (and yes, I am under 30).