I completely agree with you on this, just because a license doesn't force you to contribute (i.e. it allows you to be free) doesn't mean you shouldn't follow good ethics and support a project anyways. Saying the license excuses you from any moral obligations is imho just silly.
However I have noticed that a lot of FLOSS projects I use don't accept monetary donations e.g. Gaim, Gantt Project, Scintilla, 7-Zip. They're just glad if people help them in building a better product and I think this is what free software is truly about.
"Kenneth is working as an intern here at Microsoft for the summer on the Office team as a tester. He uses Visual Studio to find bugs (and to code on his own time). He writes emails in Outlook. Does all the usual stuff that most developers or testers at Microsoft do. With one difference.
He can't see the screen because he's been blind since he was three years old."(Source)
Check out the video at channel9 (click the source link above). There's especially one really good question/answer combo in there, I'll transcript it:
[ Start: 08:50 ] Interviewer: How could the software be improved for you? What would you tell the Visual Studio team, for instance, to do to make the software better.
Kenneth: Visual Studio has been very difficult for me to learn with JAWS. JAWS company itself does not specifically support Visual Studio as of now. And they're really working hard on adding the support to the JAWS software. So I think as of now that's the main thing that's holding back the accessibility levels, that JAWS itself hasn't really fully incorporated it. But I think Visual Studio relies very heavily on colored text, for symbolizing things. So rather than having the text that's related to one thing versus another isolated in different locations on the screen, they're all in a list and the different categories are symbolized for different text colors and background colors. I think that makes it a little bit difficult to sort things out on the screen with a screen reader.
So that would be one thing I could suggest, but I think we're primarily waiting on JAWS. [...]
As long as they're continually aware of the accessibility levels of their software and test them for that aspect of the usability. Then I think it'll continue to be usable, as long as the specialized software such as JAWS evolves along with it. And so I think that they're working hard at companies like JAWS and their competitors to stay current. And sometimes they fall behind, and I think for specialized programs like software development that aren't as common as say Word processors that sometimes are not as up to date. [ End: 11:12 ]
define: JAWS "JAWS (an acronym for Job Access With Speech) is a screen reader for the visually impaired." (Source)
I tried it, and yes... after a while (even when adding support using your elbow) your arm starts feeling more and more like a brick. Exercise would probably help though, but that's probably just stating the obvious.
I took a quick look and from what I can tell, nobody that's using Firefox will even be tempted to switch. Organizing your bookmarks pretty much hasn't even changed, it actually seems to be quite buggy here (if I try and move a link it doesn't even move there), especially compared to the powerful manager that comes with Firefox.
Other that then, it annoys me that I can't even seem to move the "classic toolbar" (files, edit etc...) to it's original position, you know..... where it actually belongs.
I do like the feature which gets you an overview of all open tabs.
Summary, when compared to Firefox: ain't the same fuckin' ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport.
Either you're talking about there not being a Chinese version of Wikipedia, the censorship of Wikipedia by the Chinese government, or the non-existence of a Chinese article describing "The Great Leap Forward". Even if any or all of the afformentioned were true, I cannot imagine why this would be a reason to restrict knowledge of this event to us (people outside of mainland China).
However, at the moment it is indeed not wholly available to people within China's borders.
The third block began on October 19, 2005, and once again there is no indication as to whether this block is temporary or permanent, or what the reasons or causes for this block are. According to the status page currently maintained on the Chinese Wikipedia, the Florida and Korea servers are blocked, while the Paris and Amsterdam servers are not. Dozens of editors from across Mainland China have reported that they can only access Wikipedia using proxy servers, although there are isolated reports that some users can access Wikipedia without using proxy.
As stated, it is still possible for those same people to access Wikipedia. And it might be unblocked completely in the future.
Yes, let's find out as much personal and private information we can about these so called lawyers. Then we'll get our torches and pay them a little visit! Because we all know how much they deserve it, right?
They might not be doing the world a service, I'd probably call it a disservice. But whatever they're doing does not justify the type of behavior you described in your post. Which imo could quite possibly turn into vigilantism (ignoring the fact that/. crowd is not very pro-active* most of the time).
You simply do not want to go around and personally attack people (no, not even lawyers), this won't help your case and might even have an adverse effect.
If I misinterpreted your wording then I apologize. You did indeed state "nothing illegal", but your words seemed to imply otherwise.
* I don't think this is a real word, but I'm too lazy to find out.
And as mentioned in the article: A copy of the entire 45 minute interview can be downloaded (it's 21 MB) by clicking here.
The question in the article can be found 27 minutes and 13 seconds into the audio file.
And interestingly enough Ballmer was asked the following (at: 2:37) "I have a question for Mr. Ballmer. If you attempt to thwart Google with your acquisition of the ???????*. How many chairs will Business Week report you as thrown?"
He responded with: "I've never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life."
* I couldn't hear what was said, if anybody knows reply to this post.
"When that tv program you sorta watch is interrupted beyond the point where you can actually remember what you where watching"
AFAIK the commercial blocks here (Holland) aren't that bad compared to for example, our American counterparts. With the exception of perhaps one station, SBS6. They don't just break into commercials every 5 minutes but when you try and enjoy a movie they just feel the need to hurl you into a 30 minute news broadcast (and it's not even news!).
The thing is: when I watch TV they (the evil broadcast stations from hell) are mostly in control but when it comes down to how I get around on the Internet, it's me doing most of the controlling. I decide which bits are worthy enough to get stored on the hard drive and when I'm browsing I decide what I want to see (and most importantly, what not).
So I block ads EVERYWHERE because they have grown to irritating."
For ads to remain on my screen they need to follow these two rules:
They must not be obtrusive.
They should somewhat interest me.
This is why I don't block advertisements for games (or services related to gaming) when I'm browsing a site like Gamespy. And this is why I don't block advertisements on Slashdot. ThinkGeek wants to sell me a lightsaber? Well that sure as hell is going to interest me. The same goes for sites that I might not visit as often.
I however have started to notice that whenever I stray from my usual topics such as computer science related subjects (programming etc) there are bound to be ads that do not fit the above mentioned criteria. Those ads deserve no mercy, and the wildcards will strike down upon them.
According to "Why I Hate Personal Weblogs" your weblog might not be totally useless! It might actually belong in a useful category, such as 'Expert in a Field'.
This 'essay' is actually quite an interesting read since it brings up a lot of valid distinctions between the different types of weblogs.
I have not yet looked at Slash, so I'm not quite sure what kind of features it contains (other then the ones you experience first-hand from browsing Slashdot). But getting another human editor to prevent dupes from being posted does not quite seem like the ideal solution. As you said yourself, all that is required a simple search.
So instead it would be far more effective to make the system itself check for dupes, the easiest approach would probably be to check if the body of a previously posted story contains the exact same URL as the one currently being posted (since most stories link to outside articles), the editor could then be given a warning that he or she might be posting a duplicate article. You can think up of many other variations to this, such a searching for keywords etc.
Personally I also happend to like the idea diverscuba023 brought to the table (http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156255&cid =13099433), where subscribers actually interact directly with the system instead of having contact a Slashdot editor through email or other means. More user interaction seems like a plus, however as everyone knows more user interaction makes systems also more prone to abuse.
The question is, do they really want to implement a fancy solution or put any effort into checking for dupes. Like other people said, it does not even seem like a coincidence that so many dupes get posted lately. So there might be a different motive behind these posts.
In related news, Valve announced work has started on the long awaited sequel to de_intel. cs_amd, where an Intel death squad takes control of the AMD headquarters based Sunnyvale, California.
Slashdot Mirror
I completely agree with you on this, just because a license doesn't force you to contribute (i.e. it allows you to be free) doesn't mean you shouldn't follow good ethics and support a project anyways. Saying the license excuses you from any moral obligations is imho just silly.
However I have noticed that a lot of FLOSS projects I use don't accept monetary donations e.g. Gaim, Gantt Project, Scintilla, 7-Zip. They're just glad if people help them in building a better product and I think this is what free software is truly about.
Check out the video at channel9 (click the source link above). There's especially one really good question/answer combo in there, I'll transcript it:
[ Start: 08:50 ] Interviewer: How could the software be improved for you? What would you tell the Visual Studio team, for instance, to do to make the software better.
Kenneth: Visual Studio has been very difficult for me to learn with JAWS. JAWS company itself does not specifically support Visual Studio as of now. And they're really working hard on adding the support to the JAWS software. So I think as of now that's the main thing that's holding back the accessibility levels, that JAWS itself hasn't really fully incorporated it. But I think Visual Studio relies very heavily on colored text, for symbolizing things. So rather than having the text that's related to one thing versus another isolated in different locations on the screen, they're all in a list and the different categories are symbolized for different text colors and background colors. I think that makes it a little bit difficult to sort things out on the screen with a screen reader.
So that would be one thing I could suggest, but I think we're primarily waiting on JAWS. [...] As long as they're continually aware of the accessibility levels of their software and test them for that aspect of the usability. Then I think it'll continue to be usable, as long as the specialized software such as JAWS evolves along with it. And so I think that they're working hard at companies like JAWS and their competitors to stay current. And sometimes they fall behind, and I think for specialized programs like software development that aren't as common as say Word processors that sometimes are not as up to date. [ End: 11:12 ]
define: JAWS
"JAWS (an acronym for Job Access With Speech) is a screen reader for the visually impaired." (Source)
I tried it, and yes... after a while (even when adding support using your elbow) your arm starts feeling more and more like a brick. Exercise would probably help though, but that's probably just stating the obvious.
Red Panda to the rescue! Awwwww!
Quite coincidentally the picture of the day at Wikimedia Commons has to do with graffiti.
If all of Slashdot starts collectively masturbating at the same time, it might not be too late! Only god can put an end to this madness!
I took a quick look and from what I can tell, nobody that's using Firefox will even be tempted to switch. Organizing your bookmarks pretty much hasn't even changed, it actually seems to be quite buggy here (if I try and move a link it doesn't even move there), especially compared to the powerful manager that comes with Firefox.
Other that then, it annoys me that I can't even seem to move the "classic toolbar" (files, edit etc...) to it's original position, you know..... where it actually belongs.
I do like the feature which gets you an overview of all open tabs.
Summary, when compared to Firefox: ain't the same fuckin' ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport.
You'll fit in nicely in the prison system
I don't think we'll be seeing you back here again.....
Faces would be melt!
I thought Microsoft's early "patch" was unregistering the DLL? If people did that wouldn't that have closed the gap?
From the article text I can almost imagine the "innovative portable, durable and secure design"!
So...what exactly do we have to worry about?
I keed, I keed
Hold on...what?
Either you're talking about there not being a Chinese version of Wikipedia, the censorship of Wikipedia by the Chinese government, or the non-existence of a Chinese article describing "The Great Leap Forward". Even if any or all of the afformentioned were true, I cannot imagine why this would be a reason to restrict knowledge of this event to us (people outside of mainland China).
As far as I can tell, there is at least a Chinese Wikipedia (available through zh.wikipedia.org). And it too contains an article about "The Great Leap Forward" (trans.)
However, at the moment it is indeed not wholly available to people within China's borders.
As stated, it is still possible for those same people to access Wikipedia. And it might be unblocked completely in the future.
Please reconsider forcing censorship upon us.
Yes, let's find out as much personal and private information we can about these so called lawyers. Then we'll get our torches and pay them a little visit! Because we all know how much they deserve it, right?
They might not be doing the world a service, I'd probably call it a disservice. But whatever they're doing does not justify the type of behavior you described in your post. Which imo could quite possibly turn into vigilantism (ignoring the fact that /. crowd is not very pro-active* most of the time).
You simply do not want to go around and personally attack people (no, not even lawyers), this won't help your case and might even have an adverse effect.
If I misinterpreted your wording then I apologize. You did indeed state "nothing illegal", but your words seemed to imply otherwise.
* I don't think this is a real word, but I'm too lazy to find out.
And those logos once again point to the same location [giggity.net], mentioned over and over again. They still say "inside". Confusing...
How about you say that to his face!? Huh!
but someone might find it useful.
There's a transcript of the session here.
And as mentioned in the article:
A copy of the entire 45 minute interview can be downloaded (it's 21 MB) by clicking here.
The question in the article can be found 27 minutes and 13 seconds into the audio file.
And interestingly enough Ballmer was asked the following (at: 2:37)
"I have a question for Mr. Ballmer. If you attempt to thwart Google with your acquisition of the ???????*. How many chairs will Business Week report you as thrown?"
He responded with:
"I've never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life."
* I couldn't hear what was said, if anybody knows reply to this post.
This is liek better than pr0n!
They will have to pry the TV from my cold, dead hands.
"When that tv program you sorta watch is interrupted beyond the point where you can actually remember what you where watching"
AFAIK the commercial blocks here (Holland) aren't that bad compared to for example, our American counterparts. With the exception of perhaps one station, SBS6. They don't just break into commercials every 5 minutes but when you try and enjoy a movie they just feel the need to hurl you into a 30 minute news broadcast (and it's not even news!).
The thing is: when I watch TV they (the evil broadcast stations from hell) are mostly in control but when it comes down to how I get around on the Internet, it's me doing most of the controlling. I decide which bits are worthy enough to get stored on the hard drive and when I'm browsing I decide what I want to see (and most importantly, what not).
So I block ads EVERYWHERE because they have grown to irritating."
For ads to remain on my screen they need to follow these two rules:This is why I don't block advertisements for games (or services related to gaming) when I'm browsing a site like Gamespy. And this is why I don't block advertisements on Slashdot. ThinkGeek wants to sell me a lightsaber? Well that sure as hell is going to interest me. The same goes for sites that I might not visit as often.
I however have started to notice that whenever I stray from my usual topics such as computer science related subjects (programming etc) there are bound to be ads that do not fit the above mentioned criteria. Those ads deserve no mercy, and the wildcards will strike down upon them.
On that note I'd like to mention the following:
Jake 2.
Undead Arena.
Both of which were discussed right here.
And there's an interesting commercial game called Tribal Trouble (with a demo available).
According to "Why I Hate Personal Weblogs" your weblog might not be totally useless! It might actually belong in a useful category, such as 'Expert in a Field'.
This 'essay' is actually quite an interesting read since it brings up a lot of valid distinctions between the different types of weblogs.
I have not yet looked at Slash, so I'm not quite sure what kind of features it contains (other then the ones you experience first-hand from browsing Slashdot). But getting another human editor to prevent dupes from being posted does not quite seem like the ideal solution. As you said yourself, all that is required a simple search.
So instead it would be far more effective to make the system itself check for dupes, the easiest approach would probably be to check if the body of a previously posted story contains the exact same URL as the one currently being posted (since most stories link to outside articles), the editor could then be given a warning that he or she might be posting a duplicate article. You can think up of many other variations to this, such a searching for keywords etc.
Personally I also happend to like the idea diverscuba023 brought to the table (http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156255&cid =13099433), where subscribers actually interact directly with the system instead of having contact a Slashdot editor through email or other means. More user interaction seems like a plus, however as everyone knows more user interaction makes systems also more prone to abuse.
The question is, do they really want to implement a fancy solution or put any effort into checking for dupes. Like other people said, it does not even seem like a coincidence that so many dupes get posted lately. So there might be a different motive behind these posts.
In related news, Valve announced work has started on the long awaited sequel to de_intel. cs_amd, where an Intel death squad takes control of the AMD headquarters based Sunnyvale, California.