i've just gone back to school for a bit and the instructors at the college got us started using scite for java (works for any language).
it has the advantage of looking and acting like a basic text editor, but is highly manipulable using text based configuration files
so you can set it up to do a build or make directly from the menu, but in order to edit the config file you have to know how to do it on the command line properly
i bought my inspiron 600m with xp pro back at the start of 2005.
my first attempt to get linux running (and i am quite a noob) was with a fedora double-boot. i had some problems with configuration (especially wireless) and not enough time to sort it out, so i just left it and kept using windows.
in late summer a friend pointed me towards ubuntu and i gave that a shot. it managed to sort out almost everything... except my wireless again. the wireless card was a dell branded 1450 b/g (made by broadcom). i through all i could into getting it to run properly with ndiswrapper, but couldn't get it going. it could see my network, but refused to connect. and i once again ran out of time to wangle it. back to xp.
wireless became my crux point. i told myself that if linux could run a wireless card successfully, then i'd be willing to let go of my substantial windows knowledge and become a novice again with linux.
winter came and passed and the time didn't make itself available. near the end of spring i decided to have another go. only this time i decided to use what sounded like a move proven route. i replaced my dell wireless card with the intel 2200.
and ubuntu dapper just grabbed it and plugged me into the network
now maybe that small manouvre would've solved my problem a while back, but to me it illustrates the great thing about free software... constant improvement.
good to my word, i promptly removed xp from my laptop's boot and stuffed it into a vmware machine. now my only problem is that my xp doesn't want to install on a non-dell bios!
otherwise, almost everything has been fantastic. i used easyubuntu to snag codecs and ati drivers. gnome recognized my laptop's extra buttons (volume, mute, power), but i had to play with lineakd to get the same in kde.
that was ~3-4 weeks ago and i've been linux mobile all the way!
Ultimately, we'll see software and computing industry shift into a business model based on service alone.
It's worth noting that large software vendors are and have been hearing the call to take up a service-based software business model. But they call it "software as a service".
It doesn't mean sitting patiently with you on the phone resolving your technical issues.
It does mean keeping their application code off of your computer and renting you the privilege of retrieving the information it provides.
These companies don't want to enter a competition over who can best serve the customer, because they'll have to work much harder and they'll perform poorly at it. Their idea of a service-based model is one that generates dependency on a "needed" service and then brands it with their logo.
Then all they need to do is put a meter on the network and watch your bits torrent in as pennies off your credit card.
While we call this 'slowing down light', is that actually what's happening? Or are they just making it bounce around a whole lot so that it gets to the end of the tunnel later?
I mean, if we send one beam of light to a point 1 metre away, and another is bounced off the moon and then back to the same point 1 metre away, the second beam arrives at said point later. We can't say we slowed the second beam down because it arrived later.
Vancity, a large credit union on the west coast of Canada offered (and i believe still does) low-interest car loans if you're purchasing something deemed to be a cleaner car (hybrid, efficient). Not sure exactly how the criteria are worked out.
it seems like most posts here are offering up outside sources for problems/puzzles.
while this might interest some of your crew, many of them are likely to look at it as a waste of time and just another stupid task enforced by management.
why don't you gather your people together and challenge them to come up with a project that they all feel is relevant in some way?
the various people in an organisation always feel like they know what's wrong with said organisation and what it needs. so get them to generate an idea and work it together.
either that, or they could separate into teams and challenge each other on various benchmarks like time to completion, code size/efficiency, etc.
interestingly, the majority of the time the majority of people actually get along with each other and treat each other well enough that they can get on with their lives.
those who don't, do it very loud and so violently that we notice it more.
i once read about a study that claimed to prove that there had been more war over the last so many thousand years than there had been peace.
of course the whole idea is bunk because war is localized and peace is the general state of things after coming to rest. they are not opposites as is so they are often misinterpreted. even when a war is going on the majority of space is taken up by peaceful people coexisting.
it's just that war gets in the head to the point that someone living in a country that is at war in a foreign land, thinks of themselves as being at war. that is, the violence committed abroad lives in the minds of the people at home who are actually experiencing little to no violence.
if you question this assertion, take stock of your day and estimate how much of it is actually taken up by you being violent to others or them being violent to you.
the rest is just the stories we tell ourselves and others.
i tried using dvorak awhile back. i never got up to the same speeds as with qwerty but that's just lack of effort.
at first it was very difficult and each key stroke required an individual thought. if you can already type quickly this can be frustrating, so patience is required.
after awhile i became more fluid and did notice i had to flick a mental switch to go either way, similar to speaking in another language. if you have that skill, your brain's already partly wired for switching between keyboards.
the reason i dropped it is that i was doing data entry and i found that it wasn't that helpful. it's probably more useful if you're actually typing coherent thoughts and sentences, but when every 5th key is the tab or enter key, the benefit is low.
"Okay, let's argue semantics. The definition you quote uses the word "take". In this case, you're not taking anything. You're copying it. Then you take your copy."
the whole thing seems to revolve around semantics to me. what people seem to be recoiling from is the stigma attached to the words 'steal' and 'theft'. of course, this ties into the theme of the original post. but at the heart, the argument that piracy is not theft is nitpicking the definition of theft.
and even Anonymous Coward's reply could only stray so far from our outmoded concept of information:
"In this case, you're not taking anything. You're copying it. Then you take your copy."
so here are some other defining questions:
is copying, taking?
if yes, and something is taken, whose property is it?
if something is taken, and without permission, and not returned, has a theft occurred?
if the 3rd question returns false, is there any basis (other than projected profit) to the claim that piracy causes damage?
and if these are all rendered null, do we require an overhaul of our belief that there is even an property consideration regarding distributed information?
how does this last question affect free and open-source software?
the reason these questions seem so important to me is that they point to the heart of what we are and aren't willing to accept in the name of personal benefit. i suspect that the reason most people don't want to call it theft has a direct correlation to their belief that a greater good is caused by copying and sharing, coupled with a hint of satisfaction at seeing their perceived enemies under attack.
however, i would say that no good comes of taking something in this manner. piracy of microsoft software (for instance) only increases its ubiquity and the criminal liability of individuals. it does nothing to open discussion of the benefits of sharing as it always has to come with a caveat and a 'nudge, nudge, wink, wink'. this necessarily leaves the receiver with the belief that their interests are best served when another's are overlooked
better would be to condemn piracy outright (call it theft or not, at your preference, as this is not the issue) and support alternatives in the free and open-source software realm. piracy of IP in the current legal climate undermines the adoption and development of these alternatives
if copyright gives the holder express ownership rights of every 'copy' of the IP, is copying and holding the copy not then theft of a sort?
put another way, we could argue that the copyright holder still holds the original and has not been deprived. but if the law itself states that they own all copies derived from the original, and i make a copy without their permission, have i not effectively taken something from them?
imho, i prefer the term sharing, and the problem is a law which regards information as a contained object.
the whole idea that a person can own an idea or piece of information is ridiculous precisely because it creates situations that defy logic.
and as long as a law is in place which connotes ownership of concepts, ideas, and information, there will be an argument that copying is theft. if the law regards an idea as an object, then by the law copying is taking, even if it is done bit by bit. you can't possess something you don't take.
but a piece of information is not literally an object.
most people don't see copying as theft because their recognition of the law's inherent unfairness leads them to disregard the legal implications.
we all intuitively know that the value in a piece of software is not the immediate task it can perform for us right now, but the fact that it can be cheaply copied and distributed, and perform this task for multitudes of others. only by artificially stifling this greater benefit can the individual profit. software is a levelling tool and we can all see that the law is designed to make certain that the field is not level.
we shouldn't be arguing that copying isn't theft because the owner is left with the original.
we should be arguing that copying isn't theft because the law is absurd and information is not an object in the material sense.
no one should be guaranteed a profit by legal intervention designed to stop what is a mutually beneficial action. the software provider can argue that they miss out on potential profits, but in the end even they benefit when information is shared.
Slashdot Mirror
i've just gone back to school for a bit and the instructors at the college got us started using scite for java (works for any language).
it has the advantage of looking and acting like a basic text editor, but is highly manipulable using text based configuration files
so you can set it up to do a build or make directly from the menu, but in order to edit the config file you have to know how to do it on the command line properly
i bought my inspiron 600m with xp pro back at the start of 2005.
my first attempt to get linux running (and i am quite a noob) was with a fedora double-boot. i had some problems with configuration (especially wireless) and not enough time to sort it out, so i just left it and kept using windows.
in late summer a friend pointed me towards ubuntu and i gave that a shot. it managed to sort out almost everything... except my wireless again. the wireless card was a dell branded 1450 b/g (made by broadcom). i through all i could into getting it to run properly with ndiswrapper, but couldn't get it going. it could see my network, but refused to connect. and i once again ran out of time to wangle it. back to xp.
wireless became my crux point. i told myself that if linux could run a wireless card successfully, then i'd be willing to let go of my substantial windows knowledge and become a novice again with linux.
winter came and passed and the time didn't make itself available. near the end of spring i decided to have another go. only this time i decided to use what sounded like a move proven route. i replaced my dell wireless card with the intel 2200.
and ubuntu dapper just grabbed it and plugged me into the network
now maybe that small manouvre would've solved my problem a while back, but to me it illustrates the great thing about free software... constant improvement.
good to my word, i promptly removed xp from my laptop's boot and stuffed it into a vmware machine. now my only problem is that my xp doesn't want to install on a non-dell bios!
otherwise, almost everything has been fantastic. i used easyubuntu to snag codecs and ati drivers. gnome recognized my laptop's extra buttons (volume, mute, power), but i had to play with lineakd to get the same in kde.
that was ~3-4 weeks ago and i've been linux mobile all the way!
Perhaps a karma clause could be add to GPL 3...
Mod -1.....
It's worth noting that large software vendors are and have been hearing the call to take up a service-based software business model. But they call it "software as a service".
It doesn't mean sitting patiently with you on the phone resolving your technical issues.
It does mean keeping their application code off of your computer and renting you the privilege of retrieving the information it provides.
These companies don't want to enter a competition over who can best serve the customer, because they'll have to work much harder and they'll perform poorly at it. Their idea of a service-based model is one that generates dependency on a "needed" service and then brands it with their logo.
Then all they need to do is put a meter on the network and watch your bits torrent in as pennies off your credit card.
oops...
eXtensible TLA Markup Language
heh heh... uh... yah...
No, we just need to re-appropriate XTML
Extensible TLA Markup Language
That way we can just tag each letter to provide different attributes under new contexts.
I believe the possibilities are now limited only by your imagination and the size of the character set.
While we call this 'slowing down light', is that actually what's happening? Or are they just making it bounce around a whole lot so that it gets to the end of the tunnel later?
I mean, if we send one beam of light to a point 1 metre away, and another is bounced off the moon and then back to the same point 1 metre away, the second beam arrives at said point later. We can't say we slowed the second beam down because it arrived later.
Vancity, a large credit union on the west coast of Canada offered (and i believe still does) low-interest car loans if you're purchasing something deemed to be a cleaner car (hybrid, efficient). Not sure exactly how the criteria are worked out.
it seems like most posts here are offering up outside sources for problems/puzzles.
while this might interest some of your crew, many of them are likely to look at it as a waste of time and just another stupid task enforced by management.
why don't you gather your people together and challenge them to come up with a project that they all feel is relevant in some way?
the various people in an organisation always feel like they know what's wrong with said organisation and what it needs. so get them to generate an idea and work it together.
either that, or they could separate into teams and challenge each other on various benchmarks like time to completion, code size/efficiency, etc.
i've had some good results with geogebra
http://www.geogebra.at:o)
oops, bad formatting on that last post.
mha :o)
interestingly, the majority of the time the majority of people actually get along with each other and treat each other well enough that they can get on with their lives. those who don't, do it very loud and so violently that we notice it more. i once read about a study that claimed to prove that there had been more war over the last so many thousand years than there had been peace. of course the whole idea is bunk because war is localized and peace is the general state of things after coming to rest. they are not opposites as is so they are often misinterpreted. even when a war is going on the majority of space is taken up by peaceful people coexisting. it's just that war gets in the head to the point that someone living in a country that is at war in a foreign land, thinks of themselves as being at war. that is, the violence committed abroad lives in the minds of the people at home who are actually experiencing little to no violence. if you question this assertion, take stock of your day and estimate how much of it is actually taken up by you being violent to others or them being violent to you. the rest is just the stories we tell ourselves and others.
i tried using dvorak awhile back. i never got up to the same speeds as with qwerty but that's just lack of effort. at first it was very difficult and each key stroke required an individual thought. if you can already type quickly this can be frustrating, so patience is required. after awhile i became more fluid and did notice i had to flick a mental switch to go either way, similar to speaking in another language. if you have that skill, your brain's already partly wired for switching between keyboards. the reason i dropped it is that i was doing data entry and i found that it wasn't that helpful. it's probably more useful if you're actually typing coherent thoughts and sentences, but when every 5th key is the tab or enter key, the benefit is low.
it happened to me... i think it was more like 5 minutes :o)
the whole thing seems to revolve around semantics to me. what people seem to be recoiling from is the stigma attached to the words 'steal' and 'theft'. of course, this ties into the theme of the original post. but at the heart, the argument that piracy is not theft is nitpicking the definition of theft.
and even Anonymous Coward's reply could only stray so far from our outmoded concept of information:
so here are some other defining questions:
the reason these questions seem so important to me is that they point to the heart of what we are and aren't willing to accept in the name of personal benefit. i suspect that the reason most people don't want to call it theft has a direct correlation to their belief that a greater good is caused by copying and sharing, coupled with a hint of satisfaction at seeing their perceived enemies under attack.
however, i would say that no good comes of taking something in this manner. piracy of microsoft software (for instance) only increases its ubiquity and the criminal liability of individuals. it does nothing to open discussion of the benefits of sharing as it always has to come with a caveat and a 'nudge, nudge, wink, wink'. this necessarily leaves the receiver with the belief that their interests are best served when another's are overlooked
better would be to condemn piracy outright (call it theft or not, at your preference, as this is not the issue) and support alternatives in the free and open-source software realm. piracy of IP in the current legal climate undermines the adoption and development of these alternatives
here's an interesting question:
if copyright gives the holder express ownership rights of every 'copy' of the IP, is copying and holding the copy not then theft of a sort?
put another way, we could argue that the copyright holder still holds the original and has not been deprived. but if the law itself states that they own all copies derived from the original, and i make a copy without their permission, have i not effectively taken something from them?
imho, i prefer the term sharing, and the problem is a law which regards information as a contained object.
the whole idea that a person can own an idea or piece of information is ridiculous precisely because it creates situations that defy logic.
and as long as a law is in place which connotes ownership of concepts, ideas, and information, there will be an argument that copying is theft. if the law regards an idea as an object, then by the law copying is taking, even if it is done bit by bit. you can't possess something you don't take.
but a piece of information is not literally an object.
most people don't see copying as theft because their recognition of the law's inherent unfairness leads them to disregard the legal implications.
we all intuitively know that the value in a piece of software is not the immediate task it can perform for us right now, but the fact that it can be cheaply copied and distributed, and perform this task for multitudes of others. only by artificially stifling this greater benefit can the individual profit. software is a levelling tool and we can all see that the law is designed to make certain that the field is not level.
we shouldn't be arguing that copying isn't theft because the owner is left with the original.
we should be arguing that copying isn't theft because the law is absurd and information is not an object in the material sense.
no one should be guaranteed a profit by legal intervention designed to stop what is a mutually beneficial action. the software provider can argue that they miss out on potential profits, but in the end even they benefit when information is shared.