The best account of this patent sharing situation I've seen is Eben Moglen's speech on "the be very afraid tour". Its 5 minutes long and extremely enlightening. I suggest everyone who wishes to understand the situation take a look.
This solution seems chaotic to me. Now, instead of needing to pull all the changes from one central repository, I need to pull changes from the machines of all my co-workers individually? Wouldn't this system make it difficult to guarantee that each developer was integrating the work of the others? Also, it doesn't seem very scalable. What if I have 20 co-workers?
Since you seem to be an informed proponent of git, maybe you can answer the one question I wish someone would have asked Linus.
Say you have a team of, as few as six, programmers coming in for work on Monday. They've all made changes to their codebase (over the weekend, they're dedicated). How do they all manage to get each others changes, and begin working with a completely up to date version? Do they pick someone to act as the centralized repository for that day?
I work with various clinical trials in the UK and interest in them actually *increased* following this incident - this was because a lot of people did not realise that you could get paid for doing them.
That may be one of the most disturbingly hilarious statements I have ever heard.
I've been looking at the Macs at a CompUSA by my house. Every white notebook they have had on display for a long time has some discoloration that looks like this (Although I don't think their new Macbooks do yet). Its really gross, I'd figured that they were all just really dirty, every body who walks by has gotta touch those things.
There is no reason that science is unable to make judgements about the universe as a whole, and no reason that philosophy cannot draw sound conclusions about the forces involved in creating it.
For example, Einstein was able to show that it was impossible for the universe to be completely unbounded, and according to his theory of relativity claimed that space behaved more like a sphere than a flat surface, in that it was unbounded but not infinite. Thats a pretty big claim, but he made it by simply observing the nature of the universe immediately available to us.
In the same sense, I believe that you _can_ disprove Christian philosophy (or any other philosphy for that matter), simply by beginning with its basic principles, and extrapolating them to their expected results. For example, suppose you believe that there exists an infinitely powerful, infinitely good, all-loving, all-knowing God, who possesses a form of intelligence similiar to our own, whose sense of morality is fundamentally the same as ours, and who is directly or indirectly responsible for the universe as we know it. I believe that accurately describes the Christian ideal. Starting with this concept, what sort of universe would you expect as a result?
A) A perfect universe full of beings in harmony with their creator and his creation, able to find purpose, understanding, and happiness throughout their lives.
B) A universe rife with pain and misery, where humans struggle to comprehend their place, and are so isolated from their creator that they argue with one another about whether the effects of his existence are observable enough to draw any conclusion about him?
Actually, I set my parent's XP accounts to non-admin a while ago, and their usually completely-hosed, on-all-the-time desktop hasn't gotten sick since (of course, they also have AVG antivirus). My plan was that because my account (with no password) has admin privileges, I could just tell them to click in as me if they ever need it. To my surprise, they have _never_ reported any problems.
Maybe a lot of nerds are too afraid to pull the admin rug out from under the techo-ignorants in their custody? The truth of the matter is that they are _already_ confusedly plugging through weird messages they don't understand anyway. The real beauty of Windows is that it conditions users to ignore problems and trudge through, firing off a few clicks, ducking for cover, firing a few more, and so on. Just make sure they don't ever think that its _your_ fault.
It would still have incomplete support for awt and swing
Incompetant Teachers && World of Warcraft
on
Do Kids Still Program?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I'm the only person at my (very small) private high school to pass the AP Computer Science test in the last couple years. In fact, I'm the only person who is even taking the second year of the class. Personally, I love programming, and I've actually written some c# which is working in a (pretty nice) live site right now. I am continually suggesting to any semi-nerdy personalities that they should give Linux a try, because I know that they might really enjoy computers if they ever bothered to learn anything about them. But every nerdy kid I know who has an ounce of talent with computers has wasted every free second in the last few years obsessively playing World of Warcraft.
The CS course at my school only makes things worse, as the current teacher manages to make even Java extremely difficult, and the last teacher failed to teach at all. Maybe a factor in this lack of young interest is a lack of competant teaching talent? I can't speak for others, but I cannot imagine anyone continuing any work with computers if they have to learn from the people I've seen teaching them.
And yes, I can attest that most high school computer courses now consist of (shudder) Microsoft office and frontpage. In fact, my school just added "Business Accounting" (read Excel) and another similiar class to the curriculum.
Its a pretty handy metric to compare the asteroid's impact to all of the earth's nuclear weapons, considering that they have a much better chance than 1 / 1000 of going off before it gets here.
For the most part, the Sony way won out. The software was built on the company's old MiniDisc management software, called SonicStage. Music would be sold in Sony's proprietary audio format, with its own copy-protection tools.
Since when is it innovative to sell music based on software that doesn't work with anyone else's format and doesn't offer any significant benefits over other technologies? This choice of wording seems to me to be a really big stretch in Sony's favor. I willing to grant that it is a business strategy to let your formats lock in customers and battle your competitors, but since when has it helped anybody? Maybe Sony's problem is that they really do think that this is innovation.
Exactly what is the point of all the work Google has put into it's irrationally devoted fan-base and its giant-corporate-entity-next-door reputation if it can't even support an evil communist government once in a while?
Slashdot rocks. CmdrTaco rocks. Thanks for all the effort from the Slashdot developers, its fantastic.
I would like to suggest that maybe the small, headline only stories would look better (and look much more like the old slashdot) if they were grouped at the bottom of the page, instead of mixed in between the larger stories. Is the order which those stories were posted with respect to the main stories really that important? The only real difference is to create an impression of 2 seperate sets of stories which are "scrolling" by as they are posted / expire, instead of just one set of stories. (did that make any sense?)
Anyway, the site looks great as it is. And I think we all know that the real strength of Slashdot is the deep, intellectual discussion from its user base;)
Of course, I think the most important aspect of this deal is that if Microsoft stops making office software for the Mac, then even the most Windows hardened of the IT guys is gonna have to learn about the alternatives available. Macs are deployed in a great many IT environments (cuz the Graphics people love em, for one thing), alongside a 95% windows operation. If there's no Mac Office, then Office Documents can no longer be a perfect "standard", like most of the IT guys consider them now. Suddenly, compatability will be a concern for even the most timid Windows-junkie Administrator, and Microsoft would soon be facing an even greater pressure to provide some semblance of interoperability. I think this move is much more about protecting Office as a "standard" than it is about the profit (which is probably not a great amount when weighed against Apple's competition in the Desktop OS market).
So not only is Microsoft monopolizing the software market, costing millions in virus damage through lousy security, and destroying competitors with the crushing power of the dark side of the force, but they are also killing the American workforce.
Thus undermining capitalism. Thus causing recession. Thus starving the orphans of the office workers they killed.
God, I wish you worked at my school. Can you believe I am the only person in AP Computer Science AB? It is a private school but there were 8 guys in my class last year; however, the last teacher never really got around to teaching, so everybody else flunked the AP exam (I got a 5:). Now I just sit in the back of the first year class and finish the silly little projects, and the new teacher (who might actually know stuff but couldn't teach a monkey to climb a tree) never even talks to me. The upside is that, since I'm one of maybe 3 guys within a mile who can explain what an object is, everybody seems to think I'm some kind of prodigy.
Just thought I would complain to somebody who might commiserate, wish there were more teachers who knew their stuff.
You shouldn't base any judgement of any operating system on your experience with a computer that clearly wasn't installed completely. Linux has pretty much run the internet for quite some time, and any pretty much every NIC is supported some way or another (well, except for wireless cards). As for playing mp3's, software to do that should be included in pretty much any distribution that is meant for desktop use. If it wasn't, then you should be able to install it with great ease. One of the greatest advantages of most linux distrobutions is that they have the ability to download and install any new program and everything else it needs to work with one simple command or mouse click. Seriously, there are distributions which can play mp3's without even being installed. You might want to revise your definition of "tried".
Slashdot Mirror
--Douglas Adams
The best account of this patent sharing situation I've seen is Eben Moglen's speech on "the be very afraid tour". Its 5 minutes long and extremely enlightening. I suggest everyone who wishes to understand the situation take a look.
This solution seems chaotic to me. Now, instead of needing to pull all the changes from one central repository, I need to pull changes from the machines of all my co-workers individually? Wouldn't this system make it difficult to guarantee that each developer was integrating the work of the others? Also, it doesn't seem very scalable. What if I have 20 co-workers?
Since you seem to be an informed proponent of git, maybe you can answer the one question I wish someone would have asked Linus.
Say you have a team of, as few as six, programmers coming in for work on Monday. They've all made changes to their codebase (over the weekend, they're dedicated). How do they all manage to get each others changes, and begin working with a completely up to date version? Do they pick someone to act as the centralized repository for that day?
Firefox with the IE Tab (or IE View), Web Developer, View Formatted Source, and HTML Validator extensions.
If you earn a googol, your brain is integrated into google's next data center
That may be one of the most disturbingly hilarious statements I have ever heard.
I've been looking at the Macs at a CompUSA by my house. Every white notebook they have had on display for a long time has some discoloration that looks like this (Although I don't think their new Macbooks do yet). Its really gross, I'd figured that they were all just really dirty, every body who walks by has gotta touch those things.
There is no reason that science is unable to make judgements about the universe as a whole, and no reason that philosophy cannot draw sound conclusions about the forces involved in creating it.
For example, Einstein was able to show that it was impossible for the universe to be completely unbounded, and according to his theory of relativity claimed that space behaved more like a sphere than a flat surface, in that it was unbounded but not infinite. Thats a pretty big claim, but he made it by simply observing the nature of the universe immediately available to us.
In the same sense, I believe that you _can_ disprove Christian philosophy (or any other philosphy for that matter), simply by beginning with its basic principles, and extrapolating them to their expected results. For example, suppose you believe that there exists an infinitely powerful, infinitely good, all-loving, all-knowing God, who possesses a form of intelligence similiar to our own, whose sense of morality is fundamentally the same as ours, and who is directly or indirectly responsible for the universe as we know it. I believe that accurately describes the Christian ideal. Starting with this concept, what sort of universe would you expect as a result?
A) A perfect universe full of beings in harmony with their creator and his creation, able to find purpose, understanding, and happiness throughout their lives.
B) A universe rife with pain and misery, where humans struggle to comprehend their place, and are so isolated from their creator that they argue with one another about whether the effects of his existence are observable enough to draw any conclusion about him?
http://www.ok-cancel.com/ is a great site for non-technical, insightful discussions of user interfaces; plus a great web comic on the subject.
I'm sure FOX will figure that one out for us
Actually, I set my parent's XP accounts to non-admin a while ago, and their usually completely-hosed, on-all-the-time desktop hasn't gotten sick since (of course, they also have AVG antivirus). My plan was that because my account (with no password) has admin privileges, I could just tell them to click in as me if they ever need it. To my surprise, they have _never_ reported any problems.
Maybe a lot of nerds are too afraid to pull the admin rug out from under the techo-ignorants in their custody? The truth of the matter is that they are _already_ confusedly plugging through weird messages they don't understand anyway. The real beauty of Windows is that it conditions users to ignore problems and trudge through, firing off a few clicks, ducking for cover, firing a few more, and so on. Just make sure they don't ever think that its _your_ fault.
It would still have incomplete support for awt and swing
I'm the only person at my (very small) private high school to pass the AP Computer Science test in the last couple years. In fact, I'm the only person who is even taking the second year of the class. Personally, I love programming, and I've actually written some c# which is working in a (pretty nice) live site right now. I am continually suggesting to any semi-nerdy personalities that they should give Linux a try, because I know that they might really enjoy computers if they ever bothered to learn anything about them. But every nerdy kid I know who has an ounce of talent with computers has wasted every free second in the last few years obsessively playing World of Warcraft.
The CS course at my school only makes things worse, as the current teacher manages to make even Java extremely difficult, and the last teacher failed to teach at all. Maybe a factor in this lack of young interest is a lack of competant teaching talent? I can't speak for others, but I cannot imagine anyone continuing any work with computers if they have to learn from the people I've seen teaching them.
And yes, I can attest that most high school computer courses now consist of (shudder) Microsoft office and frontpage. In fact, my school just added "Business Accounting" (read Excel) and another similiar class to the curriculum.
Just my experience.
Its a pretty handy metric to compare the asteroid's impact to all of the earth's nuclear weapons, considering that they have a much better chance than 1 / 1000 of going off before it gets here.
Since when is it innovative to sell music based on software that doesn't work with anyone else's format and doesn't offer any significant benefits over other technologies? This choice of wording seems to me to be a really big stretch in Sony's favor. I willing to grant that it is a business strategy to let your formats lock in customers and battle your competitors, but since when has it helped anybody? Maybe Sony's problem is that they really do think that this is innovation.
I guess M$ would know something about faking intelligence.
...Okay, mod me down
HIYO!
Now add up the cost of creating all of that crap without shooting it into space?
Hell yes
Exactly what is the point of all the work Google has put into it's irrationally devoted fan-base and its giant-corporate-entity-next-door reputation if it can't even support an evil communist government once in a while?
Slashdot rocks. CmdrTaco rocks. Thanks for all the effort from the Slashdot developers, its fantastic.
;)
I would like to suggest that maybe the small, headline only stories would look better (and look much more like the old slashdot) if they were grouped at the bottom of the page, instead of mixed in between the larger stories. Is the order which those stories were posted with respect to the main stories really that important? The only real difference is to create an impression of 2 seperate sets of stories which are "scrolling" by as they are posted / expire, instead of just one set of stories. (did that make any sense?)
Anyway, the site looks great as it is. And I think we all know that the real strength of Slashdot is the deep, intellectual discussion from its user base
Of course, I think the most important aspect of this deal is that if Microsoft stops making office software for the Mac, then even the most Windows hardened of the IT guys is gonna have to learn about the alternatives available. Macs are deployed in a great many IT environments (cuz the Graphics people love em, for one thing), alongside a 95% windows operation. If there's no Mac Office, then Office Documents can no longer be a perfect "standard", like most of the IT guys consider them now. Suddenly, compatability will be a concern for even the most timid Windows-junkie Administrator, and Microsoft would soon be facing an even greater pressure to provide some semblance of interoperability. I think this move is much more about protecting Office as a "standard" than it is about the profit (which is probably not a great amount when weighed against Apple's competition in the Desktop OS market).
So not only is Microsoft monopolizing the software market, costing millions in virus damage through lousy security, and destroying competitors with the crushing power of the dark side of the force, but they are also killing the American workforce.
Thus undermining capitalism.
Thus causing recession.
Thus starving the orphans of the office workers they killed.
God, I wish you worked at my school. Can you believe I am the only person in AP Computer Science AB? It is a private school but there were 8 guys in my class last year; however, the last teacher never really got around to teaching, so everybody else flunked the AP exam (I got a 5 :). Now I just sit in the back of the first year class and finish the silly little projects, and the new teacher (who might actually know stuff but couldn't teach a monkey to climb a tree) never even talks to me. The upside is that, since I'm one of maybe 3 guys within a mile who can explain what an object is, everybody seems to think I'm some kind of prodigy.
Just thought I would complain to somebody who might commiserate, wish there were more teachers who knew their stuff.
You shouldn't base any judgement of any operating system on your experience with a computer that clearly wasn't installed completely. Linux has pretty much run the internet for quite some time, and any pretty much every NIC is supported some way or another (well, except for wireless cards). As for playing mp3's, software to do that should be included in pretty much any distribution that is meant for desktop use. If it wasn't, then you should be able to install it with great ease. One of the greatest advantages of most linux distrobutions is that they have the ability to download and install any new program and everything else it needs to work with one simple command or mouse click. Seriously, there are distributions which can play mp3's without even being installed. You might want to revise your definition of "tried".