Recently you spoke out about software patents and the patent process. But I was interested in what you said about how "nasty" copyright issues could get. You use SCO as the obvious nightmare case but what about violations against open source licenses like the GPLv3? Would you care if someone forked the Linux kernel and made major modifications to it and started selling it without releasing the code to the customers? What does your ideal situation look like for open source and commercial closed source? Would you just copy the Finnish model and aren't you afraid American experts are just as daft as American juries?
So very sorry but I must take exception with this. The "substantial amount of math" comes down to the 4 basic operations. Even partial differential equations come down to it with lots of looping. Really good programmers are not mathematicians for the most part. Really good programmers understand the machine and mathematicians dream up equations that do "something" and then explain in terms that can be translated into code.
No reason to apologize, without exceptions we wouldn't have any conversations, discussions or debates. I find it incredibly interesting that you seem to consider some parts of programming to be mathematics and you can even go so far as to say that "really good programmers are not mathematicians for the most part." I will quote Donald Knuth since he is much wiser than I:
Therefore the idea of passing laws that say some kinds of algorithms
belong to mathematics and some do not strikes me as absurd as the 19th
century attempts of the Indiana legislature to pass a law that the
ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is exactly 3, not
approximately 3.1416. It's like the medieval church ruling that the
sun revolves about the earth. Man-made laws can be significantly
helpful but not when they contradict fundamental truths.
Understanding the machine is very important as well but any programmer should know mathematics first and foremost. I use logic daily in writing boolean expressions in any language I use and on top of that, De Morgan's Law has saved me countless of hours of rederiving truth tables. Furthermore the knowledge of when to use a hash map versus any other collection and the run time of my code is so deeply seated in mathematics that I would find myself writing code that works very easily in my unit tests but might take days or weeks to run on real world data. Your assertion that mathematics in computing ends at the "four basic operations" is laughable.
And as to the bit about functional -v- object oriented languages, your tipping your "coding snobbery" hand a bit
"Coding snobbery"? How is it when you collect all the tools out there that are available (most free of charge) you're suddenly exhibiting code snobbery?! I'm not telling you to always use it, I'm not saying it's the silver bullet. I'm just saying that in some cases it makes sense to use it!
and indicating you are the kind of person who just wants to play with the newest toys.
I am absolutely floored by this mentality. There is no silver bullet in software development.
All the languages out there are mostly based on C and no one has yet been able to come up with anything that is actually better, but is rather simply a derivative. Yes syntactic sugar abounds but strip that away and you have C.
Surely you're not suggesting that one language is just "better" than any other language at everything. Could you explain to me how it is that the family of Lisp languages that began appearing around 1958 are "syntactic sugar" on top of C that was written between 1969 and 1973? Are you telling me that Lisp, Scheme, Haskell, etc are all just variants of C with syntactic sugar?! And Prolog's development in 1972 was based on C as well?
Functional languages are almost pure syntactical sugar as the underlying code that is generated is still the basic loop and branch that applies to all languages regardless of their style and name.
The experiment was a success. The outcome a failure.
There are two proposed approaches for fusion power generation: tokamak and ICF. ITER tests the tokamak approach and the National Ignition Facility tests the ICF approach. Thanks to the NIF we now know exactly what ICF is and isn't capable of. I'd call that an excellent return on investment.
Weird, you seem to be at odds with much of the article:
With the total tab for NIF now running to an estimated $7 billion, the laboratory has been pulling out all the stops to claim success is just around the corner. At the beginning of July, it announced that 15 years of work had paid off in "an historic record-breaking laser shot," in which 192 beams delivered more than 500 trillion watts of peak power and 1.85 megajoules (MJ) of ultraviolet laser light to its target." The lab's leaders predict that "ignition" -- the point where the 192 lasers actually deliver more energy than they consume -- could occur as early as next year.
So help me out here, if we now know the outcome is a failure why are the project leads asking for more funding and trying to convince us it's just around the corner? Maybe next year, possibly almost sure that it might could happen if the possibilities are totally just almost there.
Sounds more like "It's 20 years off. Wait, you're pulling our funding?! But it might happen as early as next year!"
This makes sense to me. Most of the best programmers I've known are guys who otherwise would be installing air conditioners, fixing big trucks or re-wiring buildings.
There is a substantial amount of math and logic that should be used as a foundation for programming. I know the coworkers that would otherwise be installing air conditioners when I ask people if they thing we could use a more functional-type language for a new project instead of an object oriented language. You're usually met with blank stares.
Coding is not a profession. It's a skill
This could be said about anything that people pay you to do. Anything.
which is a part of a series of job descriptions and career paths, but in itself it's a form of knowledge more like what an electrician has than what professionals like architects, doctors, lawyers and assassins must know.
What? Look, I think you're trying to discuss what you feel is the percentage between creativity and regurgitation in each of the above subjects. And I will tell you right now that all those fields are diverse with jobs that require more than one of the other. If you want to say programming requires more creativity and that's something that cannot be taught then at least give me a compelling argument for that.
Bring back the hacker aesthetic. Professions are for those who want to super-specialize and master specific high-level skills. Hacking is something anyone with the gumption and dedication can do. As the world expands into mobile devices, ordinary people are writing code every day.
If only you could see the spaghetti code I've seen. Ordinary people are free to write code, in fact I love that and I hope that continues to expand. But when you're talking about commercial grade software being written for a company that is being sold to people for real money... that's when I start to cringe that "good enough to tinker with in my home means good enough to be deployed to millions of personal devices across the world."
That being said, CS needs to find a new career type that might belong to professions. I suggest "product architect" (like Steve Jobs) and "total systems integrators" (like what the Google guys do, interoperability) for those who will need college degrees or equivalent and a professional mindset.
Personally I value my liberal arts college degree and I think my employer does as well. I can communicate better with customers and I now understand much more of the world now than I did in high school (when I thought I knew everything).
You're free to apply to jobs but when you're going up against people who have rigorously studied mathematics, logic, philosophy, English, etc you have to be ready to show an employer what you're made of before your application is automatically rejected by some routine resume sorting algorithm. It's not that those algorithms are correct, it's just that employers are too lazy to spend two hours with every single person on the planet trying to find the right applicant. Instead, if I didn't go to college, I'd buy a virtual private server and be going to town on developing things that look good so I can show them off. Honestly, I think it was easier, more fun and more eye-opening (yet way more expensive) for me to go to a liberal arts college. It's your life, so do what you want. You can tell the recruiters they're doing it wrong but then again it's their job and that's their decision. This sounds like some very talented hackers venting about the problems with entering into the workforce.
First off i have a very hard time believing backdoors are built in the large networks they sell. In complex systems like that its next to impossible to hide things in the long run. Anything suspicious would have been found in the audits.
I think you underestimate the creativity of the people who make networking gear.
This looks like a try at restricting import with arbitrary reasons without any substance behind them. I am sure many countries smile at this as they get to block American goods like GM corn etc citing safety reasons, and now they can use US own rhetoric.
That's fine. The US House Committee is claiming that Huawei and ZTE receive billions from the Chinese government and are able to subsidize their products with that money so that they can be the lowest bidder to foreign countries. That's not entirely arbitrary as they're not claiming the same thing against Foxconn or Asus. If you want to say Monsanto receives government subsidiaries as tax credits or whatever, you're probably right but so does almost every other international company headquartered out of the United States. Want to place an embargo on the United States? Go right ahead, Iran and Cuba seem to be doing okay. Personally, I think the safety concerns against GM corn are enough to block it and I think they should continue along that line of reasoning -- what economic conspiracy do you have for keeping GM corn out?
This hearing was open and is completely available on YouTube if you want to rebut more specific claims by the committee. I like listening to the Huawei guy, he's pretty humorous, he says that they will not under any conditions jeopardize the integrity of their networks for any third party or government... yeah, like you sell networking gear in China and you can say that? Please.
Is the free trade not so fun anymore?
Oh, give me a break. Free trade? Are you serious? It's not fun when the most populous country in the world is artificially manipulating its markets, controlling what its currency trades at internally and creating its own companies that are traipsing around claiming to be private companies... christ, the tariffs and tax laws surrounding international business are so complicated, there's no point in calling any of this "free trade" in any sense of the words.
I don't get it. This is such a fatalistic and defeated attitude! Will I, too, give up the ghost at age 40? I don't think you're ever too old to learn something knew but I'm 30 years old and my idea of a fun weekend is reviewing a book on a new fledgling language or framework. And there's plenty of room for criticism for me concentrating on diversity rather than depth.
I'm a 40-year-old developer, and it's become apparent that my.NET skillset is woefully out of date after five years of doing various bits of support.
I'm sorry. Honestly, I really am sorry. I don't like that framework, I don't like that language. Also when I was growing up it was largely a "pay to play" realm and largely still is (although I know I can get my hands on an express IDE).
I tried the 'Management' thing last year, but that was a failure as I'm just not a people person, and a full-on development project this year has turned into a disaster area.
Again, a fatalistic attitude. It's possible you never found a good role of management for you. It requires more time but there's always a "lead by example" model for leadership. It's not as easy as delegating but you can earn a lot more respect. It does suck up a lot more of your time though. Also, good companies offer at least two ways to advance in development. One is management and the other is technical lead. If your company has technical leadership roles you could look into them.
Do I give up a career in technology now? Or turn around and bury myself in a support role, sorting out issues with other people's/companies' software?
Look, if you hate your job, get out of it. I don't care if you're 40 and have a mortgage to pay, start looking for something else that makes you happier than where you are now. Life is too short. You can't waste years hating your work. Support role will probably pay the bills but it's gonna suck, I suggest you give it a go and pick up some new languages in your free time and work on projects that you can host on github, Heroku or some VPS even if they are just functional and have no users. You can at least put those on your resume and say "I made this by myself and I can make stuff like this for you."
Do I retrain and get back up to speed, or am I too old?
It would be a lot easier if you were asking me how you get from A to B but what I'm hearing is "I'm at A and it sucks so do I retrain or what do I do here?" Tell me what you want to do, tell me what satisfies you at the end of the day and I'll tell you how to get there. That "or am I too old" part at the end of your question isn't even an option. It's quite inane, actually. How daft would I have to be to say "Naw, dude, you're forty years old, you're long in the tooth, your bones are half dust, you've got one foot in the grave, you're on borrowed time, give it up already and just roll over. Me, on the other hand, I'm never gonna be in your shoes, no sir. Gonna be twenty one FOREVER and Java's always going to be the de facto standard or I'll just YOLO out." I mean, seriously, who's going to answer that way?
If a hosting provider removed your content or threatened to kick you off unless you removed it yourself, you could just migrate your profile to a new hosting provider, and all of your existing links to friends/groups/events would continue to work.
In an ideal world where all you're worried about is censorship then, sure, whatever that might work. The problem is that I am virtually unconcerned with Facebook censoring me as it's never happened. What I'm concerned with primarily is Facebook selling my data to shady people. Oh, I just move my profile from that server after concerns of shadiness arise? Yeah, I bet they hurry up real fast and delete that data that they could turn around and sell to marketers.
My biggest concern arises from reading the book Beautiful Data (and reviewing it here on Slashdot) and remembering how Facebook dealt with its earliest problems of big data and content delivery networks (CDNs).
I just watched a video of my cousin on Facebook training a horse halfway across the country. Now, let's say she or someone near her was running their Google+ node or whatever you want to call it. How would that be propagated to a CDN like Facebook has done with her media that I'm viewing?
Furthermore, CDNs have solved a lot of issues and also relieved localized strain from, say, all the traffic from NYC going to LA (and vice versa) through the Series of Tubes that stretch across the country for every imgur and flickr and youtube video out there. Isn't that a step backwards in the sense of providing snappy response times on large objects?
(As one commenter "DragonWriter" pointed out, Google had earlier launched or collaborated on some projects for open social networking -- but none of these were ever given the big push that accompanied the release of Google+. So that's probably why we never heard of those other projects, not because of any intrinsic merits of the ideas themselves. To get people using something, Google would have to launch it and promote it — but if Google does do those things, people will sign up.)
it worries me how much mental energy they were putting into something as simple as getting dressed or what to have for breakfast. sounds like an anxiety disorder to me.
You'd be surprised. I mean, let's take myself for example. Even starting to think about shaving sets my mind abuzz with contours and shear strength equations dealing with each follicle of hair. Before applying the lather, it's a pain to model my face in a three dimensional image so as to optimize the amount of face covered per stroke versus a random walk pattern across the... and I've already spent too much time on it so I don't shave.
Then there's the possibility of showering. However, to achieve the optimal temperature at which my body enjoys a shower requires me to measure the temperature of the water leaving the shower head. But wait, as my body enters this spray, the temperature adjusts based on the laws of cooling since my body is a colder object than the water or air inside the shower... and I've already spent too much time on showering so I don't shower.
Then there's selecting an adequate living arrangement. First I start out walking about the city inspecting each apartment and judging the socioeconomic surroundings with an expected value weighted against my monthly payment combined with the ability and freedom to do whatever I want when I want. But that's a nebulous construct that requires set theory and a rigorous modeling of how I'll spend the coming year since the contract length is variable based on property... and I've already spent too much time on selecting a suitable place to live so here I sit in my mom's basement.
Don't even get me started on employment or fornication. I need to conserve that brain power to be the indomitable force of genius that I am.
Any item that is sent from the United States to a foreign destination is an export. “Items” include commodities, software or technology, such as clothing, building materials, circuit boards, automotive parts, blue prints, design plans, retail software packages and technical information.
How an item is transported outside of the United States does not matter in determining export license requirements. For example, an item can be sent by regular mail or hand-carried on an airplane. A set of schematics can be sent via facsimile to a foreign destination, software can be uploaded to or downloaded from an Internet site, or technology can be transmitted via e-mail or during a telephone conversation. Regardless of the method used for the transfer, the transaction is considered an export. An item is also considered an export even if it is leaving the United States temporarily, if it is leaving the United States but is not for sale (e.g., a gift), or if it is going to a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary in a foreign country. Even a foreign-origin item exported from the United States, transmitted or transshipped through the United States, or being returned from the United States to its foreign country of origin is considered an export. Finally, release of technology or source code subject to the EAR to a foreign national in the United States is “deemed” to be an export to the home country of the foreign national under the EAR.
Emphasis mine. So how are you telling the Chinese what to make if you're not shipping them the schematics? If you know a company that is manufacturing such sensitive controlled electronics overseas I believe you are legally obligated to report it to your local Office of Export Enforcement branch.
'the harm to consumers that Microsoft's decision could create.'"
The only harm is to these business' pocketbooks.. For once I'm on MS side in this matter...
No, no, you see, you need to look at this from the "trickle down" aspect of economics. See, corporations are good, you need to give them a lot of money and then they in turn give that to Americans via jobs and opportunities. So the best way for them to get money is to be able to track consumers so we need to make sure that consumers can be tracked. Ideally, it would be illegal for people to own bank accounts or liquid cash and everyone would basically spend their paycheck within a few days of getting it. And they would spend it online and all the corporations would know where everyone was spending every dollar. That way, the money can work as hard as possible for society by being in corporations' pockets. And then unemployment would be really low because there would be a lot of jobs with all this extra money in corporations. Because they're undeniably good entities and they have more rights than you do because you're not supplying jobs to yourselves, the corporations are.
Why else would it be illegal for you to record every site and place your neighbor visits without their consent but be completely legal and, in fact, desired to allow a faceless corporation to do it? Duh, because we as a completely screwed up society have given the richer entities more rights than an average citizen.
We found one that could: Selling Slashdot was the right decision at the time: we never could have survived the growth, and the lean years after the bubble burst. However, the long term consequences of the decision wouldn’t be clear for years.
This is so obvious to me. It's like watching a band sign a big contract thinking it's the greatest thing to ever happen to them. Even with the latest move Slashdot editors think it's only a good thing. If you sell, you need to consider that you're selling your freedom, your control and your future. The bigger the company you're sold to, the most abstracted away from you all those things are. So consider all that and price it accordingly. I mean, now it'll probably go to the highest bidder... what if a giant just wanted to buy Slashdot to shut it down because of the negative press it generates for them?
Are you implying that if the security were nationalized (ala TSA) that such ineptitude would not exist?
Why the explicit blame on "private security contractors"? Why not fire any private company who is not doing their job and find one that can/will?
Probably has to do with this quote and link from the article:
The obvious problems that result from so much contractor freedom are made clear by the recent inspector general report, which determined that this lack of federal oversight at least partially contributed to the success of the break-in PDF: "When questioned as to why action was not taken to address growing maintenance backlogs, Federal officials told us that with the advent of NNSA's contractor governance system (Contractor Assurance System), they could no longer intervene." In light of these findings, the inspector general had serious questions about the Energy Department's overall approach and determined that "current initiatives to reduce Federal oversight of the nuclear weapons complex, especially as they relate to security functions, need to be carefully considered."
There are many forms of nationalized security: some very bad (TSA) and some very good (National Guard). Private industry will save you money and, when pitted against each other in true capitalism form, they will cut corners to win contracts. Somethings should have security independent of how the economy is doing or how low some no talent ass clown is willing to bid on a contract.
Why in the name of Oppenheimer did they fire the one guy who actually did his job, when everyone above and around him appeared to fail pretty seriously at theirs?
If he's the only person doing his job then that means his superiors that fired him also were not doing their job correctly -- their correct job being to fire the people who had failed through inaction. So, in order to maintain his status of being the only person who did his job, he would have to be fired otherwise his superiors might be misconstrued as doing their job correctly. This is all very simple Dilbert 101.
types of permissible disclosure - such as those required by law or court order (many NDAs require the receiving party to give the disclosing party prompt notice of any efforts to obtain such disclosure, and possibly to cooperate with any attempt by the disclosing party to seek judicial protection for the relevant confidential information).
Their emails get released because a bunch of cranks believe the world was created in 4000 BC so any discussion of stuff more than 6000 light years away is blasphemous hate speech they must use the legal system to stamp out.
I'm pretty sure that if that is their verbatim argument that a judge will not grant their wishes nor a court order for you to turn over everything to them.
My signed NDAs can't keep my amplifier secret; I'm pissed.
Perhaps you should have skipped "outta the goodness of your heart" and instead of signing with BORT went into business with yourself or someone a lot more competent:) In that position, every route you take has risks. You could lack the funds to start up your company and go belly up prematurely. You could get screwed by a wealthy financier. Etc. Etc. That's capitalism, man. It's up to you to decide where you want to select your risk/reward to lie from available real world options.
At a research lab, this is not as far fetched as you might think.
I'd love to hear more realistic problems with this system -- if you are at liberty to discuss them.
It is Science folks... what purpose is served by keeping it secret? Unless someone is up to no good eh?
Agreed comrade! Now, why are you not sharing your personal e-mails and work e-mails with me? Unless someone is up to no good, eh? Surely your business is as "pure" as Science?
When did we drop the "privacy is a human right" mantra on Slashdot? I really miss that. Scientists are humans. Their work should be public if it was paid by the public. Their work should be public if they wish for it to be peer reviewed. But what purpose does opening up their communication hold? If they really wanted to be "up to no good" surely they would merely find another way to communicate than the e-mails that are published? Will this solve anything? Scientists are humans, not slaves. E-mails about picking their kid up from soccer at a time and place should be kept private, even if they use their work e-mail. E-mails where they call a colleague bad names in confidence to a lab assistant should be kept private. Etc. Etc.
If their work involved wrong doing then it should be presented as evidence in court regardless of who paid for it. My biggest concern here is when these court investigations of scientists are politically motivated witch hunts.
The video did not cause gmail to be blocked any more than the video caused terrorist attacks against US embassies.
The video did not cause a terrorist attack on the US embassies but you would have to agree it gave the people planning the attacks some really good cover from citizens that might have been unwilling under normal circumstances to storm United States embassies, right? The video was used in the attacks as a device. Likewise, you could call the video "the straw that broke the camel's back" or a bigger piece of the picture for Iran's blockage of Gmail but to say it played no role is purely speculation. Do you have an alternative theory or is it simply just a hunch? Do you speak Farsi? Are you situated in Tehran, roaming about and getting a feeling for the climate of the people? No? You're just sitting comfortably at your desk halfway across the world? So how do you know the video caused no unrest?
I mean, yes we joke that Iranian government is terribly inept, but would they really be so thick as to think blocking gmail had any meaningful impact on those who created/supported the video?
I thought the purpose was to punish Google for allowing the video to be uploaded at all (and it still remains in lengthy trailer format for most of the world's population to view). The government picked a length of time that they felt would cause an exodus of users from Gmail to another provider -- hopefully a local one that dishes up information without resistance to the Iranian government. More importantly, one that is not associated as the web host of "Innocence of Muslims" trailers.
The video is just serving as a gigantic red herring. More likely Iran had a real purpose behind the brief blockade, and throwing "The Video" out there as a reason is an attempt to distract from that reason.
Then what was it? Sure, relations with the US are strained. Sure, their currency just hit an all-time low against the dollar. But calling this a "red herring" requires you to tell us what the real purpose was. Otherwise there's a pretty simple cause and effect in my mind: Google still lets Americans watch movie trailer so therefore Iran government gives its citizens a reason not to use Google services. What is so abnormal about that logic? It makes about as much sense as US does not like Iranian Government so US places trade embargoes on all of Iranian goods, companies and services.
Are you saying that this information is uncomfortable to be public or that you feel that this tidbit is insignificant given your other accomplishments? Has being an icon or public figure ever been too much for you?
I merely read your Wikipedia page and decided I would ask you about topics other than the very tired and already fully covered Apple/Jobs questions. I sincerely apologize if bring up your ex-wife in passing was insensitive or painful. I know this probably sounds like a hyperbole or undue flattery but I think you're the best thing to come out of Apple -- mostly because I was impossibly young and poor when you were at Apple doing good things.
Your wikipedia page says you're a member of the Freemasons. As an open source fanatic, freemasonry has always rubbed me a little the wrong way. It's fine that people want to have a club and do their own thing in private but what bothers me is that they might be more likely to do business with other Freemasons and that they have these requirements to be a Freemason like belief in a Supreme being. It also bothers me that it's so pervasive. I understand enjoying the comradery and brotherhood of it (I'm an Eagle Scout myself) but what purpose does being a Freemason serve in your life and what do you enjoy most about it? If you're purely doing it to spend time with your wife, does any aspect of it bother you?
I've played a bit of Tetris in my day and was reared on Gameboy Tetris, Tetris 2 on the SNES and Tetris Worlds for the Nintendo 64. I've since played a few other versions and remembered you being an avid submitter to Nintendo Power. So, Evets Kainzow, what's your opinion on the current state of Tetris (if you still play). Have you enjoyed the permutations on tetromino scoring and function in some of the later titles or do you see them as a tainted form of a pure game?
In your mind, where is the heart of today's computer hobbyists. I read Make magazine, I own an Arduino, some Raspberry Pis, a couple XBees, etc. I'm probably too young to remember the glory days of machines you could actually open and tinker with so could you tell me today where I can find the closest thing to that? Or at least where you go to satiate your inner tinkerer?
Yea verily, we may have escaped the terrifying "bacon shortage" foretold by our farmer-sages but as a ones-and-zeros smith, I will reveal a much scarier future that is imminent and knocking at our door: a ones and zeros shortage. Yes, that's right, you heard me, Earth has reached its quota of ones and zeros. As our localized reserves of information go up, elsewhere in the universe entropy must be accounted for in order to preserve the Second Law of Thermodynamics. We have all but destroyed Alpha Centuri with viscous randomness as we greedily ate up our own terrestrial order and logic. Physics has heard of our blasphemy and she is vengeful!
What can you do? Well, as a developer who can write in many languages including C, I will be able to squeeze much more usage out of your precious ones and zeros than, say, my Indian counterparts. Oh, sure, now software is cheap but the demand is imminent and workers like myself will be harder to find than a two on your hard drive. Knowing that violent unrest will break out when people can no longer access their Farmvilles and pornography, I offer my services at a meager rate so nigh our hour of darkness. Friends, readers, Romneys, rich and potential employers -- I am not asking for much to protect your software as a ones and zeros guardian... a hair below the capital gains rate will feed me peanuts and allow me to upgrade my housing from pizza boxes to refrigerator boxes.
Thou hath wrought the wrath of thine swine overlords and thou hath felt its mighty cloven hoof. Now I am simply asking you that, in your cellars where you have squirreled pound upon pound of bacon inside deep freeze upon deep freeze inside freight container upon freight container, you employ me and house me to ensure all your computing needs are safe and secure among thine horded cured brine meats.
I urge you, take this offer now before the coming very real and very well explained (see above) shortage renders my colleagues and I safe inside massive corporations and extremely financially secured without need for employ.
"does such outspokenness on non-technical matters reflect poorly on the Linux community that Torvalds leads?"
Every member of the Linux community checks to see what Linus is wearing before getting dressed in the morning, right? No? Then why are you asking such an apparently stupid question?
I assume it was from this part of the "article":
In the comments on that Google+ post, David Stilson, an IT professional from San Diego writes: "I am surprised to see all of these visceral attacks on Romney and each other. When did all the Linux nerds lose their logical approach to problem solving? People install Linux in part due to the fact that they are joining a community of supportive users. If you were new to Linux would you install it after reading these posts?"
Luckily for new Linux users, they don't have to go to Linus' Google+ page nor do they have to read through random comments on it to download a distribution of Linux. Furthermore people who participate in open source are still, believe it or not, allowed to be humans! (crazy, I know)
I'm sure if you read all of Steve Ballmer's personal e-mails and political statements you could say something equally vapid about Windows and all Microsoft products.
Slashdot Mirror
Recently you spoke out about software patents and the patent process. But I was interested in what you said about how "nasty" copyright issues could get. You use SCO as the obvious nightmare case but what about violations against open source licenses like the GPLv3? Would you care if someone forked the Linux kernel and made major modifications to it and started selling it without releasing the code to the customers? What does your ideal situation look like for open source and commercial closed source? Would you just copy the Finnish model and aren't you afraid American experts are just as daft as American juries?
So very sorry but I must take exception with this. The "substantial amount of math" comes down to the 4 basic operations. Even partial differential equations come down to it with lots of looping. Really good programmers are not mathematicians for the most part. Really good programmers understand the machine and mathematicians dream up equations that do "something" and then explain in terms that can be translated into code.
No reason to apologize, without exceptions we wouldn't have any conversations, discussions or debates. I find it incredibly interesting that you seem to consider some parts of programming to be mathematics and you can even go so far as to say that "really good programmers are not mathematicians for the most part." I will quote Donald Knuth since he is much wiser than I:
Therefore the idea of passing laws that say some kinds of algorithms belong to mathematics and some do not strikes me as absurd as the 19th century attempts of the Indiana legislature to pass a law that the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is exactly 3, not approximately 3.1416. It's like the medieval church ruling that the sun revolves about the earth. Man-made laws can be significantly helpful but not when they contradict fundamental truths.
Understanding the machine is very important as well but any programmer should know mathematics first and foremost. I use logic daily in writing boolean expressions in any language I use and on top of that, De Morgan's Law has saved me countless of hours of rederiving truth tables. Furthermore the knowledge of when to use a hash map versus any other collection and the run time of my code is so deeply seated in mathematics that I would find myself writing code that works very easily in my unit tests but might take days or weeks to run on real world data. Your assertion that mathematics in computing ends at the "four basic operations" is laughable.
And as to the bit about functional -v- object oriented languages, your tipping your "coding snobbery" hand a bit
"Coding snobbery"? How is it when you collect all the tools out there that are available (most free of charge) you're suddenly exhibiting code snobbery?! I'm not telling you to always use it, I'm not saying it's the silver bullet. I'm just saying that in some cases it makes sense to use it!
and indicating you are the kind of person who just wants to play with the newest toys.
I am absolutely floored by this mentality. There is no silver bullet in software development.
All the languages out there are mostly based on C and no one has yet been able to come up with anything that is actually better, but is rather simply a derivative. Yes syntactic sugar abounds but strip that away and you have C.
Surely you're not suggesting that one language is just "better" than any other language at everything. Could you explain to me how it is that the family of Lisp languages that began appearing around 1958 are "syntactic sugar" on top of C that was written between 1969 and 1973? Are you telling me that Lisp, Scheme, Haskell, etc are all just variants of C with syntactic sugar?! And Prolog's development in 1972 was based on C as well?
Functional languages are almost pure syntactical sugar as the underlying code that is generated is still the basic loop and branch that applies to all languages regardless of their style and name.
It turns out there are very inte
The experiment was a success. The outcome a failure. There are two proposed approaches for fusion power generation: tokamak and ICF. ITER tests the tokamak approach and the National Ignition Facility tests the ICF approach. Thanks to the NIF we now know exactly what ICF is and isn't capable of. I'd call that an excellent return on investment.
Weird, you seem to be at odds with much of the article:
With the total tab for NIF now running to an estimated $7 billion, the laboratory has been pulling out all the stops to claim success is just around the corner. At the beginning of July, it announced that 15 years of work had paid off in "an historic record-breaking laser shot," in which 192 beams delivered more than 500 trillion watts of peak power and 1.85 megajoules (MJ) of ultraviolet laser light to its target." The lab's leaders predict that "ignition" -- the point where the 192 lasers actually deliver more energy than they consume -- could occur as early as next year.
So help me out here, if we now know the outcome is a failure why are the project leads asking for more funding and trying to convince us it's just around the corner? Maybe next year, possibly almost sure that it might could happen if the possibilities are totally just almost there.
Sounds more like "It's 20 years off. Wait, you're pulling our funding?! But it might happen as early as next year!"
This makes sense to me. Most of the best programmers I've known are guys who otherwise would be installing air conditioners, fixing big trucks or re-wiring buildings.
There is a substantial amount of math and logic that should be used as a foundation for programming. I know the coworkers that would otherwise be installing air conditioners when I ask people if they thing we could use a more functional-type language for a new project instead of an object oriented language. You're usually met with blank stares.
Coding is not a profession. It's a skill
This could be said about anything that people pay you to do. Anything.
which is a part of a series of job descriptions and career paths, but in itself it's a form of knowledge more like what an electrician has than what professionals like architects, doctors, lawyers and assassins must know.
What? Look, I think you're trying to discuss what you feel is the percentage between creativity and regurgitation in each of the above subjects. And I will tell you right now that all those fields are diverse with jobs that require more than one of the other. If you want to say programming requires more creativity and that's something that cannot be taught then at least give me a compelling argument for that.
Bring back the hacker aesthetic. Professions are for those who want to super-specialize and master specific high-level skills. Hacking is something anyone with the gumption and dedication can do. As the world expands into mobile devices, ordinary people are writing code every day.
If only you could see the spaghetti code I've seen. Ordinary people are free to write code, in fact I love that and I hope that continues to expand. But when you're talking about commercial grade software being written for a company that is being sold to people for real money ... that's when I start to cringe that "good enough to tinker with in my home means good enough to be deployed to millions of personal devices across the world."
That being said, CS needs to find a new career type that might belong to professions. I suggest "product architect" (like Steve Jobs) and "total systems integrators" (like what the Google guys do, interoperability) for those who will need college degrees or equivalent and a professional mindset.
Personally I value my liberal arts college degree and I think my employer does as well. I can communicate better with customers and I now understand much more of the world now than I did in high school (when I thought I knew everything).
You're free to apply to jobs but when you're going up against people who have rigorously studied mathematics, logic, philosophy, English, etc you have to be ready to show an employer what you're made of before your application is automatically rejected by some routine resume sorting algorithm. It's not that those algorithms are correct, it's just that employers are too lazy to spend two hours with every single person on the planet trying to find the right applicant. Instead, if I didn't go to college, I'd buy a virtual private server and be going to town on developing things that look good so I can show them off. Honestly, I think it was easier, more fun and more eye-opening (yet way more expensive) for me to go to a liberal arts college. It's your life, so do what you want. You can tell the recruiters they're doing it wrong but then again it's their job and that's their decision. This sounds like some very talented hackers venting about the problems with entering into the workforce.
First off i have a very hard time believing backdoors are built in the large networks they sell. In complex systems like that its next to impossible to hide things in the long run. Anything suspicious would have been found in the audits.
I think you underestimate the creativity of the people who make networking gear.
This looks like a try at restricting import with arbitrary reasons without any substance behind them. I am sure many countries smile at this as they get to block American goods like GM corn etc citing safety reasons, and now they can use US own rhetoric.
That's fine. The US House Committee is claiming that Huawei and ZTE receive billions from the Chinese government and are able to subsidize their products with that money so that they can be the lowest bidder to foreign countries. That's not entirely arbitrary as they're not claiming the same thing against Foxconn or Asus. If you want to say Monsanto receives government subsidiaries as tax credits or whatever, you're probably right but so does almost every other international company headquartered out of the United States. Want to place an embargo on the United States? Go right ahead, Iran and Cuba seem to be doing okay. Personally, I think the safety concerns against GM corn are enough to block it and I think they should continue along that line of reasoning -- what economic conspiracy do you have for keeping GM corn out?
... yeah, like you sell networking gear in China and you can say that? Please.
This hearing was open and is completely available on YouTube if you want to rebut more specific claims by the committee. I like listening to the Huawei guy, he's pretty humorous, he says that they will not under any conditions jeopardize the integrity of their networks for any third party or government
Is the free trade not so fun anymore?
Oh, give me a break. Free trade? Are you serious? It's not fun when the most populous country in the world is artificially manipulating its markets, controlling what its currency trades at internally and creating its own companies that are traipsing around claiming to be private companies ... christ, the tariffs and tax laws surrounding international business are so complicated, there's no point in calling any of this "free trade" in any sense of the words.
I've been lurking around Slashdot for many years now, and this question occasionally comes up, but it pays to get the opinions of others.
Right, this sounds somewhat similar to this question and you can take or leave my old advice. Some good replies to my post as well.
I don't get it. This is such a fatalistic and defeated attitude! Will I, too, give up the ghost at age 40? I don't think you're ever too old to learn something knew but I'm 30 years old and my idea of a fun weekend is reviewing a book on a new fledgling language or framework. And there's plenty of room for criticism for me concentrating on diversity rather than depth.
I'm a 40-year-old developer, and it's become apparent that my .NET skillset is woefully out of date after five years of doing various bits of support.
I'm sorry. Honestly, I really am sorry. I don't like that framework, I don't like that language. Also when I was growing up it was largely a "pay to play" realm and largely still is (although I know I can get my hands on an express IDE).
I tried the 'Management' thing last year, but that was a failure as I'm just not a people person, and a full-on development project this year has turned into a disaster area.
Again, a fatalistic attitude. It's possible you never found a good role of management for you. It requires more time but there's always a "lead by example" model for leadership. It's not as easy as delegating but you can earn a lot more respect. It does suck up a lot more of your time though. Also, good companies offer at least two ways to advance in development. One is management and the other is technical lead. If your company has technical leadership roles you could look into them.
Do I give up a career in technology now? Or turn around and bury myself in a support role, sorting out issues with other people's/companies' software?
Look, if you hate your job, get out of it. I don't care if you're 40 and have a mortgage to pay, start looking for something else that makes you happier than where you are now. Life is too short. You can't waste years hating your work. Support role will probably pay the bills but it's gonna suck, I suggest you give it a go and pick up some new languages in your free time and work on projects that you can host on github, Heroku or some VPS even if they are just functional and have no users. You can at least put those on your resume and say "I made this by myself and I can make stuff like this for you."
Do I retrain and get back up to speed, or am I too old?
It would be a lot easier if you were asking me how you get from A to B but what I'm hearing is "I'm at A and it sucks so do I retrain or what do I do here?" Tell me what you want to do, tell me what satisfies you at the end of the day and I'll tell you how to get there. That "or am I too old" part at the end of your question isn't even an option. It's quite inane, actually. How daft would I have to be to say "Naw, dude, you're forty years old, you're long in the tooth, your bones are half dust, you've got one foot in the grave, you're on borrowed time, give it up already and just roll over. Me, on the other hand, I'm never gonna be in your shoes, no sir. Gonna be twenty one FOREVER and Java's always going to be the de facto standard or I'll just YOLO out." I mean, seriously, who's going to answer that way?
If a hosting provider removed your content or threatened to kick you off unless you removed it yourself, you could just migrate your profile to a new hosting provider, and all of your existing links to friends/groups/events would continue to work.
In an ideal world where all you're worried about is censorship then, sure, whatever that might work. The problem is that I am virtually unconcerned with Facebook censoring me as it's never happened. What I'm concerned with primarily is Facebook selling my data to shady people. Oh, I just move my profile from that server after concerns of shadiness arise? Yeah, I bet they hurry up real fast and delete that data that they could turn around and sell to marketers.
My biggest concern arises from reading the book Beautiful Data (and reviewing it here on Slashdot) and remembering how Facebook dealt with its earliest problems of big data and content delivery networks (CDNs).
I just watched a video of my cousin on Facebook training a horse halfway across the country. Now, let's say she or someone near her was running their Google+ node or whatever you want to call it. How would that be propagated to a CDN like Facebook has done with her media that I'm viewing?
Furthermore, CDNs have solved a lot of issues and also relieved localized strain from, say, all the traffic from NYC going to LA (and vice versa) through the Series of Tubes that stretch across the country for every imgur and flickr and youtube video out there. Isn't that a step backwards in the sense of providing snappy response times on large objects?
(As one commenter "DragonWriter" pointed out, Google had earlier launched or collaborated on some projects for open social networking -- but none of these were ever given the big push that accompanied the release of Google+. So that's probably why we never heard of those other projects, not because of any intrinsic merits of the ideas themselves. To get people using something, Google would have to launch it and promote it — but if Google does do those things, people will sign up.)
Right, the first rule of Google Wave Club is you do not talk about Google Wave Club.
it worries me how much mental energy they were putting into something as simple as getting dressed or what to have for breakfast. sounds like an anxiety disorder to me.
You'd be surprised. I mean, let's take myself for example. Even starting to think about shaving sets my mind abuzz with contours and shear strength equations dealing with each follicle of hair. Before applying the lather, it's a pain to model my face in a three dimensional image so as to optimize the amount of face covered per stroke versus a random walk pattern across the ... and I've already spent too much time on it so I don't shave.
... and I've already spent too much time on showering so I don't shower.
... and I've already spent too much time on selecting a suitable place to live so here I sit in my mom's basement.
Then there's the possibility of showering. However, to achieve the optimal temperature at which my body enjoys a shower requires me to measure the temperature of the water leaving the shower head. But wait, as my body enters this spray, the temperature adjusts based on the laws of cooling since my body is a colder object than the water or air inside the shower
Then there's selecting an adequate living arrangement. First I start out walking about the city inspecting each apartment and judging the socioeconomic surroundings with an expected value weighted against my monthly payment combined with the ability and freedom to do whatever I want when I want. But that's a nebulous construct that requires set theory and a rigorous modeling of how I'll spend the coming year since the contract length is variable based on property
Don't even get me started on employment or fornication. I need to conserve that brain power to be the indomitable force of genius that I am.
Next time take a page from the Chinese and just convince the target country to manufacture the components in your country in the first place.
Hmmm, sounds like you should brush up on your export control laws. From the most basic concepts:
WHAT IS AN EXPORT?
Any item that is sent from the United States to a foreign destination is an export. “Items” include commodities, software or technology, such as clothing, building materials, circuit boards, automotive parts, blue prints, design plans, retail software packages and technical information.
How an item is transported outside of the United States does not matter in determining export license requirements. For example, an item can be sent by regular mail or hand-carried on an airplane. A set of schematics can be sent via facsimile to a foreign destination, software can be uploaded to or downloaded from an Internet site, or technology can be transmitted via e-mail or during a telephone conversation. Regardless of the method used for the transfer, the transaction is considered an export. An item is also considered an export even if it is leaving the United States temporarily, if it is leaving the United States but is not for sale (e.g., a gift), or if it is going to a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary in a foreign country. Even a foreign-origin item exported from the United States, transmitted or transshipped through the United States, or being returned from the United States to its foreign country of origin is considered an export. Finally, release of technology or source code subject to the EAR to a foreign national in the United States is “deemed” to be an export to the home country of the foreign national under the EAR.
Emphasis mine. So how are you telling the Chinese what to make if you're not shipping them the schematics? If you know a company that is manufacturing such sensitive controlled electronics overseas I believe you are legally obligated to report it to your local Office of Export Enforcement branch.
'the harm to consumers that Microsoft's decision could create.'" The only harm is to these business' pocketbooks.. For once I'm on MS side in this matter...
No, no, you see, you need to look at this from the "trickle down" aspect of economics. See, corporations are good, you need to give them a lot of money and then they in turn give that to Americans via jobs and opportunities. So the best way for them to get money is to be able to track consumers so we need to make sure that consumers can be tracked. Ideally, it would be illegal for people to own bank accounts or liquid cash and everyone would basically spend their paycheck within a few days of getting it. And they would spend it online and all the corporations would know where everyone was spending every dollar. That way, the money can work as hard as possible for society by being in corporations' pockets. And then unemployment would be really low because there would be a lot of jobs with all this extra money in corporations. Because they're undeniably good entities and they have more rights than you do because you're not supplying jobs to yourselves, the corporations are.
Why else would it be illegal for you to record every site and place your neighbor visits without their consent but be completely legal and, in fact, desired to allow a faceless corporation to do it? Duh, because we as a completely screwed up society have given the richer entities more rights than an average citizen.
We found one that could: Selling Slashdot was the right decision at the time: we never could have survived the growth, and the lean years after the bubble burst. However, the long term consequences of the decision wouldn’t be clear for years.
This is so obvious to me. It's like watching a band sign a big contract thinking it's the greatest thing to ever happen to them. Even with the latest move Slashdot editors think it's only a good thing. If you sell, you need to consider that you're selling your freedom, your control and your future. The bigger the company you're sold to, the most abstracted away from you all those things are. So consider all that and price it accordingly. I mean, now it'll probably go to the highest bidder ... what if a giant just wanted to buy Slashdot to shut it down because of the negative press it generates for them?
Are you implying that if the security were nationalized (ala TSA) that such ineptitude would not exist?
Why the explicit blame on "private security contractors"? Why not fire any private company who is not doing their job and find one that can/will?
Probably has to do with this quote and link from the article:
The obvious problems that result from so much contractor freedom are made clear by the recent inspector general report, which determined that this lack of federal oversight at least partially contributed to the success of the break-in PDF: "When questioned as to why action was not taken to address growing maintenance backlogs, Federal officials told us that with the advent of NNSA's contractor governance system (Contractor Assurance System), they could no longer intervene." In light of these findings, the inspector general had serious questions about the Energy Department's overall approach and determined that "current initiatives to reduce Federal oversight of the nuclear weapons complex, especially as they relate to security functions, need to be carefully considered."
There are many forms of nationalized security: some very bad (TSA) and some very good (National Guard). Private industry will save you money and, when pitted against each other in true capitalism form, they will cut corners to win contracts. Somethings should have security independent of how the economy is doing or how low some no talent ass clown is willing to bid on a contract.
Why in the name of Oppenheimer did they fire the one guy who actually did his job, when everyone above and around him appeared to fail pretty seriously at theirs?
If he's the only person doing his job then that means his superiors that fired him also were not doing their job correctly -- their correct job being to fire the people who had failed through inaction. So, in order to maintain his status of being the only person who did his job, he would have to be fired otherwise his superiors might be misconstrued as doing their job correctly. This is all very simple Dilbert 101.
types of permissible disclosure - such as those required by law or court order (many NDAs require the receiving party to give the disclosing party prompt notice of any efforts to obtain such disclosure, and possibly to cooperate with any attempt by the disclosing party to seek judicial protection for the relevant confidential information).
Furthermore before you sign an NDA, you should know that lack of such clauses might put you in a bind in the future. Yeah it sucks but there are very few perfect systems.
Their emails get released because a bunch of cranks believe the world was created in 4000 BC so any discussion of stuff more than 6000 light years away is blasphemous hate speech they must use the legal system to stamp out.
I'm pretty sure that if that is their verbatim argument that a judge will not grant their wishes nor a court order for you to turn over everything to them.
My signed NDAs can't keep my amplifier secret; I'm pissed.
Perhaps you should have skipped "outta the goodness of your heart" and instead of signing with BORT went into business with yourself or someone a lot more competent :) In that position, every route you take has risks. You could lack the funds to start up your company and go belly up prematurely. You could get screwed by a wealthy financier. Etc. Etc. That's capitalism, man. It's up to you to decide where you want to select your risk/reward to lie from available real world options.
At a research lab, this is not as far fetched as you might think.
I'd love to hear more realistic problems with this system -- if you are at liberty to discuss them.
It is Science folks... what purpose is served by keeping it secret? Unless someone is up to no good eh?
Agreed comrade! Now, why are you not sharing your personal e-mails and work e-mails with me? Unless someone is up to no good, eh? Surely your business is as "pure" as Science?
When did we drop the "privacy is a human right" mantra on Slashdot? I really miss that. Scientists are humans. Their work should be public if it was paid by the public. Their work should be public if they wish for it to be peer reviewed. But what purpose does opening up their communication hold? If they really wanted to be "up to no good" surely they would merely find another way to communicate than the e-mails that are published? Will this solve anything? Scientists are humans, not slaves. E-mails about picking their kid up from soccer at a time and place should be kept private, even if they use their work e-mail. E-mails where they call a colleague bad names in confidence to a lab assistant should be kept private. Etc. Etc.
If their work involved wrong doing then it should be presented as evidence in court regardless of who paid for it. My biggest concern here is when these court investigations of scientists are politically motivated witch hunts.
The video did not cause gmail to be blocked any more than the video caused terrorist attacks against US embassies.
The video did not cause a terrorist attack on the US embassies but you would have to agree it gave the people planning the attacks some really good cover from citizens that might have been unwilling under normal circumstances to storm United States embassies, right? The video was used in the attacks as a device. Likewise, you could call the video "the straw that broke the camel's back" or a bigger piece of the picture for Iran's blockage of Gmail but to say it played no role is purely speculation. Do you have an alternative theory or is it simply just a hunch? Do you speak Farsi? Are you situated in Tehran, roaming about and getting a feeling for the climate of the people? No? You're just sitting comfortably at your desk halfway across the world? So how do you know the video caused no unrest?
I mean, yes we joke that Iranian government is terribly inept, but would they really be so thick as to think blocking gmail had any meaningful impact on those who created/supported the video?
I thought the purpose was to punish Google for allowing the video to be uploaded at all (and it still remains in lengthy trailer format for most of the world's population to view). The government picked a length of time that they felt would cause an exodus of users from Gmail to another provider -- hopefully a local one that dishes up information without resistance to the Iranian government. More importantly, one that is not associated as the web host of "Innocence of Muslims" trailers.
The video is just serving as a gigantic red herring. More likely Iran had a real purpose behind the brief blockade, and throwing "The Video" out there as a reason is an attempt to distract from that reason.
Then what was it? Sure, relations with the US are strained. Sure, their currency just hit an all-time low against the dollar. But calling this a "red herring" requires you to tell us what the real purpose was. Otherwise there's a pretty simple cause and effect in my mind: Google still lets Americans watch movie trailer so therefore Iran government gives its citizens a reason not to use Google services. What is so abnormal about that logic? It makes about as much sense as US does not like Iranian Government so US places trade embargoes on all of Iranian goods, companies and services.
A lot of things about me don't get filtered.
Are you saying that this information is uncomfortable to be public or that you feel that this tidbit is insignificant given your other accomplishments? Has being an icon or public figure ever been too much for you?
I merely read your Wikipedia page and decided I would ask you about topics other than the very tired and already fully covered Apple/Jobs questions. I sincerely apologize if bring up your ex-wife in passing was insensitive or painful. I know this probably sounds like a hyperbole or undue flattery but I think you're the best thing to come out of Apple -- mostly because I was impossibly young and poor when you were at Apple doing good things.
Your wikipedia page says you're a member of the Freemasons. As an open source fanatic, freemasonry has always rubbed me a little the wrong way. It's fine that people want to have a club and do their own thing in private but what bothers me is that they might be more likely to do business with other Freemasons and that they have these requirements to be a Freemason like belief in a Supreme being. It also bothers me that it's so pervasive. I understand enjoying the comradery and brotherhood of it (I'm an Eagle Scout myself) but what purpose does being a Freemason serve in your life and what do you enjoy most about it? If you're purely doing it to spend time with your wife, does any aspect of it bother you?
I've played a bit of Tetris in my day and was reared on Gameboy Tetris, Tetris 2 on the SNES and Tetris Worlds for the Nintendo 64. I've since played a few other versions and remembered you being an avid submitter to Nintendo Power. So, Evets Kainzow, what's your opinion on the current state of Tetris (if you still play). Have you enjoyed the permutations on tetromino scoring and function in some of the later titles or do you see them as a tainted form of a pure game?
In your mind, where is the heart of today's computer hobbyists. I read Make magazine, I own an Arduino, some Raspberry Pis, a couple XBees, etc. I'm probably too young to remember the glory days of machines you could actually open and tinker with so could you tell me today where I can find the closest thing to that? Or at least where you go to satiate your inner tinkerer?
The Explosive Growth of 3D Printing
I thought we agreed not to print printable machines that print more printable machines. It's Second Life all over again ... IRL!
Well, at least his post lived up to his sig this time
Two hate posts getting modded up? Can't just mod my post down, huh? Duly noted. Guess I'll go somewhere else. Enjoy your site!
Yea verily, we may have escaped the terrifying "bacon shortage" foretold by our farmer-sages but as a ones-and-zeros smith, I will reveal a much scarier future that is imminent and knocking at our door: a ones and zeros shortage. Yes, that's right, you heard me, Earth has reached its quota of ones and zeros. As our localized reserves of information go up, elsewhere in the universe entropy must be accounted for in order to preserve the Second Law of Thermodynamics. We have all but destroyed Alpha Centuri with viscous randomness as we greedily ate up our own terrestrial order and logic. Physics has heard of our blasphemy and she is vengeful!
... a hair below the capital gains rate will feed me peanuts and allow me to upgrade my housing from pizza boxes to refrigerator boxes.
What can you do? Well, as a developer who can write in many languages including C, I will be able to squeeze much more usage out of your precious ones and zeros than, say, my Indian counterparts. Oh, sure, now software is cheap but the demand is imminent and workers like myself will be harder to find than a two on your hard drive. Knowing that violent unrest will break out when people can no longer access their Farmvilles and pornography, I offer my services at a meager rate so nigh our hour of darkness. Friends, readers, Romneys, rich and potential employers -- I am not asking for much to protect your software as a ones and zeros guardian
Thou hath wrought the wrath of thine swine overlords and thou hath felt its mighty cloven hoof. Now I am simply asking you that, in your cellars where you have squirreled pound upon pound of bacon inside deep freeze upon deep freeze inside freight container upon freight container, you employ me and house me to ensure all your computing needs are safe and secure among thine horded cured brine meats.
I urge you, take this offer now before the coming very real and very well explained (see above) shortage renders my colleagues and I safe inside massive corporations and extremely financially secured without need for employ.
"does such outspokenness on non-technical matters reflect poorly on the Linux community that Torvalds leads?"
Every member of the Linux community checks to see what Linus is wearing before getting dressed in the morning, right? No? Then why are you asking such an apparently stupid question?
I assume it was from this part of the "article":
In the comments on that Google+ post, David Stilson, an IT professional from San Diego writes: "I am surprised to see all of these visceral attacks on Romney and each other. When did all the Linux nerds lose their logical approach to problem solving? People install Linux in part due to the fact that they are joining a community of supportive users. If you were new to Linux would you install it after reading these posts?"
Luckily for new Linux users, they don't have to go to Linus' Google+ page nor do they have to read through random comments on it to download a distribution of Linux. Furthermore people who participate in open source are still, believe it or not, allowed to be humans! (crazy, I know)
I'm sure if you read all of Steve Ballmer's personal e-mails and political statements you could say something equally vapid about Windows and all Microsoft products.