I wish I could think of something to say that would change your mind, to make you feel better -- but I can't think of anything that wouldn't sound insincere. You're right about the fact that Wikipedians who don't edit articles get more respect; I don't know why this is -- perhaps it's some perverse tendency we humans have. And I won't argue with the general perception that Wikipedia seems to be more bureaucratic than it used to be. (Ironic for a project created by a libertarian.)
Maybe it's that I've always found my pleasure in Wikipedia from finding & sharing information. I enjoy reading, & am always hunting thru Amazon, Alibris & Abebooks for titles I don't have. I focus on the writing & not on dealing with the cranks, kooks, & promoters seeking to push their own beliefs, theories or products. I stay to my own corners of Wikipedia, & am left alone in my ivy-clad, digital tower to try to produce useful information. I notice that a number of long-term Wikipedians are doing much the same thing. And maybe after Wikipedia is no longer the K-rad k3wl website to be, those of us who are left can get back to the important duty of passing knowledge on to future generations -- as long as there is electricity, of course.
I used to believe exactly that. I even argued that interpretation on my blog. But note that even there I found that with a little research one could crank out quite a large number of articles with a minimum of research. (That reminds me: I need to finish those 500-odd articles I started on town in Ethiopia. Boy, what a determined Perl hacker can create with access to the right set of census returns.)
However, I think Dragonflight's study shows that the cause lies in the fact that the pool of contributors has a finite size. Whether this is due to the fact that writing encyclopedia articles is an unusual hobby, or that Wikipedia's current policies are driving away would-be contributors, is another issue.
> Wikipedia itself has implemented some stupid policies and some unintentionally > hilarious policies. The decision this year to start removing images from thousands > of pages because of copyright concerns is just insanity to the nth degree.
Hey guy, I'm an Admin, & I've been one longer than some of these kids have been editors to Wikipedia. Guess what: I agree with you.
Not all Admins agree with each other. We're a diverse bunch, & come to Wikipedia from different backgrounds. Talk to a few of us, as you would a colleague, especially if the Admin has been around for a while; you might be surprised at the response.
Wow, TBSDY, I thought I was the only one on Wikipedia who experienced ups & downs in my faith in Wikipedia. There was a time when depending on the week -- or even the day -- my attitude towards the project could be 180 degrees different. Troublemakers brought me down, while the occasional positive comment from someone off-Wiki brought me right back up.
What I finally had to do was to tell myself not to get too involved in the whole endeavor. Don't get too worked up that some ignorant git just reverted some carefully-researched contribution I made because it was allegedly "original research". Don't obsess over the fact that probably the only person who reads the articles I write are high school students looking for material they can plagiarize for a paper that's due the next day. And those obnoxious types who insist on forcing their own idiosyncratic opinions or theories into Wikipedia? I've seen every last one of them eventually either get the boot -- or leave.
I don't always succeed, but it's the thought that counts.
Wikipedia is a fun hobby. But when you try to make it your life, it becomes about as much fun as working in a call center.
Hey, did you know that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Bristow was based on SlimVirgin? So you better only say nice things about her, or she'll use her spy-world connections to find out where you live, hunt you down & kick your ass.
Yeah, I was being sarcastic there. No one's ass will be kicked by anyone I know.
More to the point, I've editted Wikipedia for almost 5 years now, & I've never had a run-in with either SlimVirgin or Jayjg. I don't always agree with either of them, but never thought they had more clout than anyone else. (Jayjg once had trouble with the same kook I did, & he came to *me* for advice.) I do my stuff, & they do theirs. With over 2 million articles, there's no need to fight with anybody over one article.
Wikipedia isn't a perfect world. As the membership gets larger, there is an inevitable regression to the mean; there are only so many people in the world who are good at writing encyclopedia articles, & not all of them have the needed skills to succeed at Wikipedia. Admittedly, the environment of Wikipedia used to be far more cool -- but I'm old enough to remember when anyone could approach Linus with a patch & have him seriously consider it for inclusion to the Linux kernel.
> Except that they can't. They're forbidden by WP:COI from editing their own article - under penalty of change reversion and/or blocklisting.
Er, you misunderstand that. "Wikipedia: Conflict of Interest" is a guideline, not a policy. Someone won't get blocked from Wikipedia for violating it, but many people who violate it often also break many other rules & those are what lead to the block.
Contributors get hit with "change reversion" all of the time -- I've had it happen to me several times. It's known as a difference in opinion.
In short, it's a strongly-pushed suggestion not to edit articles one has a financial stake in, not a requirement. If there was a code of ethical behavior on Wikipedia, we might allow paid contributors to work on material related to their professions. But we don't (mostly because no one has thought of it or how to enforce it), so we just discourage people from doing it. Even if it might improve articles.
You're missing the point of notability. Obscure subjects can be notable, for the simple reason that "notability" on Wikipedia is a shorthand for whether it's believable that someone would actually want to read an article on the subject in question. All species of life are considered notable, for example, as are items in a few other areas.
The concept of "notability" was created because Wikipedia is constantly bombarded with new articles about someone's significant other, garage bands who have yet to relase an album, businesses looking for free advertising, and crackpot theories. Some people think that having an article on Wikipedia is a passport to fame & credibility. What we try to do on Wikipedia is report what other people believe is notable. And most -- I'll freely admit, not all, we do make mistakes -- of the articles that fail the notability guidelines are obviously of no interest except to a very few people -- if anyone beyond it's original author.
We are not an arbitor of importance: we're just trying to write an encyclopedia about topics people want to read, not include every last possible scrap of information conceivable. Unfortunately, with Wikipedia's high Alexa rating, too many people think that an Wikipedia leads to fame.
> Critics of WP frequently claim that supporters > consider it to be a "legitimate, citable source", yet I've never seen any supporters of WP say that it is, or is > ever meant to be.
I've been contributing to Wikipedia for over 4 years now, & the only improvement I could make on what you wrote is to admit that I still occasionally cringe when something I've had a hand in writing is quoted by someone. And I believe that every one of the better editors feel the same way: we simply are amazed -- although grateful -- that anyone else finds our hobby useful.
And some of the critics assume that our intent with Wikipedia is to provide the definitive answer on any subject, & base their criticism on that belief. Editors who believe that don't last very long in the Wikipedia environment; the stress pushing their opinion (as well as achieving perfection) at the least accelerates burnout. All of us do our best, knowing that someone is bound to come along who will improve on it -- & at least I hope that I will recognize this when it happens to me.
> After speaking with a few heavy Wikipedia contributors at RecentChanges, > I got the impression that many editors burn out because they get no recognition > or thanks when they do things right, but people complain and argue when > they do something they percieve as wrong.
First, I need to confess that I was one of the people who is being quoted here. (I don't know if I could be described as a "heavy contributor" to Wikipedia, but I have contributed to it since October 2002.) And I'm being quoted fairly accurately: lack of recognition on Wikipedia does lead to burn-out: I've seen a number of good contributors decide that they've had enough, say good-bye & leave.
My intent in saying this was to emphasize that the people who contribute are people too: we get energized from praise, both from our fellow contributors & from people outside. While David is correct point out that there are a number of ways to give positive feedback, it's too infrequently used.
There are many reasons for this lack of use than simple forgetfulness. But pointing out that this is needed helps remind people & fights that cause. Positive reinforcement os needed in any volunteer project -- be it Wikipedia, an Open Software project, or something in the non-Internet world.
I think you're misreading the response; speaking for me, it's more along the lines of "even if this is true, O'Gara acted in an indefensible manner." And even if it is true, this information is being offered to the wrong crowd. I'm sure that almost every reader here knows at least one person at least as odd as this offered profile, who delivers commendable work: the computer industry is full of people with less than adequate social skills.
If I may offer some concern for Ms O'Gara (hey, even crack whores are people with feelings too!), I hope she investigated the wrong person & didn't make this story up powered by the mind-altering substance of her own choice. Because if she did, she's a liar & her career as a pundit or journalist is ended: even the Corporate Media has little use for proven liars.
> Dvorak does this all the time to increase page impressions. Don't even bother reading the article.
That's why I'm reading the comments on/., & not TFA. I'm sure what I read here is far more original & insightful than whatever he's slapped into his word processor.
But I am left with one question: is Dvorak's article even as insightful as the oft-reprinted "BSD is dying" troll post?
Geoff
Re:Portland Area Computer Bits Columnist?
on
Linux Cookbook
·
· Score: 1
She is, indeed, the same Carla. Used to live near Portland, but moved away from the big city about the same time Linus moved here.
I don't think the two events are connected, though.
> My guess is that the bushman will have a hard time figuring out what the mouse is for. Most likely they > will use the mouse as a slingshot and head back into the jungle.
By definition, Bushmen live in the desert (aka, "the Bush"), not the jungle. That would be one lost Bushman who went to the jungle.
I guess you could argue, though, that the mental exhaustion from trying to understand computers would cause enough disorientation send any desert dweller to move to the jungle. I know there are work days that end with my feeling the same way.
> It always seems to annoy me, when speaking with people from other cultures, that they never tend to tell who > they are when speaking with them...
If you're thinking about business calls, I suspect it's due to the fact that when you call any business, you end up being transferred once or twice until you get someone who will actually respond to your call -- & rarely knows anything that you have explained to the previous person. So the process goes like this:
Caller: Hello, it's [caller's name], I'm calling about [issue].
Recipient3: Hmm. I'll need to look that up on the computer. Can I have [caller's name] and [unique identification string]?
[hopefully begin conversation]
As a result, I have been trained out of volunteering my name until I've reached Recipient2. And those automated phone systems that ask for name & account at the beginning to "speed things up", seem to simply copy everything you tell it to/dev/null, & only add one more step in the process.
> To be honest though, it really shakes my confidence in Wikipedia articles, I mean how much is actually missed > by the policemen?
It's a fact that the quality of Wikipedia will always be uneven -- but so is the quality of our general knowledge: we know some topics in far greater detail than others. This is due to the vagarities of human interest: some topics attract more people & resources than others.
This same principle applies to fighting vandalism on Wikipedia. Articles that are importnat will be more closely watched for vandalism than those that are not. For example, if you wanted to write some nonsense about an imaginary or little-known village in Africa or South America, chances are that should it escape notice in the first day or two, this nonsense may persist for months or years. But then, if no one knows about this -- or cares -- what damage does it do?
This issue reminds me of the alleged practice of encyclopedia companies long ago, who would create articles about fictional cities or towns in order to catch illegal copying: if no one consults these articles, does it truly harm anyone?
> 15 or so years ago Dvorak had some insightful articles, even if they didn't always come 100% true. Nowadays > he's another has-been from a past era trying to pimp his FUD and general tech conspiracy theories. IMO, if you > steadily bet AGAINST Dvorak you'll come out ahead over the long run.
You got it in one. Dvorak must have remembered that he had a column due, indulged in his intoxicant of choice, picked some random news items & used them as an excuse to indulge in some superifical reflections.
Speaking as someone who has contributed for a long time to Wikipedia, there is no simple way that Google could take control of Wikipedia. (There are days when I wonder if *anyone* could control Wikipedia.) Because its content is licensed under a form of the GPL (as well as many parts under the Creative Commons license), if you can read it, you can copy it & fork it. Making a mirror of Wikipedia is not only possible, it has been done: there are countless websites that mirror Wikipedia's content, some more up to date than others, some using the material as a starting place for their own encyclopedias. Further, many of the non-English Wikipedias have their own communities & are establishing their own servers; even if Google somehow got control of the main servers in Florida, it would be trivial for the groups in Europe to immediately fork.
And community is an important part of this. Were Google to start limiting access to Wikipedia, *many* volunteers would leave -- either to a fork, or stop contributing entirely. In a very short time, what was left of the original Wikipedia site would have minimal value, ravaged by bitrot, out-of-date information, & unchecked vandalism.
IMHO, the best Google could do here is offer a better interface to Wikipedia than Wikipedia has. The ability to edit Wikipedia will undoubtedly remain on their servers; to attempt to share this ability would result either in a technological mess or a fork.
Lastly, having exchanged emails with Jimbo Wales, the de facto leader of this project & having read much of what he has written about Wikipedia, I sincerely doubt he has any interest in converting it into a for-profit Internet venture. For one thing, he has been working to push the legal responsibility off of his shoulders & onto an international board of directors. And for another, he seems to be having too much fun travelling around the world on behalf of Wikipedia & its related projects: he clearly gets far more satisfaction from this being open & free to everyone, than he would if he converted this project into a big pile of cash. At present, more people listen & value what Jimbo has to say than what Dvorak writes; that fact alone must stick in this has-been Ziff-Davis' columnist's craw & color anything Dvorak has to say about Wikipedia.
> So I'm forced to conclude that > if not IBM, one of the other hardware/Unix vendors would have done what they did. The other hardware/Unix > vendors, in the no-Windows scenario, would be in the same place that IBM was in today's world, with the same > options available.
How soon we forget. There were other Unix vendors who decided to throw their lot in with Linux, before IBM made their announcement. DEC loaned an Alpha workstation to Linus to encourage him to develop for their RISC processor over the PPC back in 1995. If Microsoft & IBM had continued together with OS/2, I doubt DEC would have tried to partner with them (as it did with Microsoft to promote NT on the Alpha), & may have decided to start supporting Linux a year or two before IBM did -- & succeeded in turning the company around. DEC may have ended up swallowing Compaq instead of the other way around.
Then there was SGI, who made their announcement that they were supporting Linux a few months before IBM. (I remember this well because I attended their road show when it came to Portland. They provided free microbrews to the attendees.) Had IBM not stolen their thunder, & had they not been previously distracted with their unsuccessful foray supporting NT on x86 (remember, in our alternative universe OS/2 is now the standard), I suspect SGI would likely have become the big Linux name & would be doing far better now than they are. (Perhaps graphic artists would be using SGI Linux workstations as their platofrm of choice instead of Macs.)
It was a big boost to Linux that IBM endorsed it, but by that point it was only a metter of time before some corporation took the jump. In this alternate universe where Windows 3.0 never happened, we'd probably be in much the same situation -- only the names of the players would be different.
Slashdot links to an article about the recovery of some of Hipparchus' astronomical data, & readers respond with a long thread about a statue's penus. What did you think would happen?
Next up: Which famous programmer started his career after hvaing over a hundred submissions rejected by Letters to Penthouse? Become a subscriber now, & Slashdot will furnish the URL to this & more. Read the very story that caused one porno editor to respond, ``Have you even figured out how to jerk off?"
If you have an idea where the spyware gets installed, & how it gets loaded into your system on boot, then it's surprisingly easy to find malware the other software miss.
My knowledge of the newer releases of Windows frankly sucks, but it took me only a couple of evenings to figure out the tricks & finish the job of cleaning up my wife's computer that Ad-Aware & SpyBot failed to finish. (I would have learned faster had I not wasted time thinking that these scumbags are make their code work by performing esoteric tricks with the Windows Registry.) These programs relied on truly simple tricks: putting their executables in C:\windows\system, C:\windows32 (one was a batch file that on startup would look for its binary, & if it was not there, download it from an IP address); giving them garbage names that stood out like a sore thumb against the usual cryptic names you find under Windows; & hiding any trace of their origin. I found that malware frequently confessed itself when I checked the Properties window of a suspicious file: if there was no information about it, not even a copyright note, it usually proved to be malware.
I spent a lot of time using Task Manager, killing suspicious processes, then renaming the related.exe files to.dud & rebooting. (I have to say that I later found Search & Destroy's tool for editting the Startup configuration priceless when I had to repeat the same work on my sister's computer!)
The point I'm trying to make here, in a round-about fashion, is that spyware still is a lot like spam: we know it when we see it, but we can't yet reduce it to a simple algorhythm so we can let a program block it without error. All of the programs mentioned here will inevitably fail, & will continue to fail to catch every instance of malware -- or report false positives. (When I was cleaning my sister's computer, I needed her & her daughters' help to identify all of the suspicious programs I found; they knew what should be on the computer.)
. . . by the time I read this article, almost 300 people have posted comments: some insightful, some defending MS's actions, & certainly at least one funny joke. But as far as I can tell, this is the first to address the issue "What can we do about it?"
Any other ideas? Or shall we just gripe for another 300 posts about how the US patent system is broken & run by a bunch of lusers?
Reading this retort, I was immediately reminded of Tannenbaum's comment about the bully in his school. If you really _don't_ care what the rest of the world thinks of the U.S., then don't be surprised when they aren't willing to help us the next time a terrorist attack strikes us.
Considering just how crappy our economic health is at the moment, an international boycott would only make things in the U.S. worse, irregardless of the size of our economy. And I wouldn't be surprised if that came to pass.
You quoted Jefferson to say "The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered by me [as President] according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption"
However, Jefferson also warned about the chilling effect of the "dead hand of the past" upon the implimentation of the Constitution by future generations. And he was also not the only one: James Madison kept the minutes of the Constitutional Convention out of print for a many years with the express intent of permitting this document to be understood free of that same dead hand.
And frankly, the interstate commerce clause has a lot of case law defining its use & reinforcing its relevance both here & elsewhere. This is no theoretical point: you are matching 2 quotations from speeches Jefferson delivered (which only express his opinion, & perhaps not accurately on the topic of "interstate commerce") against thousands of pages of binding legal judgement delivered by hundreds of other people. If you don't like that fact, then agitate for an amendment to the US Constitution.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish I could think of something to say that would change your mind, to make you feel better -- but I can't think of anything that wouldn't sound insincere. You're right about the fact that Wikipedians who don't edit articles get more respect; I don't know why this is -- perhaps it's some perverse tendency we humans have. And I won't argue with the general perception that Wikipedia seems to be more bureaucratic than it used to be. (Ironic for a project created by a libertarian.)
Maybe it's that I've always found my pleasure in Wikipedia from finding & sharing information. I enjoy reading, & am always hunting thru Amazon, Alibris & Abebooks for titles I don't have. I focus on the writing & not on dealing with the cranks, kooks, & promoters seeking to push their own beliefs, theories or products. I stay to my own corners of Wikipedia, & am left alone in my ivy-clad, digital tower to try to produce useful information. I notice that a number of long-term Wikipedians are doing much the same thing. And maybe after Wikipedia is no longer the K-rad k3wl website to be, those of us who are left can get back to the important duty of passing knowledge on to future generations -- as long as there is electricity, of course.
Geoff
I used to believe exactly that. I even argued that interpretation on my blog. But note that even there I found that with a little research one could crank out quite a large number of articles with a minimum of research. (That reminds me: I need to finish those 500-odd articles I started on town in Ethiopia. Boy, what a determined Perl hacker can create with access to the right set of census returns.)
However, I think Dragonflight's study shows that the cause lies in the fact that the pool of contributors has a finite size. Whether this is due to the fact that writing encyclopedia articles is an unusual hobby, or that Wikipedia's current policies are driving away would-be contributors, is another issue.
Geoff
> Wikipedia itself has implemented some stupid policies and some unintentionally
> hilarious policies. The decision this year to start removing images from thousands
> of pages because of copyright concerns is just insanity to the nth degree.
Hey guy, I'm an Admin, & I've been one longer than some of these kids have been editors to Wikipedia. Guess what: I agree with you.
Not all Admins agree with each other. We're a diverse bunch, & come to Wikipedia from different backgrounds. Talk to a few of us, as you would a colleague, especially if the Admin has been around for a while; you might be surprised at the response.
Geoff
Wow, TBSDY, I thought I was the only one on Wikipedia who experienced ups & downs in my faith in Wikipedia. There was a time when depending on the week -- or even the day -- my attitude towards the project could be 180 degrees different. Troublemakers brought me down, while the occasional positive comment from someone off-Wiki brought me right back up.
What I finally had to do was to tell myself not to get too involved in the whole endeavor. Don't get too worked up that some ignorant git just reverted some carefully-researched contribution I made because it was allegedly "original research". Don't obsess over the fact that probably the only person who reads the articles I write are high school students looking for material they can plagiarize for a paper that's due the next day. And those obnoxious types who insist on forcing their own idiosyncratic opinions or theories into Wikipedia? I've seen every last one of them eventually either get the boot -- or leave.
I don't always succeed, but it's the thought that counts.
Wikipedia is a fun hobby. But when you try to make it your life, it becomes about as much fun as working in a call center.
Geoff
Hey, did you know that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Bristow was based on SlimVirgin? So you better only say nice things about her, or she'll use her spy-world connections to find out where you live, hunt you down & kick your ass.
Yeah, I was being sarcastic there. No one's ass will be kicked by anyone I know.
More to the point, I've editted Wikipedia for almost 5 years now, & I've never had a run-in with either SlimVirgin or Jayjg. I don't always agree with either of them, but never thought they had more clout than anyone else. (Jayjg once had trouble with the same kook I did, & he came to *me* for advice.) I do my stuff, & they do theirs. With over 2 million articles, there's no need to fight with anybody over one article.
Wikipedia isn't a perfect world. As the membership gets larger, there is an inevitable regression to the mean; there are only so many people in the world who are good at writing encyclopedia articles, & not all of them have the needed skills to succeed at Wikipedia. Admittedly, the environment of Wikipedia used to be far more cool -- but I'm old enough to remember when anyone could approach Linus with a patch & have him seriously consider it for inclusion to the Linux kernel.
Geoff
> Except that they can't. They're forbidden by WP:COI from editing their own article - under penalty of change reversion and/or blocklisting.
Er, you misunderstand that. "Wikipedia: Conflict of Interest" is a guideline, not a policy. Someone won't get blocked from Wikipedia for violating it, but many people who violate it often also break many other rules & those are what lead to the block.
Contributors get hit with "change reversion" all of the time -- I've had it happen to me several times. It's known as a difference in opinion.
In short, it's a strongly-pushed suggestion not to edit articles one has a financial stake in, not a requirement. If there was a code of ethical behavior on Wikipedia, we might allow paid contributors to work on material related to their professions. But we don't (mostly because no one has thought of it or how to enforce it), so we just discourage people from doing it. Even if it might improve articles.
Geoff
You're missing the point of notability. Obscure subjects can be notable, for the simple reason that "notability" on Wikipedia is a shorthand for whether it's believable that someone would actually want to read an article on the subject in question. All species of life are considered notable, for example, as are items in a few other areas.
The concept of "notability" was created because Wikipedia is constantly bombarded with new articles about someone's significant other, garage bands who have yet to relase an album, businesses looking for free advertising, and crackpot theories. Some people think that having an article on Wikipedia is a passport to fame & credibility. What we try to do on Wikipedia is report what other people believe is notable. And most -- I'll freely admit, not all, we do make mistakes -- of the articles that fail the notability guidelines are obviously of no interest except to a very few people -- if anyone beyond it's original author.
We are not an arbitor of importance: we're just trying to write an encyclopedia about topics people want to read, not include every last possible scrap of information conceivable. Unfortunately, with Wikipedia's high Alexa rating, too many people think that an Wikipedia leads to fame.
Geoff
> Critics of WP frequently claim that supporters
> consider it to be a "legitimate, citable source", yet I've never seen any supporters of WP say that it is, or is
> ever meant to be.
I've been contributing to Wikipedia for over 4 years now, & the only improvement I could make on what you wrote is to admit that I still occasionally cringe when something I've had a hand in writing is quoted by someone. And I believe that every one of the better editors feel the same way: we simply are amazed -- although grateful -- that anyone else finds our hobby useful.
And some of the critics assume that our intent with Wikipedia is to provide the definitive answer on any subject, & base their criticism on that belief. Editors who believe that don't last very long in the Wikipedia environment; the stress pushing their opinion (as well as achieving perfection) at the least accelerates burnout. All of us do our best, knowing that someone is bound to come along who will improve on it -- & at least I hope that I will recognize this when it happens to me.
Geoff
> After speaking with a few heavy Wikipedia contributors at RecentChanges,
> I got the impression that many editors burn out because they get no recognition
> or thanks when they do things right, but people complain and argue when
> they do something they percieve as wrong.
First, I need to confess that I was one of the people who is being quoted here. (I don't know if I could be described as a "heavy contributor" to Wikipedia, but I have contributed to it since October 2002.) And I'm being quoted fairly accurately: lack of recognition on Wikipedia does lead to burn-out: I've seen a number of good contributors decide that they've had enough, say good-bye & leave.
My intent in saying this was to emphasize that the people who contribute are people too: we get energized from praise, both from our fellow contributors & from people outside. While David is correct point out that there are a number of ways to give positive feedback, it's too infrequently used.
There are many reasons for this lack of use than simple forgetfulness. But pointing out that this is needed helps remind people & fights that cause. Positive reinforcement os needed in any volunteer project -- be it Wikipedia, an Open Software project, or something in the non-Internet world.
Geoff
I think you're misreading the response; speaking for me, it's more along the lines of "even if this is true, O'Gara acted in an indefensible manner." And even if it is true, this information is being offered to the wrong crowd. I'm sure that almost every reader here knows at least one person at least as odd as this offered profile, who delivers commendable work: the computer industry is full of people with less than adequate social skills.
If I may offer some concern for Ms O'Gara (hey, even crack whores are people with feelings too!), I hope she investigated the wrong person & didn't make this story up powered by the mind-altering substance of her own choice. Because if she did, she's a liar & her career as a pundit or journalist is ended: even the Corporate Media has little use for proven liars.
Geoff
> Dvorak does this all the time to increase page impressions. Don't even bother reading the article.
/., & not TFA. I'm sure what I read here is far more original & insightful than whatever he's slapped into his word processor.
That's why I'm reading the comments on
But I am left with one question: is Dvorak's article even as insightful as the oft-reprinted "BSD is dying" troll post?
Geoff
She is, indeed, the same Carla. Used to live near Portland, but moved away from the big city about the same time Linus moved here.
I don't think the two events are connected, though.
Geoff
> My guess is that the bushman will have a hard time figuring out what the mouse is for. Most likely they
> will use the mouse as a slingshot and head back into the jungle.
By definition, Bushmen live in the desert (aka, "the Bush"), not the jungle. That would be one lost Bushman who went to the jungle.
I guess you could argue, though, that the mental exhaustion from trying to understand computers would cause enough disorientation send any desert dweller to move to the jungle. I know there are work days that end with my feeling the same way.
Geoff
If you looked at this list & expected to see it end:
Paragraph 7: ???
Paragraph 8: Profit!
Geoff
I don't like my Mom (er, step-mother) much either, but I think I could get more for her than you did for yours.
Geoff
> It always seems to annoy me, when speaking with people from other cultures, that they never tend to tell who
/dev/null, & only add one more step in the process.
> they are when speaking with them...
If you're thinking about business calls, I suspect it's due to the fact that when you call any business, you end up being transferred once or twice until you get someone who will actually respond to your call -- & rarely knows anything that you have explained to the previous person. So the process goes like this:
Ring!
Recipient1: Hello, it's [recipient1's name] || Welcome to [company], I'm [recipient1's name] || [recipient1's phone Number]
Caller: Hello, it's [caller's name], I'm calling about [issue].
Recipient1: Okay, [issue] is handled by Recipient2. Let me transfer you to Recipient2.
[call is transferred]
Recipient2: Hello, it's [recipient2's name] || Welcome to [company], I'm [recipient2's name] || [recipient2's phone Number]
Caller: Hello, it's [caller's name], I'm calling about [issue].
Recipient2: Okay, [issue] is handled by Recipient3. let me transfer you to Recipient3.
[call is transferred]
Recipient3: Hello, it's [recipient3's name] || Welcome to [company], I'm [recipient3's name] || [recipient2's phone Number]
Caller: Hello, it's [caller's name], I'm calling about [issue].
Recipient3: Hmm. I'll need to look that up on the computer. Can I have [caller's name] and [unique identification string]?
[hopefully begin conversation]
As a result, I have been trained out of volunteering my name until I've reached Recipient2. And those automated phone systems that ask for name & account at the beginning to "speed things up", seem to simply copy everything you tell it to
Geoff
> To be honest though, it really shakes my confidence in Wikipedia articles, I mean how much is actually missed
> by the policemen?
It's a fact that the quality of Wikipedia will always be uneven -- but so is the quality of our general knowledge: we know some topics in far greater detail than others. This is due to the vagarities of human interest: some topics attract more people & resources than others.
This same principle applies to fighting vandalism on Wikipedia. Articles that are importnat will be more closely watched for vandalism than those that are not. For example, if you wanted to write some nonsense about an imaginary or little-known village in Africa or South America, chances are that should it escape notice in the first day or two, this nonsense may persist for months or years. But then, if no one knows about this -- or cares -- what damage does it do?
This issue reminds me of the alleged practice of encyclopedia companies long ago, who would create articles about fictional cities or towns in order to catch illegal copying: if no one consults these articles, does it truly harm anyone?
Geoff
> You are still tying together two unrelated things.
Maybe. But the fact remains that by quitting his job he saved his life.
Geoff
> 15 or so years ago Dvorak had some insightful articles, even if they didn't always come 100% true. Nowadays
> he's another has-been from a past era trying to pimp his FUD and general tech conspiracy theories. IMO, if you
> steadily bet AGAINST Dvorak you'll come out ahead over the long run.
You got it in one. Dvorak must have remembered that he had a column due, indulged in his intoxicant of choice, picked some random news items & used them as an excuse to indulge in some superifical reflections.
Speaking as someone who has contributed for a long time to Wikipedia, there is no simple way that Google could take control of Wikipedia. (There are days when I wonder if *anyone* could control Wikipedia.) Because its content is licensed under a form of the GPL (as well as many parts under the Creative Commons license), if you can read it, you can copy it & fork it. Making a mirror of Wikipedia is not only possible, it has been done: there are countless websites that mirror Wikipedia's content, some more up to date than others, some using the material as a starting place for their own encyclopedias. Further, many of the non-English Wikipedias have their own communities & are establishing their own servers; even if Google somehow got control of the main servers in Florida, it would be trivial for the groups in Europe to immediately fork.
And community is an important part of this. Were Google to start limiting access to Wikipedia, *many* volunteers would leave -- either to a fork, or stop contributing entirely. In a very short time, what was left of the original Wikipedia site would have minimal value, ravaged by bitrot, out-of-date information, & unchecked vandalism.
IMHO, the best Google could do here is offer a better interface to Wikipedia than Wikipedia has. The ability to edit Wikipedia will undoubtedly remain on their servers; to attempt to share this ability would result either in a technological mess or a fork.
Lastly, having exchanged emails with Jimbo Wales, the de facto leader of this project & having read much of what he has written about Wikipedia, I sincerely doubt he has any interest in converting it into a for-profit Internet venture. For one thing, he has been working to push the legal responsibility off of his shoulders & onto an international board of directors. And for another, he seems to be having too much fun travelling around the world on behalf of Wikipedia & its related projects: he clearly gets far more satisfaction from this being open & free to everyone, than he would if he converted this project into a big pile of cash. At present, more people listen & value what Jimbo has to say than what Dvorak writes; that fact alone must stick in this has-been Ziff-Davis' columnist's craw & color anything Dvorak has to say about Wikipedia.
Geoff
> So I'm forced to conclude that
> if not IBM, one of the other hardware/Unix vendors would have done what they did. The other hardware/Unix
> vendors, in the no-Windows scenario, would be in the same place that IBM was in today's world, with the same
> options available.
How soon we forget. There were other Unix vendors who decided to throw their lot in with Linux, before IBM made their announcement. DEC loaned an Alpha workstation to Linus to encourage him to develop for their RISC processor over the PPC back in 1995. If Microsoft & IBM had continued together with OS/2, I doubt DEC would have tried to partner with them (as it did with Microsoft to promote NT on the Alpha), & may have decided to start supporting Linux a year or two before IBM did -- & succeeded in turning the company around. DEC may have ended up swallowing Compaq instead of the other way around.
Then there was SGI, who made their announcement that they were supporting Linux a few months before IBM. (I remember this well because I attended their road show when it came to Portland. They provided free microbrews to the attendees.) Had IBM not stolen their thunder, & had they not been previously distracted with their unsuccessful foray supporting NT on x86 (remember, in our alternative universe OS/2 is now the standard), I suspect SGI would likely have become the big Linux name & would be doing far better now than they are. (Perhaps graphic artists would be using SGI Linux workstations as their platofrm of choice instead of Macs.)
It was a big boost to Linux that IBM endorsed it,
but by that point it was only a metter of time before some corporation took the jump. In this alternate universe where Windows 3.0 never happened, we'd probably be in much the same situation -- only the names of the players would be different.
Geoff
Slashdot links to an article about the recovery of some of Hipparchus' astronomical data, & readers respond with a long thread about a statue's penus. What did you think would happen?
Next up: Which famous programmer started his career after hvaing over a hundred submissions rejected by Letters to Penthouse? Become a subscriber now, & Slashdot will furnish the URL to this & more. Read the very story that caused one porno editor to respond, ``Have you even figured out how to jerk off?"
Geoff
If you have an idea where the spyware gets installed, & how it gets loaded into your system on boot, then it's surprisingly easy to find malware the other software miss.
.exe files to .dud & rebooting. (I have to say that I later found Search & Destroy's tool for editting the Startup configuration priceless when I had to repeat the same work on my sister's computer!)
My knowledge of the newer releases of Windows frankly sucks, but it took me only a couple of evenings to figure out the tricks & finish the job of cleaning up my wife's computer that Ad-Aware & SpyBot failed to finish. (I would have learned faster had I not wasted time thinking that these scumbags are make their code work by performing esoteric tricks with the Windows Registry.) These programs relied on truly simple tricks: putting their executables in C:\windows\system, C:\windows32 (one was a batch file that on startup would look for its binary, & if it was not there, download it from an IP address); giving them garbage names that stood out like a sore thumb against the usual cryptic names you find under Windows; & hiding any trace of their origin. I found that malware frequently confessed itself when I checked the Properties window of a suspicious file: if there was no information about it, not even a copyright note, it usually proved to be malware.
I spent a lot of time using Task Manager, killing suspicious processes, then renaming the related
The point I'm trying to make here, in a round-about fashion, is that spyware still is a lot like spam: we know it when we see it, but we can't yet reduce it to a simple algorhythm so we can let a program block it without error. All of the programs mentioned here will inevitably fail, & will continue to fail to catch every instance of malware -- or report false positives. (When I was cleaning my sister's computer, I needed her & her daughters' help to identify all of the suspicious programs I found; they knew what should be on the computer.)
Geoff
. . . by the time I read this article, almost 300 people have posted comments: some insightful, some defending MS's actions, & certainly at least one funny joke. But as far as I can tell, this is the first to address the issue "What can we do about it?"
Any other ideas? Or shall we just gripe for another 300 posts about how the US patent system is broken & run by a bunch of lusers?
Geoff
Reading this retort, I was immediately reminded of Tannenbaum's comment about the bully in his school. If you really _don't_ care what the rest of the world thinks of the U.S., then don't be surprised when they aren't willing to help us the next time a terrorist attack strikes us.
Considering just how crappy our economic health is at the moment, an international boycott would only make things in the U.S. worse, irregardless of the size of our economy. And I wouldn't be surprised if that came to pass.
Geoff
You quoted Jefferson to say "The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered by me [as President] according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption"
However, Jefferson also warned about the chilling effect of the "dead hand of the past" upon the implimentation of the Constitution by future generations. And he was also not the only one: James Madison kept the minutes of the Constitutional Convention out of print for a many years with the express intent of permitting this document to be understood free of that same dead hand.
And frankly, the interstate commerce clause has a lot of case law defining its use & reinforcing its relevance both here & elsewhere. This is no theoretical point: you are matching 2 quotations from speeches Jefferson delivered (which only express his opinion, & perhaps not accurately on the topic of "interstate commerce") against thousands of pages of binding legal judgement delivered by hundreds of other people. If you don't like that fact, then agitate for an amendment to the US Constitution.
Geoff