"Hmmph, surely if the folks at Gitmo are doing nothing wrong then they should have nothing to hide? Only wrongdoers demand secrecy."
I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you there. Your argument is on the same side as me, but I do have values which I like to stick to. There's no way I could justify to myself advocating personal privacy and anonymity, and then let an argument like that slip by.
That argument is used a lot by people apathetic about CCTV, for example. But in actual fact the argument is based on completely backwards logic, ie. if the point of destroying privacy is to catch bad people then that all that argument advocates is destroying the privacy of good people, which is a bad thing and not what the original point is.
Since this situation is rather different from personal privacy (what I do in my house or during my day is my business, what trained men are payed to do to others based on the orders of people I have trusted with running the country is another matter). By taking on power they take on responsibility, and secrecy is a good way of avoiding responsibility.
That seems to be the only argument against sharing bandwidth. The problem with it is that you're ALREADY sharing your bandwidth, since your ISP will have sold the bandwidth you have payed for to many many other people. Thus, the only real difference between sharing a Wifi network and not sharing it is that in one scenario your ISP (which is shafting you) gets payed again and again for the same tubes.
The number of times people say to me that they're hurting Microsoft because they're using an unlicensed copy of Windows has become so frustrating. Microsoft is one of the largest corporations in the world, they don't give a crap about what some Joe Nobody does, it's all just statistics for them, and if copying Windows hurts Microsoft then why are they such a huge juggernaut in a world full of unlicensed copies?
This story shows that the reverse is true, that anybody, anywhere who is running Windows, licensed or not, is helping Microsoft. Microsoft paying people to use Windows clearly shows this, since $400,000 isn't a small sum, thus having 17,000 unpaying users is worth more than $400,000 to MS.
Of course, a decade ago this wouldn't have happened, since MS knew that they were firmly entrenched. These days, however, Microsoft is scared of Linux and Free Software. The only thing keeping Windows around is, ironically, interoperability, so switching to Linux can be a bit difficult with regards to sharing files with the Windows machines around you, running off the shelf programs, etc. (although it's improving all the time), but when there are big installations like this that reason goes out of the window: If everyone around you is using Linux (or whatever, since open standards like ODF, SVG, etc. are often implemented in (non-MS) proprietary programs too) then there is no reason not to run it yourself. The difference is that switching to something else in the future should be a lot less painful.
He emailed Microsoft his bank details and is now just awaiting the first deposit... Oops, I mean: he emaild micro soft his banc detals and is now jsut a wayting the fist depost.
These days people seem overly concerned with things like graphics, which can make gameplay suffer (most games these days are the same FPS/RTS/RPG/etc. just with different graphics, and are thus boring and repetitive). Since people are used to closed source, and see programming as some arcane witchcraft, they aren't too bothered about code reuse.
Therefore having a good codebase to use, like Sim City, means that modern graphics and things can be bolted on without sacrificing gameplay, which can only be a good thing.
How about instead of saying that the Universe is wrong because it doesn't fit our calculations and thus there must be some weird stuff out there called "dark matter" to make our calculations fit, we admit that we are human and that we are not perfect, and accept that some of our observations, calculations and conclusions are wrong? Dark matter was only brought about by people wondering why their calcultions didn't fit what they knew. Now it turns out that what they 'knew' was wrong, the Universe might not be as massive as previously thought, so what other assumptions might be wrong?
Anyone know about the neo-conservative scare mongering during the Cold War? They said the USSR has [insert nightmare weapon here], but when intelligence services looked they couldn't find it. The neocons said "Therefore their weapons must be even more terrible, because they're undetectable!". Scoff all you want, but I think that's a good analogy to dark matter.
"It's because as I understood the explanation, they refuse to buy meat from any meat processors that are unionized which leaves absolute crap companies."
What on Earth is wrong with atoms having an equal number of electrons and protons, and why should that affect meat-buying decisions?
"Application bundles" aren't needed. Ubuntu has a package manager which handles installing and things, which means that the second point is also invalid. Packages have tons of metadata, which makes them much easier to sort, filter, find, etc. than an arbitrary hierarchy. A good improvement would be to build interoperability into the different package management systems used by different Operating Systems, since it is technically possible and would be a nice thing to have. Also, applications can just be run from a folder on some kind of removable drive if wanted.
On your "/Preferences" point, Ubuntu has a folder called ".config" in users' Home folders where settings are stored. I think that having users' settings in their Home is good, since they can be potentially all be on different filesystems and moved between machines (ie. I have my Home folder on a USB hard drive). An improvement would be to get more applications to use the.config convention.
GNOME has some pretty in-depth Human Interface Guidelines, I'm pretty sure KDE does too. I'm sure that if such changes were added to them then you would change your post to say "* Get rid of all of the unused space in virtually every Linux app, it wastes screen real estate" (a phrase I rank up there with "bling bling" on the cheese-based scale of nightmare induction)
In short, different does not mean better or worse than. It means different. Personally I have been using Linux systems for years, and whenever I'm forced to use a Mac I want to throw it at a wall (which probably wouldn't cause too many problems, since the owner'd just say "Thanks, I've been looking for an excuse to blow masses of cash on a replacement now that Leopard is out", and I am actually not kidding).
For all of those Mac fanboys out there all I have to say is this: Call me when your idolised OS will run on my laptop without your idolised company suing my ass (the "I run Windows too" get a mac adverts make me literally shout my frustration. Microsoft don't sue people for running their system on the computer they want to, Apple do so why do they come out as the good guys?)
You can do quite a lot with a floppy disk on a school computer. Unfortunately for a guy in my old school that doesn't include dragging the Internet Explorer icon from the desktop to the floppy so that you can get on the Internet at home.
The guy running the network there was such an ass. He "solved" problems by disabling stuff; by the time I left he had disabled the floppy drives, USB ports, school email, Yahoo/Gmail/Hotmail/etc. and pretty much every way to get work to and from school. Thing is, these were disabled within Windows, so I used a boot floppy to load Damn Small Linux from a USB drive. There's always a way around these things./me types this from a GNOME session he has started up on his University's supposedly locked-down, Firefox-only Sun Microsystems thin client.
Hey!
I didn't know that Ubuntu's new logo was a red spiral!
No no no, you have it the wrong way around! That spiral is the old logo, just that/. hasn't changed it yet. Ubuntu actually used to be called Debian, and that logo is from them days. Now Debian is obsolete and all of the users and developers are using Ubuntu............/me watches/. get consumed in the Apocalypse of all flamewars.
Buy the ISP local to you, then mandate service in your area.
Simple, no?"
Your eloquent suggestion conveys much inefficiency which, as has been shown, is merely an artifact from the humourous implications of adequately performing such an endevour. Whilst myself, in irrelevance to the above posted suggestion, I do not harbour significant experience with extending network availability for perusal of our interconnected Internet system at significant broadband velocities. However, I contemplated the possibility of crafting a comment, in which you are now indulging, that, if forged of sufficiently elongated, detailed and redundant (by which I mean sections of such a message would posses the ability to be removed from the prose and the meaning conveyed would remain intact) language would, on the hardware connection of the original questioner, cause significant delay in the consuming of Slashdot's responses.:P
That's like saying Voltage instead of potential difference, which is a generally accepted term, but unfortunately can lead to use of the term 'Ampage' instead of current which generally makes one sound ignorant. However, I am sure Intel (not to mention Linux fans) would have a problem showcasing a website proudly proclaiming that Linux and Intel means "Less Power".
As far as I can see, moving backwards from the end result: First is Virgin, were following the license terms fully. OK, next along Creative Commons clearly explain the terms of their licenses to everyone (this may be debated, but aside from clear English explanation it is up to anyone using the licenses to read the full legalese version anyway before using it, otherwise they can't complain). Next along is the councellor, now I am not too sure of the laws regarding this area (IANAL), especially US laws, but I'm pretty sure permission needs to be obtained from someone who is photographed before any pictures can be released, so if permission wasn't obtained it is his fault. If permission was obtained but he used a license he didn't understand the implications of (even though, as I said before, Creative Commons do explain the terms) then it is once again his fault. If permission was obtained to distribute the photos under a CC-Attribution license then he has done nothing wrong. Next up is the subject of the photos themselves, but nothing can possibly be wrong from hereon after, either someone gave permission in full knowledge of the implications, in which case they have nothing to complain about, or they did it without ralising the implications, in which case it is their incompetence and thus it is an "oh well" situation, since they gave permission that they were entitled to give and thus should accept the responsibility. Now, I am not from the US so I am not sure exactly how bad the lawsuits get over there, but I would hope that parents wouldn't use the criminal justice system to do their parenting for them, when the most obvious thing to do is say "You don't like what's happened? Maybe that'll teach you to take more interest in things before you accept such responsibility".
Of course, the whole thing just sounds like the parents are after a way to grab some free money, I just wanted to explain how I reached that conclusion.
"In fact, four out of five of the boroughs with the most cameras have a record of solving crime that is below average."
If I was in charge of using CCTV cameras to try and prevent crime then I would try and put the most cameras in areas with below average crime solving rates. In that case such comparisons are useless, only comparisons with previous rates for those areas would be useful (for instance the crime rate might go down by 10%, but can still be below average).
I am not defending blanket CCTV coverage, but likewise I can't let such horrible statistic interpretations go unnoticed. After all, pirates stop global warming.
I think it was Terry Pratchett who described the situation of the Home Office wanting to keep DNA just in case. To paraphrase it was something along the lines of 'We are living in the information age. Wake me up when we are in the understanding age.' The levels of information being gathered and stored in the world is getting really stupid, and as a UK citizen I can tell you this for a fact. Relying on the argument of "in case it proves useful in the future" alone is wrong, since that can also be used as a justification for locking everyone up 24/7. If the latter isn't justifiable by that argument alone, why is the former?
It is a slippery slope we are on, and throwing around such excuses (the worst one, the one which makes me shudder, is "it's alright if you haven't done anything wrong" (the whole meaning of which is backwards)) is a dangerous way to fall further down.
You're basically saying that email is a stupid idea because it won't work with MUDs. Standardisation is an opt-in process, for those that follow it integration will be seamless (as long as the standard is good), for those that don't, well maybe someone will make a dodgy, partially functional hack (see XMPP gateways).
Anyone who buys into the whole LindenDollar thing is pretty naive. SecondLife is good for socialising and expression and stuff, but a real-world economy it is not. If there becomes a way to use services like PayPal inside SL then at least real currency can be dealt with, rather than completely (more so than real money) arbitrary numbers in computer memory.
Of course, I think that SL shouldn't have money in it at all, but if it does grow to be like the Web then it's only a matter of time before there are online stores that are completely SL based.
Linden have already made most of the client GPL (with a clause that tries to appeal to the Free-Software-but-GPL-hater crowd too), only excluding stuff they have licensed from third parties like the voice chat codecs, and they say they want to do the same for the server (which runs on MySQL on Debian, so shouldn't be too hard). The big problem with opening the server is dividing users, and it looks like they're taking an excellent transparent approach to solving this issue. Once that's sorted, so servers can communicate with each other and the mess of multiple incompatible accounts that is instant messaging or social networking can be avoided, then I'd expect them to release the server code pretty quickly.
I originally gave SecondLife a miss, but once they opened the client I gave it a go and it seems like it could be really useful (if I knew more people in there that is).
I prefer Abiword and Gnumeric mainly because they are more lightweight and quicker, and also they don't look butt-ugly as soon as a theme other than the distro's default is used. OpenOffice does have better Microsoft Office document handling, but it is obviously still not perfect. I remember having to fill in a form in a Word format, Abiword didn't open it very well (it was a big table full of text-entry boxes and help tooltips) so I tried it in OpenOffice which fared a little better. I am not annoyed with OpenOffice at all, although maybe with the people who made a form which needs an expensive OS-specific application just to fill in. I managed to stop myself emailing it back in ODF, but the guy on the other end looked at it and went "Woah! Did you do this in OpenOffice or something?"
Just an observation, but where did all of these "Nobody cares about features, what we need is speed!" people come from, and where are they during every Linux vs. Windows argument which inevitably ends up saying "OpenOffice is nowhere near replacing Microsoft Office, call me when they actually get [insert some obscure Microsoft Office feature here]."?
Slashdot Mirror
but how is it wrong?
I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you there. Your argument is on the same side as me, but I do have values which I like to stick to. There's no way I could justify to myself advocating personal privacy and anonymity, and then let an argument like that slip by.
That argument is used a lot by people apathetic about CCTV, for example. But in actual fact the argument is based on completely backwards logic, ie. if the point of destroying privacy is to catch bad people then that all that argument advocates is destroying the privacy of good people, which is a bad thing and not what the original point is.
Since this situation is rather different from personal privacy (what I do in my house or during my day is my business, what trained men are payed to do to others based on the orders of people I have trusted with running the country is another matter). By taking on power they take on responsibility, and secrecy is a good way of avoiding responsibility.
Number 1: Everything we promised would be in Vista but never ended up doing.
Maybe they'll reinvent the Burma-Shave adverts?
That seems to be the only argument against sharing bandwidth. The problem with it is that you're ALREADY sharing your bandwidth, since your ISP will have sold the bandwidth you have payed for to many many other people. Thus, the only real difference between sharing a Wifi network and not sharing it is that in one scenario your ISP (which is shafting you) gets payed again and again for the same tubes.
Two words: Pure Data (Google if you don't know what it is)
This story shows that the reverse is true, that anybody, anywhere who is running Windows, licensed or not, is helping Microsoft. Microsoft paying people to use Windows clearly shows this, since $400,000 isn't a small sum, thus having 17,000 unpaying users is worth more than $400,000 to MS.
Of course, a decade ago this wouldn't have happened, since MS knew that they were firmly entrenched. These days, however, Microsoft is scared of Linux and Free Software. The only thing keeping Windows around is, ironically, interoperability, so switching to Linux can be a bit difficult with regards to sharing files with the Windows machines around you, running off the shelf programs, etc. (although it's improving all the time), but when there are big installations like this that reason goes out of the window: If everyone around you is using Linux (or whatever, since open standards like ODF, SVG, etc. are often implemented in (non-MS) proprietary programs too) then there is no reason not to run it yourself. The difference is that switching to something else in the future should be a lot less painful.
He emailed Microsoft his bank details and is now just awaiting the first deposit... Oops, I mean: he emaild micro soft his banc detals and is now jsut a wayting the fist depost.
These days people seem overly concerned with things like graphics, which can make gameplay suffer (most games these days are the same FPS/RTS/RPG/etc. just with different graphics, and are thus boring and repetitive). Since people are used to closed source, and see programming as some arcane witchcraft, they aren't too bothered about code reuse. Therefore having a good codebase to use, like Sim City, means that modern graphics and things can be bolted on without sacrificing gameplay, which can only be a good thing.
Anyone know about the neo-conservative scare mongering during the Cold War? They said the USSR has [insert nightmare weapon here], but when intelligence services looked they couldn't find it. The neocons said "Therefore their weapons must be even more terrible, because they're undetectable!". Scoff all you want, but I think that's a good analogy to dark matter.
"It's because as I understood the explanation, they refuse to buy meat from any meat processors that are unionized which leaves absolute crap companies." What on Earth is wrong with atoms having an equal number of electrons and protons, and why should that affect meat-buying decisions?
"Application bundles" aren't needed. Ubuntu has a package manager which handles installing and things, which means that the second point is also invalid. Packages have tons of metadata, which makes them much easier to sort, filter, find, etc. than an arbitrary hierarchy. A good improvement would be to build interoperability into the different package management systems used by different Operating Systems, since it is technically possible and would be a nice thing to have. Also, applications can just be run from a folder on some kind of removable drive if wanted. On your "/Preferences" point, Ubuntu has a folder called ".config" in users' Home folders where settings are stored. I think that having users' settings in their Home is good, since they can be potentially all be on different filesystems and moved between machines (ie. I have my Home folder on a USB hard drive). An improvement would be to get more applications to use the .config convention.
GNOME has some pretty in-depth Human Interface Guidelines, I'm pretty sure KDE does too. I'm sure that if such changes were added to them then you would change your post to say "* Get rid of all of the unused space in virtually every Linux app, it wastes screen real estate" (a phrase I rank up there with "bling bling" on the cheese-based scale of nightmare induction)
In short, different does not mean better or worse than. It means different. Personally I have been using Linux systems for years, and whenever I'm forced to use a Mac I want to throw it at a wall (which probably wouldn't cause too many problems, since the owner'd just say "Thanks, I've been looking for an excuse to blow masses of cash on a replacement now that Leopard is out", and I am actually not kidding).
For all of those Mac fanboys out there all I have to say is this: Call me when your idolised OS will run on my laptop without your idolised company suing my ass (the "I run Windows too" get a mac adverts make me literally shout my frustration. Microsoft don't sue people for running their system on the computer they want to, Apple do so why do they come out as the good guys?)
You can do quite a lot with a floppy disk on a school computer. Unfortunately for a guy in my old school that doesn't include dragging the Internet Explorer icon from the desktop to the floppy so that you can get on the Internet at home.
/me types this from a GNOME session he has started up on his University's supposedly locked-down, Firefox-only Sun Microsystems thin client.
The guy running the network there was such an ass. He "solved" problems by disabling stuff; by the time I left he had disabled the floppy drives, USB ports, school email, Yahoo/Gmail/Hotmail/etc. and pretty much every way to get work to and from school. Thing is, these were disabled within Windows, so I used a boot floppy to load Damn Small Linux from a USB drive. There's always a way around these things.
Hey! I didn't know that Ubuntu's new logo was a red spiral! No no no, you have it the wrong way around! That spiral is the old logo, just that /. hasn't changed it yet. Ubuntu actually used to be called Debian, and that logo is from them days. Now Debian is obsolete and all of the users and developers are using Ubuntu. ........... /me watches /. get consumed in the Apocalypse of all flamewars.
Think outside the box.
Buy the ISP local to you, then mandate service in your area.
Simple, no?"
Your eloquent suggestion conveys much inefficiency which, as has been shown, is merely an artifact from the humourous implications of adequately performing such an endevour. Whilst myself, in irrelevance to the above posted suggestion, I do not harbour significant experience with extending network availability for perusal of our interconnected Internet system at significant broadband velocities. However, I contemplated the possibility of crafting a comment, in which you are now indulging, that, if forged of sufficiently elongated, detailed and redundant (by which I mean sections of such a message would posses the ability to be removed from the prose and the meaning conveyed would remain intact) language would, on the hardware connection of the original questioner, cause significant delay in the consuming of Slashdot's responses. :P
That's like saying Voltage instead of potential difference, which is a generally accepted term, but unfortunately can lead to use of the term 'Ampage' instead of current which generally makes one sound ignorant. However, I am sure Intel (not to mention Linux fans) would have a problem showcasing a website proudly proclaiming that Linux and Intel means "Less Power".
Of course, the whole thing just sounds like the parents are after a way to grab some free money, I just wanted to explain how I reached that conclusion.
Any study on the effects on the rest of the plane-WHUMP AAAAA!! MY FACE IS MELTING!!!
"In fact, four out of five of the boroughs with the most cameras have a record of solving crime that is below average."
If I was in charge of using CCTV cameras to try and prevent crime then I would try and put the most cameras in areas with below average crime solving rates. In that case such comparisons are useless, only comparisons with previous rates for those areas would be useful (for instance the crime rate might go down by 10%, but can still be below average).
I am not defending blanket CCTV coverage, but likewise I can't let such horrible statistic interpretations go unnoticed. After all, pirates stop global warming.
I'm concerned about this bit: "... it was actually a good product, 99% of the stability was already removed."
It is a slippery slope we are on, and throwing around such excuses (the worst one, the one which makes me shudder, is "it's alright if you haven't done anything wrong" (the whole meaning of which is backwards)) is a dangerous way to fall further down.
You're basically saying that email is a stupid idea because it won't work with MUDs. Standardisation is an opt-in process, for those that follow it integration will be seamless (as long as the standard is good), for those that don't, well maybe someone will make a dodgy, partially functional hack (see XMPP gateways).
Of course, I think that SL shouldn't have money in it at all, but if it does grow to be like the Web then it's only a matter of time before there are online stores that are completely SL based.
I originally gave SecondLife a miss, but once they opened the client I gave it a go and it seems like it could be really useful (if I knew more people in there that is).
Just an observation, but where did all of these "Nobody cares about features, what we need is speed!" people come from, and where are they during every Linux vs. Windows argument which inevitably ends up saying "OpenOffice is nowhere near replacing Microsoft Office, call me when they actually get [insert some obscure Microsoft Office feature here]."?