No information about where these "perspectives" came from. It's impossible to determine the authorativeness of these statements. I'm certain if you took a different 35 people, you'd get 35 more perspectives, so it's totally irreproducible and therefore not even close to being scientific.
Let's have 35 perspectives on sociologists trying to sound like they understand the internet and how people use it.
Their music will start to come out of copyright in a few years time (1962 +50 = 2012) so
I guess there is money to be made/lost. This is probably the only time when such a window
of opportunity arises, 50 years after the '60s.
Having said that, there's no reason why politicians should feel the need to ask industries if they please, wouldn't mind, curbing some of their more extreme behaviour. If the public voted for them, just pass a law.
This makes it very hard for someone to steal your phone as all your friends get their new phone number."
I believe most theives steal goods to sell them on, rather than to use them themselves.
In that case, so long as they can get ca$h for your goodies, they won't care who has the
number after they've flogged it off. It's not as if they will offer a guarantee, or after-sales
service.
The only real solutions are to prevent items being stolen, or to make it blindingly obvious to
a potential buyer that the item is non-functional
Why is it that america is always preparing for a war?
Because it's a neat way to get around the freedoms and protections afforded to the
populace.
People understand that in war it's necessary to restrict what people may normally
do, in order to "win". Theoretically, once the war is over, the old freedoms can be
restored.
In practice, there are so many rules, laws and protections in place that it's impossible
for a government to obey them all and still enact all the dodgy deals that they, and
their friends want done.
The only way to do that is to remove (temporarily, of course - until the next "war") these
liberties so the govt. can get on with defeating the bad guys, whoever they may be.
As a shortcut, it's very easy to declare war, especially if the enemy is some abstract,
disembodied enemy like "drugs". No-one can question your motives without appearing to be
disloyal. Likewise, with an abstract enemy there's no clear way to tell when the war is
won (or lost!). Consequently the guy in charge can stand up at any time and claim a
victory - who's to say they're wrong?
OK, there's defensive preparations and offensive preparations. I think it would be nice
to know exactly how these guys are intending to fight (offence is the best form of defence?) such a war, before we all become collateral damage?
So, your technically proficient Sci-Fi writers come up with a few ideas about possible threats.
Sadly, the baddies are quite capable of reading the books that these people have written, and can therefore see how they think and therefore what kinds of threat they are predisposed to put forward.
What you've effectively done is to say to the terrorists "don't bother with these strategies,
'cos we've already thought of them". All the terrorists will do is come up with some new and
imaginative ones that none of the writers have ever written about.
Oh yes, what happens if the writers group comes up with a list of (say) 500 previously unconsidered potential threats. Will DHS provide funding to prevent all of them, or will they cherry-pick the most likely? Unless they cover all their bases, they're in a worse situation than before. Not only is there a high probability thay the next 9/11 won't have been one of the few that was countered, but if the authors propose enough possibles, the threat will have been on the list, but ignored. How will DHS cope with the "we told you so" backlash?
"Linux" (the online community?) came about because the contributors wanted to do some
neat work that others could use. The point that what they wanted to do isn't necessarily
what "end-users" want is not really relevant.
If you have a hobby, you don't do it as a way of making money. You do it because you enjoy
it. Same with Linux. Most of the community regard it as a hobby, that also allows them to
more-or-less do work, or play games, or whatever. This however, is a side-effect.
It's only when you get commercial interests coming in and trying to make Linux into something
it is not, i.e. a competitor to a commercial product, that you get criticisms like "out of
touch". Since the developers are donating their work, they are free to donate whatever they
like - and to ignore things they aren't interested in.
I usually avoid communicating a complex controversial idea verbally
Actually I do the opposite. The reason is that people's expressions are the most reliable
indicator of whether they understand and/or like what they are hearing. If you talk through
a complex issue, it's much easier to see where they are getting hung up. You can then
spend more time talking about the parts your audience misunderstands or disagrees with.
Email is too slow for this kind of interaction and phones just don't give you the
full body language feedback.
..... all yo can do is plead!
A lot of the art of persuasion requires the persuader to apply some form of pressure
(usually non-physical) onto their intended victim. This makes the victim cave-in to
remove the pressure. Email just doesn't have that kind of "presence" (see todays
Dilbert) it's just too easy to ignore it.
The best you can do is have an overwhelming reason why your request must be complied
with - and to CC the email to your victim's boss.
On the other side, email is a great leveller. People who would not normally speak up
for themselves can be quite eloquent and demonstrate sharp insights when they have time
to compose their messsage, and aren't shot-down/cut-out by people with louder voices or
fewer social qualms
then I discovered that the company's idea of integrating work and "real-life"
meant letting me doing work at home. However when they came to their side of the bargain
it also meant not doing home-things at work.
There was always a suspicion (thankfully, no-one ever tested it) that if you hurt
yourself while working at home, then you'd be completely disowned so far as liabilty
went. Same for RSI and other long-term work related problems. "Well your home life
contributed to that condition, so it's nothing to do with us"
Now, I always have "commitments" at weekends or evenings. I'm much happier and the work
still all gets done.
Just make sure that if you take work home, or let it invade your personal time the home/work
balance is actually a balance
I'm glad that Randall has cleared his name. However I must
wonder what the situation would be if he had done the same thing
in this day and age?
I think at least he'd be in jail and therefore an "un-person"
so far as publicising his plight.
He'd definitely not have written his book or any of his articles.
Apart from his personal plight, Perl (and therefore the internet)
would be greatly lessened.
We should all thank him for his work and reflect on what might have
been
Great idea!, Let's deploy W2K in every army/navy and airforce in the world
That way, none of them will be able to fight effectively and world peace will break out.
By installing it in the nuclear boats, you also have non-proliferation by stealth.
Way to go guys, let's see it rolled out more. Maybe send some complimentary copies to Iran
The article (which extends to 3 pages) is long on talk and pityfully short on actual examples.
The one image shown is a nice mosaic, no doubt about that and has an obvious five-sided theme
to it. However that's all we see. If they don't have any examples other than this, then the editor
needs to be sacked.
This looks to me like a small local story being talked up to a level of importance it simply
doesn't warrant in order to make the author seem more important or insightful.
First they say there's a bug with telnet passing switches through to login.
Then they start a tirade against sending passwords in the clear.
After that they say the fix is not to use telnet.
Putting aside the holier (more secure) than thou attitudes here
about telnet security. I've got to say that not using something because
it's broken is never a fix (unless you're a manager). The fix is to
mend the problem. In the meantime, maybe, avoid the service.
but bear in mind, someone still has to fix it.
Mostly programmers are trained in the technical details of languages
and the libraries/APIs associated with them. They don't gain skills
in knowing what users really want and are hurried into producing
barely-working stuff, fast.
Whatever testing is done often only tests that the product produces the
correct answers when feed the proper input - no account is taken for how
the program reacts to incorrect or incomplete data.
Changes are requested faster than they can be implemented and often are
not communicated very well.
In short there are systemic failures throughout the whole process, from
inception through to delivery. There is no single answer to why software
is hard and there won't be until the industry matures and people start to
get thrown out of the business for acting unprofessionally
After a software suite/program gets past a certain number of users
it gains a momentum of it's own. Once this happens, the quality of the
product, or next version, or upgrade ceases to matter (at least in less
than a timescale measured in years) as too many people have been locked
in.
At this point the normal market forces that give rise to continual
improvement cease to function and all you get is software bloat, with
lots of "features" that seem like a good idea, or just fulfill a marketing
need to have ticks in boxes
My use of MS Office is to write a few letters, create some reports
and other documents and send off my invoices (most important, that
last one).
So given that I neither want nor use maybe 90% of the functionality
of Word, Excel, Outlook etc. what is there that would induce me to
ditch my trusty old Office 2000 system and spend my own money on
this and then have to re-learn the look and feel?
(this is a rhetorical question, BTW. I want to show that the
average user won't have any real reason to switch)
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if it detects itself?
Let's have 35 perspectives on sociologists trying to sound like they understand the internet and how people use it.
Having said that, there's no reason why politicians should feel the need to ask industries if they please, wouldn't mind, curbing some of their more extreme behaviour. If the public voted for them, just pass a law.
What other name would grab people's smutty little attentions as effectively?
BPI along with FCUK [sic] are doing very well with the names they have.
I believe most theives steal goods to sell them on, rather than to use them themselves.
In that case, so long as they can get ca$h for your goodies, they won't care who has the number after they've flogged it off. It's not as if they will offer a guarantee, or after-sales service.
The only real solutions are to prevent items being stolen, or to make it blindingly obvious to a potential buyer that the item is non-functional
Because it's a neat way to get around the freedoms and protections afforded to the populace.
People understand that in war it's necessary to restrict what people may normally do, in order to "win". Theoretically, once the war is over, the old freedoms can be restored.
In practice, there are so many rules, laws and protections in place that it's impossible for a government to obey them all and still enact all the dodgy deals that they, and their friends want done. The only way to do that is to remove (temporarily, of course - until the next "war") these liberties so the govt. can get on with defeating the bad guys, whoever they may be.
As a shortcut, it's very easy to declare war, especially if the enemy is some abstract, disembodied enemy like "drugs". No-one can question your motives without appearing to be disloyal. Likewise, with an abstract enemy there's no clear way to tell when the war is won (or lost!). Consequently the guy in charge can stand up at any time and claim a victory - who's to say they're wrong?
OK, there's defensive preparations and offensive preparations. I think it would be nice to know exactly how these guys are intending to fight (offence is the best form of defence?) such a war, before we all become collateral damage?
... which is a completely different and only slightly correlated attribute.
Sadly, the baddies are quite capable of reading the books that these people have written, and can therefore see how they think and therefore what kinds of threat they are predisposed to put forward.
What you've effectively done is to say to the terrorists "don't bother with these strategies, 'cos we've already thought of them". All the terrorists will do is come up with some new and imaginative ones that none of the writers have ever written about.
Oh yes, what happens if the writers group comes up with a list of (say) 500 previously unconsidered potential threats. Will DHS provide funding to prevent all of them, or will they cherry-pick the most likely? Unless they cover all their bases, they're in a worse situation than before. Not only is there a high probability thay the next 9/11 won't have been one of the few that was countered, but if the authors propose enough possibles, the threat will have been on the list, but ignored. How will DHS cope with the "we told you so" backlash?
So that's what Microsoft did, huh?
Maybe it's just a combination of pure dumb luck (being in the right marketplace at the right time) and the tenacity and money to keep going.
New ideas are ten-a-penny. It's having the business acumen and vision to get them off the ground and make them profitable that's the real skill.
Oh and let's not forget that it's not pressing the button that starts the action, it's releasing it after the click.
"yes, after you've pressed it, release it again"
If you have a hobby, you don't do it as a way of making money. You do it because you enjoy it. Same with Linux. Most of the community regard it as a hobby, that also allows them to more-or-less do work, or play games, or whatever. This however, is a side-effect.
It's only when you get commercial interests coming in and trying to make Linux into something it is not, i.e. a competitor to a commercial product, that you get criticisms like "out of touch". Since the developers are donating their work, they are free to donate whatever they like - and to ignore things they aren't interested in.
Plus ca change
Actually I do the opposite. The reason is that people's expressions are the most reliable indicator of whether they understand and/or like what they are hearing. If you talk through a complex issue, it's much easier to see where they are getting hung up. You can then spend more time talking about the parts your audience misunderstands or disagrees with.
Email is too slow for this kind of interaction and phones just don't give you the full body language feedback.
A lot of the art of persuasion requires the persuader to apply some form of pressure (usually non-physical) onto their intended victim. This makes the victim cave-in to remove the pressure. Email just doesn't have that kind of "presence" (see todays Dilbert) it's just too easy to ignore it.
The best you can do is have an overwhelming reason why your request must be complied with - and to CC the email to your victim's boss.
On the other side, email is a great leveller. People who would not normally speak up for themselves can be quite eloquent and demonstrate sharp insights when they have time to compose their messsage, and aren't shot-down/cut-out by people with louder voices or fewer social qualms
There was always a suspicion (thankfully, no-one ever tested it) that if you hurt yourself while working at home, then you'd be completely disowned so far as liabilty went. Same for RSI and other long-term work related problems. "Well your home life contributed to that condition, so it's nothing to do with us"
Now, I always have "commitments" at weekends or evenings. I'm much happier and the work still all gets done.
Just make sure that if you take work home, or let it invade your personal time the home/work balance is actually a balance
and where does it get it's spares from when they run out - or it needs fixing?
I think at least he'd be in jail and therefore an "un-person" so far as publicising his plight.
He'd definitely not have written his book or any of his articles. Apart from his personal plight, Perl (and therefore the internet) would be greatly lessened.
We should all thank him for his work and reflect on what might have been
That way, none of them will be able to fight effectively and world peace will break out. By installing it in the nuclear boats, you also have non-proliferation by stealth.
Way to go guys, let's see it rolled out more. Maybe send some complimentary copies to Iran
The article (which extends to 3 pages) is long on talk and pityfully short on actual examples. The one image shown is a nice mosaic, no doubt about that and has an obvious five-sided theme to it. However that's all we see. If they don't have any examples other than this, then the editor needs to be sacked. This looks to me like a small local story being talked up to a level of importance it simply doesn't warrant in order to make the author seem more important or insightful.
Then they start a tirade against sending passwords in the clear.
After that they say the fix is not to use telnet.
Putting aside the holier (more secure) than thou attitudes here about telnet security. I've got to say that not using something because it's broken is never a fix (unless you're a manager). The fix is to mend the problem. In the meantime, maybe, avoid the service. but bear in mind, someone still has to fix it.
Whatever testing is done often only tests that the product produces the correct answers when feed the proper input - no account is taken for how the program reacts to incorrect or incomplete data.
Changes are requested faster than they can be implemented and often are not communicated very well.
In short there are systemic failures throughout the whole process, from inception through to delivery. There is no single answer to why software is hard and there won't be until the industry matures and people start to get thrown out of the business for acting unprofessionally
At this point the normal market forces that give rise to continual improvement cease to function and all you get is software bloat, with lots of "features" that seem like a good idea, or just fulfill a marketing need to have ticks in boxes
So given that I neither want nor use maybe 90% of the functionality of Word, Excel, Outlook etc. what is there that would induce me to ditch my trusty old Office 2000 system and spend my own money on this and then have to re-learn the look and feel?
(this is a rhetorical question, BTW. I want to show that the average user won't have any real reason to switch)
Hopefully it was a bit deeper than simply asking the bosses "do you lie?"
Also, can we therefore assume that 40% of the survey is lies?