Yeah, that is something I have found rather frustrating.... new programmers rediscovering why older programmers do not do things that they think are obvious because nothing has gone wrong yet. Things seem 'safe enough' until your first big 'this might get you fired' or 'might get the whole team fired' screw up, then you get a lot more conservative about things like concurrent code.
I would say it is less that concepts change, and more that concepts come in and out of fashion. Part of the trick is figuring out what the new words for the rediscovery of some old concepts are.
*nod* people tend to forget that languages and technologies, assuming the person is willing to put in the work, can be picked up pretty quickly. I would not discount someone who had a touch of experience with a wide range like that, but I also would not treat it as a 'must have'. I tend to look more for a good solid developer (in whatever language/API/etc) they have been using.
They key word is 'feasible'. If you do not like how a country is run, you can always leave. Leaving might not be cheap or easy, you have to give up all the things the country gives you, but you can do it. They use force if you decide you want to stay and be part of the society yet not obey the parts of it you do not like while having acces to the parts you do.
That is no different then a telecom or utility or anyone else someone has an existing contract with. Or in the case of banks going under that is the risk of investment... they are not 'taking your money', the person gave the bank their money and accepted some risk with doing that.
That and the significant piece of the early rhetoric overlapped them with sovereign citizens and other groups that have been spouting constitutional-flavored reasons for why they can skip their taxes.
Agreed. This is a domain congressional democrats and republicans line up. democrats because they tend to do whatever the media tells them to do, and republicans because anything that gives poor people even a hint of power outside their income is bad.
It is, however, illegal to make tools to do it. So if every library and consumer hand rolled their own DRM breaking text to speech software they would be fine, but if you distribute a program that does it or put up documentation explaining how to do it yourself, you are in violation.
Part of the issue is that the text-to-speech program IS illegal. The program has to be able to read the text, which means it has to go through the DRM to do it.
Having also worked for companies that fell under ITAR's umbrella....
We were too small for a dedicated expert, but did have a lawyer on retainer who reviewed various releases and worked with regulators to make sure we were in compliance.
200+ years of court cases disagree. The original debates when drafting the bill of rights also disagree. Many of the delegates were quite clear that they did not intend or believe the language was absolute. There was quite a bit of 'well of course we didn't mean XYZ, that is just common sense' language.
Besides, this is an export issue, not just a speech issue. It could be argued that such rules derive from the references to treason in the constitution, which are generally considered to trump the bill of rights.
This or any other administration we are likely to see. Neither party is in favor of weakening telecoms and infringing on their 'rights' to do what they like with their customers. While the democrats have more of a reputation for being in the pocket of media+telecom, both parties are heavily influenced by both lobbies.
Sadly, the 'looking stupid' part is not just paranoia. Such a move can, on an individual level, really impact an executive's career. There is a significant risk to their reputation (and thus personal fortunes) if the site ends up doing well, and not much negative impact from their peers for closing it. In the end people tend to do what is best for their careers since the people who don't, well, tend to not make it to (or stay in) the upper ranks.
The same way they have authority over physical arms exporters, they see it as being accessible from hostile states and thus it is an IP export. I would also not be surprised if some people there still see the modern internet as their network.
Primers perhaps not, but high grade smokeless powder is non-trivial, and even shops with experienced people and good safety policies tend to blow up occasionally. A hobbiest could probably throw something together that would work in a gun that was expecting it, but making something that was safe and compatible with guns expecting modern black powder, while not undoable, is not exactly easy.
I would say 'possible violation' rather then brazen. It would have been nice if they reviewed the files and said 'nope, this is covered under existing exemptions', but the fact that they are reviewing it does not mean the author is in 'brazen' violation.
Thing is, many of those companies are already pretty paranoid. Any hint of even the smallest regulation and get bent out of shape even if the potential impact on them is minimal. They have exhibited extreme slippery slope thinking, which in this case means that they might start getting concerned long before such techniques could even begin to have a measurable impact on their bottom line. Maybe.
Heh, I am actually wondering if the NRA and its supporters in congress might come down on these since I could actually see some of its sponsors (i.e. the gun manufacturers, who pull the NRA's financial and back-room strings) feeling threatened. Right now the barrier to producing weapons for your own use is mostly one of time and skill, but the barrier to selling guns is high enough that there are only a handful of companies that do it on any significant scale. The idea of free CAD files floating around allowing people to skip the manufacturers and print their own, even if most gun owners still go to the store, might worry them.
Realistically, this method is not for people who could not otherwise obtain a weapon and is unlikely to ever be. What it does do is produce a physical manifestation of a largely intellectual and ideological point as part of a larger discussion. Such techniques are unlikely to have any impact on actual access to or ownership of weapons.
Better faster and cheaper perhaps, but that does not mean that this particular method will ever be more cost effective then guns milled on existing hardware which will also continue to, as you say, get better/faster/cheaper. For that matter, it is not true that any individual technology will always get better faster or cheaper. History is littered with technologies that encountered diminishing returns on improvements and were abandoned or relegated to niches where there strengths outweigh their weaknesses and lack of advancement.
Eh, they have critical mass. While I know people like to bring up the 'but look at myspace' argument, the scales were pretty different back then. The barrier to an alternative rising has become much more significant.
I would wager the various adblocking tools will be updated to handle these new Facebook ads pretty quickly. You would think that by now marketers would have learned that people will generally let ads slide as long as they are unobtrusive, but these 'HEY LOOK AT ME!' ones always end up with people either avoiding the site or installing blocking software. These ads just don't work.
I guess we are seeing yet another new generation of marketers learning old lessons, or old marketers who have rising through the ranks and not learned a think for the last 20 years.
I think if nothing else Apple has learned form history, both its own and the many other PC companies that, well, no longer exist. Learning to be a steady niche has done it well while trying to dominate the market has ruined many of its contemporaries.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, that is something I have found rather frustrating.... new programmers rediscovering why older programmers do not do things that they think are obvious because nothing has gone wrong yet. Things seem 'safe enough' until your first big 'this might get you fired' or 'might get the whole team fired' screw up, then you get a lot more conservative about things like concurrent code.
I would say it is less that concepts change, and more that concepts come in and out of fashion. Part of the trick is figuring out what the new words for the rediscovery of some old concepts are.
*nod* people tend to forget that languages and technologies, assuming the person is willing to put in the work, can be picked up pretty quickly. I would not discount someone who had a touch of experience with a wide range like that, but I also would not treat it as a 'must have'. I tend to look more for a good solid developer (in whatever language/API/etc) they have been using.
They key word is 'feasible'. If you do not like how a country is run, you can always leave. Leaving might not be cheap or easy, you have to give up all the things the country gives you, but you can do it. They use force if you decide you want to stay and be part of the society yet not obey the parts of it you do not like while having acces to the parts you do.
That is no different then a telecom or utility or anyone else someone has an existing contract with. Or in the case of banks going under that is the risk of investment... they are not 'taking your money', the person gave the bank their money and accepted some risk with doing that.
That and the significant piece of the early rhetoric overlapped them with sovereign citizens and other groups that have been spouting constitutional-flavored reasons for why they can skip their taxes.
Well, if immigration is the enemy... then that might count as sympathizing and giving comfort, which is treason.
Agreed. This is a domain congressional democrats and republicans line up. democrats because they tend to do whatever the media tells them to do, and republicans because anything that gives poor people even a hint of power outside their income is bad.
It is, however, illegal to make tools to do it. So if every library and consumer hand rolled their own DRM breaking text to speech software they would be fine, but if you distribute a program that does it or put up documentation explaining how to do it yourself, you are in violation.
Part of the issue is that the text-to-speech program IS illegal. The program has to be able to read the text, which means it has to go through the DRM to do it.
Oops. 'modern black powder' should have been 'modern smokeless powder'.
Having also worked for companies that fell under ITAR's umbrella....
We were too small for a dedicated expert, but did have a lawyer on retainer who reviewed various releases and worked with regulators to make sure we were in compliance.
200+ years of court cases disagree. The original debates when drafting the bill of rights also disagree. Many of the delegates were quite clear that they did not intend or believe the language was absolute. There was quite a bit of 'well of course we didn't mean XYZ, that is just common sense' language.
Besides, this is an export issue, not just a speech issue. It could be argued that such rules derive from the references to treason in the constitution, which are generally considered to trump the bill of rights.
This or any other administration we are likely to see. Neither party is in favor of weakening telecoms and infringing on their 'rights' to do what they like with their customers. While the democrats have more of a reputation for being in the pocket of media+telecom, both parties are heavily influenced by both lobbies.
Sadly, the 'looking stupid' part is not just paranoia. Such a move can, on an individual level, really impact an executive's career. There is a significant risk to their reputation (and thus personal fortunes) if the site ends up doing well, and not much negative impact from their peers for closing it. In the end people tend to do what is best for their careers since the people who don't, well, tend to not make it to (or stay in) the upper ranks.
The same way they have authority over physical arms exporters, they see it as being accessible from hostile states and thus it is an IP export. I would also not be surprised if some people there still see the modern internet as their network.
Primers perhaps not, but high grade smokeless powder is non-trivial, and even shops with experienced people and good safety policies tend to blow up occasionally. A hobbiest could probably throw something together that would work in a gun that was expecting it, but making something that was safe and compatible with guns expecting modern black powder, while not undoable, is not exactly easy.
I would say 'possible violation' rather then brazen. It would have been nice if they reviewed the files and said 'nope, this is covered under existing exemptions', but the fact that they are reviewing it does not mean the author is in 'brazen' violation.
Thing is, many of those companies are already pretty paranoid. Any hint of even the smallest regulation and get bent out of shape even if the potential impact on them is minimal. They have exhibited extreme slippery slope thinking, which in this case means that they might start getting concerned long before such techniques could even begin to have a measurable impact on their bottom line. Maybe.
Heh, I am actually wondering if the NRA and its supporters in congress might come down on these since I could actually see some of its sponsors (i.e. the gun manufacturers, who pull the NRA's financial and back-room strings) feeling threatened. Right now the barrier to producing weapons for your own use is mostly one of time and skill, but the barrier to selling guns is high enough that there are only a handful of companies that do it on any significant scale. The idea of free CAD files floating around allowing people to skip the manufacturers and print their own, even if most gun owners still go to the store, might worry them.
Realistically, this method is not for people who could not otherwise obtain a weapon and is unlikely to ever be. What it does do is produce a physical manifestation of a largely intellectual and ideological point as part of a larger discussion. Such techniques are unlikely to have any impact on actual access to or ownership of weapons.
Better faster and cheaper perhaps, but that does not mean that this particular method will ever be more cost effective then guns milled on existing hardware which will also continue to, as you say, get better/faster/cheaper. For that matter, it is not true that any individual technology will always get better faster or cheaper. History is littered with technologies that encountered diminishing returns on improvements and were abandoned or relegated to niches where there strengths outweigh their weaknesses and lack of advancement.
Eh, they have critical mass. While I know people like to bring up the 'but look at myspace' argument, the scales were pretty different back then. The barrier to an alternative rising has become much more significant.
I would wager the various adblocking tools will be updated to handle these new Facebook ads pretty quickly. You would think that by now marketers would have learned that people will generally let ads slide as long as they are unobtrusive, but these 'HEY LOOK AT ME!' ones always end up with people either avoiding the site or installing blocking software. These ads just don't work.
I guess we are seeing yet another new generation of marketers learning old lessons, or old marketers who have rising through the ranks and not learned a think for the last 20 years.
I think if nothing else Apple has learned form history, both its own and the many other PC companies that, well, no longer exist. Learning to be a steady niche has done it well while trying to dominate the market has ruined many of its contemporaries.