Huh? I'm not sure what your point is. Why? It's incredible simple: you put in effort, the result in code is zilch. What's there not to understand?
Perhaps I'm just cynical, but I don't think the vast majority of open source projects (which are not really big), have very little chance of participation in actual programming. There are even less that take off after 1 year when they haven't taken off before. In fact, in that case, I'd go as far as to say if you had put your efforts in coding, you would have gotten more out of it, even if the accumulated efforts, over years, get you one or two code commissions. I speak from experience. You can put it away as me being bitter and burn more hours on pr and such of what will give you little return, or adjust to reality. The reality is not the press covering the well known names in open source. That is a common mistake. They are the exception to the rule.
I did all that, and still my particular small project did not attract any new people or even patches for over 2 years. It's everywhere, got all the tools. Spend a lot of time talking to people (prospects want hours of talks). Nothing for my investments.
What people should realize is the "many eyes" theory and related open source theories are all urban legend except for the huge successes they originate from (Linux, Apache, Wikipedia, etc.).
For 99% of the projects that are relatively small, it's all nonsense. It's inherently almost impossible except when the project originated from an existing community or team.
It's not in the tools. They are important when there is a team, but prior to that, I wouldn't invest too much time in them just to lure people. It won't work and it's a waste of time.
I'm afraid that I haven't got into Battlestar Galactica. The production values are excellent, and the plot is good too, so I don't know why I can't get to love it. Well, you're not alone. I loved it when watching it the first season. Then they broke it. All the plots and subplots that had been set up, and which I was anticipating to be resolved, were basically set in stone, not to be resolved, because the series were a success and it needed to be able to go for 5 years, or more. Now it's a series about nothing, or everything except the stories that mattered. They broke it for a tv-contract. The paradox is, as long as there are enough fans that don't mind watching a broken sf-show, it will remain that way, and perhaps when they stop watching, the series could proceed (before being cancelled). I wonder what would have happened with Star Wars if they had frozen it after the A New Hope, to be endlessly chased by the imperials, with endless bickering about leadership.
I think the most reliable archival system is going to be an active one, where data is saved on modern storage hardware and always copied to more modern tech as it arrives. I think the reverse, and one should choose the most low tech technology that is viable. For example, if you'd have some simple binary storage variant of an abacus and etch a translation table on a plate (which should not be necessary but make it more easy), even if the earth got nuked and your precious, most advanced technology is LOST together with ALL THE DATA in your setup, Mad Max and his buddies will still be capable of recovering my pr0n. Obviously, this is a technology that is not viable, something more compact is needed. My first instinct is aural storage. The Voyager Golden Records probably got it right. But obviously, storing your data in gold isn't quite viable as well.
If we work on the broader problem then we get better web sites for everyone, especially the disabled, without even making any particular effort for them. That's the kind of urban legend similar to the "All I need is a programmer" meme. I bet you don't make web sites for a living. The web development company I work for made a really big site last year for the countries' biggest foundation for the blind. We had to implement it to all the official guidelines for the blind/disabled. That takes aproximately 30 to 40% more time to implement when compared to an ordinary site that will validate to a strict html standard. Reality is if we offer the same thing to other customers, they will go somewhere else or pick the other alternative (i.e. cheaper).
I don't have these problems, because I'm not Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Hotmail. I use a little known captcha system. I'm not a target because it would not be profitable for a spammer to write the OCR software or use any of the other methods. So I think it's a problem for the big guys.
The big guns should deploy multiple, rotating captcha systems, each expiring after some time, to be replaced by new ones. They probably already do that to some extend, but I don't keep track. I don't think there's a generic captcha beating OCR system, they are aimed at specific implementations. The thought is that it takes longer to write software to beat a captcha, than to make an alternative captcha in the first place. If it takes 1 smart hacker 1 month to write software to beat a particular captcha (I don't know how long it really takes), then Microsoft should expire a type after for instance two weeks.
If they beat that with automated OCR, well at least humanity can dispose of captcha and we'll have perfect OCR.
"I don't care about individual talent, that's crazy. Programmers are like plumbers. I run a company with 1000 plumbers. There's a turnover and a general skill level, I won't bother beyond that. Of course every plumber thinks he's a star plumber, which is funny, considering how replaceable they are. Let them scream, let them whine, let them hate the management, let them move on. They are just another commodity. The numbers are fine. Now please excuse me while I collect a huge bonus."
I think it's a bit naive and too easy to think that companies fail to hang on to star programmers because of bad management. The management doesn't care by design, as a professional choice.
For a politician who lives by stirring the pot, Wilders will be most grateful to NS. Slashdot, CNN, BBC News, his movie is promoted and discussed across the globe. Win. I predict a big torrent hit.
There is no way you can compare Apple zealots to Amiga zealots. For one thing, Amiga zealots made a lot of noise, while Apple zealots, even if Slashdot trolls them with this story, will remain completely silent. Just look at this thread and click on some scores. You'll notice anyone that doesn't worship Apple at least scored one flamebait or troll. At the same time only moderate non-zealot Apple fans replied here, they might know some zealots, but they don't agree with that and they're really very reasonable and would never downmod any reasonable Apple criticism.
My conclusion is that Apple zealots suffer from some kind of write-only dyslexia. I think the medical term is hypocrisy.
For those of you how know this video and realize how skilled Jobs is in this regard, it's fun to point out the complete irony of this having been modded down before the zealots even could have watched the video. Even if you give people who are manipulated the ultimate proof of how they are manipulated, they'll go "lalalala, I can't hear you", in order to protect the one who is manipulating them. Fail. Or is the plain, simple truth too hard to bear? To the downmodders, thank you for proving the point and for strengthening the message of the video.
Of course, instead of downmodding I challenge anyone disagreeing with the contents of the video or whether it relates to Jobs, to provide an argument for that. But you won't.
Seriously, market a product as "stylish", "hip" and "different", and you'll raise a troupe of people to whom presenting themselves as different is pretty much their only end. I personally find it one of the most disgusting facets of consumerist capitalism. Steve Jobs has clearly studied and successfully adopted the principles of mass commercial psycho analysis: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151
To all the Apple fans: sorry, you are muppets, and Jobs is the muppet master. Before you mod me down as troll, watch the video.
"If you smash one bulb then that is not too much of a hazard. However, if you broke five bulbs in a small unventilated room then you might be in short term danger."
Ladies and gentlemen, we got a winner.
Re:We keep talking about artificial intelligence..
on
Gmail CAPTCHA Cracked
·
· Score: 1
They'll want the right to vote on George X. Bush, watch Idols and read up about Paris Hilton.
Geoip is fun. Who cares are human rights when you can safely hide things for some, and hide that you have hidden them for others.
Now excuse me while I'm going to search for my tin-foil hat.
Ok, but how does this take into the account the every increasing cost to make big games, isn't that creating an ever increasing barrier of entrance? Sure, creating a concept like Tetris doesn't cost much, but on the whole if I draw a graph of the average cost associated with making games over the last 10 years, it has been increasing because of hardware possibilities and such. The most innovative time was when games could be made by a single freak in the attic, but just like in the 90ties when you could not get away with a Chuckie Egg anymore, it will be even harder now for small studios to compete with the big ones.
Exactly. Modern electronic producers like Apple don't create the hardware elements, they just shop and combine and add software and marketing. For example, all mp3 player "manufacturers" shop at only a couple of (chinese) factories where they buy the same elements such as memory, sound chip, display, etc. For example, you'll find the same soundchip in many cheap mp3 players as present in the iPod. What Apple added was marketing and software such as the interface. In this case, the hardware is the innovation, and Apple are only buyers. The hardware is sold as an empty shell, you should implement your own software. Now if you give 10 guys this multi-touch hardware, what gestures are they gonna come up with? I guess they will pretty much be the same. Hence there is no innovation.
Apple did not creatively innovate multi touch gestures nor mp3 players nor phones, they marketed it into a successful high-end products for "cool" people, which is something else. Multi-touch has been pioneered since 1982 (wikipedia). This is more equal to patenting double-click or one-click ordering. It's about creating a barrier of entrance to competitors.
Try some SciFi MMORPG for a change. Seriously, I saw this exact discussion way back in the dark ages, in 1990, when people discussed which MUD to play.
SciFi is just the same with different names for stuff.
The problem is the target audience is the same: mainly spotty teenagers en young men. Nerds (hi!). And they all have the same target audience. Second Life does best, but that's not a game.
A problem they will encounter is that for 90% or more, it is an addiction that blows over after some years. It did for me and I have found nothing that appealed to me since. Not that I think that's a problem considering my, uhm, time-management skills.
Most datacenters will not have this model of 40 1U servers in a rack running at full blast. But Google probably is one of those that do exactly that. I was told Google is smarter than that. That they have a very low number of watts per sf. Is there a lack of space? No. Is cooling a problem? Yes. Answer: space out the equipment as much as possible.
Actually, I kind of like the concept that you have to work for a living by continually providing value rather than create a monopoly on some idea or expression of an idea and coast on monopoly rents. Let's put it this way, let's not take the RIAA as an example because that has been muddling the discussion into a mono copyright bashing affair.
If an author, say Douglas Adams (rip), spends a couple of years on a book, your equation does not work. That is because it is based on an investment of time, and you need a return for that. Creating value after that, for instance based on your popularity, is nice, but not economically related to the investment needed for the addition of value to the initial product. Also his audience, and book readers in general, might be less inclined to purchase services after the free copy.
Do we want a culture based on the commercial return on t-shirts and such? Would Adams have written the books? I for one prefer having given him some monetary units for his product, than obtain it for free, then see if I like him and toss him some coins like he's some kind of beggar.
I believe copyright and old-fashioned publishing are outdated mechanisms in digital times. I also believe that over time many money grabbing industries got a firm, unhealthy grip on the writers, artists, etc. But I also believe the single-minded mono-culture of simply proclaiming everything related to copyright as evil, and magic solutions like making everything free and then it will all be solved, is just silly and a cover-up for the fact that people like to take things for free while not having the worry about the morality of it. This makes one equal to the RIAA. Full of greed and hypocrisy.
We can prove mathematically the earth is roundish, we can prove it by riding around the world, we can prove it by taking pictures. Not so with Evolution. You have a bunch of pieces of knowledge, and you can make them sort of fit together in 1 way. This is not bad, this is science, it's good. But it is not close to being beyond a theory.
Bullocks. This is general yada yada. Now be a man, start with Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, and disproof his points. But you won't. As you can't. But then don't give us this yada yada. Again, you are uninformed, and proud of it?! Most funny about persons like you is that paradoxically you're probably a religious person. Now there's an unproven concept, which they of course won't touch. Hello? Why not first proof your god, and then attack scientists instead of the other way round? You must be proud to know that persons like you used the same arguments to laugh away the round earth concept - not close to being beyond a theory and blasphemy. Sir, you haven't escaped the Middle Ages yet, and are loudly proclaiming it.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps I'm just cynical, but I don't think the vast majority of open source projects (which are not really big), have very little chance of participation in actual programming. There are even less that take off after 1 year when they haven't taken off before. In fact, in that case, I'd go as far as to say if you had put your efforts in coding, you would have gotten more out of it, even if the accumulated efforts, over years, get you one or two code commissions. I speak from experience. You can put it away as me being bitter and burn more hours on pr and such of what will give you little return, or adjust to reality. The reality is not the press covering the well known names in open source. That is a common mistake. They are the exception to the rule.
I did all that, and still my particular small project did not attract any new people or even patches for over 2 years. It's everywhere, got all the tools. Spend a lot of time talking to people (prospects want hours of talks). Nothing for my investments.
What people should realize is the "many eyes" theory and related open source theories are all urban legend except for the huge successes they originate from (Linux, Apache, Wikipedia, etc.).
For 99% of the projects that are relatively small, it's all nonsense. It's inherently almost impossible except when the project originated from an existing community or team.
It's not in the tools. They are important when there is a team, but prior to that, I wouldn't invest too much time in them just to lure people. It won't work and it's a waste of time.
I don't have these problems, because I'm not Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Hotmail. I use a little known captcha system. I'm not a target because it would not be profitable for a spammer to write the OCR software or use any of the other methods. So I think it's a problem for the big guys.
The big guns should deploy multiple, rotating captcha systems, each expiring after some time, to be replaced by new ones. They probably already do that to some extend, but I don't keep track. I don't think there's a generic captcha beating OCR system, they are aimed at specific implementations. The thought is that it takes longer to write software to beat a captcha, than to make an alternative captcha in the first place. If it takes 1 smart hacker 1 month to write software to beat a particular captcha (I don't know how long it really takes), then Microsoft should expire a type after for instance two weeks.
If they beat that with automated OCR, well at least humanity can dispose of captcha and we'll have perfect OCR.
(I'm not a CEO)
"I don't care about individual talent, that's crazy. Programmers are like plumbers. I run a company with 1000 plumbers. There's a turnover and a general skill level, I won't bother beyond that. Of course every plumber thinks he's a star plumber, which is funny, considering how replaceable they are. Let them scream, let them whine, let them hate the management, let them move on. They are just another commodity. The numbers are fine. Now please excuse me while I collect a huge bonus."
I think it's a bit naive and too easy to think that companies fail to hang on to star programmers because of bad management. The management doesn't care by design, as a professional choice.
They all go to Google, or Fog Creek Software.
For a politician who lives by stirring the pot, Wilders will be most grateful to NS. Slashdot, CNN, BBC News, his movie is promoted and discussed across the globe. Win. I predict a big torrent hit.
There is no way you can compare Apple zealots to Amiga zealots. For one thing, Amiga zealots made a lot of noise, while Apple zealots, even if Slashdot trolls them with this story, will remain completely silent. Just look at this thread and click on some scores. You'll notice anyone that doesn't worship Apple at least scored one flamebait or troll. At the same time only moderate non-zealot Apple fans replied here, they might know some zealots, but they don't agree with that and they're really very reasonable and would never downmod any reasonable Apple criticism.
My conclusion is that Apple zealots suffer from some kind of write-only dyslexia. I think the medical term is hypocrisy.
For those of you how know this video and realize how skilled Jobs is in this regard, it's fun to point out the complete irony of this having been modded down before the zealots even could have watched the video. Even if you give people who are manipulated the ultimate proof of how they are manipulated, they'll go "lalalala, I can't hear you", in order to protect the one who is manipulating them. Fail. Or is the plain, simple truth too hard to bear? To the downmodders, thank you for proving the point and for strengthening the message of the video.
Of course, instead of downmodding I challenge anyone disagreeing with the contents of the video or whether it relates to Jobs, to provide an argument for that. But you won't.
To all the Apple fans: sorry, you are muppets, and Jobs is the muppet master. Before you mod me down as troll, watch the video.
I, for one, welcome our new robot controlling overlords.
Ladies and gentlemen, we got a winner.
They'll want the right to vote on George X. Bush, watch Idols and read up about Paris Hilton.
They must have did what Google did in China concerning, for example, "tank man".
Because those videos are still on youtube for me.
Geoip is fun. Who cares are human rights when you can safely hide things for some, and hide that you have hidden them for others. Now excuse me while I'm going to search for my tin-foil hat.
Ok, but how does this take into the account the every increasing cost to make big games, isn't that creating an ever increasing barrier of entrance? Sure, creating a concept like Tetris doesn't cost much, but on the whole if I draw a graph of the average cost associated with making games over the last 10 years, it has been increasing because of hardware possibilities and such. The most innovative time was when games could be made by a single freak in the attic, but just like in the 90ties when you could not get away with a Chuckie Egg anymore, it will be even harder now for small studios to compete with the big ones.
Exactly. Modern electronic producers like Apple don't create the hardware elements, they just shop and combine and add software and marketing. For example, all mp3 player "manufacturers" shop at only a couple of (chinese) factories where they buy the same elements such as memory, sound chip, display, etc. For example, you'll find the same soundchip in many cheap mp3 players as present in the iPod. What Apple added was marketing and software such as the interface. In this case, the hardware is the innovation, and Apple are only buyers. The hardware is sold as an empty shell, you should implement your own software. Now if you give 10 guys this multi-touch hardware, what gestures are they gonna come up with? I guess they will pretty much be the same. Hence there is no innovation.
Apple did not creatively innovate multi touch gestures nor mp3 players nor phones, they marketed it into a successful high-end products for "cool" people, which is something else. Multi-touch has been pioneered since 1982 (wikipedia). This is more equal to patenting double-click or one-click ordering. It's about creating a barrier of entrance to competitors.
SciFi is just the same with different names for stuff.
The problem is the target audience is the same: mainly spotty teenagers en young men. Nerds (hi!). And they all have the same target audience. Second Life does best, but that's not a game.
A problem they will encounter is that for 90% or more, it is an addiction that blows over after some years. It did for me and I have found nothing that appealed to me since. Not that I think that's a problem considering my, uhm, time-management skills.
If an author, say Douglas Adams (rip), spends a couple of years on a book, your equation does not work. That is because it is based on an investment of time, and you need a return for that. Creating value after that, for instance based on your popularity, is nice, but not economically related to the investment needed for the addition of value to the initial product. Also his audience, and book readers in general, might be less inclined to purchase services after the free copy.
Do we want a culture based on the commercial return on t-shirts and such? Would Adams have written the books? I for one prefer having given him some monetary units for his product, than obtain it for free, then see if I like him and toss him some coins like he's some kind of beggar.
I believe copyright and old-fashioned publishing are outdated mechanisms in digital times. I also believe that over time many money grabbing industries got a firm, unhealthy grip on the writers, artists, etc. But I also believe the single-minded mono-culture of simply proclaiming everything related to copyright as evil, and magic solutions like making everything free and then it will all be solved, is just silly and a cover-up for the fact that people like to take things for free while not having the worry about the morality of it. This makes one equal to the RIAA. Full of greed and hypocrisy.
We can prove mathematically the earth is roundish, we can prove it by riding around the world, we can prove it by taking pictures. Not so with Evolution. You have a bunch of pieces of knowledge, and you can make them sort of fit together in 1 way. This is not bad, this is science, it's good. But it is not close to being beyond a theory.
Bullocks. This is general yada yada. Now be a man, start with Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, and disproof his points. But you won't. As you can't. But then don't give us this yada yada. Again, you are uninformed, and proud of it?! Most funny about persons like you is that paradoxically you're probably a religious person. Now there's an unproven concept, which they of course won't touch. Hello? Why not first proof your god, and then attack scientists instead of the other way round? You must be proud to know that persons like you used the same arguments to laugh away the round earth concept - not close to being beyond a theory and blasphemy. Sir, you haven't escaped the Middle Ages yet, and are loudly proclaiming it.
> denies the earth is flat
;) lol
Uhm... Ah well