I can see how this would be and appealing solution to oil disposal and energy costs at McDonald's or another fast-food fryer joint. But what about a larger market? As any owner of a car that runs on vegetable oil can tell you - one of the side effects of burning fryer oil is a strong and persistent smell of fried food.
This may be acceptable at some restaurants that are already saturated with this odor, but wider adoption of such appliances may be limited by nuisance and customer concerns.
There are plenty on non-economic (read: money) reasons that open source won't die from this recession, but even if we look solely at monetary concerns we can see that this guy's hypothesis is flawed.
The Red Hat article is not the only thing on Slashdot that directly contradicts this guy's claims.
If we enter a deep and protracted recession, and programmers loose jobs, then we don't even have to ask what they'll do for enjoyment, edification, or a sense of purpose. Simply ask what they'll do to develop and keep an advantage in the job market.
Furthering your skills and education, building a portfolio, and establishing a reputation are all things that will give you an advantage in more competitive employment markets. Just take a look at current graduate program application and enrollment numbers to see how many people are willing to _pay_ for these opportunities. OSS offers the self motivated programmer the opportunity to accomplish all of this for free.
Unless this economic crisis castrates our motivation and conviction we'll see a boom of OSS projects develop for a variety of reasons. OSS is usually lauded for being free to use and free to edit. We shouldn't forget that it is also free to write.
The researchers suggest that this psychological difference is why it is so difficult to change people's minds in political arguments.
Many will undoubtedly use this research (accurate or not) to criticize members of the opposite political party or demonize opponents. That is to be expected, and borders on triviality.
However, it is profoundly interesting to see evidence indicating a physical mechanism for human stubbornness. It may be too much to wish for, but if science demonstrates to us the cause (or even only the correlation) of our shortfalls (e.g. irrationality) then maybe we'll be more successful in overcoming those shortfalls.
But, given the nature of the subject, that may be a lot to ask for...
"In related news, 90% of comic books are bought by 5% of the general population, dog leash sales to cat owners is at an all time low, and nearly 0% of Rogiane profits come from female customers."
All other criticisms of this article aside, is anybody surprised that most internet users aren't interested in downloading DVDs and seeding Linux distros? If this headline was rewritten to say "Most people surf web while on internet" would anybody be alarmed?
Disclaimer: IANAP
A lot of people are replying with this and similar remarks:
"Check to see if the wireless card is flashing when there should be no network activity"
or "Most operating systems allow you to monitor disk activity in software. If this is showing nothing, but the disk light is on, then there's a good chance there's a rootkit hiding certain activity."
I'm much like most of the people who's machines have been compromised: I have an interest in keeping my machine secure, but am only technically savvy enough to take low level measures like using a software firewall, being careful with attachments, using firefox instead of IE, etc...
My question is this: are there any OSS programs out there that are designed to detect discrepancies between what the hardware and software are reporting?
It seems to me that all the solutions I've heard involve flipping switches and watching lights when a program could do a more effective job...
More than being a "well defined World" it is a realm that employs, at least superficially, very different rules for social interaction and dominance. How many times have you seen the "Geek" who would fail in any popular social dynamic lead a role playing crowd with as much confidence as a capable leader in a more standard social setting. The variation is not with rule set, but fundamentally lies in the individuals reinforcement of their own confident self-view. Rpgs don't exhibit non-standard social dynamics, they simply draw big fish in small pool personalities. And in the end don't all programmers see themselves as being small pool participants?
Slashdot Mirror
This may be acceptable at some restaurants that are already saturated with this odor, but wider adoption of such appliances may be limited by nuisance and customer concerns.
The Red Hat article is not the only thing on Slashdot that directly contradicts this guy's claims.
If we enter a deep and protracted recession, and programmers loose jobs, then we don't even have to ask what they'll do for enjoyment, edification, or a sense of purpose. Simply ask what they'll do to develop and keep an advantage in the job market.
Furthering your skills and education, building a portfolio, and establishing a reputation are all things that will give you an advantage in more competitive employment markets. Just take a look at current graduate program application and enrollment numbers to see how many people are willing to _pay_ for these opportunities. OSS offers the self motivated programmer the opportunity to accomplish all of this for free.
Unless this economic crisis castrates our motivation and conviction we'll see a boom of OSS projects develop for a variety of reasons. OSS is usually lauded for being free to use and free to edit. We shouldn't forget that it is also free to write.
Many will undoubtedly use this research (accurate or not) to criticize members of the opposite political party or demonize opponents. That is to be expected, and borders on triviality.
However, it is profoundly interesting to see evidence indicating a physical mechanism for human stubbornness. It may be too much to wish for, but if science demonstrates to us the cause (or even only the correlation) of our shortfalls (e.g. irrationality) then maybe we'll be more successful in overcoming those shortfalls.
But, given the nature of the subject, that may be a lot to ask for...
-- Grae is the new black
All other criticisms of this article aside, is anybody surprised that most internet users aren't interested in downloading DVDs and seeding Linux distros? If this headline was rewritten to say "Most people surf web while on internet" would anybody be alarmed?
Disclaimer: IANAP A lot of people are replying with this and similar remarks: "Check to see if the wireless card is flashing when there should be no network activity" or "Most operating systems allow you to monitor disk activity in software. If this is showing nothing, but the disk light is on, then there's a good chance there's a rootkit hiding certain activity." I'm much like most of the people who's machines have been compromised: I have an interest in keeping my machine secure, but am only technically savvy enough to take low level measures like using a software firewall, being careful with attachments, using firefox instead of IE, etc... My question is this: are there any OSS programs out there that are designed to detect discrepancies between what the hardware and software are reporting? It seems to me that all the solutions I've heard involve flipping switches and watching lights when a program could do a more effective job...
More than being a "well defined World" it is a realm that employs, at least superficially, very different rules for social interaction and dominance. How many times have you seen the "Geek" who would fail in any popular social dynamic lead a role playing crowd with as much confidence as a capable leader in a more standard social setting. The variation is not with rule set, but fundamentally lies in the individuals reinforcement of their own confident self-view. Rpgs don't exhibit non-standard social dynamics, they simply draw big fish in small pool personalities. And in the end don't all programmers see themselves as being small pool participants?