Oh c'mon... This article is a bit of FUD. I mean the only reason the plantiff won was because the defendant couldn't put up a defense. Plus, it is one thing to express an opinion, but when that crosses into "a false accusation of an offense or a malicious misrepresentation of someone's words or actions" then there is liability. We will never really know what the deal was since the case was awarded in default.
I think it is a bit shady that the lawsuit basically defaulted to the plantiff since the defendant didn't "offer a defense", so who knows if the merits of the case were legit or not. So you tie up tax payers money (courts, judges, etc.) to bring a case where the defendant can't defend themselves to win an award they can not pay out of principle? Greeeeeat. What did this prove?
Coercion, perhaps. Pain in the arse, definitely. I remember installing drivers from not-so-know hardware manufactures and getting the scary dialog box about the driver not being signed and that it could be a virus or make my system "unstable". Now, all those drivers are null and void? That sucks. I wonder if MS charges a fee to get drivers approved and signed, if so I would imagine lawsuits brewing over this.
Maybe Vista will use some sort of private key encryption so that when good ol' Windows Update runs it is the only program with the keys to the castle, so to speak. That way only Windows Update can perform mods and reprogram the kernel with a new hash code/CRC, or something.
Are you kidding? I was talking to Babbage the other day!
Honary mention perhaps? I don't know, to have a list described as "most influential computer scientists" should include some dead people, even if they can't talk back.
The list is nice, but what about some of the forefathers? To not have these guys (and gal) on the list is crazy, especially when talking about most influential computer scientists:
Yes, and iTunes annoys people too, and it STILL does well.
Now if there was a store that had albums say cheap ones (songs only) for like $5-$6 and expensives ones (songs plus album art, maybe some songwriter commentary, lyrics, etc) for like $8-$10 in a music format that could be used by any player without crazy transcoding, I bet that store would do even better. Same for movies/videos/TV, hell ABC ( i think ) will let you watch some of their shows online for free.
Again, my original pun was merely to point out that mr lucas will only promote more rat hole like behavior by avoiding the technology.
Upon hearing about the House passing the bill for wiretapping, I wrote to my Congressman, who voted "yea" and told him I thought it was a disgrace to, as Mr Ben Franklin put it "give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety". Here is the response (unedited and I am sure canned):
Dear Mr. ---,
Thank you for contacting me about domestic terrorism surveillance. I appreciate knowing your views.
The House of Representatives recently passed H.R. 5825, the Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act. I voted in favor of the bill, which passed 232-191. This bill authorizes the domestic terrorism surveillance program that President Bush instituted through executive action following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It also makes several changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. The bill was written to make Americans safer from terrorist threats, improve our intelligence gathering abilities, and also protect privacy.
Under normal circumstances, a warrant is required from the FISA court when there is probable cause that a person in the U.S. is an agent of a foreign power. The bill explicitly authorizes domestic electronic surveillance without a warrant in three situations: in the event of an armed attack by a conventional military force, a terrorist attack, or if a terrorist attack is imminent. The warrantless surveillance is permissible for up to 60 days if there is a reasonable belief that the person is communicating with a terrorist organization that is believed to be responsible for an attack. The bill requires the President to notify congressional leaders, intelligence committee leaders, and the FISA court within 5 days after the authorization. The President must state why he believes there is an imminent threat, he must identify the persons or groups responsible, and he must explain why he needs special authority to monitor individuals because of the threat. If these conditions are met, the 60-day time limit can be extended for an additional 60-day period.
I supported the bill because it modernizes existing law, which is outdated in terms of technology and the threats that we face from our enemies. FISA is a useful tool for conducting routine surveillance, but there are times when circumstances dictate immediate action and when taking the time to get a warrant is not practicable. We are not talking about monitoring the everyday conversations of ordinary Americans; we are talking about conducting surveillance to gather information on potential terrorist threats. If a terrorist attack is imminent or has just occurred, we will need to know as much about the threat and the people involved as we can. It is important to note that the bill dramatically improves congressional oversight, and it requires the Attorney General to adopt procedures in each surveillance case that minimize the acquisition and retention of non-intelligence information.
Thanks again for contacting me. With best wishes, I am
Sincerely,
Vernon J. Ehlers
Member of Congress
Of course there is an element of getting free shit, nobody is debating that! I never said people download shit to make a statement, I said as general rule, not embracing the technology causes more people to illeaglly share files, for free, and as a corollary, people would PAY for downloads more often if the content was easy to get, not totally DRM'd, and cheap.
My pun was not intended to promote the "rat hole". It was intended to point out that so far those who have resisted proper online distribution have suffered the wrath of p2p being rampant. Simply calling the internet a rat-hole and saying "well, I won't participate in that" will do nothing but promote MORE illeagal p2p sharing (assuming the content is worth peoples time). From all the past/. articles, one thing is clear: People will buy content if it is fairly priced, not locked down to an annoying point, and easily available.
'I can make 50-60 two hour movies' that are 'pay-per-view and downloadable.' Notably, he does not plan on distributing movies online, calling online distribution a 'rathole.'"
Don't worry Mr. Lucas, the guys here at BitTorrent got you covered!
Yes, and my company will pay for the Vista upgrade through higher PC costs due to Vista, or opt for no OS and then have IT install their copies of XP.
It doesn't take long to burn through $3000 in lost time and other upgrades. Knowing how my company works, here is a realistic thing that could happen at my shop:
1.) Company starts buying new PCs, say 500 (out of 2000 machines they have).
2.) Vendor XYZ says, these new PCs come with Vista, but the default RAM is only 512mb, Vista would really like 2gb and just so happens we are running a RAM sale today, 1/2 off, so you would only need spend an extra $250 per machine.
3.) Company says no thank you, we are OK with 512mb, after all we are IT and we know what the engineers need.
4.) 500 new computers role out to engineers.
5.) Engineers cry because all there applications either puke or suck wind because vista is using 450mb of the available RAM and engineers were used to having 400mb of RAM for their apps...
6.) After WEEKS of BS and "work arounds" management approves the RAM upgrade, which is now not on sale so they pay full price.
Now, is this totally Vista related, of course not; this might happen with any OS upgrade that comes along for the ride. But if the new PC had the same OS on it that was already in service, this could not have happen. The above scenario could easily cost $3000 per engineer.
These figures are probably in the ball park. Lets not forget the down time each user will incur to learn new things and setup things they had "just right" before. I have known developers that will spend hours trying to find the right mouse acceleration setting!
I have a legit copy of Windows XP Pro, and I went to re-install it on a new laptop (my old one crapped out) and I tried to activate it and Windows was all "This key has already been activated" and then to call the buggers would probably cost money and lots of time. I threw it away and installed Linux. I am telling you now, I bet their stupid anti-piracy crap will falsely accuse people of being pirates so much that we will see a class action lawsuit. Remember, you heard it on/. first!!!
Why does a Bentley cost so much? Limited supply, relatively high demand...
Commercial OSS are typically small companies, with less market share, who want to produce better quality stuff, with a smaller staff of intelligent engineers who want to make a good 30-50USD per hour wage. Lots of people want the commercial OSS stuff, but they say they want COTS, but they really want custom stuff at COTS prices. So, you get higher prices as compared to the mass-produced main stream software. Plus, there isn't much in the way of incentive, since most people who are cost concious find a way to make the free versions of various OSS work for them.
Honestly though, when I went through college, the very last thing they tried to shove down my throat wasn't advanced data structures but instead Design Patterns.
I didn't get this too much in college, and got a little in grad school, but I went on to some self discovery afterwards and I gotta tell ya, Design Patterns are a must when it comes to doing OO design. Design patterns can be used in any structured design method as well, it just takes some creativity... I use this online link, which is really cool (it even has code, CODE!)
As far as data structures go, I haven't found a good "quick reference".
Algorithms, by Robert Sedgewick is pretty good. It has many of the best methods for solving a ton of problems. It isn't a quick reference, but I am not sure there would be such a thing, but at least this book is focused.
I agree. vCC are great, and I use them as well, BUT, if the theives have your card number they might have your other personal information as well, even your password for that site. With this information they could potentially do more damage then run up a credit card balance, like get their own credit card in YOUR name, or hack into other accounts (like your bank!) using the personal information they gathered. vCC are a step but it can also present a false sense of security.
People with any sort of power must be dealt with, swiftly, and with extreme prejudice, when they abuse their power and step over the line, even if only a little bit. I liken this to my 3 year old who is constantly testing his boundaries. If one day I forget to administer justice for crossing the line, the next day he crosses it a little more, and then a little more. Soon he thinks his actions are completely normal and its tough to reel him back in. It is human nature. This sort of behavior is unacceptable and if nothing happens, what is next? Perhaps someone might mutter "Man, this sucks" and the same TSA guy pulls out a stun gun and tazers the disgruntled traveler... OK, this is a bit extreme but the behavior documented is exactly how things get out of hand if left unchecked.
what about memory and other bottlnecks? Who gives a crap about having 80 parallel threads when they are all waiting for 1 resource (e.g. harddrive). Also, what about software? Writing software to take advantage of dual processor/core is tricky, and usually ends up being more buggy. Most software companies won't go back and redesign their software without being able to realize a profit margin increase.
I think the artists are hurt more. I have several CD's with 3 out of 8 songs that I like and listen too, but the band should be compensated for the crappy stuff too. If not, then bands may not be as creative and only go for the "hit song" that all the kiddies want to hear (read download). I do think it is ridiculous to charge $19 for that CD, even if I liked ALL the songs, and that is the problem, IMHO. If there were more mainstream places that sold virtual CDs for, say $3-$7, with no BS DRM, in multiple formats that the downloader could choose, then I think people would be more apt to pay-up. Will this nick piracy in the bud? Nope, but I bet it would help.
Yes, we test all unique combinations (Which can be measured via a MCDC structual coverage analysis). It was an example of one test input/condition out of the set. Actually, the conditions that drive the expected result are a little more complicated than provided.
The point is, however, that the actual implementation code was not written first. The test was written first, which essentially builds the implementation API from the perspective of the tester, who hopefully is driving a test via a requirement of some kind. One of the effects of this is clean, cohesive API's which makes for a nice architecture. Anyone who has done time in the test realm usually becomes more consciousness of the API for modules and ends up being a better software architect.
So yes, the test was not a great test as illustrated, but perhaps you missed the point? Or just busting my balls, which is fine too!:)
Yes, one of the ideas is to drive the development of a product through tests that are written first. The one concept missing is that this can't be the only testing since theses tests are mostly low-level, i.e. at the module/class level.
Here is a real example. I work in aerospace, and my responsible area is navigation. We use INS's as the base latitude/longitude for position estimation. We have 3 of them, for redundancy purposes. We have a heirarchy of rules which decide which INS will drive the navigation solution. My spec tells me that the selected INS chosen goes 1, 3, 2 and that the criteria for selecting is not failed and not in align mode. So I write a test which allows me to create an API/class like, INS.getState(), INS.setState (state) and Nav.GetSelectedIRS. I stub these out, and use them in a test, say:
LeftINS : INS;
RightINS : INS;
CenterINS : INS;
SelectedINS: INS;
if SelectedIRS != RightINS {
TestFailure ("Wrong INS Selected");
}
else
{
TestPassed;
}
Now, I make it so this test fails, and it is up to the developer to respond to this test by making it pass. We don't have daily software builds, we have daily software test runs. Intuitively, it seems like more work, but it really isn't; you just do work out of order and it seems like you are doing more of it, when you do less work because you find more problems early on in the cycle. The above example is simple, but it is one of the first tests. Later, you expand the test to integrate more API and or classes, say the classes that status the sensors and declare their state. There is some work in setting up an environment like this, but it is worth it. Plus, you know when you are "done"; when all the tests pass, you are done. The tests can be written with higher level classes and be more tightly coupled to specs or requirements, and if written right can take the place of requirements thus reducing the amount of muda.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh c'mon... This article is a bit of FUD. I mean the only reason the plantiff won was because the defendant couldn't put up a defense. Plus, it is one thing to express an opinion, but when that crosses into "a false accusation of an offense or a malicious misrepresentation of someone's words or actions" then there is liability. We will never really know what the deal was since the case was awarded in default.
I think it is a bit shady that the lawsuit basically defaulted to the plantiff since the defendant didn't "offer a defense", so who knows if the merits of the case were legit or not. So you tie up tax payers money (courts, judges, etc.) to bring a case where the defendant can't defend themselves to win an award they can not pay out of principle? Greeeeeat. What did this prove?
Coercion, perhaps. Pain in the arse, definitely. I remember installing drivers from not-so-know hardware manufactures and getting the scary dialog box about the driver not being signed and that it could be a virus or make my system "unstable". Now, all those drivers are null and void? That sucks. I wonder if MS charges a fee to get drivers approved and signed, if so I would imagine lawsuits brewing over this.
Maybe Vista will use some sort of private key encryption so that when good ol' Windows Update runs it is the only program with the keys to the castle, so to speak. That way only Windows Update can perform mods and reprogram the kernel with a new hash code/CRC, or something.
Are you kidding? I was talking to Babbage the other day!
Honary mention perhaps? I don't know, to have a list described as "most influential computer scientists" should include some dead people, even if they can't talk back.
The list is nice, but what about some of the forefathers? To not have these guys (and gal) on the list is crazy, especially when talking about most influential computer scientists:
Alan Turing
Charles Babbage
Ada Lovelace
Edsger Dijkstra
There are many others, but certainly 1 or all of theses people were crucial to the field of computer science.
Yes, and iTunes annoys people too, and it STILL does well.
Now if there was a store that had albums say cheap ones (songs only) for like $5-$6 and expensives ones (songs plus album art, maybe some songwriter commentary, lyrics, etc) for like $8-$10 in a music format that could be used by any player without crazy transcoding, I bet that store would do even better.
Same for movies/videos/TV, hell ABC ( i think ) will let you watch some of their shows online for free. Again, my original pun was merely to point out that mr lucas will only promote more rat hole like behavior by avoiding the technology.
Upon hearing about the House passing the bill for wiretapping, I wrote to my Congressman, who voted "yea" and told him I thought it was a disgrace to, as Mr Ben Franklin put it "give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety". Here is the response (unedited and I am sure canned):
,
Dear Mr. ---
Thank you for contacting me about domestic terrorism surveillance. I appreciate knowing your views.
The House of Representatives recently passed H.R. 5825, the Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act. I voted in favor of the bill, which passed 232-191. This bill authorizes the domestic terrorism surveillance program that President Bush instituted through executive action following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It also makes several changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. The bill was written to make Americans safer from terrorist threats, improve our intelligence gathering abilities, and also protect privacy.
Under normal circumstances, a warrant is required from the FISA court when there is probable cause that a person in the U.S. is an agent of a foreign power. The bill explicitly authorizes domestic electronic surveillance without a warrant in three situations: in the event of an armed attack by a conventional military force, a terrorist attack, or if a terrorist attack is imminent. The warrantless surveillance is permissible for up to 60 days if there is a reasonable belief that the person is communicating with a terrorist organization that is believed to be responsible for an attack. The bill requires the President to notify congressional leaders, intelligence committee leaders, and the FISA court within 5 days after the authorization. The President must state why he believes there is an imminent threat, he must identify the persons or groups responsible, and he must explain why he needs special authority to monitor individuals because of the threat. If these conditions are met, the 60-day time limit can be extended for an additional 60-day period.
I supported the bill because it modernizes existing law, which is outdated in terms of technology and the threats that we face from our enemies. FISA is a useful tool for conducting routine surveillance, but there are times when circumstances dictate immediate action and when taking the time to get a warrant is not practicable. We are not talking about monitoring the everyday conversations of ordinary Americans; we are talking about conducting surveillance to gather information on potential terrorist threats. If a terrorist attack is imminent or has just occurred, we will need to know as much about the threat and the people involved as we can. It is important to note that the bill dramatically improves congressional oversight, and it requires the Attorney General to adopt procedures in each surveillance case that minimize the acquisition and retention of non-intelligence information.
Thanks again for contacting me. With best wishes, I am
Sincerely,
Vernon J. Ehlers
Member of Congress
Of course there is an element of getting free shit, nobody is debating that! I never said people download shit to make a statement, I said as general rule, not embracing the technology causes more people to illeaglly share files, for free, and as a corollary, people would PAY for downloads more often if the content was easy to get, not totally DRM'd, and cheap.
I am sure you just started a DRM flame-war..
/. articles, one thing is clear: People will buy content if it is fairly priced, not locked down to an annoying point, and easily available.
My pun was not intended to promote the "rat hole". It was intended to point out that so far those who have resisted proper online distribution have suffered the wrath of p2p being rampant. Simply calling the internet a rat-hole and saying "well, I won't participate in that" will do nothing but promote MORE illeagal p2p sharing (assuming the content is worth peoples time). From all the past
'I can make 50-60 two hour movies' that are 'pay-per-view and downloadable.' Notably, he does not plan on distributing movies online, calling online distribution a 'rathole.'"
Don't worry Mr. Lucas, the guys here at BitTorrent got you covered!
Yes, and my company will pay for the Vista upgrade through higher PC costs due to Vista, or opt for no OS and then have IT install their copies of XP.
It doesn't take long to burn through $3000 in lost time and other upgrades. Knowing how my company works, here is a realistic thing that could happen at my shop:
1.) Company starts buying new PCs, say 500 (out of 2000 machines they have).
2.) Vendor XYZ says, these new PCs come with Vista, but the default RAM is only 512mb, Vista would really like 2gb and just so happens we are running a RAM sale today, 1/2 off, so you would only need spend an extra $250 per machine.
3.) Company says no thank you, we are OK with 512mb, after all we are IT and we know what the engineers need.
4.) 500 new computers role out to engineers.
5.) Engineers cry because all there applications either puke or suck wind because vista is using 450mb of the available RAM and engineers were used to having 400mb of RAM for their apps...
6.) After WEEKS of BS and "work arounds" management approves the RAM upgrade, which is now not on sale so they pay full price.
Now, is this totally Vista related, of course not; this might happen with any OS upgrade that comes along for the ride. But if the new PC had the same OS on it that was already in service, this could not have happen. The above scenario could easily cost $3000 per engineer.
These figures are probably in the ball park. Lets not forget the down time each user will incur to learn new things and setup things they had "just right" before. I have known developers that will spend hours trying to find the right mouse acceleration setting!
I have a legit copy of Windows XP Pro, and I went to re-install it on a new laptop (my old one crapped out) and I tried to activate it and Windows was all "This key has already been activated" and then to call the buggers would probably cost money and lots of time. I threw it away and installed Linux. I am telling you now, I bet their stupid anti-piracy crap will falsely accuse people of being pirates so much that we will see a class action lawsuit. Remember, you heard it on /. first!!!
Why does a Bentley cost so much? Limited supply, relatively high demand...
Commercial OSS are typically small companies, with less market share, who want to produce better quality stuff, with a smaller staff of intelligent engineers who want to make a good 30-50USD per hour wage. Lots of people want the commercial OSS stuff, but they say they want COTS, but they really want custom stuff at COTS prices. So, you get higher prices as compared to the mass-produced main stream software. Plus, there isn't much in the way of incentive, since most people who are cost concious find a way to make the free versions of various OSS work for them.
Honestly though, when I went through college, the very last thing they tried to shove down my throat wasn't advanced data structures but instead Design Patterns.
I didn't get this too much in college, and got a little in grad school, but I went on to some self discovery afterwards and I gotta tell ya, Design Patterns are a must when it comes to doing OO design. Design patterns can be used in any structured design method as well, it just takes some creativity... I use this online link, which is really cool (it even has code, CODE!)
As far as data structures go, I haven't found a good "quick reference".
Algorithms, by Robert Sedgewick is pretty good. It has many of the best methods for solving a ton of problems. It isn't a quick reference, but I am not sure there would be such a thing, but at least this book is focused.
I agree. vCC are great, and I use them as well, BUT, if the theives have your card number they might have your other personal information as well, even your password for that site. With this information they could potentially do more damage then run up a credit card balance, like get their own credit card in YOUR name, or hack into other accounts (like your bank!) using the personal information they gathered. vCC are a step but it can also present a false sense of security.
People with any sort of power must be dealt with, swiftly, and with extreme prejudice, when they abuse their power and step over the line, even if only a little bit. I liken this to my 3 year old who is constantly testing his boundaries. If one day I forget to administer justice for crossing the line, the next day he crosses it a little more, and then a little more. Soon he thinks his actions are completely normal and its tough to reel him back in. It is human nature. This sort of behavior is unacceptable and if nothing happens, what is next? Perhaps someone might mutter "Man, this sucks" and the same TSA guy pulls out a stun gun and tazers the disgruntled traveler... OK, this is a bit extreme but the behavior documented is exactly how things get out of hand if left unchecked.
That is sweet sweet justice right there.
Where are your papers! Guards!
Where have I heard that before, hmmmmmmm.
what about memory and other bottlnecks? Who gives a crap about having 80 parallel threads when they are all waiting for 1 resource (e.g. harddrive). Also, what about software? Writing software to take advantage of dual processor/core is tricky, and usually ends up being more buggy. Most software companies won't go back and redesign their software without being able to realize a profit margin increase.
I think the artists are hurt more. I have several CD's with 3 out of 8 songs that I like and listen too, but the band should be compensated for the crappy stuff too. If not, then bands may not be as creative and only go for the "hit song" that all the kiddies want to hear (read download). I do think it is ridiculous to charge $19 for that CD, even if I liked ALL the songs, and that is the problem, IMHO. If there were more mainstream places that sold virtual CDs for, say $3-$7, with no BS DRM, in multiple formats that the downloader could choose, then I think people would be more apt to pay-up. Will this nick piracy in the bud? Nope, but I bet it would help.
... never had any problems with his glass elevator!
Yes, we test all unique combinations (Which can be measured via a MCDC structual coverage analysis). It was an example of one test input/condition out of the set. Actually, the conditions that drive the expected result are a little more complicated than provided.
:)
The point is, however, that the actual implementation code was not written first. The test was written first, which essentially builds the implementation API from the perspective of the tester, who hopefully is driving a test via a requirement of some kind. One of the effects of this is clean, cohesive API's which makes for a nice architecture. Anyone who has done time in the test realm usually becomes more consciousness of the API for modules and ends up being a better software architect.
So yes, the test was not a great test as illustrated, but perhaps you missed the point? Or just busting my balls, which is fine too!
Yes, one of the ideas is to drive the development of a product through tests that are written first. The one concept missing is that this can't be the only testing since theses tests are mostly low-level, i.e. at the module/class level.
Here is a real example. I work in aerospace, and my responsible area is navigation. We use INS's as the base latitude/longitude for position estimation. We have 3 of them, for redundancy purposes. We have a heirarchy of rules which decide which INS will drive the navigation solution. My spec tells me that the selected INS chosen goes 1, 3, 2 and that the criteria for selecting is not failed and not in align mode. So I write a test which allows me to create an API/class like, INS.getState(), INS.setState (state) and Nav.GetSelectedIRS. I stub these out, and use them in a test, say:
LeftINS : INS;
RightINS : INS;
CenterINS : INS;
SelectedINS: INS;
LeftINS.setState(Failed);
RightINS.setState(Navigating);
CenterINS.setState(Failed);
SelectedIRS = Nav.GetSelectedIRS();
if SelectedIRS != RightINS {
TestFailure ("Wrong INS Selected");
}
else
{
TestPassed;
}
Now, I make it so this test fails, and it is up to the developer to respond to this test by making it pass. We don't have daily software builds, we have daily software test runs. Intuitively, it seems like more work, but it really isn't; you just do work out of order and it seems like you are doing more of it, when you do less work because you find more problems early on in the cycle. The above example is simple, but it is one of the first tests. Later, you expand the test to integrate more API and or classes, say the classes that status the sensors and declare their state. There is some work in setting up an environment like this, but it is worth it. Plus, you know when you are "done"; when all the tests pass, you are done. The tests can be written with higher level classes and be more tightly coupled to specs or requirements, and if written right can take the place of requirements thus reducing the amount of muda.