Please bring this to Japan. It is impossible to find free wifi here. SBC used to have it but they seem to have completely folded.
You're kidding, right? Really? I mean, I understand in Australia free Wi-Fi would be impossible to get - hotels routinely charge AU$30/day access. But hotels in Japan offer Wi-Fi for free, so are you saying that it's only hotels that offer free Wi-Fi (well actually Japanese hotels don't do Wi-Fi, they do Ethernet access, but we're talking about internet access)?
But then, we have lost many classes of workers throughout the times, society will adjust.
Have you ever used open-source software? Do you find it inferior to commercial software? Perhaps there is an industry that has been where the music industry was decades ago and survived. Perhaps is even stronger.
Fine, consider this: I was a pretty good programmer at a young age. How far would I have got writing software at home and trying to sell that? Software was being copied a good decade before music was.
I have a job as a programmer for a company now. Every day, making some money, providing what someone else wants.
Is it too much to ask musicians to do the same? If school-dropout cannot read and write but is such a brilliant virtuoso surely he/she can get a job working for an advertising agency or likewise grinding out works for a company much like most programmers do?
The arrogance is from the musicians who think they are above the life everybody else lives - especially programmers who are very similar to musicians in that they produce creative works that can be easily duplicated.
The REAL question: does singing your favourite song in the shower constitute copyright infringement? No? Because the quality isn't perfect?
How about replaying the song in my head... ahhh perfect quality, full stereo, mmm, I can even replay the video in my mind. Surely THAT is copyright infringement?
What annoys me most about the term "piracy" is that peer-to-peer file transfers are of no comparison to violence and horror inflicted by Somalis sailing around the world.
Either that or we just get sane copyright laws - say for the first two years after a movie or game comes out, it's illegal to download it. After those two years are up and they've made their realistic dvd / game sales, then it's fair game to download.
... err.. which is still stuck in the old way of thinking: maybe have a re-read of the above insightful posts.
I had to laugh a year ago watching an Australian TV debate on this topic. Some school drop-out loser on the front row stands up and tells us he's a budding guitarist and he doesn't want people stealing his music! And I think to myself I probably have twenty times his musical talent, finished school, went to university, got a job, ten years later bought myself the musical instruments I always wanted, and music editing software I wanted, and can create music as a hobby!
It's time people who want to call themselves "musicians" actually worked for a change.
It's no worse an analogy than calling copying 'theft.'
When in truth the music industry is more akin to drug pushers... practically forcing you to experience their music for free until you like it and want it, then charge you extortionate amounts when you want it...
The Labor government in Australia are going out of their way to completely f*** up freedom and information. Want to browse a website about suicide? That's illegal in Australia and an internet filter will stop you! Want to enter Australia? You have to declare you're carrying pornography (yes, I am naked under my clothes)!
I'm having trouble deciding if our government is retarded or just incompetent.
Incompentence is a requirement for being a member or supporter of the Labor party in Australia. But it also helps if you are evil and manipulative.
U-Turns aren't legal here, but I frequently turn right, then turn around in a driveway or parking lot, and still get back to the intersection in plenty of time to beat the light change.
You have to love Australia. That particular manoeuvre is illegal there. Also illegal is exiting a roundabout from the same road you entered.
Truth is everybody in Australia is a criminal. You just have to wait until some prosecuting authority thinks it's your turn and they find the rule to nail you with.
Not only is it astounding that this isn't done, it's old hat.
What isn't old hat is that many drivers now have GPS systems and increasingly they are receive real-time feedback on road conditions. But is this really the best thing?
Consider the stock market. You have a large number of people all trying to "beat the system" (much like drivers trying to avoid road blocks). When the price goes up, people try to sell, when the price goes down, people try to buy, but most importantly everybody is trying to out-guess everybody else.
From a systems and control (engineering) perspective the stock market is uncontrollable. The feedback creates an inherently unstable system.
Should GPS and life-traffic systems continue to gain widespread acceptance we could find roads behaving like the stock market - sometimes stable, but sometimes swinging from congested to free. Which wouldn't be too different to present day situations - although snarls tend to be located in the same place day after day at present.
Are we likely to gain that much in the end? With intelligent traffic lights trying to guess the behaviour of the traffic, and individual drivers trying to beat the traffic, it could well end up an arms race.
Good luck getting these algorithms used in anywhere but a handful of places without a fight.
I take a 45-min motorway journey each morning to work. In urban areas drivers race as fast as they can to the car in front, tailgate, then slam on the brakes for the traffic lights. On the motorways drivers speed up to tailgate the car in front, then slow down, then speed up, then slow down.
If you could somehow give the British people a "chill pill" or maybe even some sexual relief they might not act as if they're about to explode every second on the road!
So much for working out the best ways of doing things. It seems that anxiety will continue to rule in the UK.
I have not seen a need for this law. The reason I'm replying to you specifically is that your approach has an implicit degree of acceptance to there being a need; can you give me evidence of this need? I just want to see some form of proof that we need this law/rule/ban in any shape or form.
Feel free to read the news sometime, buddy.
"The guidance announced Monday comes after an October 2009 incident in which two Northwest Airlines pilots overshot the Minneapolis airport by 150 miles because they say they were engrossed in a complicated new crew-scheduling program on their laptop computers."
Maybe the person making the decision had been assaulted by a group of Nigerians while on holiday in Japan. Maybe that person wants to make the USA safer by restricting people who have demonstrated themselves to be likely violent and hateful. Who are we to judge?
facing away from one another while working on their computers
I've worked with lower walls where the developers faced each other and found that fine, you could bob your head up and say hi over the wall, and your monitors weren't in full view of each other (as they would be if you were in a square arrangement facing away from each other).
I second cubicles. I need walls. So I can do whatever I need to do without thinking my monitor is on show for the world to see. If I want to spend short (sub minute) breaks browsing this or that, catching up with my personal life, then so be it. But if I feel forced to always "look like I'm working" I can guarantee you I will be unhappy. And when I'm unhappy I code very poorly.
You have to have a level of trust in your developers. Development is not like laying bricks, it is a creative process. Emotional well being is extremely important in fostering creativity. Ever think you'd write a good wedding speech when you're unhappy or feeling like you're being constantly watched?
Open plan is just wrong for developers.
At a minimum have half height walls that make it difficult for neighbours to peer over. Plus they double as noticeboards that diagrams and notices can be pinned to.
Your reality; remember, you said it yourself, some people just can't comprehend some things, no matter how real or inevitable it may be.
It may be difficult for you to accept your own theories! After all, as a young child you couldn't accept basic realities as you've already pointed out!
Make cigarettes more damaging to health, and let Darwin sort em out!
I always had this fantasy about testing this "addiction" that smokers complain about.
Picture a WW2 scenario. You have a room full of smokers. In the next room you have a carton of cigarettes. You tell the smokers the first person to go get a cigarette and light up gets shot. Then wait and see if they really are "addicted".
Personally I think smokers just have no will power. No real will power.
I don't know of any way to explain addiction in terms that a kid can truly understand.
Clearly you're a moron. And you couldn't understand why smoking was bad, so of course you have no idea how to explain addiction in terms a kid like you would understand.
Smarter kids hear what people like you have to say about your habit and they just don't want to be like you.
This would not be too hard on their part, though obviously more computationally expensive.
Whoah, Facebook could do the simple things? They demonstrated a complete inability to do something that had been done for decades before - chat! That's right, ladies and gentlemen, Facebook could not even get something so simple as chat working. Must have been those fanciful types so tied into lustful dreams of Erlang instead of commercially-tried-and-tested languages. Or was it just an utter and complete lack of design?
Facebook is a company that chose to be a natural monopoly. Then abuse that to the full extent possible through a combination of decimation of privacy, incompetent operation, and absent design.
This would be like handing the power of water distribution to a private firm - sure, you could walk down to the ocean and perform your own desalination techniques, or put a rainwater tank on your roof, but the fact is certain services lend themselves to natural monopolies - and if your country's government was smart (about as likely as Facebook being efficient) it would design a functional and PRIVATE social network for its citizens.
You would make a great magician, so desperate to show everyone "how it works" in a vain attempt to gain recognition.
Trouble is, that trick only works once, your colleagues no longer respect you, and your entertained public no longer have anything interesting to watch or learn from you.
Slashdot Mirror
Please bring this to Japan. It is impossible to find free wifi here. SBC used to have it but they seem to have completely folded.
You're kidding, right? Really? I mean, I understand in Australia free Wi-Fi would be impossible to get - hotels routinely charge AU$30/day access. But hotels in Japan offer Wi-Fi for free, so are you saying that it's only hotels that offer free Wi-Fi (well actually Japanese hotels don't do Wi-Fi, they do Ethernet access, but we're talking about internet access)?
Besides... who _exactly_ "tells everyone else their spelling is the correct one"
You'd have to be a moron to think the USA "English" is the "correct one".
USA "English" ought to be given another name, it's certainly not English.
But then, we have lost many classes of workers throughout the times, society will adjust.
Have you ever used open-source software? Do you find it inferior to commercial software? Perhaps there is an industry that has been where the music industry was decades ago and survived. Perhaps is even stronger.
Wow, that's arrogant.
Fine, consider this: I was a pretty good programmer at a young age. How far would I have got writing software at home and trying to sell that? Software was being copied a good decade before music was.
I have a job as a programmer for a company now. Every day, making some money, providing what someone else wants.
Is it too much to ask musicians to do the same? If school-dropout cannot read and write but is such a brilliant virtuoso surely he/she can get a job working for an advertising agency or likewise grinding out works for a company much like most programmers do?
The arrogance is from the musicians who think they are above the life everybody else lives - especially programmers who are very similar to musicians in that they produce creative works that can be easily duplicated.
Silly. Of course it has: Verbal Communication.
The REAL question: does singing your favourite song in the shower constitute copyright infringement? No? Because the quality isn't perfect?
How about replaying the song in my head... ahhh perfect quality, full stereo, mmm, I can even replay the video in my mind. Surely THAT is copyright infringement?
What annoys me most about the term "piracy" is that peer-to-peer file transfers are of no comparison to violence and horror inflicted by Somalis sailing around the world.
Either that or we just get sane copyright laws - say for the first two years after a movie or game comes out, it's illegal to download it. After those two years are up and they've made their realistic dvd / game sales, then it's fair game to download.
... err.. which is still stuck in the old way of thinking: maybe have a re-read of the above insightful posts.
I had to laugh a year ago watching an Australian TV debate on this topic. Some school drop-out loser on the front row stands up and tells us he's a budding guitarist and he doesn't want people stealing his music! And I think to myself I probably have twenty times his musical talent, finished school, went to university, got a job, ten years later bought myself the musical instruments I always wanted, and music editing software I wanted, and can create music as a hobby!
It's time people who want to call themselves "musicians" actually worked for a change.
It's no worse an analogy than calling copying 'theft.'
When in truth the music industry is more akin to drug pushers... practically forcing you to experience their music for free until you like it and want it, then charge you extortionate amounts when you want it...
The NBN is going to be another K Rudd disaster
The Labor government in Australia are going out of their way to completely f*** up freedom and information. Want to browse a website about suicide? That's illegal in Australia and an internet filter will stop you! Want to enter Australia? You have to declare you're carrying pornography (yes, I am naked under my clothes)!
I'm having trouble deciding if our government is retarded or just incompetent.
Incompentence is a requirement for being a member or supporter of the Labor party in Australia. But it also helps if you are evil and manipulative.
U-turns are perfectly legal.
I see NSW has been changing the rules. It used to be illegal.
Aha! A troll.
Aha! Someone that has never lived in NSW!
U-Turns aren't legal here, but I frequently turn right, then turn around in a driveway or parking lot, and still get back to the intersection in plenty of time to beat the light change.
You have to love Australia. That particular manoeuvre is illegal there. Also illegal is exiting a roundabout from the same road you entered.
Truth is everybody in Australia is a criminal. You just have to wait until some prosecuting authority thinks it's your turn and they find the rule to nail you with.
Not only is it astounding that this isn't done, it's old hat.
What isn't old hat is that many drivers now have GPS systems and increasingly they are receive real-time feedback on road conditions. But is this really the best thing?
Consider the stock market. You have a large number of people all trying to "beat the system" (much like drivers trying to avoid road blocks). When the price goes up, people try to sell, when the price goes down, people try to buy, but most importantly everybody is trying to out-guess everybody else.
From a systems and control (engineering) perspective the stock market is uncontrollable. The feedback creates an inherently unstable system.
Should GPS and life-traffic systems continue to gain widespread acceptance we could find roads behaving like the stock market - sometimes stable, but sometimes swinging from congested to free. Which wouldn't be too different to present day situations - although snarls tend to be located in the same place day after day at present.
Are we likely to gain that much in the end? With intelligent traffic lights trying to guess the behaviour of the traffic, and individual drivers trying to beat the traffic, it could well end up an arms race.
Good luck getting these algorithms used in anywhere but a handful of places without a fight.
I take a 45-min motorway journey each morning to work. In urban areas drivers race as fast as they can to the car in front, tailgate, then slam on the brakes for the traffic lights. On the motorways drivers speed up to tailgate the car in front, then slow down, then speed up, then slow down.
If you could somehow give the British people a "chill pill" or maybe even some sexual relief they might not act as if they're about to explode every second on the road!
So much for working out the best ways of doing things. It seems that anxiety will continue to rule in the UK.
I have not seen a need for this law. The reason I'm replying to you specifically is that your approach has an implicit degree of acceptance to there being a need; can you give me evidence of this need? I just want to see some form of proof that we need this law/rule/ban in any shape or form.
Feel free to read the news sometime, buddy.
"The guidance announced Monday comes after an October 2009 incident in which two Northwest Airlines pilots overshot the Minneapolis airport by 150 miles because they say they were engrossed in a complicated new crew-scheduling program on their laptop computers."
Maybe the person making the decision had been assaulted by a group of Nigerians while on holiday in Japan. Maybe that person wants to make the USA safer by restricting people who have demonstrated themselves to be likely violent and hateful. Who are we to judge?
facing away from one another while working on their computers
I've worked with lower walls where the developers faced each other and found that fine, you could bob your head up and say hi over the wall, and your monitors weren't in full view of each other (as they would be if you were in a square arrangement facing away from each other).
I second cubicles. I need walls. So I can do whatever I need to do without thinking my monitor is on show for the world to see. If I want to spend short (sub minute) breaks browsing this or that, catching up with my personal life, then so be it. But if I feel forced to always "look like I'm working" I can guarantee you I will be unhappy. And when I'm unhappy I code very poorly.
You have to have a level of trust in your developers. Development is not like laying bricks, it is a creative process. Emotional well being is extremely important in fostering creativity. Ever think you'd write a good wedding speech when you're unhappy or feeling like you're being constantly watched?
Open plan is just wrong for developers.
At a minimum have half height walls that make it difficult for neighbours to peer over. Plus they double as noticeboards that diagrams and notices can be pinned to.
Reality appears counter to your claims.
Your reality: remember, some people won't accept actual reality no matter how correct or inevitable it may be, you said it yourself!
Fortunately for the readers of this article you have managed to be one more proof: smart people just don't start smoking in the first place.
Reality appears counter to your claims.
Your reality; remember, you said it yourself, some people just can't comprehend some things, no matter how real or inevitable it may be.
It may be difficult for you to accept your own theories! After all, as a young child you couldn't accept basic realities as you've already pointed out!
which these kids can't grasp
Exactly. Moronic kids. Smart kids can actually grasp concepts, even if you can't comprehend such comprehension!
Make cigarettes more damaging to health, and let Darwin sort em out!
I always had this fantasy about testing this "addiction" that smokers complain about.
Picture a WW2 scenario. You have a room full of smokers. In the next room you have a carton of cigarettes. You tell the smokers the first person to go get a cigarette and light up gets shot. Then wait and see if they really are "addicted".
Personally I think smokers just have no will power. No real will power.
I don't know of any way to explain addiction in terms that a kid can truly understand.
Clearly you're a moron. And you couldn't understand why smoking was bad, so of course you have no idea how to explain addiction in terms a kid like you would understand.
Smarter kids hear what people like you have to say about your habit and they just don't want to be like you.
I know a lot of very smart people that smoke.
... you mean smarter than you right?
And you'll find yourself with a shitload of newly free hours in the day in which you can do all sorts of stuff.
Now if only I could find a way to free myself from slashdot...
This would not be too hard on their part, though obviously more computationally expensive.
Whoah, Facebook could do the simple things? They demonstrated a complete inability to do something that had been done for decades before - chat! That's right, ladies and gentlemen, Facebook could not even get something so simple as chat working. Must have been those fanciful types so tied into lustful dreams of Erlang instead of commercially-tried-and-tested languages. Or was it just an utter and complete lack of design?
Facebook is a company that chose to be a natural monopoly. Then abuse that to the full extent possible through a combination of decimation of privacy, incompetent operation, and absent design.
This would be like handing the power of water distribution to a private firm - sure, you could walk down to the ocean and perform your own desalination techniques, or put a rainwater tank on your roof, but the fact is certain services lend themselves to natural monopolies - and if your country's government was smart (about as likely as Facebook being efficient) it would design a functional and PRIVATE social network for its citizens.
You would make a great magician, so desperate to show everyone "how it works" in a vain attempt to gain recognition.
Trouble is, that trick only works once, your colleagues no longer respect you, and your entertained public no longer have anything interesting to watch or learn from you.