Indeed. Every company has a disclaimer on the lines of "tampering voids warranty". Heck, Microsoft even has a "warranty is voided the moment you buy it" policy. And does the GPL make any fundamental difference between commercial and non-commercial? I don't think so. I think it's perfectly legal to link to sources on another site, as long as you replace these links when the site you linked to stops distributing these sources. Your own modified sources should be available from your own site. People who will want to tamper with it, will understand it voids their warranty (warn them again on the site), and will be assured the code on the site(s) will help them recover their tampered machine when it stops working.
Of course I realise it is fiction written by people of whom many are technically ignorant (my remark about downloading/copying was also ironic).
Star Trek depicts a future in which the computers work. I.e.: the computer users don't have to be expert hackers to get their systems working properly and reliably, as is now the case.
I know that I am computer capable, but don't have any degrees yet. Your comment made me realise I will need CS degrees if I want to make money with my skills. I see many advertisements for IT personnel requiring a degree.
The next major frontier, will not allow easy entry with a DIY Gene Splicing Kit available from BioShack(tm)... (nice name though, except for the BiCaps)
No, I'm not sure. I'm not even sure whether I want to be sure about that. It does interest me enough for me to try to find out. IMHO, this forum is about as good as it gets to discuss this.
I think some technology will eventually stabilize. Take the weel for example. It's always been more or less round, of course. The first weels were probably made of wood (or rocks in cartoons), and did not have fancy things like spokes. Later wheels did have spokes or holes in them. Even air-filled rubber tires. I don't think we'll have a major wheel-technology revolution coming up any time soon... though transport as a whole might be indeed revolutionized yet.
About the Star Trek episodes: ever noticed that they have problems with copying data? The can move the Doctor's program, but when some alien ship tries to download him, the crew is afraid they will lose him. Does this have to do with copyright legislation?
$ cp foo bar cp: access denied due to copyright restrictions. $ su -c "cp foo bar" Password: $
The Star Trek crew does occasionaly fine tune some devices, but I don't see them reinstall all software anytime... or switching to a radically different OS... Hmm... whenever the ship is hit, you can see a Blue Screen enveloping it... Not good...
About your house: the house itself (walls, doors, ceilings, roof, floor) is made with established, stabilized technologies. Bricks have been in use for millennia. Walls and roofs have been in use for millennia, for that matter. The doorbell, cable tv connection, radio antenna, POTS socket: these things are standardized, stabilized technologies, and they just WORK, don't they? Things like computers, ISDN, ADSL or cable modem Internet connections aren't part of the established technology yet, though ISDN is becoming one. Computers seem to have standardized on Intel x86 architectures, due to Evil Marketing (tm).
I think it would not be bad if there would be a time when a cheap CPU could perform adequately in even the most demanding of games, and that there would be something like a "Standard Computer" consisting of parts that are adequate enough for >95% of the users. It would run software adequate enough for >95% of the users. My only problem with this is, that Windows seems to be becoming this standard. Too many companies are already treating it like that.
Btw, why is the first half of your text readable, and WHY does the M$ moron kick in in the latter half? All those question marks... ?!I just don?t get it?!
I think it is a good thing when the technology stabilizes. Things will become more easy to setup, and will have to work reliably to be successful.
Just take a look at Star Trek, or any other SF series: the computers just work. No ifs, buts or device drivers. They work. That's what most people will want anyways.
When the Internet has stabilized, and anyone anywhere can get a connection for a few bucks, I think this 'investment of genius' we are now doing, will pay off: everyone will be able to share ideas and opinions, and stay informed. That is not the case in the Third World at all at this moment. I think this increased equality will increase the rate of development in the 3rd World.
(There weren't any other comment when I wrote this (First Post! Woohoo! Ahem), so I am interested in your opinions. Maybe I'll refine mine when I read yours.)
Where I worked, they had an NT network. "My computer" had a hostname consisting of one character depicting the city in which it was located, and six hex bytes which represented the mac address of the nic in it. After a while, one of my colleagues sent me a.reg file which enabled regedit... I changed my hostname a.s.a.p. to "orkysoft". That made it much easier to play games over the network. Also, we were not allowed to email to outside of the company. There was a sample program supplied with the IDE we used to program our stuff (i.e. games), which was a simple email client. There was a server, probably running some flavour of UN*X, running something on port 25. Do the maths...
This company (which I will not name) actually guards sensitive data. Using a 99% M$ solution. I don't work there anymore, naturally;-)
It's because of Microsoft's scheme to take over the world. They only recently introduced this in their new Office software, because the other scheme, the Y2K bug, will probably fail...
Seriously, the M$ programs used in making the text don't use ASCII or Unicode, but a proprietary (don't you all hate that word) character set, which has the apostrophes at other values. Only people using M$ OSes (and browsers?) will see the text correctly.
See also: Demoronizer (search on/.)
Re:so the sun is the center of the universe?
on
Galileo's Daughter
·
· Score: 1
No. Actually, the center of the universe isn't clear. Maybe there isn't a center at all, maybe you can state that the center of the universe is *right here*. Many people do that;-]
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed. Every company has a disclaimer on the lines of "tampering voids warranty". Heck, Microsoft even has a "warranty is voided the moment you buy it" policy. And does the GPL make any fundamental difference between commercial and non-commercial? I don't think so. I think it's perfectly legal to link to sources on another site, as long as you replace these links when the site you linked to stops distributing these sources. Your own modified sources should be available from your own site. People who will want to tamper with it, will understand it voids their warranty (warn them again on the site), and will be assured the code on the site(s) will help them recover their tampered machine when it stops working.
They stress their right to innovate on behalf of the consumer.
JJ also stated that M$ tries to prevent innovation that would benefit the consumers. The quote was quite clear on that.
Of course I realise it is fiction written by people of whom many are technically ignorant (my remark about downloading/copying was also ironic).
Star Trek depicts a future in which the computers work. I.e.: the computer users don't have to be expert hackers to get their systems working properly and reliably, as is now the case.
You make many good points.
I know that I am computer capable, but don't have any degrees yet. Your comment made me realise I will need CS degrees if I want to make money with my skills. I see many advertisements for IT personnel requiring a degree.
The next major frontier, will not allow easy entry with a DIY Gene Splicing Kit available from BioShack(tm)... (nice name though, except for the BiCaps)
>Are you sure technology will ever stabilize?
No, I'm not sure. I'm not even sure whether I want to be sure about that. It does interest me enough for me to try to find out. IMHO, this forum is about as good as it gets to discuss this.
I think some technology will eventually stabilize.
Take the weel for example. It's always been more or less round, of course. The first weels were probably made of wood (or rocks in cartoons), and did not have fancy things like spokes. Later wheels did have spokes or holes in them. Even air-filled rubber tires.
I don't think we'll have a major wheel-technology revolution coming up any time soon... though transport as a whole might be indeed revolutionized yet.
About the Star Trek episodes: ever noticed that they have problems with copying data? The can move the Doctor's program, but when some alien ship tries to download him, the crew is afraid they will lose him. Does this have to do with copyright legislation?
$ cp foo bar
cp: access denied due to copyright restrictions.
$ su -c "cp foo bar"
Password:
$
The Star Trek crew does occasionaly fine tune some devices, but I don't see them reinstall all software anytime... or switching to a radically different OS... Hmm... whenever the ship is hit, you can see a Blue Screen enveloping it... Not good...
About your house: the house itself (walls, doors, ceilings, roof, floor) is made with established, stabilized technologies. Bricks have been in use for millennia. Walls and roofs have been in use for millennia, for that matter.
The doorbell, cable tv connection, radio antenna, POTS socket: these things are standardized, stabilized technologies, and they just WORK, don't they?
Things like computers, ISDN, ADSL or cable modem Internet connections aren't part of the established technology yet, though ISDN is becoming one. Computers seem to have standardized on Intel x86 architectures, due to Evil Marketing (tm).
I think it would not be bad if there would be a time when a cheap CPU could perform adequately in even the most demanding of games, and that there would be something like a "Standard Computer" consisting of parts that are adequate enough for >95% of the users. It would run software adequate enough for >95% of the users.
My only problem with this is, that Windows seems to be becoming this standard. Too many companies are already treating it like that.
Btw, why is the first half of your text readable, and WHY does the M$ moron kick in in the latter half? All those question marks... ?!I just don?t get it?!
It's not a bad idea to pronounce "PNG" as [ping].
We could even say it means "Portable Inter Net(work) Graphics", and it's easier to pronounce.
I think it is a good thing when the technology stabilizes. Things will become more easy to setup, and will have to work reliably to be successful.
Just take a look at Star Trek, or any other SF series: the computers just work. No ifs, buts or device drivers. They work. That's what most people will want anyways.
When the Internet has stabilized, and anyone anywhere can get a connection for a few bucks, I think this 'investment of genius' we are now doing, will pay off: everyone will be able to share ideas and opinions, and stay informed. That is not the case in the Third World at all at this moment. I think this increased equality will increase the rate of development in the 3rd World.
(There weren't any other comment when I wrote this (First Post! Woohoo! Ahem), so I am interested in your opinions. Maybe I'll refine mine when I read yours.)
Where I worked, they had an NT network. .reg file which enabled regedit... I changed my hostname a.s.a.p. to "orkysoft". That made it much easier to play games over the network. Also, we were not allowed to email to outside of the company. There was a sample program supplied with the IDE we used to program our stuff (i.e. games), which was a simple email client. There was a server, probably running some flavour of UN*X, running something on port 25. Do the maths...
;-)
"My computer" had a hostname consisting of one character depicting the city in which it was located, and six hex bytes which represented the mac address of the nic in it. After a while, one of my colleagues sent me a
This company (which I will not name) actually guards sensitive data. Using a 99% M$ solution.
I don't work there anymore, naturally
Just substitute the "ftp://ftp" part with ;-)
"http://www". The guy just wanted to show off
Indeed, M$ is very good in choosing the right words to let its failures look not so severe.
Maybe you aren't using the latest bugs...?
So you looked anyway? Well, the ?'s (or should that be ??s) are there on purpose.
It's because of Microsoft's scheme to take over the world. They only recently introduced this in their new Office software, because the other scheme, the Y2K bug, will probably fail...
/.)
Seriously, the M$ programs used in making the text don't use ASCII or Unicode, but a proprietary (don't you all hate that word) character set, which has the apostrophes at other values. Only people using M$ OSes (and browsers?) will see the text correctly.
See also: Demoronizer (search on
No. Actually, the center of the universe isn't clear. Maybe there isn't a center at all, maybe you can state that the center of the universe is *right here*. Many people do that ;-]
See? No ?question marks?... ?-]