I could make a joke about windows Vista... but instead I will say that we will one day think nothing of having one core for each process that we're running and have a massively fast system (with solid state hard drives ; )
Also, technology can never develop too far, what if I want to set up my computer to talk to me like the one on the Enterprise (D)?... I do worry about the computers rebelling and trying to take over, though.
"I can really only play for about half an hour... will I have a chance to save?"
My god, I'm old too! but what makes that scary is I'm only 20. The only time I really get a good run at it is when my girlfriend has a lot of work to do, but now I have as much...
I can't imagine joining either (no matter how many people Wallop me). Not only because it sounds terrible, but because I'll never consider it "cool" to be associated with a mega-corporation who seem to have a pathalogical hatred for open source software and because all these sites seem to be bad ideas.
I don't get why anyone would care what music I like listening to or how pretty I can make my background.
your point is very true, and all the people on/. could do nothing to change this.
If we run with the idea of Bill Gates or MS (If they can ever really be seperated) wanting to buy Sony (I know it's not very realistic) they could use the idea contained here to pretty much sink Sony before buying it. Say Bill Gates was to buy every PS3 which was for sale by buying all that the main distributors had, Sony makes a big loss and won't sell a single game for them. They can't make enough consoles to plug that hole... they're in trouble. Bill comes out and openly admits it and suggests that all investors sell their shares or lose everything. Share price plumets. Sony goes to the verge of bankruptcy, maybe even calls in the liquidators before, hey presto, they've found a buyer - none other than MS!
I actually watched tron fairly recently and technology wise (for a film) it was pretty good, TRON himself seemed to be a hybrid of selinux and a firewall - which was why the MPC (here you can read "trusted computing" or WGA) hated him so much. TRON was going to monitor what all programs were doing and what systems they were accessing so that they didn't do anything inaporpriate.
So when you think about it, although it might have seen strange at the time, the ideas were spot on; even years ahead in the public mind
I'm all for converting as many people as possible, and I think there are some areas where you can make a real difference, like Firefox, because it will do what they want it to and they don't have to think about anything new or different. I've not even been able to get my girlfriend to agree to only have linux PCs in the house. She thinks she only know windows and that's all she wants. It's the same with my mum. I've shown them new things, triend to encourage... all for nought.
Some people just don't want to change - and they are the vast majority of people... These are also the same people who complain the second something doesn't work on linux and yet put up with endless crashes with windows (because windows never causes problems). I'm amazed that you have a 25% rate. Maybe you should be posting to use about how you have such a good level?
My problem is that they are profiting of my IP. They sell licences for this service to people (I tried to find out how much for but you need to apply for a quote). So they take my work and then use that as the basis for their business which makes money. I get no benifit out of this "service". I wouldn't even be as bad if they gave the students something back for it either financial or something for them as a whole.
If I was to take a copy of a peice of work from an "artist" and just keep a copy I bet you I'd be getting sued. If that is the new rules of the game then can you blame people for playing them?
I'm actually doing this, and I can give you advice about some sections of it.
Firstly about ACs and flaming, we run it through a university society so most people who come on are from a university (and as such there is little flaming and trolling). We are open though for anyone to post on it, but I think most people wouldn't hunt out a small system on the net to try and troll. I know you get it on/. but it is a much bigger target - and even here it's not too big of a problem.
I think If you want it to be non-partisan then you need to put up non-partisan stories and just let everyone have their own views and post them. You can even put up partisan stories but just try to make sure that they are fairly ballanced in number. For us me and a firend put up the stories, he's a Labour supporter (and a Blairite) whereas I'm a member of a conservative party. It's not normally that hard to see your own bias.
If you live in the UK getting access to non-partisan representations of the news is easy (because all our TV media has to be non-partisan). It might be harder if you want to do US news but you could always put up a right and a left wing interpretation of the story and then let people talk about where they feel that they are on it...
If you want to try and encourage well thought out discusion you should consider getting some friends and along with yourself post your own opinions on the stories in a well thought out way (especially at the start) so that people can see top quality examples of discusion and reason
As for moderation on the whole I'd say don't. I've had people say that they think that 9/11 and 7/7 were justified etc. and I've just left it, people can see bullshit and often don't even flame back (but can tear their poor arguements appart). I would delete something which used overly offensive language, or an obvious flaming comment (like "Bush is crap and likes to have sex with dogs and children!" - you know it's a lie and it has no point).
Reductions in price are always good. For the sell more and sell more games idea I'm not too sure, if we believe the marketing then the PS3 is meant to do everything and be a "media centre" and everything else, I think that even from what's been coming from Sony I've not seen them pushing the games
I've actually been thinking of getting a PS3 (or at least looking into it when they come out). I've heard that it can run linux and that the hardware seems pretty good. If I could get Fedora to work on it I could run it on a LCD HDTV and use the USB ports for the keyboard and mouse I could get one and a new HDTV cheaper than I could just buy a new PC. Even better it'd be subsidised by Sony and they'll lose money because I'll never buy a game or use any of their services.
I'm not sure whats going on with this. So you play the game, and in the game you get money, you can spend that in game money on guns etc.? I really don't see a problem with it. The only issue I would have is if they are asking for real money for it, but I don't see that as being the case.
"# Focus on what users really need to know. Don't avoid important text--be explicit whenever necessary--but don't be redundant or verbose. Because users often scan text, make every word count. Simple, concise text not only saves screen space, it most effectively conveys an important idea or action.
# Remove redundant text. Look for redundant text in window titles, main instructions, supplemental instructions, content areas, command links, and commit buttons. Generally, leave full text in instructions and interactive controls, and remove any redundancy from the other places.
I must say I'd love that to be true - But I fear it isn't. I posted on my university blog criticising the University about pretty much only using MS software and only offering support/education for people in MS products. I got verious replies (including one from a woman about how women don't know how to use computers and aren't capable of learning, and linux is too hard) but the one which stuck out most was a couple from IT staff, one claimed that Free Software wouldn't be cheaper to use because they would need to change their procedures and way of running (which would have a cost) and MS sells them pretty cheap licences... I fear that they'll be able to use their monopoly to keep themselves as a de facto standard so people only know that.
The second reply was saying that they couldn't roll out updates through out the network with free software in the same way that they could MS and they couldn't control it with the same level of precision that they could with MS products... I didn't get why (and suspected that it was untrue) but because I've never been a sys admin I guess I had to defer to their knowledge. If this is untrue I'm worried because they've started to believe MS's propaganda, if it's true I'm worried that open source is missing something
they are not afraid of change, they just see no benifit to it. This isn't the kind of thing that they could have a punt on and see how it works out. This is something which they hold very dear and want to make sure it's good
2) there are hundreds of open-source licenses and one more is not going to break the camel's back,
I agree, but their point is still a valid objection.
3) pleasing corporations is not a tenant of oss and never has been,
This might not have a lot to do with going out of their way to make big companies happy, but big business can help open source, without it I would argue that the community would be significantly worse off - without RedHat we wouldn't have Fedora
4) they can change piecemeal on new parts,
I don't know exactly how this would actually work in practice, I wouldn't have thought it would be easy - although probably possible
5) drm is incompatible with oss, end-of-line, qed
I also agree... although I'm not sure you can assert qed because you've given an oppinion, not a proof ; )
6) they are just being wankers.
Nice flame at the end there. We have seen that the v2 works really well, I've never seen a serious problem with it, why must they change? Isn't the kernel worth being a bit conservative with?
I'm havign a hard time understanding what all the problems with GPL v3 are about. We know that Linus isn't happy with it, we know a lot of people aren't keen on it. Because of this we will see a lot of projects stay on v2, with a few (and maybe an increasing number) go to v3. But why is this a problem? I think split licences are a good thing in this context, because I support freedom of choice. That's what we're here for in the first place isn't it? More choice is better.
So long as we can make the versions work with each other then there is no problem.
The GPL, whether it is version 2 or 3 will still be a sign to all end users that you can trust that the software will not take your rights and will be free (in both ways)
I thought that. This is a little like when you see kids misbehaving and the parent says "one more peep out of you and we're going home" but this time they actually did it!
Given the scope of the operation, are these losses to be expected or is this an example of poor government security standards?
Yes, the standards are poor, but not as bad as it could be because at least it contains a protection on the data and it seems that no one has used it yet. But this isn't enough, because no matter what you have someone can break it. They should institute a policy of witholding some pay from empolyees as a form of fine whenever they lose a laptop. $1000 would be enough of an incentive to make sure that they stopped leaving them in coffee shops.
Indeed, but I think that they could stretch it further, it would depend on their motives. If all I want is profit (which is what the article says is going on) then they could start rolling out the new spyware/malware etc. on tuesday itself - there just wouldn't be enough time for them to write a fix and test it, so they're still safe. And that's even if they find it the day it comes out
If they're doing it for prestige then it could be good for them to start releasing about 10 holes (and make MS know about it) on Sunday/Monday. Firstly, if they do nothing then they can be all over the net saying "ZOMG!!!! I pwnd M$!!!11!!" because MS failed to patch even when they knew something about it. But crucially if they patch the hole and the patch (because they've not had a long time to test it or work on it) it might cause more issues which will be far more embarresing for MS because it'll be them who are pwning computers via their patches
This is the first time I've heard anything about this in ages. It looks so much like a humanoid face, more so than I tought it did the last time I saw these pictures. It would be nice if this proved that there were aliens on mars, but this proves the opposite, this is because if there were aliens which could sculpt something to look like that at that size then they would that be the only thing that they would have left and/or why hide when we take photos? (I know of the big stone ass of mars, but that's all the way on the other side ; )
Other than that I wish that they would start to use missions about/to mars to prepare for when we first go, and hopefully for eventual terra-forming.
They must know the words "anti-trust" by now. I just hope that the fine which they are given if they actually go ahead with this actually constitutes more than they made on this. There is no excuse for attempting to keeping rival companies at a disadvantage - they already have all the OS market.
You'd think in business that it would be fairly easy to see who was cheating because when people write extended essays it would show up strait away with people using the same sources in the same way etc. I would say Maths/Statistics has the most cheaters, pretty much everyone I know who takes it cheats at it. They even sit next to ech other unsupervised during exams and sometimes take multiple choice exams... maybe they just seem more trustworthy?
Thats how I thought this would work and does seem like quite a good idea, I worry though that if it was vibrate or a low sound (which would stop a theif from killing you trying to get you to switch it off as the GP mentions) then you might set it off by accident and not notice... therefore lose their data/phone. You also have to worry about what your kids might do if they are playing with your phone
More over though I wonder why this is needed because mobile phones can be deactivated permanently by the police remotely (well, I think they'd get the phone company to do it). If more people used that option then no stolen phone would ever be worth anything and the theft would stop all together.
I half agree. MS has been trying to get people into the idea of buying both a 360 and a Wii - I guess a few people will. I'm not sure about all 3, I wonder what advantage you get from getting a PS3 on top of a 360 (and if that is worth $600)
Still, I consider myself a fairly serious gamer, or at least I used to be. I've always been happy just having one console at a time, there is so many great games to play on each console that you could play solidly for years and experience but half of what a console had to offer. I think the Wii will do very well. If you look at lists of best selling games of all time a hell of a lot of them are ninty games on franchies which will be on the Wii (Mario, Zelda, Pokemon) - It would have to try pretty hard to fail really badly
I can see why they would do that, I was pretty shocked that courses which you take before uni can count towards your degree. Is this just one of these places where anyone can pass?
At my uni (Warwick, UK) a degree takes 3 years (four for courses with manditory year placements) it takes that long because that's how long it takes to do 16 modules, even if you wanted to do more, you couldn't... you couldn't physically do all the reading which you are meant to. Not only that but we have at least 1 core module each year which can only be taken in that year...
Slashdot Mirror
I could make a joke about windows Vista... but instead I will say that we will one day think nothing of having one core for each process that we're running and have a massively fast system (with solid state hard drives ; )
Also, technology can never develop too far, what if I want to set up my computer to talk to me like the one on the Enterprise (D)?... I do worry about the computers rebelling and trying to take over, though.
"I can really only play for about half an hour... will I have a chance to save?"
My god, I'm old too! but what makes that scary is I'm only 20. The only time I really get a good run at it is when my girlfriend has a lot of work to do, but now I have as much...
I can't imagine joining either (no matter how many people Wallop me). Not only because it sounds terrible, but because I'll never consider it "cool" to be associated with a mega-corporation who seem to have a pathalogical hatred for open source software and because all these sites seem to be bad ideas.
I don't get why anyone would care what music I like listening to or how pretty I can make my background.
your point is very true, and all the people on /. could do nothing to change this.
If we run with the idea of Bill Gates or MS (If they can ever really be seperated) wanting to buy Sony (I know it's not very realistic) they could use the idea contained here to pretty much sink Sony before buying it. Say Bill Gates was to buy every PS3 which was for sale by buying all that the main distributors had, Sony makes a big loss and won't sell a single game for them. They can't make enough consoles to plug that hole... they're in trouble. Bill comes out and openly admits it and suggests that all investors sell their shares or lose everything. Share price plumets. Sony goes to the verge of bankruptcy, maybe even calls in the liquidators before, hey presto, they've found a buyer - none other than MS!
I actually watched tron fairly recently and technology wise (for a film) it was pretty good, TRON himself seemed to be a hybrid of selinux and a firewall - which was why the MPC (here you can read "trusted computing" or WGA) hated him so much. TRON was going to monitor what all programs were doing and what systems they were accessing so that they didn't do anything inaporpriate.
So when you think about it, although it might have seen strange at the time, the ideas were spot on; even years ahead in the public mind
I'm all for converting as many people as possible, and I think there are some areas where you can make a real difference, like Firefox, because it will do what they want it to and they don't have to think about anything new or different. I've not even been able to get my girlfriend to agree to only have linux PCs in the house. She thinks she only know windows and that's all she wants. It's the same with my mum. I've shown them new things, triend to encourage... all for nought.
Some people just don't want to change - and they are the vast majority of people... These are also the same people who complain the second something doesn't work on linux and yet put up with endless crashes with windows (because windows never causes problems). I'm amazed that you have a 25% rate. Maybe you should be posting to use about how you have such a good level?
My problem is that they are profiting of my IP. They sell licences for this service to people (I tried to find out how much for but you need to apply for a quote). So they take my work and then use that as the basis for their business which makes money. I get no benifit out of this "service". I wouldn't even be as bad if they gave the students something back for it either financial or something for them as a whole.
If I was to take a copy of a peice of work from an "artist" and just keep a copy I bet you I'd be getting sued. If that is the new rules of the game then can you blame people for playing them?
I'm actually doing this, and I can give you advice about some sections of it.
/. but it is a much bigger target - and even here it's not too big of a problem.
Firstly about ACs and flaming, we run it through a university society so most people who come on are from a university (and as such there is little flaming and trolling). We are open though for anyone to post on it, but I think most people wouldn't hunt out a small system on the net to try and troll. I know you get it on
I think If you want it to be non-partisan then you need to put up non-partisan stories and just let everyone have their own views and post them. You can even put up partisan stories but just try to make sure that they are fairly ballanced in number. For us me and a firend put up the stories, he's a Labour supporter (and a Blairite) whereas I'm a member of a conservative party. It's not normally that hard to see your own bias.
If you live in the UK getting access to non-partisan representations of the news is easy (because all our TV media has to be non-partisan). It might be harder if you want to do US news but you could always put up a right and a left wing interpretation of the story and then let people talk about where they feel that they are on it...
If you want to try and encourage well thought out discusion you should consider getting some friends and along with yourself post your own opinions on the stories in a well thought out way (especially at the start) so that people can see top quality examples of discusion and reason
As for moderation on the whole I'd say don't. I've had people say that they think that 9/11 and 7/7 were justified etc. and I've just left it, people can see bullshit and often don't even flame back (but can tear their poor arguements appart). I would delete something which used overly offensive language, or an obvious flaming comment (like "Bush is crap and likes to have sex with dogs and children!" - you know it's a lie and it has no point).
Reductions in price are always good. For the sell more and sell more games idea I'm not too sure, if we believe the marketing then the PS3 is meant to do everything and be a "media centre" and everything else, I think that even from what's been coming from Sony I've not seen them pushing the games
I've actually been thinking of getting a PS3 (or at least looking into it when they come out). I've heard that it can run linux and that the hardware seems pretty good. If I could get Fedora to work on it I could run it on a LCD HDTV and use the USB ports for the keyboard and mouse I could get one and a new HDTV cheaper than I could just buy a new PC. Even better it'd be subsidised by Sony and they'll lose money because I'll never buy a game or use any of their services.
I'm not sure whats going on with this. So you play the game, and in the game you get money, you can spend that in game money on guns etc.? I really don't see a problem with it. The only issue I would have is if they are asking for real money for it, but I don't see that as being the case.
I just loved this bit;
"# Focus on what users really need to know. Don't avoid important text--be explicit whenever necessary--but don't be redundant or verbose. Because users often scan text, make every word count. Simple, concise text not only saves screen space, it most effectively conveys an important idea or action.
# Remove redundant text. Look for redundant text in window titles, main instructions, supplemental instructions, content areas, command links, and commit buttons. Generally, leave full text in instructions and interactive controls, and remove any redundancy from the other places.
glad to see MS don't break their own rules!
I must say I'd love that to be true - But I fear it isn't. I posted on my university blog criticising the University about pretty much only using MS software and only offering support/education for people in MS products. I got verious replies (including one from a woman about how women don't know how to use computers and aren't capable of learning, and linux is too hard) but the one which stuck out most was a couple from IT staff, one claimed that Free Software wouldn't be cheaper to use because they would need to change their procedures and way of running (which would have a cost) and MS sells them pretty cheap licences... I fear that they'll be able to use their monopoly to keep themselves as a de facto standard so people only know that.
The second reply was saying that they couldn't roll out updates through out the network with free software in the same way that they could MS and they couldn't control it with the same level of precision that they could with MS products... I didn't get why (and suspected that it was untrue) but because I've never been a sys admin I guess I had to defer to their knowledge. If this is untrue I'm worried because they've started to believe MS's propaganda, if it's true I'm worried that open source is missing something
1) fear of change is not a reason,
they are not afraid of change, they just see no benifit to it. This isn't the kind of thing that they could have a punt on and see how it works out. This is something which they hold very dear and want to make sure it's good
2) there are hundreds of open-source licenses and one more is not going to break the camel's back,
I agree, but their point is still a valid objection.
3) pleasing corporations is not a tenant of oss and never has been,
This might not have a lot to do with going out of their way to make big companies happy, but big business can help open source, without it I would argue that the community would be significantly worse off - without RedHat we wouldn't have Fedora
4) they can change piecemeal on new parts,
I don't know exactly how this would actually work in practice, I wouldn't have thought it would be easy - although probably possible
5) drm is incompatible with oss, end-of-line, qed
I also agree... although I'm not sure you can assert qed because you've given an oppinion, not a proof ; )
6) they are just being wankers.
Nice flame at the end there. We have seen that the v2 works really well, I've never seen a serious problem with it, why must they change? Isn't the kernel worth being a bit conservative with?
I'm havign a hard time understanding what all the problems with GPL v3 are about. We know that Linus isn't happy with it, we know a lot of people aren't keen on it. Because of this we will see a lot of projects stay on v2, with a few (and maybe an increasing number) go to v3. But why is this a problem? I think split licences are a good thing in this context, because I support freedom of choice. That's what we're here for in the first place isn't it? More choice is better.
So long as we can make the versions work with each other then there is no problem.
The GPL, whether it is version 2 or 3 will still be a sign to all end users that you can trust that the software will not take your rights and will be free (in both ways)
I thought that. This is a little like when you see kids misbehaving and the parent says "one more peep out of you and we're going home" but this time they actually did it!
Given the scope of the operation, are these losses to be expected or is this an example of poor government security standards?
Yes, the standards are poor, but not as bad as it could be because at least it contains a protection on the data and it seems that no one has used it yet. But this isn't enough, because no matter what you have someone can break it. They should institute a policy of witholding some pay from empolyees as a form of fine whenever they lose a laptop. $1000 would be enough of an incentive to make sure that they stopped leaving them in coffee shops.
Indeed, but I think that they could stretch it further, it would depend on their motives. If all I want is profit (which is what the article says is going on) then they could start rolling out the new spyware/malware etc. on tuesday itself - there just wouldn't be enough time for them to write a fix and test it, so they're still safe. And that's even if they find it the day it comes out
If they're doing it for prestige then it could be good for them to start releasing about 10 holes (and make MS know about it) on Sunday/Monday. Firstly, if they do nothing then they can be all over the net saying "ZOMG!!!! I pwnd M$!!!11!!" because MS failed to patch even when they knew something about it. But crucially if they patch the hole and the patch (because they've not had a long time to test it or work on it) it might cause more issues which will be far more embarresing for MS because it'll be them who are pwning computers via their patches
This is the first time I've heard anything about this in ages. It looks so much like a humanoid face, more so than I tought it did the last time I saw these pictures. It would be nice if this proved that there were aliens on mars, but this proves the opposite, this is because if there were aliens which could sculpt something to look like that at that size then they would that be the only thing that they would have left and/or why hide when we take photos? (I know of the big stone ass of mars, but that's all the way on the other side ; )
Other than that I wish that they would start to use missions about/to mars to prepare for when we first go, and hopefully for eventual terra-forming.
They must know the words "anti-trust" by now. I just hope that the fine which they are given if they actually go ahead with this actually constitutes more than they made on this. There is no excuse for attempting to keeping rival companies at a disadvantage - they already have all the OS market.
You'd think in business that it would be fairly easy to see who was cheating because when people write extended essays it would show up strait away with people using the same sources in the same way etc. I would say Maths/Statistics has the most cheaters, pretty much everyone I know who takes it cheats at it. They even sit next to ech other unsupervised during exams and sometimes take multiple choice exams... maybe they just seem more trustworthy?
Thats how I thought this would work and does seem like quite a good idea, I worry though that if it was vibrate or a low sound (which would stop a theif from killing you trying to get you to switch it off as the GP mentions) then you might set it off by accident and not notice... therefore lose their data/phone. You also have to worry about what your kids might do if they are playing with your phone
More over though I wonder why this is needed because mobile phones can be deactivated permanently by the police remotely (well, I think they'd get the phone company to do it). If more people used that option then no stolen phone would ever be worth anything and the theft would stop all together.
"a sprawling, mind-boggling concoction of matchbox-size motors, plastic Lego-like parts, twisted wiring, 200 tiny screws and a 100-page manual"
call that hard? you've obviously never made an airfix plane. At least here you get all the screws/wires you need!
You mean you actually see the ads?... you really need Adblock
I half agree. MS has been trying to get people into the idea of buying both a 360 and a Wii - I guess a few people will. I'm not sure about all 3, I wonder what advantage you get from getting a PS3 on top of a 360 (and if that is worth $600)
Still, I consider myself a fairly serious gamer, or at least I used to be. I've always been happy just having one console at a time, there is so many great games to play on each console that you could play solidly for years and experience but half of what a console had to offer. I think the Wii will do very well. If you look at lists of best selling games of all time a hell of a lot of them are ninty games on franchies which will be on the Wii (Mario, Zelda, Pokemon) - It would have to try pretty hard to fail really badly
I can see why they would do that, I was pretty shocked that courses which you take before uni can count towards your degree. Is this just one of these places where anyone can pass?
At my uni (Warwick, UK) a degree takes 3 years (four for courses with manditory year placements) it takes that long because that's how long it takes to do 16 modules, even if you wanted to do more, you couldn't... you couldn't physically do all the reading which you are meant to. Not only that but we have at least 1 core module each year which can only be taken in that year...
You have a crazy system