My experience as an observer has been similar. Back in high school (that's mid/late '90s -- this is nothing new) I knew several people who would snort ritalin in order to write papers or do work. It never seemed to improve their work, only make it easier to do the work, as opposed to procrastinate. Maybe some newer drugs actually help people do better work (I don't know anything about Adderall), but I'd be surprised if it were any different.
The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works.
Hard to buy that the company would support anything open for free use after hearing that from its CEO.
Ballmer's objection is to government funding of software that is licensed in such a way as to prevent some people from using it in certain ways. This objection does not cover software that is not funded by the government, nor does it cover software that is licensed in such a way as to allow anyone to use it however they wish.
So Microsoft could certainly open up some software under one of those two cases (no government funding, or a license that allows everyone to use it), and this would not conflict with the views you quoted.
The Register is one of the most bias, spinning tech news sites Ive ever read, and I first started reading it 6 years ago - its only got worse since then. I actually refuse to browse the site these days, only reading their articles when directly linked and pretty much all of them have some really evil spin on them.
Oddly enough, that's precisely why I love to read it!
Every time some asian (or navtive american) says something whisy washy, a sizable group of people think it's wisdom. Look at the quotes in the article, it's meaningless blabber.
"Asian say wishwash, people hear wisdom."
There, now people will listen to you.
"software glitch"? Right. That's the most pathetic attempt at damage control I've seen in quite a while.
Maybe you are right, but imagine that AOL is trying to prevent fraudulent emails that have the text: "Dear AOL Subscriber,". That is, emails that purport to be from AOL regarding the recipient's account, but not actually sent from AOL.
If you can imagine that, now imagine that someone implemented that by simply blocking the text "dear aol" in a case insensitive manner where there can be zero or more spaces.
It's not that hard to imagine. Easy enough that I would consider it a reasonable possibility.
So why would microsoft want to divulge the security holes it is patching so openly? If I was looking to break into someone elses system the first place I would go is to microsoft.com check to see what security holes it has just patched and then see if my neighboor has patched yet.
It would be way to easy for people to learn about the problems that microsoft has riddled the world with.
The flaw in this line of thinking (that obfuscation means better security) is that anyone serious about exploiting recently-patched flaws is not going to gain a tremendous advantage if Microsoft describes what they patched or not. They can compare binaries and disassemble code and figure it out for themselves.
It may well prevent a few people from bothering to try writing exploits, but anyone intent on exploiting patched flaws will be able to figure out how to exploit them, regardless of whether Microsoft describes the flaw or not.
There is a difference between a guild that contains members that all share attribute X, and a guild that is based upon attribute X. You can't claim a guild that is based on the Christian faith is equivalent a guild based on heterosexuality.
Note that I don't necessarily agree with the OP (A GLBT guild is clearly based on sexual preference, but I'm not convinced a GLBT guild is based on sexual activity).
To all of you who say science is faith-based as much as any religion, this article is an example of why you're wrong.
Well, first of all, what is meant by science being faith-based is that, in the end, our set of beliefs about "science" are no more grounded in fact than our set of beliefs about "religion."
But your assertion that in "religion," no one admits mistakes is incorrect. It may take a lot of teeth-pulling, but there are plenty of admissions throughout history: that the earth is not in the center of the universe, that evolution is a better theory than Creationism (not every Christian has admitted this, of course), and so on. Of course, scientific beliefs take a lot of teeth-pulling to give up as well...
There are some fundamental beliefs in religions that there can be no mistakes about (or the religion is wrong). But this is the same with science. Logic rules, for example.
Examine anything you consider to be "fact." Break it down and examine what it is necessary to believe in order for that fact to be true. You may be surprised at how much you need to believe that, really, there exists no "proof" for (certainly not "scientific" proof).
If you don't consider making code proprietary to be ethical, you clearly cannot consider liberating the code to be unethical.
Of course you can. You might simply consider breaking the law to be unethical. Or you might consider harming others by ruining their business unethical (whether or not they rely on something you consider unethical). There are a lot of reasons one might consider it unethical to stop/reverse something else they consider unethical.
And what's absolutely stupid is idiots like you insisting that it's no big deal, just because nobody's forced to use the product. That's like saying that exploding laptops are no problem, just because only some brands explode.
It's not like saying that at all. It's implied that an exploding laptop is not something the user expects. Further, under no reasonable circumstances that I can think of is it ok for a laptop to explode. Google Desktop copying data to its servers, on the other hand, is something the user expects, because it is clearly pointed out to the user, and there are circumstances where it is ok for Google to copy data to its servers.
It *does* serve a purpose - it makes my day that little bit more enjoyable. Decorating your house serves no real purpose (unless you're trying to sell it), but most people want something a little nicer than bare walls. People decorate their cubicles and offices - a photo here, a plant there.
No one said eye candy doesn't serve a purpose. No one said eye candy is worthless. It's still eye candy, because its purpose is directly related to its aesthetic value.
I used to use that, until it started freezing Firefox. Then it wouldn't uninstall! I had to manually go in and edit and delete files.
Hopefully they've fixed that bug by now... but it was enough for me to not want to try installing it again.
Besides, Flashblock (unless it's changed) blocks EVERYTHING, and you have to click through to see the flash. This gets annoying on sites like http://www.homestarrunner.com/ -- I much prefer Adblock's method of blacklisting flash ads via filters. Flash I want to run does, flash I don't want to run doesn't.
The mental image this creates for me is of some brain-damaged ex-geek -- their mind finally snapped from too much Bawlz and sleep deprivation -- safely locked up in a rubber room somewhere, gibbering spastically to themselves. They're having a delightful conversation, too bad they're the only one there.
Only one there? There are 5+ million other virtual brain-damaged ex-geeks subscribing to the same asylum!:P
Slashdot Mirror
My experience as an observer has been similar. Back in high school (that's mid/late '90s -- this is nothing new) I knew several people who would snort ritalin in order to write papers or do work. It never seemed to improve their work, only make it easier to do the work, as opposed to procrastinate. Maybe some newer drugs actually help people do better work (I don't know anything about Adderall), but I'd be surprised if it were any different.
;)
carless errors
Do tell me that was intentional.
An elevator with the Mac UI would have just one button "THERE". I mean, after all, I'm already HERE.
And the button would be in the middle of a big touch-sensitive circle that makes the elevator go up and down at varying speeds.
Actually, that might be kind of cool...
Ballmer's objection is to government funding of software that is licensed in such a way as to prevent some people from using it in certain ways. This objection does not cover software that is not funded by the government, nor does it cover software that is licensed in such a way as to allow anyone to use it however they wish.
So Microsoft could certainly open up some software under one of those two cases (no government funding, or a license that allows everyone to use it), and this would not conflict with the views you quoted.
I for one welcome our new wild algae overlords.
The Register is one of the most bias, spinning tech news sites Ive ever read, and I first started reading it 6 years ago - its only got worse since then. I actually refuse to browse the site these days, only reading their articles when directly linked and pretty much all of them have some really evil spin on them.
Oddly enough, that's precisely why I love to read it!
Every time some asian (or navtive american) says something whisy washy, a sizable group of people think it's wisdom. Look at the quotes in the article, it's meaningless blabber. "Asian say wishwash, people hear wisdom." There, now people will listen to you.
"software glitch"? Right. That's the most pathetic attempt at damage control I've seen in quite a while.
Maybe you are right, but imagine that AOL is trying to prevent fraudulent emails that have the text: "Dear AOL Subscriber,". That is, emails that purport to be from AOL regarding the recipient's account, but not actually sent from AOL.
If you can imagine that, now imagine that someone implemented that by simply blocking the text "dear aol" in a case insensitive manner where there can be zero or more spaces.
It's not that hard to imagine. Easy enough that I would consider it a reasonable possibility.
So why would microsoft want to divulge the security holes it is patching so openly? If I was looking to break into someone elses system the first place I would go is to microsoft.com check to see what security holes it has just patched and then see if my neighboor has patched yet. It would be way to easy for people to learn about the problems that microsoft has riddled the world with.
The flaw in this line of thinking (that obfuscation means better security) is that anyone serious about exploiting recently-patched flaws is not going to gain a tremendous advantage if Microsoft describes what they patched or not. They can compare binaries and disassemble code and figure it out for themselves.
It may well prevent a few people from bothering to try writing exploits, but anyone intent on exploiting patched flaws will be able to figure out how to exploit them, regardless of whether Microsoft describes the flaw or not.
There is a difference between a guild that contains members that all share attribute X, and a guild that is based upon attribute X. You can't claim a guild that is based on the Christian faith is equivalent a guild based on heterosexuality.
Note that I don't necessarily agree with the OP (A GLBT guild is clearly based on sexual preference, but I'm not convinced a GLBT guild is based on sexual activity).
Presumably he means that he would be testing out beta OSes so that he could then upgrade to them immediately when they were officially released.
Of course, that may be too optimistic.
To all of you who say science is faith-based as much as any religion, this article is an example of why you're wrong.
Well, first of all, what is meant by science being faith-based is that, in the end, our set of beliefs about "science" are no more grounded in fact than our set of beliefs about "religion."
But your assertion that in "religion," no one admits mistakes is incorrect. It may take a lot of teeth-pulling, but there are plenty of admissions throughout history: that the earth is not in the center of the universe, that evolution is a better theory than Creationism (not every Christian has admitted this, of course), and so on. Of course, scientific beliefs take a lot of teeth-pulling to give up as well...
There are some fundamental beliefs in religions that there can be no mistakes about (or the religion is wrong). But this is the same with science. Logic rules, for example.
Examine anything you consider to be "fact." Break it down and examine what it is necessary to believe in order for that fact to be true. You may be surprised at how much you need to believe that, really, there exists no "proof" for (certainly not "scientific" proof).
Obviously there's got to be a lot of helium in there . .
Well, yeah. How else did that giant flaming balloon get so far up in the sky?
Apparently teenaged boys don't need to practice drawing their nudes when they can just download them off the web.
This is, by far, the most amusing Slashdot summary I have read in quite a long time.
Or is this just a chance to write an article using the latest buzzword?
Take AJAX a wild AJAX guess. AJAX.
They can't pass that, the acronym will result in infinite recursion and the government will crash!
If you don't consider making code proprietary to be ethical, you clearly cannot consider liberating the code to be unethical.
Of course you can. You might simply consider breaking the law to be unethical. Or you might consider harming others by ruining their business unethical (whether or not they rely on something you consider unethical). There are a lot of reasons one might consider it unethical to stop/reverse something else they consider unethical.
And what's absolutely stupid is idiots like you insisting that it's no big deal, just because nobody's forced to use the product. That's like saying that exploding laptops are no problem, just because only some brands explode.
It's not like saying that at all. It's implied that an exploding laptop is not something the user expects. Further, under no reasonable circumstances that I can think of is it ok for a laptop to explode. Google Desktop copying data to its servers, on the other hand, is something the user expects, because it is clearly pointed out to the user, and there are circumstances where it is ok for Google to copy data to its servers.
It *does* serve a purpose - it makes my day that little bit more enjoyable. Decorating your house serves no real purpose (unless you're trying to sell it), but most people want something a little nicer than bare walls. People decorate their cubicles and offices - a photo here, a plant there.
No one said eye candy doesn't serve a purpose. No one said eye candy is worthless. It's still eye candy, because its purpose is directly related to its aesthetic value.
Feel free to send your single malts my way. I am happy to empty the bottle for you...
When a slashdot story goes up saying "House staffers screw around with articles", that's a victory for the Wikipedia system.
That's like saying getting beaten up is a victory for a masochist.
It may be a victory in some abstract sense. In any meaningful sense of the word, it most certainly is not.
No. Like Flashblock.
I used to use that, until it started freezing Firefox. Then it wouldn't uninstall! I had to manually go in and edit and delete files.
Hopefully they've fixed that bug by now... but it was enough for me to not want to try installing it again.
Besides, Flashblock (unless it's changed) blocks EVERYTHING, and you have to click through to see the flash. This gets annoying on sites like http://www.homestarrunner.com/ -- I much prefer Adblock's method of blacklisting flash ads via filters. Flash I want to run does, flash I don't want to run doesn't.
Like Adblock Plus?
The mental image this creates for me is of some brain-damaged ex-geek -- their mind finally snapped from too much Bawlz and sleep deprivation -- safely locked up in a rubber room somewhere, gibbering spastically to themselves. They're having a delightful conversation, too bad they're the only one there.
:P
Only one there? There are 5+ million other virtual brain-damaged ex-geeks subscribing to the same asylum!
but in the eyes of his fanbase he remains a god.
He has a fan base?
I remember several years ago he was once taken seriously, but I thought interest in him had pretty much died out.
Though I suppose if Pat Robertson can have a fan base, anyone can...
Hats off to Debian!
;)
Pun intended?