Eudora and Visio are the only reasons to use a micros~1 product.
If you like Visio, you should try playing around with dia. It's not nearly as powerful, but it can do some neat things with network diagrams, and object/class diagrams. I think it's really coming along nicely.
If you're thinking "gosh, *I* live under the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit, so I guess I can post my source code!", you should think again.
I don't even know if the plaintiff in the case has been allowed to post his code, due to the the appeal. Additionally, the decision may only apply to him at this point. No "laws" have been overturned. You'd better remove that link, call your lawyer, and wait for more details to emerge before posting this for the whole world to see.
(Don't say I didn't warn you, when the G-men come bustin' down your door...:)
This is great news! However, be wary: "Justice" has appealed the decision, and the article was very light on details. That means it may go to the Supreme Court, if I've got my US Judicial System hierarchy right... there's still the danger of this decision being overturned.
I've seen two movies that my friends have downloaded - The Matrix and Cruel Intentions. In both cases, they were not produced by sneaking in a video camera. You'd have a shaky picture, crappy sound, and random noises coming from the people in the theatre.
Instead, somebody got ahold of "screener" VHS copies of the movies - pre-releases that get shown to test audiences or sent to video stores - then they digitized and MPEG-encoded them. In The Matrix, the only thing wrong was that the "club" scene didn't have the techno background music that appeared in the final version of the movie, and the whole picture was a little too dark. Cruel Intentions looked MUCH better, and since there isn't any fast-moving action or editing, the overall effect was great.
Here's the really cool part - a friend of mine burned Cruel Intentions onto a CD-R, and can now play it on his DVD player because it's technically a VCD. The picture and sound are very good, he saved about 1.2 gigs of hard drive space, and he doesn't have to look at a puny box on his monitor.
The industry shouldn't be worried about this - yet. I think that in about 2 or 3 years, if everybody gets fat pipes, movies that look nearly as good as the theater versions will be readily available on the Net. The industry knows from the MP3 experience that they have something to fear, especially if movies start getting created in an all-digital format. Any sound or video editor (or intern, for that matter) could snag the digital version, take it home, encode it, and post it. Instead of "Star Wars" text spoilers, we'll see actual pre-release footage in all stages of development! Within 5-8 years, all the high-quality codecs and bandwidth could be in place to make this situation very real.
About all they had in common with geeks is that they were not socially accepted (and a lot of people don't necessarily think that that is even a necessary requirement for geekdom).
Society on the Internet is *in general* a meritocracy. You're judged by your ability to communicate, by your intelligence. But then when you go to school, those attributes become irrelevant, or worse, are turned against you.
Let's not congratulate our Internet/Slashdot/hacker culture too much: just because these boys used computers doesn't make them well-spoken or intelligent. Any idiot can get on AOL or some ISP and hang out in chat rooms, make crappy webpages, play Doom, and download the Pipe-Bomb-HOWTO.
In fact, it was widely recognized that they did NOT seem to be all that intelligent - their grades were hardly stellar (although that's not the end-all judgement of intelligence, it's something, and it's all we've got to go on in this case). Take a look at what they wrote in their yearbook or what's been attributed to them on the Net - "effective communication" it ain't.
This is not a case of the killers thinking "I'm widely respected on the Net because of my intelligence, but I'm an outcast at school for the very same reason?! I guess I'll kill a dozen innocent people!" That hardly seems to be evidence of intelligence. My guess is that they were as isolated on the Net as they were at school and in their families.
The Government does have the ability to say, "If you want to do business with us, then you must adhere to these guidelines."
Let's not forget that the government is so incredibly huge now (thanks to legislation like this, ironically), it's virtually impossible to avoid doing business with the government if you're doing any business at all.
Now who knows what "doing business with the government" means (the sloppy journalism was commented on earlier), but that's irrelevant to the argument at hand.
Here's something I've wondered about for awhile, with no answer: people like to cite bind and sendmail as "open source" building blocks of the Net oh-so-many-years ago. My question is, were bind and sendmail under "free software"/"open source" licenses back then? Could a person freely alter the source and redistribute it without cost? Or was it just an informal agreement, since people might not have really cared about the legal stuff?
I think that the answer to this question determines (somewhat) the credibility of the often-made claim that "open/free software has been running the Net for decades."
Actually nobody really uses the "take several simultanenous pictures in a semicircle" method to do those pan-around-a-paused-scene effects. It leads to motion that is not smooth enough, and often the different cameras are under different lighting conditions, reducing the effect of the shot. All the ones you see on TV or in movies are done with only two cameras (max 3) and with computer interpolation to fill in the rest of the path.
There are lots of great ideas here, and it looks like the quality of Slashdot comments (the ones *I* read, anyway) will really be improving. I've already seen a great leap forward. However, the issues of who should be moderators vs. what they should be able to do are inseparable. Saying that they're different issues (repeatedly, and forcefully) just don't make it so. We've got to know what kind of powers are involved before we talk about whom we should trust with those powers. In the extreme example, consider the following potential moderator permissions:
Ability to moderate comments
Ability to delete comments
Ability to add/delete stories
Ability to trash entire webserver
Obviously only Rob should have all of these powers. However, their are thousands of people who could/should potentially have the first one. So I'd like a better idea of what kinds of powers there are for moderators, and what kind of abuse-prevention devices would be in place, before I think about who should be granted moderation privs.
Well, this reminds me A LOT of a problem I was given this past term in MIT 6.857 (Computer and Network Security, professor Ron Rivest). If I remember it right, the description of the girl's algorithm, and the solution to the problem are very similar - the matrix solution involved matrix multiplication rather than exponentiation. I can't comment any more on the similarities because I don't know her algorithm in detail and I don't remember the problem in detail. But I also remember that the problem asked us to decide if the algorithm was as secure as RSA. There were some subtle problems with the proof and I'm not sure if in fact it was as secure.
Also, stating "all the matrix entries are modulo n, therefore it's as strong as RSA" is not even close to an acceptable proof. But I'd give the benefit of the doubt that her proof contains a little more detail.
You can prove relative strength of algorithms by using a reduction argument, i.e. "If I can crack RSA quickly, then by a very simple extension I can factor big numbers quickly. And since nobody seems to be able to factor big numbers quickly, it seems that nobody will be able to break RSA quickly." Note that this doesn't prove that RSA is secure - it just means that there's effectively been thousands of years of the brightest minds attempting to crack it, without success.
The same can be said for the girl's algorithm - if her proof is correct, then it shows that cracking her algorithm quickly means you can also crack RSA quickly. Again, no proof of absolute security, but not bad either. This is far from UBE or some kid devising a "modification" of RC4 and claiming it's the greatest thing under the sun.
I've noticed a general pattern in the Comments made so far. Of the people who advocate college, and have graduated, their comments tend to be:
organized, well thought-out, persuasive, and spelled correctly with good grammar.
Of the people who have skipped college (whether they advocate it or not), their comments are more:
disorganized, full of spelling and grammar errors, and confusing.
There are a handful of exception, but these facts in themselves make a strong statement for college. In a job, you must be able to work with, and communicate with, many other people. Much of this communication is, by necessity, written. If you have a good idea and you want your boss (or venture capitalists) to fund it, you need to write it down and be persuasive. If you design a new system, you need to describe the design and document it so that others can use it, or else they _won't_ use it. If you write code, you need to comment it in a succinct yet understandable way.
You don't need to get a writing degree to do all these things. Any CS degree worth the paper it's written on will have required you to work (and communicate) in groups, write designs, construct organized and understandable mathematical proofs, and mark up code with good comments.
Writing clearly (or in general, communicating) about ideas forces you to clarify and refine those ideas, and clear ideas are enhanced by good writing. All of the above-named tasks build thinking and writing skills, as well as the connections between them. You'll have a hard time replicating those experiences working as a Webmonkey, and your boss (or VCs) probably won't allow you to play catch-up on the four years of experiences you've missed.
If you really want to do something meaningful in your career, go to college.
Slashdot Mirror
Eudora and Visio are the only reasons to use a micros~1 product.
If you like Visio, you should try playing around with dia. It's not nearly as powerful, but it can do some neat things with network diagrams, and object/class diagrams. I think it's really coming along nicely.
I don't even know if the plaintiff in the case has been allowed to post his code, due to the the appeal. Additionally, the decision may only apply to him at this point. No "laws" have been overturned. You'd better remove that link, call your lawyer, and wait for more details to emerge before posting this for the whole world to see.
(Don't say I didn't warn you, when the G-men come bustin' down your door... :)
This is great news! However, be wary: "Justice" has appealed the decision, and the article was very light on details. That means it may go to the Supreme Court, if I've got my US Judicial System hierarchy right... there's still the danger of this decision being overturned.
Instead, somebody got ahold of "screener" VHS copies of the movies - pre-releases that get shown to test audiences or sent to video stores - then they digitized and MPEG-encoded them. In The Matrix, the only thing wrong was that the "club" scene didn't have the techno background music that appeared in the final version of the movie, and the whole picture was a little too dark. Cruel Intentions looked MUCH better, and since there isn't any fast-moving action or editing, the overall effect was great.
Here's the really cool part - a friend of mine burned Cruel Intentions onto a CD-R, and can now play it on his DVD player because it's technically a VCD. The picture and sound are very good, he saved about 1.2 gigs of hard drive space, and he doesn't have to look at a puny box on his monitor.
The industry shouldn't be worried about this - yet. I think that in about 2 or 3 years, if everybody gets fat pipes, movies that look nearly as good as the theater versions will be readily available on the Net. The industry knows from the MP3 experience that they have something to fear, especially if movies start getting created in an all-digital format. Any sound or video editor (or intern, for that matter) could snag the digital version, take it home, encode it, and post it. Instead of "Star Wars" text spoilers, we'll see actual pre-release footage in all stages of development! Within 5-8 years, all the high-quality codecs and bandwidth could be in place to make this situation very real.
Society on the Internet is *in general* a meritocracy. You're judged by your ability to communicate, by your intelligence. But then when you go to school, those attributes become irrelevant, or worse, are turned against you.
Let's not congratulate our Internet/Slashdot/hacker culture too much: just because these boys used computers doesn't make them well-spoken or intelligent. Any idiot can get on AOL or some ISP and hang out in chat rooms, make crappy webpages, play Doom, and download the Pipe-Bomb-HOWTO.
In fact, it was widely recognized that they did NOT seem to be all that intelligent - their grades were hardly stellar (although that's not the end-all judgement of intelligence, it's something, and it's all we've got to go on in this case). Take a look at what they wrote in their yearbook or what's been attributed to them on the Net - "effective communication" it ain't.
This is not a case of the killers thinking "I'm widely respected on the Net because of my intelligence, but I'm an outcast at school for the very same reason?! I guess I'll kill a dozen innocent people!" That hardly seems to be evidence of intelligence. My guess is that they were as isolated on the Net as they were at school and in their families.
The Government does have the ability to say, "If you want to do business with us, then you must adhere to these guidelines."
Let's not forget that the government is so incredibly huge now (thanks to legislation like this, ironically), it's virtually impossible to avoid doing business with the government if you're doing any business at all.
Now who knows what "doing business with the government" means (the sloppy journalism was commented on earlier), but that's irrelevant to the argument at hand.
One compiler engineering class: >6000 lines
Fun code for myself: 100 lines.
"First you put my new office in the Gates building, THEN you support the FSF with an 'OPEN SOURCE' bake sale?! You people are sick!"
I think that the answer to this question determines (somewhat) the credibility of the often-made claim that "open/free software has been running the Net for decades."
Actually nobody really uses the "take several simultanenous pictures in a semicircle" method to do those pan-around-a-paused-scene effects. It leads to motion that is not smooth enough, and often the different cameras are under different lighting conditions, reducing the effect of the shot. All the ones you see on TV or in movies are done with only two cameras (max 3) and with computer interpolation to fill in the rest of the path.
- Ability to moderate comments
- Ability to delete comments
- Ability to add/delete stories
- Ability to trash entire webserver
Obviously only Rob should have all of these powers. However, their are thousands of people who could/should potentially have the first one. So I'd like a better idea of what kinds of powers there are for moderators, and what kind of abuse-prevention devices would be in place, before I think about who should be granted moderation privs.*sigh* Read the article. It's a reorganization, not a breakup. This has been talked about for at least a month. It's still one big friendly Microsoft.
Well, this reminds me A LOT of a problem I was given this past term in MIT 6.857 (Computer and Network Security, professor Ron Rivest). If I remember it right, the description of the girl's algorithm, and the solution to the problem are very similar - the matrix solution involved matrix multiplication rather than exponentiation. I can't comment any more on the similarities because I don't know her algorithm in detail and I don't remember the problem in detail. But I also remember that the problem asked us to decide if the algorithm was as secure as RSA. There were some subtle problems with the proof and I'm not sure if in fact it was as secure.
Also, stating "all the matrix entries are modulo n, therefore it's as strong as RSA" is not even close to an acceptable proof. But I'd give the benefit of the doubt that her proof contains a little more detail.
You can prove relative strength of algorithms by using a reduction argument, i.e. "If I can crack RSA quickly, then by a very simple extension I can factor big numbers quickly. And since nobody seems to be able to factor big numbers quickly, it seems that nobody will be able to break RSA quickly." Note that this doesn't prove that RSA is secure - it just means that there's effectively been thousands of years of the brightest minds attempting to crack it, without success.
The same can be said for the girl's algorithm - if her proof is correct, then it shows that cracking her algorithm quickly means you can also crack RSA quickly. Again, no proof of absolute security, but not bad either. This is far from UBE or some kid devising a "modification" of RC4 and claiming it's the greatest thing under the sun.
I've noticed a general pattern in the Comments made so far. Of the people who advocate college, and have graduated, their comments tend to be:
organized, well thought-out, persuasive, and spelled correctly with good grammar.
Of the people who have skipped college (whether they advocate it or not), their comments are more:
disorganized, full of spelling and grammar errors, and confusing.
There are a handful of exception, but these facts in themselves make a strong statement for college. In a job, you must be able to work with, and communicate with, many other people. Much of this communication is, by necessity, written. If you have a good idea and you want your boss (or venture capitalists) to fund it, you need to write it down and be persuasive. If you design a new system, you need to describe the design and document it so that others can use it, or else they _won't_ use it. If you write code, you need to comment it in a succinct yet understandable way.
You don't need to get a writing degree to do all these things. Any CS degree worth the paper it's written on will have required you to work (and communicate) in groups, write designs, construct organized and understandable mathematical proofs, and mark up code with good comments.
Writing clearly (or in general, communicating) about ideas forces you to clarify and refine those ideas, and clear ideas are enhanced by good writing. All of the above-named tasks build thinking and writing skills, as well as the connections between them. You'll have a hard time replicating those experiences working as a Webmonkey, and your boss (or VCs) probably won't allow you to play catch-up on the four years of experiences you've missed.
If you really want to do something meaningful in your career, go to college.