Projects just bring more crime, and the problem is not that we have industrial production (which absorbs high quantities of workforce), the problem is WE DON'T have that anymore!
Your criticism of projects->crime is a good one. I would like to believe that projects+education->goodneighborhood, but that remains to be seen. However, I also noticed that you picked on Miami, Chicago, and New York. You left out the top ten metropolitan area that I live in. Could it be possible that *some* cities have a better formula for projects than others?
We still have industrial production. The problem is it take 5 guys to run a plant that makes millions of widgets per days. This effectively forces the other 100-500 people who used to be needed on the assembly line to find work in the bank, stock market, insurance, and service occupations that DON'T typically produce real tangible goods.
When our economy is so bad that we can't get the raw-materials to feed the plants producing the goods that are still made here, then we'll be in trouble. Until that point, I don't think it would hurt too bad if China/Japan/India/Korea stops sending us their consumer electronics.
our nation has been conquered from within in the name of profit
Methinks you are being sensationalist. If anything, the "recession/depression" that we are going through will stimulate a tide of social-programs that will benefit the overall welfare of the country more than the sales of a few million Wiis could.
As far as I can tell, there is only one major market that has truly fallen in shit during the last decade. Affordable real estate is an illusion in any metropolitan area for first time buyers these days. Thankfully, however, high gas prices are showing how destructive suburban sprawl is to the welfare of a nation and HOPEFULLY the next administration will concentrate on stimulating the growth of high-rise / high-quality / low-income housing within 2 miles of urban centers throughout the nation. Three years of building so that a family of 4 with $40k annual income can afford $800/month rent for a 1200 sqft apartment in a city that will free them from dependence on owning a car *will* dispel all rumors that the economy is going down the tubes.
You doom-and-gloom predictions of "a lot of sweat to correct it" simply miss the point of what's really wrong.
I would like tagging to not ALWAYS work on a per conversation basis.
Well, Gmail has a "per message" tag built in that looks like an image of a star. I highly doubt that the star-icon would help you much, since you seem to want to apply different tags to specific messages in the same conversation. However, it highlights the fact that "per message" functionality is already currently available and a well-worded e-mail to Gmail Customer Service might trigger them to add a requirement that blurs the line between stars and tags.
In fact, I think it would be cool if I could "tag" with icons. I *typically* configure different colors schemes for my tags (red = important, blue = friends, grey = bill-pay mail, etc...) so that I can VISUALLY identify my conversations without actually reading the tags. Adding little "icons" would (I think) greatly increase my ability to visually parse a page of many different types of tagged messages.
I agree. It is not "extreme" to expect a device in space to have stand-by systems in place to withstand radiation. I believe the currently accepted buzzword for this is simply "reliable computing".
The idea is to anticipate failure events, and designing the system to survive them. It is cool... but certainly not extreme.
I think it says a lot that Linux was chosen over some internallly developed OS.
No. Internally developed OS's still have their place in complex military and/or science systems. What I think is important to note is that Linux was chosen over other COTS options such as VxWorks and Green Hills.
The project I am working on uses Linux as a development platform to create a device with a fully internally developed OS. I am fairly certain Linux was not chosen because it wouldn't be able to meet timing requirements without being heavily modified/stripped-down, anyway.
Besides Google has Google Books that has a lot of books available online for free and while you cannot read a whole book you can search through it enough to find what you need so that you don't have to buy the book. Even if their are partial previews, they allow enough info to learn what you need and you can search through the book, chapter by chapter, and in theory read the whole book for free. I don't really see a difference between reading a book for free in Google Books or downloading it from a file sharing network for free before actually buying the book later to have a hard copy and see if you like the book enough to buy it. In a library or book store you can read the whole book for free anyway. Then decide to buy it or not, based on how you like it.
GoogleBooks is designed to be configurable by the copyright holder to display a percentage (0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, or 100%) of a book -- so your statements about "reading entire novels" are not technically accurate for the majority of GoogleBooks).
It is also one of the most Beta-worthy services from Google that I have tried to use. I would hesitate to use the GoogleBooks service for future projects... unless they can improve the user experience that they offer -- particularly in regard to letting me search for ONLY books that are 100% viewable.
systems I used had a hidden watermark embedded into the files.
Couldn't a sufficiently "wired" criminal (particularly one with ties to the software company) doctor the surveillance tapes without disturbing the hidden watermark?
As an author who is considering a non-traditional means of publication, can I ask about some details that your wife has had dealing with Baen? How did she come to be published on their site? What level of financial success has she enjoyed each month that she has been published there?
I think that's the point that nobody is watching the footage of these Big Brother cameras all the time. A "wired" criminal could have the resources to doctor the surveillance tapes before anybody notices the crime has been committed. At that point, the defense attorney is left with the hard task of demonstrating that it isn't his client in the videos.
Just like lie detector tests... surveillance videos are not infallible.
The only semi-recent stories I recall that were tangentially related to file system development in the last 5 years was about a certain murder trial.
I am actually quite happy with ext3 on systems that I get to control, and that was introduced in 2001.
Now, I am sure that somewhere there is development/improvement going into the design of file systems. It wasn't my point to argue against that. It was my point to highlight the fact that eventually software becomes stable enough that it no longer requires hundreds of developers to tweak/maintain it. As it stands, I wouldn't be surprised if IE/Firefox/Safari each have that many people working on them. Whereas, I bet there are less than 100 full time people working on file system software projects these days.
Also, note that you're most welcome to keep using older versions if they suit you better.
This is a particularly good thing about F/OSS software. Many years ago (circa 2002) I became so frustrated by the cruft that had been added to the AIM chat client (no, I do not want video advertisements to auto-load!), so I searched around their site and found a "Windows 95" release for backwards compatibility with older systems. I used that version for several years before switching to Linux and picking up GAIM/Pidgin.
But yeah, I got lucky that AOL published an old version of their software. In F/OSS, that isn't luck. It's standard.
I am reminded of a quote about how software development differs from more traditional mechanical methods.
"Hardware systems eventually fail. Software systems eventually work."
Eventually, the last major bug in Firefox will be fixed and the developers will get to move onto something new. At that point, computers will have evolved to the point where "building web browsers" is as obsolete as "building file systems" is today.
If definitely landed and it definitely found something that it can transmit data back to Earth of. Let's be clear, this isn't a scientific discovery. It is an engineering achievement, that the thing landed safely and works as designed. And engineering achievements are worthy of being reported on.
On the other hand, ALL news stories that insinuate a conclusion that is misleading are rubbish and/. should really seek for more objective titles for their stories they put on the front page.
1,000 is an impressive sounding number, but it is also realistic. HST has been working for many years and to my knowledge was only able to determine the locations of planets that were larger than Jupiter. Meanwhile, discoveries of "Earth-sized" planets remain rare despite the technology that has been developed within the decade. I believe if you search the Slashdot archives you'll find a sparse group of articles linking to a couple recent discoveries of planets that are smaller than Jupiter. These few discoveries pale in comparison to the opportunity to fund a project that promises to increase the rate at which they discover planets by approximately an order of magnitude.
Sounds a bit similar to the Mars Project Challenge that was deadlined last week.
If you are a logged in member of MS, you can view the 28 entries that were submitted and will be considered for funding at an upcoming conference in Boulder CO.
Personally, I think the most worthwhile projects related to Mars exploration are the ones dealing with In Situ Resource Utilization and the idea of "manufacturing products" from the stuff that is available there (which is mainly CO2 and rocks).;)
It is not freedom for the masses, it is public theft of private property. The result will be the elimination of the private property from being created.
You used the word "property" instead of the word "entertainment". When I can take a siesta a cozy little bungalow that somebody uploaded to YouTube, then your "property" argument will hold some water. Until then, please try harder to distinguish between "property" and "creative projects with an expected ROI for the people who paid for them".
As far as your "Ow, My Balls" argument goes... I assure you that you will find an intellectual balance on YouTube if you spent an hour or two looking. If you search on the "Video" site of Google for something like "Yellowstone" you are more likely to find a video of the scientific phenomenon called a geyser eruption, which is a far cry from seeing teenagers pulling Jackass-like prank videos.
Well, despite not being picked up by a major publisher I am willing to bet you'll see at least one or two thousand Slashdot readers buy your book from Lulu.com after this article. By my calculation that will net you about $10k in revenue, which isn't bad for a day of sales for an author that isn't established.
Then again, I would take fame and recognition over money. It would be an honor just to know 2,000 people had read my work.
I agree about keeping the day job. But the *dream* is to be able to quit it and spend the rest of my days on more (personally) worthwhile pursuits.
===
But talking about the "collaborative novel", am I to understand that the story is all yours and you just used the experience of friends, family, and acquaintances to help refine it along the way? Because it so, I have done something very similar. I relied on my girlfriend and sister early on to help shape some major plot decisions... and lately have been participating in a writer's group with others who are interested in publishing their own work. It is very worthwhile and *that* has helped me make new friends AND given me insights on how to be a better writer.:)
In any case, I will definitely pick up your manuscript and give it a go one of these days. I look forward to it.
I think I am in a similar situation as you. I posted a draft of a novel that I am working on last year and have gotten feedback from a small crowd that have read some of what I've written. I hope that you'll take a look at my other post on this thread, but suffice it to say I think what you are doing is a great thing.
In the meantime, there was a point in time where my novel was picked up by the author of printpusher.com and I have gained a little extra publicity by getting linked on there.
But I guess the thrust of this message is to ask if you see Community developed novels as being an economically viable business model (or at the very least, if you enjoy the interaction of writing in a community to do it for the love of writing).
Personally, I would love to see writing projects become community-based in the future.
That was my first thought. A community developed "NC-ND" work is a tough sell to make to users. I recall the days when Red Hat actually bundled $80 distributions of their OS and sold them retail... and then learning that I could request a CD for the cost of copying and mailing a CD.
I belief that the principle author would have as much of a right to profit from sales of this thing through Lulu.com as his contributors. And I hope that he kept track of his contributors so that they each get an acknowledgments in the book notes.
On the other hand... my Creative Commons novel (see sig) is not open to be community developed, but anybody who has read it and made useful comments to me will get an acknowledgment the next time I release a revision.
Seriously, I think the notion of Community novels is a wonderful idea. But what I wish for is an faceless Corporation to manage the economic aspects of it and allow the contributors to log hours "donated" to the works that are in development. I would then like to see them paid proportionally for profits garnered from dead-tree sales of the books that they contributed to. I would also like to see participants receive an Open Source tax rebate for hours contributed (time * payrate) because ultimately a novel that is developed with the Creative Commons license has the potential to create a good amount of social value for the benefit of society.
Microsoft has been putting too much faith into its monopoly position.
I have to agree, but I also wonder if anybody will care. The summary implies that Microsoft is claiming that there is legislature that supports their DRM, but then says there isn't. To me, this appears that Microsoft used its Presidential veto powers to tell Congress to STFU.
Is it possible that Microsoft's contempt for competition will be noticed by Congress?
Slashdot Mirror
Your criticism of projects->crime is a good one. I would like to believe that projects+education->goodneighborhood, but that remains to be seen. However, I also noticed that you picked on Miami, Chicago, and New York. You left out the top ten metropolitan area that I live in. Could it be possible that *some* cities have a better formula for projects than others?
We still have industrial production. The problem is it take 5 guys to run a plant that makes millions of widgets per days. This effectively forces the other 100-500 people who used to be needed on the assembly line to find work in the bank, stock market, insurance, and service occupations that DON'T typically produce real tangible goods.
When our economy is so bad that we can't get the raw-materials to feed the plants producing the goods that are still made here, then we'll be in trouble. Until that point, I don't think it would hurt too bad if China/Japan/India/Korea stops sending us their consumer electronics.
Methinks you are being sensationalist. If anything, the "recession/depression" that we are going through will stimulate a tide of social-programs that will benefit the overall welfare of the country more than the sales of a few million Wiis could.
As far as I can tell, there is only one major market that has truly fallen in shit during the last decade. Affordable real estate is an illusion in any metropolitan area for first time buyers these days. Thankfully, however, high gas prices are showing how destructive suburban sprawl is to the welfare of a nation and HOPEFULLY the next administration will concentrate on stimulating the growth of high-rise / high-quality / low-income housing within 2 miles of urban centers throughout the nation. Three years of building so that a family of 4 with $40k annual income can afford $800/month rent for a 1200 sqft apartment in a city that will free them from dependence on owning a car *will* dispel all rumors that the economy is going down the tubes.
You doom-and-gloom predictions of "a lot of sweat to correct it" simply miss the point of what's really wrong.
Well, Gmail has a "per message" tag built in that looks like an image of a star. I highly doubt that the star-icon would help you much, since you seem to want to apply different tags to specific messages in the same conversation. However, it highlights the fact that "per message" functionality is already currently available and a well-worded e-mail to Gmail Customer Service might trigger them to add a requirement that blurs the line between stars and tags.
In fact, I think it would be cool if I could "tag" with icons. I *typically* configure different colors schemes for my tags (red = important, blue = friends, grey = bill-pay mail, etc...) so that I can VISUALLY identify my conversations without actually reading the tags. Adding little "icons" would (I think) greatly increase my ability to visually parse a page of many different types of tagged messages.
Few comments on /. actually make me laugh as loudly as that one did.
In capitalist America, it's whilst watching reality TV, drinking beer, and chomping potato chips.
I agree. It is not "extreme" to expect a device in space to have stand-by systems in place to withstand radiation. I believe the currently accepted buzzword for this is simply "reliable computing".
The idea is to anticipate failure events, and designing the system to survive them. It is cool... but certainly not extreme.
No. Internally developed OS's still have their place in complex military and/or science systems. What I think is important to note is that Linux was chosen over other COTS options such as VxWorks and Green Hills.
The project I am working on uses Linux as a development platform to create a device with a fully internally developed OS. I am fairly certain Linux was not chosen because it wouldn't be able to meet timing requirements without being heavily modified/stripped-down, anyway.
GoogleBooks is designed to be configurable by the copyright holder to display a percentage (0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, or 100%) of a book -- so your statements about "reading entire novels" are not technically accurate for the majority of GoogleBooks).
It is also one of the most Beta-worthy services from Google that I have tried to use. I would hesitate to use the GoogleBooks service for future projects... unless they can improve the user experience that they offer -- particularly in regard to letting me search for ONLY books that are 100% viewable.
Couldn't a sufficiently "wired" criminal (particularly one with ties to the software company) doctor the surveillance tapes without disturbing the hidden watermark?
WolfWalker545,
As an author who is considering a non-traditional means of publication, can I ask about some details that your wife has had dealing with Baen? How did she come to be published on their site? What level of financial success has she enjoyed each month that she has been published there?
Thank you... in advanced.
I think that's the point that nobody is watching the footage of these Big Brother cameras all the time. A "wired" criminal could have the resources to doctor the surveillance tapes before anybody notices the crime has been committed. At that point, the defense attorney is left with the hard task of demonstrating that it isn't his client in the videos.
Just like lie detector tests... surveillance videos are not infallible.
The only semi-recent stories I recall that were tangentially related to file system development in the last 5 years was about a certain murder trial.
I am actually quite happy with ext3 on systems that I get to control, and that was introduced in 2001.
Now, I am sure that somewhere there is development/improvement going into the design of file systems. It wasn't my point to argue against that. It was my point to highlight the fact that eventually software becomes stable enough that it no longer requires hundreds of developers to tweak/maintain it. As it stands, I wouldn't be surprised if IE/Firefox/Safari each have that many people working on them. Whereas, I bet there are less than 100 full time people working on file system software projects these days.
This is a particularly good thing about F/OSS software. Many years ago (circa 2002) I became so frustrated by the cruft that had been added to the AIM chat client (no, I do not want video advertisements to auto-load!), so I searched around their site and found a "Windows 95" release for backwards compatibility with older systems. I used that version for several years before switching to Linux and picking up GAIM/Pidgin.
But yeah, I got lucky that AOL published an old version of their software. In F/OSS, that isn't luck. It's standard.
I am reminded of a quote about how software development differs from more traditional mechanical methods.
"Hardware systems eventually fail. Software systems eventually work."
Eventually, the last major bug in Firefox will be fixed and the developers will get to move onto something new. At that point, computers will have evolved to the point where "building web browsers" is as obsolete as "building file systems" is today.
I believe that the Mandarin in Firefly was mostly a fun way to get curses past the USA censors.
Having just typed that sentence, I think I've blown my mind.
On the other hand, ALL news stories that insinuate a conclusion that is misleading are rubbish and /. should really seek for more objective titles for their stories they put on the front page.
1,000 is an impressive sounding number, but it is also realistic. HST has been working for many years and to my knowledge was only able to determine the locations of planets that were larger than Jupiter. Meanwhile, discoveries of "Earth-sized" planets remain rare despite the technology that has been developed within the decade. I believe if you search the Slashdot archives you'll find a sparse group of articles linking to a couple recent discoveries of planets that are smaller than Jupiter. These few discoveries pale in comparison to the opportunity to fund a project that promises to increase the rate at which they discover planets by approximately an order of magnitude.
Sounds a bit similar to the Mars Project Challenge that was deadlined last week.
If you are a logged in member of MS, you can view the 28 entries that were submitted and will be considered for funding at an upcoming conference in Boulder CO.
Personally, I think the most worthwhile projects related to Mars exploration are the ones dealing with In Situ Resource Utilization and the idea of "manufacturing products" from the stuff that is available there (which is mainly CO2 and rocks). ;)
You used the word "property" instead of the word "entertainment". When I can take a siesta a cozy little bungalow that somebody uploaded to YouTube, then your "property" argument will hold some water. Until then, please try harder to distinguish between "property" and "creative projects with an expected ROI for the people who paid for them".
As far as your "Ow, My Balls" argument goes... I assure you that you will find an intellectual balance on YouTube if you spent an hour or two looking. If you search on the "Video" site of Google for something like "Yellowstone" you are more likely to find a video of the scientific phenomenon called a geyser eruption, which is a far cry from seeing teenagers pulling Jackass-like prank videos.
Now I can't decide what I want more. The iNull that you speak of, or Duke Nukem Forever.
Well, despite not being picked up by a major publisher I am willing to bet you'll see at least one or two thousand Slashdot readers buy your book from Lulu.com after this article. By my calculation that will net you about $10k in revenue, which isn't bad for a day of sales for an author that isn't established.
Then again, I would take fame and recognition over money. It would be an honor just to know 2,000 people had read my work.
I agree about keeping the day job. But the *dream* is to be able to quit it and spend the rest of my days on more (personally) worthwhile pursuits.
===
But talking about the "collaborative novel", am I to understand that the story is all yours and you just used the experience of friends, family, and acquaintances to help refine it along the way? Because it so, I have done something very similar. I relied on my girlfriend and sister early on to help shape some major plot decisions... and lately have been participating in a writer's group with others who are interested in publishing their own work. It is very worthwhile and *that* has helped me make new friends AND given me insights on how to be a better writer. :)
In any case, I will definitely pick up your manuscript and give it a go one of these days. I look forward to it.
Odinson,
I think I am in a similar situation as you. I posted a draft of a novel that I am working on last year and have gotten feedback from a small crowd that have read some of what I've written. I hope that you'll take a look at my other post on this thread, but suffice it to say I think what you are doing is a great thing.
In the meantime, there was a point in time where my novel was picked up by the author of printpusher.com and I have gained a little extra publicity by getting linked on there.
But I guess the thrust of this message is to ask if you see Community developed novels as being an economically viable business model (or at the very least, if you enjoy the interaction of writing in a community to do it for the love of writing).
Personally, I would love to see writing projects become community-based in the future.
-Rob
If you mod my original post up for insightful comments, mod this one down because of how poorly proof-read is was.
That was my first thought. A community developed "NC-ND" work is a tough sell to make to users. I recall the days when Red Hat actually bundled $80 distributions of their OS and sold them retail... and then learning that I could request a CD for the cost of copying and mailing a CD.
I belief that the principle author would have as much of a right to profit from sales of this thing through Lulu.com as his contributors. And I hope that he kept track of his contributors so that they each get an acknowledgments in the book notes.
On the other hand... my Creative Commons novel (see sig) is not open to be community developed, but anybody who has read it and made useful comments to me will get an acknowledgment the next time I release a revision.
Seriously, I think the notion of Community novels is a wonderful idea. But what I wish for is an faceless Corporation to manage the economic aspects of it and allow the contributors to log hours "donated" to the works that are in development. I would then like to see them paid proportionally for profits garnered from dead-tree sales of the books that they contributed to. I would also like to see participants receive an Open Source tax rebate for hours contributed (time * payrate) because ultimately a novel that is developed with the Creative Commons license has the potential to create a good amount of social value for the benefit of society.
I have to agree, but I also wonder if anybody will care. The summary implies that Microsoft is claiming that there is legislature that supports their DRM, but then says there isn't. To me, this appears that Microsoft used its Presidential veto powers to tell Congress to STFU.
Is it possible that Microsoft's contempt for competition will be noticed by Congress?
And Malware developers would like it as it can increase their ability to put their software in your toaster so they can burn your house down.