That is what they're already doing. I work for one of the top 10 universities targeted by the RIAA, and the "offer" they make the students has absolutely no legal authority to it. They're quite literally "promising not to sue" if the student pays them some number of thousands of dollars. There is no suit being filed, no legal action being taken, no trial. Just a letter, an offer, and instructions to visit their handy website to make paying as easy as possible: www.p2plawsuits.com
I know those types all too well. There are the same characters for Apple as well as Linux/FOSS. I was merely referring to the fact that there are people who use Visual Studio because it is good software for them and not out of fanboyism. Likewise with Vista. I myself choose software out of ease of use and the ability to get things done without a hassle. When I use software I pay attention to what it does for me and how well I can use it, not who made it. If it works for me, excellent. I don't care if there are alternatives that do the same thing. I don't care about political reasons to use one over another. If two things do the same thing and one is prettier, I'll use the prettier one, because why not? Most software sucks, and you will never find software that doesn't crash or give you a headache every now and then. The ultimate goal is to find something you can get used to, and let it make your life a little bit easier. If it doesn't work for you, for whatever reason, don't use it. Visual Studio never gave me too much of a hassle, and there were a few parts of it that I liked. I don't use it on my personal computers, I've only used it at past jobs, but I don't have a problem with it. I've used Vista for over a year on one of my computers just to give it a shot because it looked pretty and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Personally I haven't had any problems with it, although I don't fault anyone else for disliking it, it has simply worked OK for me. I use Ubuntu on my laptop, still have XP running on two other machines, and have used OSX a lot over the course of the past many years at various jobs. Each one has something to offer, and at the same time each one has just as many problems. What really matters is what you do with it and the content you create. How you get there is completely up to you, and doesn't make a difference to anyone but yourself.
I don't understand your comparisons. The entire purpose of software and gadgets is to make your life easier. The choices you make for the tools you use are completely up to what makes it easier for you. If someone wants to use VS to program, and they don't have any problems with it, then there is nothing wrong with it. If someone wants to use Vista, then by all means they should. You can pretty much do everything you need to do in any OS with a number of different software choices. It bothers me when people insist that using a particular piece of software is "incorrect," because those people have lost sight of the purpose for which software is created: to make your life easier. Whatever works for each person is best. That being said, if someone only has legally purchased music and doesn't do anything fancy, then using a Zune would be perfectly fine for that person. If there is no reason to NOT use something, and no compelling reason to use an alternative, then why not use it? Clearly people are choosing to not use a Zune, and that says something. But the same is not true for things like Visual Studio and Vista.
Aside from the obvious bias and ignorance on the subject, the real clue that the OP has no idea what he's talking about is that he writes "...an SQL..."
I completely agree with this. I am a CS undergrad right now and I consistently see other students struggling on the programming assignments because they cant write a line of code to save their life. I've helped other students on assignments by explaining the concept to them, but its never good enough until you tell them exactly what to write. Saying something like "write a function to compute the average of all the ints in that array" goes way over their heads, and it makes me cry. There are students who clearly did not belong in the 100-200 level courses back in freshman year, and yet here they are somehow managing to get by and are still in my classes in the 400-500 level. Its not just the programming either, everything goes over their heads. Simple concepts and theories they cant understand. I've considered talking to the dean of CS about this sort of thing, because its people like them that give the degree a bad name after they graduate and try to get a job, and it makes it worth far less to those of us that actually earned the degree.
True, but I'd be willing to bet that most of the thousands of fireworks displays that go off without a hitch around the world are run off of a Windows box too. This sounds like user error, and/or shitty software. It could have just as easily been shitty software written for .
I think 95% of the video games that have been developed since the late 90's has shown that when a game is developed for a purpose other than to simply produce an awesome game (i.e. to make a profit, etc), the quality of the game suffers. It doesn't matter that the cause may be a good one for this project, the game is still being developed for a reason other than to make a game. I doubt the game will come out very well.
This is even more evidence that Leopard is just like Vista:
A lot of people have problems with it, and a lot of people dont. For the most part, people seem to be able to get by and use it just fine without a single problem. However, there are enough problems with it that people all over the internets are bashing it with no remorse claiming that it is a total flop and that MS/Apple totally dropped the ball. Both OS's follow that pattern. Leopard and Vista both have some problems, yet a lot of people don't have any problems at all using them. As an early Vista adopter on 3 different machines without a single problem on any of them since then, I can understand how you might feel about this Leopard situation:)
Oh, I agree it would slow them down by a huge magnitude at first, but they would adapt and find a way. As some past slashdot articles have pointed out, the malicious software industry is very financially deep. Clearly they wouldn't use the same tactics or same style of exploits that they use for windows, and it would be more difficult. But for all we know, they could come up with a tactic that is twice as devastating to the linux world than they have been thus far in windows.
Oh please, if everyone used linux then the spyware/malware/virus gremlins would simply write all their software for linux. You know it, I know it, and virus authors know it. They wouldn't sit around continuing to write windows viruses wondering why no one was getting infected.
I'm living at my parents house for the next month while I'm in transition between two places. Conveniently, my fathers machine has gone haywire and I'm still trying to figure out what happened to it (OS install crashes every time, and _yes_ that includes various forms of linux). Anyway, I've come back to my computer from time to time and discovered he has been checking his email on it. Twice I've noticed that the firefox download window still had random.pdf and.exe files. He once left an email page open that he had clicked on informing him that he had received a wonderfully animated greeting card, and to view it he had to click the link to http://xx.xx.xx.xx/something.exe. Oh yes, he clicked.
I'm terrified what is hiding on my machine right now.
True, I should have said that it was "at least using the legal system," even if not properly. My point was that it was better, however much, than these letters.
Err, after re-reading what i wrote, i was _not_ implying that it should happen. I was pointing out that its a problem, and that it definitely _shouldn't_ happen. Its late, i chose bad wording.
As I mentioned in a previous reply, I work for the IT office for one of the universities. Apparently the RIAA has been lobbying congress (duh), as we also received a 20-something page letter from congress which essentially slaps our wrist for being such a naughty school for allowing our students to be such heinous criminals, and provides us with a survey to gauge how we prevent students from committing these crimes. I believe the letter was also sent to all of the top 10 schools in the country. The survey asks questions about how much we limit/filter student access to the internet, whether we monitor student access, whether we report illegal activities, what sort of punishment we inflict on students who get a DMCA complaint, etc. The wording of the letter also seemed to suggest that schools should actually be doing these things. For the record, my school does none of those things, and everyone in the the whole IT and Network office building scoffed at the idea. It's a place of learning, not a prison. I really get the feeling that the RIAA's direct dealings with schools and students wont be a problem in the future if they can somehow convince congress to make it required that schools monitor student access, and prevent students from using certain applications.
I work as an undergrad for the IT office of one of the universities near the top of the hitlist, and I've personally read the letters that they send. To actually read the letter in person really gives you the feeling like "Holy Hell, they're actually doing this." The letters are such bullshit, and it is obviously just a scam to save them the legal fees of taking people to court. The sad thing is that its working for them, and for backwards reasons; In the first batch our school received (which was about 30 letters), only one student didn't respond to the letter. They got sued, and i assume had to pay up in the end. The RIAA got 30 people's worth of payout from the cost of one court battle. Even if they lost that case, they still wound up with 29 payouts for the cost of 1. I'm sure if no one responded that some people wouldn't be sued, but who wants to take that risk?
While i have a problem with the strong arm court tactics they've been taking in the past few years, at least the "sue everyone" tactic was still properly using the legal system to resolve their disputes. However, these letters are extortion, and its that simple.
Oh, and for the record, the woman I'm talking about is actually very intelligent. I just have a problem with the apparent attitude that programming is not as necessary any more.
A friend of mine is one of those very women at CMU right now. She has told me all sorts of wonderful stories about how she hates to actually program but she loves all the theory classes. She has some idea that she should never have to program, that she should graduate and be paid lots of money for her wonderfully educated ideas, and give her algorithms to some high school kid paid minimum wage to write her program.
Personally i find it ridiculous. CompSci is both, you have to understand the theory but you also have to understand how to program. You have to be able to understand what the computer is doing and then be able to fully implement your algorithm in code. She's correct, any half nerdy high school kid can write code, but it takes experience and knowledge to be able to write code well and efficient.
Besides, have you ever met a Math major who didn't like to, want to, or feel that they should have to actually solve equations?
Just as a point, since it was mentioned in a number of other posts above, I noticed a while ago that "Don't be Evil" isn't anywhere on Google's site any more. I didn't waste too much time digging around, but it wasn't in plain view or in any of the common docs like their mission statement.
I think it's safe to say that "Don't be Evil" *WAS* their motto.
"August 2nd" would be like saying a price is "99 cents and 1 dollar" in my mind...
I always thought of "August 2nd" as a shorthand version of "the 2nd of August", or simply "August's 2nd (day)". The analogy to "99 cents and 1 dollar" doesnt make sense, because the 99 cents dont belong to the one dollar, they are not subsets in a heirarchy. 99 cents is 1 cent short of a dollar, any dollar, where as the "2nd day" needs to be the 2nd day of something in particular.
Its all about the grammar when writing the date out in words. "2nd of August" and "August 2nd" both make perfect sense, where as "2 August" and "August 2" both make the same amount of nonsense.
Slashdot Mirror
You do realize that a dam is a source of clean energy, right? Ever heard of hydro-electric power? Turbines?
That is what they're already doing. I work for one of the top 10 universities targeted by the RIAA, and the "offer" they make the students has absolutely no legal authority to it. They're quite literally "promising not to sue" if the student pays them some number of thousands of dollars. There is no suit being filed, no legal action being taken, no trial. Just a letter, an offer, and instructions to visit their handy website to make paying as easy as possible: www.p2plawsuits.com
I know those types all too well. There are the same characters for Apple as well as Linux/FOSS. I was merely referring to the fact that there are people who use Visual Studio because it is good software for them and not out of fanboyism. Likewise with Vista. I myself choose software out of ease of use and the ability to get things done without a hassle. When I use software I pay attention to what it does for me and how well I can use it, not who made it. If it works for me, excellent. I don't care if there are alternatives that do the same thing. I don't care about political reasons to use one over another. If two things do the same thing and one is prettier, I'll use the prettier one, because why not? Most software sucks, and you will never find software that doesn't crash or give you a headache every now and then. The ultimate goal is to find something you can get used to, and let it make your life a little bit easier. If it doesn't work for you, for whatever reason, don't use it. Visual Studio never gave me too much of a hassle, and there were a few parts of it that I liked. I don't use it on my personal computers, I've only used it at past jobs, but I don't have a problem with it. I've used Vista for over a year on one of my computers just to give it a shot because it looked pretty and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Personally I haven't had any problems with it, although I don't fault anyone else for disliking it, it has simply worked OK for me. I use Ubuntu on my laptop, still have XP running on two other machines, and have used OSX a lot over the course of the past many years at various jobs. Each one has something to offer, and at the same time each one has just as many problems. What really matters is what you do with it and the content you create. How you get there is completely up to you, and doesn't make a difference to anyone but yourself.
I don't understand your comparisons. The entire purpose of software and gadgets is to make your life easier. The choices you make for the tools you use are completely up to what makes it easier for you. If someone wants to use VS to program, and they don't have any problems with it, then there is nothing wrong with it. If someone wants to use Vista, then by all means they should. You can pretty much do everything you need to do in any OS with a number of different software choices. It bothers me when people insist that using a particular piece of software is "incorrect," because those people have lost sight of the purpose for which software is created: to make your life easier. Whatever works for each person is best. That being said, if someone only has legally purchased music and doesn't do anything fancy, then using a Zune would be perfectly fine for that person. If there is no reason to NOT use something, and no compelling reason to use an alternative, then why not use it? Clearly people are choosing to not use a Zune, and that says something. But the same is not true for things like Visual Studio and Vista.
Aside from the obvious bias and ignorance on the subject, the real clue that the OP has no idea what he's talking about is that he writes "...an SQL..."
I completely agree with this. I am a CS undergrad right now and I consistently see other students struggling on the programming assignments because they cant write a line of code to save their life. I've helped other students on assignments by explaining the concept to them, but its never good enough until you tell them exactly what to write. Saying something like "write a function to compute the average of all the ints in that array" goes way over their heads, and it makes me cry. There are students who clearly did not belong in the 100-200 level courses back in freshman year, and yet here they are somehow managing to get by and are still in my classes in the 400-500 level. Its not just the programming either, everything goes over their heads. Simple concepts and theories they cant understand. I've considered talking to the dean of CS about this sort of thing, because its people like them that give the degree a bad name after they graduate and try to get a job, and it makes it worth far less to those of us that actually earned the degree.
True, but I'd be willing to bet that most of the thousands of fireworks displays that go off without a hitch around the world are run off of a Windows box too. This sounds like user error, and/or shitty software. It could have just as easily been shitty software written for .
I think 95% of the video games that have been developed since the late 90's has shown that when a game is developed for a purpose other than to simply produce an awesome game (i.e. to make a profit, etc), the quality of the game suffers. It doesn't matter that the cause may be a good one for this project, the game is still being developed for a reason other than to make a game. I doubt the game will come out very well.
This is even more evidence that Leopard is just like Vista: A lot of people have problems with it, and a lot of people dont. For the most part, people seem to be able to get by and use it just fine without a single problem. However, there are enough problems with it that people all over the internets are bashing it with no remorse claiming that it is a total flop and that MS/Apple totally dropped the ball. Both OS's follow that pattern. Leopard and Vista both have some problems, yet a lot of people don't have any problems at all using them. As an early Vista adopter on 3 different machines without a single problem on any of them since then, I can understand how you might feel about this Leopard situation :)
Oh, I agree it would slow them down by a huge magnitude at first, but they would adapt and find a way. As some past slashdot articles have pointed out, the malicious software industry is very financially deep. Clearly they wouldn't use the same tactics or same style of exploits that they use for windows, and it would be more difficult. But for all we know, they could come up with a tactic that is twice as devastating to the linux world than they have been thus far in windows.
Oh please, if everyone used linux then the spyware/malware/virus gremlins would simply write all their software for linux. You know it, I know it, and virus authors know it. They wouldn't sit around continuing to write windows viruses wondering why no one was getting infected.
I like how this was modded up as Funny. It is funny, but its also something i could really see as a reality... :(
I heard Christopher Walken's
I'm living at my parents house for the next month while I'm in transition between two places. Conveniently, my fathers machine has gone haywire and I'm still trying to figure out what happened to it (OS install crashes every time, and _yes_ that includes various forms of linux). Anyway, I've come back to my computer from time to time and discovered he has been checking his email on it. Twice I've noticed that the firefox download window still had random .pdf and .exe files. He once left an email page open that he had clicked on informing him that he had received a wonderfully animated greeting card, and to view it he had to click the link to http://xx.xx.xx.xx/something.exe. Oh yes, he clicked.
I'm terrified what is hiding on my machine right now.
Careful, do you have the rights to those lyrics? The RIAA might be reading this.
True, I should have said that it was "at least using the legal system," even if not properly. My point was that it was better, however much, than these letters.
Err, after re-reading what i wrote, i was _not_ implying that it should happen. I was pointing out that its a problem, and that it definitely _shouldn't_ happen. Its late, i chose bad wording.
As I mentioned in a previous reply, I work for the IT office for one of the universities. Apparently the RIAA has been lobbying congress (duh), as we also received a 20-something page letter from congress which essentially slaps our wrist for being such a naughty school for allowing our students to be such heinous criminals, and provides us with a survey to gauge how we prevent students from committing these crimes. I believe the letter was also sent to all of the top 10 schools in the country. The survey asks questions about how much we limit/filter student access to the internet, whether we monitor student access, whether we report illegal activities, what sort of punishment we inflict on students who get a DMCA complaint, etc. The wording of the letter also seemed to suggest that schools should actually be doing these things. For the record, my school does none of those things, and everyone in the the whole IT and Network office building scoffed at the idea. It's a place of learning, not a prison. I really get the feeling that the RIAA's direct dealings with schools and students wont be a problem in the future if they can somehow convince congress to make it required that schools monitor student access, and prevent students from using certain applications.
I work as an undergrad for the IT office of one of the universities near the top of the hitlist, and I've personally read the letters that they send. To actually read the letter in person really gives you the feeling like "Holy Hell, they're actually doing this." The letters are such bullshit, and it is obviously just a scam to save them the legal fees of taking people to court. The sad thing is that its working for them, and for backwards reasons; In the first batch our school received (which was about 30 letters), only one student didn't respond to the letter. They got sued, and i assume had to pay up in the end. The RIAA got 30 people's worth of payout from the cost of one court battle. Even if they lost that case, they still wound up with 29 payouts for the cost of 1. I'm sure if no one responded that some people wouldn't be sued, but who wants to take that risk? While i have a problem with the strong arm court tactics they've been taking in the past few years, at least the "sue everyone" tactic was still properly using the legal system to resolve their disputes. However, these letters are extortion, and its that simple.
I thought Plan 9 was a crazy filesystem... where everything in the system was interfaced as a file?
Oh, and for the record, the woman I'm talking about is actually very intelligent. I just have a problem with the apparent attitude that programming is not as necessary any more.
A friend of mine is one of those very women at CMU right now. She has told me all sorts of wonderful stories about how she hates to actually program but she loves all the theory classes. She has some idea that she should never have to program, that she should graduate and be paid lots of money for her wonderfully educated ideas, and give her algorithms to some high school kid paid minimum wage to write her program.
Personally i find it ridiculous. CompSci is both, you have to understand the theory but you also have to understand how to program. You have to be able to understand what the computer is doing and then be able to fully implement your algorithm in code. She's correct, any half nerdy high school kid can write code, but it takes experience and knowledge to be able to write code well and efficient.
Besides, have you ever met a Math major who didn't like to, want to, or feel that they should have to actually solve equations?
Just as a point, since it was mentioned in a number of other posts above, I noticed a while ago that "Don't be Evil" isn't anywhere on Google's site any more. I didn't waste too much time digging around, but it wasn't in plain view or in any of the common docs like their mission statement.
I think it's safe to say that "Don't be Evil" *WAS* their motto.
Ah, i believe he is talking about ilovebees
But you gotta love the flowbees!