I also agree that it's important to know why something was implemented in a way, but are comments really the best place for this information ? I usually write a technical manual, which describes the 'why' if my code ( aside from a user manual, which describes how to use it ).
It indeed sounds like a way an excuse for censorship : ' We didn't block the site, a majority of the people wanted it blocked' . On the other side, they make no claim that the removal will happen democratically : it's to identify content. They do whathever they want with it.
The following will probably happen :
- Some actual terrorism sites will be identified, and shut down - A number of harmless sites ( but which the regime disapproves of ) will be removed, and the excuse will be that the people wanted it blocked - A number of bad sites ( but which the regime doesn't want removed ) will be flagged a lot , but will not be removed, and the excuse will be that no problem was found with it.
- a patent on GM seeds only lasts for a few years - It only takes a few years for the insects to overcome the GM corn's resistance - new GM seeds are invented in the mean time , which are again patented
Using this technique, you could trigger a targeted evolution in insects, making them much more dangerous for non-GM crops, effectively forcing farmers to use the GM seeds.
Actually, no : Government regulation is not essential for capitalism to work. The question is : is it really capitalism that you want ?
The problem is that regulation always exists : if the governments don't impose them, someone else will. Anarchy automatically default to the worst kind of government system.
This is funny, because this is a problem that is much more likely to happen in traditional media : There's barely any real reporting going on anymore : most media just copies to story, maybe rewriting them a little.
Internet journalism actually has an opportunity to solve this , because you can participate in it : you don't have to swallow what someone says, you can investigate for your self, and share your findings.
Cash is constantly traded between proxies , namely people. I get some money from the bank , and give it to a friend . That friend uses it to buy a hamburger . The hamburger seller uses the cash to buy more hamburgers.
How are you going to trace that money ? I might know who i gave the money to, but my friend doesn't know who the hamburger seller is. The hamburger is eaten in the meantime, so there's no proof of it. And that hamburger seller isn't going to remember my friend, who might have used part of my money to buy something else.
With BitCoin , you might only have usernames, but if the transactions are logged, you could find out exactly what was send where.
Seriously : an article on banning PUDDING for children , on Christmas ? That's just evil. But i don't worry too much : children are very creative , and if they are told they can't have something, they will find a way around it.
Don't worry about it, I'm sure most kids will do what i did when i wasn't allowed to visit a site due to my age : specify a birthdate which makes them over 18.
Similarly, any sane IT department is going to have a supported platforms/devices list. You cannot provide an SLA to the business on a device you've never seen and done any interop testing with.
Sorry, it's obvious you don't understand the challenges of a real business.
There's another concept : IT provides you with the best tools, so you don't have to look for it. So you gain time.
Say for example you would have to communicate with each other, and there is no standard company way to do it : - Some people might use gmail - Some people might install skype - Some people might install live messenger - Others might use facebook to communicate with each other.
Now, if i need to reach everyone in the company, and make sure i get replied from everyone in the company, i would have to check all of these, in order to get replies. That an enormous waste of time.
A good IT department makes sure you have 1 official channel for communication, and everyone uses that for official communication. No one cares that the next team outing is planned trough google calendar or doodle, but if you have an important business meeting to schedule, do it trough the official company planning tool.
For as long as i can remember, i have known many animals which show empathy.
When you look at dogs for example, i have no doubt they have more empathy than us. Dogs recognize immediately when you are troubled, and change their behavior based on it. It's one of the reasons people who are afraid of dogs, are more likely to get bitten : they dog knows you are afraid.
The other way around, it's much harder for us to understand what our dogs our feeling. That's the second reason people might get bitten by dogs ( misinterpreting warning signals ).
So you are blaming the tool for failures of the users ( sysadmins are users in this case ). If they don't know how a tool works, the solution is not to stop using the tool. The solution is to learn how it works.
There is difference between being able to access the database directly, and accessing the database through phpmyadmin :
- On any website i have used , by default direct access to the database is only possible for localhost . - phpmyadmin is publiciy accessible for everyone, allowing you to administer the database, from any place. - to get to phpmyadmin, you are required to authenticate.
If phpmyadmin doesn't have a password, the password on database isn't going to matter much , as you can change your password through phpmyadmin anyway.
There seems to be some strange reflex that everything the US does, must be for some evil agenda. I'm European , so i recognize the tone. However, our own leaders are just as bad ( if not worse ).
So if i understand correctly, Anonymous is making sure we all pay something to charity. Knowing banks, they will probably use this as an excuse the raise there fees substantially.
End results : - Charity gets more money - Banks get more money - regular people lose more money
So pretty much the usual then, except that now charity also gets a chuck.
The question should not be 'does it cost jobs' , but 'how does it change the game for me ' .
If your job is to create something that already exists ( reinventing the wheel ) , then yes, you might lose your job. If your job is to integrate existing components, and use them to create something new , then you actually have a better chance at getting in job ( as people will be needed to integrate all the open source software ).
There is also the aspect of support : A lot of companies will only use open source software, if they can get support on it. That certainly results in new jobs.
It's a change : you can hate it, or you can try to make the best of it. But you can't stop it.
I read it like that too ( trying to drive a glass bowl ) . It's interesting : different people like different aspects of a joke. Which is what the article is all about.
No, he seems to have a good grasp of what net neutrality stands for.
Net neutrality has advantages to the customer, but it also has disadvantages for service providers.
However, the point that companies won't go so far as to piss off customers, only works if there is a viable competition. If there isn't, then they will not think twice to screw over customers if it improves their profits.
But that's what i wonder : why is there no competition ? You would think that, if a company screws it's customers for long enough, someone would see a the market opportunity to do things differently. Why is this not the case ?
Now it comes down to surrendering your Internet connection to either a large corporation ( no net neutrality ) , or to the government ( net neutrality ).
And who do you think is paying for Greece ( Greek bailout ) ? We keep pouring money into it, while knowing that it won't solve anything. And that money comes from the taxpayer.
The problem is not the economy itself , it's that our governments are giving our money away to fill a hole that can't be filled. But that has an impact on the economy, because people who have less money left ( after taxes), buy less.
You have a choice. You can implement it yourself ( or wait until someone does it for you ) Really, i have been burning the Ubuntu iso's on DVD since a long time : they boot up faster than CD's .
The problem with FOSS is that everyone wants the benefits, but no one wants to be part of it. And then you complain when they don't do it the way you like it.
Slashdot Mirror
I also agree that it's important to know why something was implemented in a way, but are comments really the best place for this information ?
I usually write a technical manual, which describes the 'why' if my code ( aside from a user manual, which describes how to use it ).
It indeed sounds like a way an excuse for censorship : ' We didn't block the site, a majority of the people wanted it blocked' .
On the other side, they make no claim that the removal will happen democratically : it's to identify content. They do whathever they want with it.
The following will probably happen :
- Some actual terrorism sites will be identified, and shut down
- A number of harmless sites ( but which the regime disapproves of ) will be removed, and the excuse will be that the people wanted it blocked
- A number of bad sites ( but which the regime doesn't want removed ) will be flagged a lot , but will not be removed, and the excuse will be that no problem was found with it.
You are on to something there :
- a patent on GM seeds only lasts for a few years
- It only takes a few years for the insects to overcome the GM corn's resistance
- new GM seeds are invented in the mean time , which are again patented
Using this technique, you could trigger a targeted evolution in insects, making them much more dangerous for non-GM crops, effectively forcing farmers to use the GM seeds.
Actually, no : Government regulation is not essential for capitalism to work.
The question is : is it really capitalism that you want ?
The problem is that regulation always exists : if the governments don't impose them, someone else will.
Anarchy automatically default to the worst kind of government system.
This is funny, because this is a problem that is much more likely to happen in traditional media :
There's barely any real reporting going on anymore : most media just copies to story, maybe rewriting them a little.
Internet journalism actually has an opportunity to solve this , because you can participate in it : you don't have to swallow what someone says, you can investigate for your self, and share your findings.
Cash can't be traded trough a proxy ?
Cash is constantly traded between proxies , namely people.
I get some money from the bank , and give it to a friend . That friend uses it to buy a hamburger . The hamburger seller uses the cash to buy more hamburgers.
How are you going to trace that money ?
I might know who i gave the money to, but my friend doesn't know who the hamburger seller is. The hamburger is eaten in the meantime, so there's no proof of it. And that hamburger seller isn't going to remember my friend, who might have used part of my money to buy something else.
With BitCoin , you might only have usernames, but if the transactions are logged, you could find out exactly what was send where.
The Gods must be crazy ?
Seriously : an article on banning PUDDING for children , on Christmas ? That's just evil.
But i don't worry too much : children are very creative , and if they are told they can't have something, they will find a way around it.
I had the same thought immediately when reading the title.
Don't worry about it, I'm sure most kids will do what i did when i wasn't allowed to visit a site due to my age : specify a birthdate which makes them over 18.
Similarly, any sane IT department is going to have a supported platforms/devices list. You cannot provide an SLA to the business on a device you've never seen and done any interop testing with.
Sorry, it's obvious you don't understand the challenges of a real business.
There's another concept : IT provides you with the best tools, so you don't have to look for it. So you gain time.
Say for example you would have to communicate with each other, and there is no standard company way to do it :
- Some people might use gmail
- Some people might install skype
- Some people might install live messenger
- Others might use facebook to communicate with each other.
Now, if i need to reach everyone in the company, and make sure i get replied from everyone in the company, i would have to check all of these, in order to get replies. That an enormous waste of time.
A good IT department makes sure you have 1 official channel for communication, and everyone uses that for official communication.
No one cares that the next team outing is planned trough google calendar or doodle, but if you have an important business meeting to schedule, do it trough the official company planning tool.
Protect Intellectual Property Act ?
For as long as i can remember, i have known many animals which show empathy.
When you look at dogs for example, i have no doubt they have more empathy than us.
Dogs recognize immediately when you are troubled, and change their behavior based on it. It's one of the reasons people who are afraid of dogs, are more likely to get bitten : they dog knows you are afraid.
The other way around, it's much harder for us to understand what our dogs our feeling. That's the second reason people might get bitten by dogs ( misinterpreting warning signals ).
So you are blaming the tool for failures of the users ( sysadmins are users in this case ).
If they don't know how a tool works, the solution is not to stop using the tool. The solution is to learn how it works.
There is difference between being able to access the database directly, and accessing the database through phpmyadmin :
- On any website i have used , by default direct access to the database is only possible for localhost .
- phpmyadmin is publiciy accessible for everyone, allowing you to administer the database, from any place.
- to get to phpmyadmin, you are required to authenticate.
If phpmyadmin doesn't have a password, the password on database isn't going to matter much , as you can change your password through phpmyadmin anyway.
Before judging blindly, have the decency to look at the website : http://iran.usembassy.gov/
There seems to be some strange reflex that everything the US does, must be for some evil agenda.
I'm European , so i recognize the tone. However, our own leaders are just as bad ( if not worse ).
So if i understand correctly, Anonymous is making sure we all pay something to charity.
Knowing banks, they will probably use this as an excuse the raise there fees substantially.
End results :
- Charity gets more money
- Banks get more money
- regular people lose more money
So pretty much the usual then, except that now charity also gets a chuck.
The question should not be 'does it cost jobs' , but 'how does it change the game for me ' .
If your job is to create something that already exists ( reinventing the wheel ) , then yes, you might lose your job.
If your job is to integrate existing components, and use them to create something new , then you actually have a better chance at getting in job ( as people will be needed to integrate all the open source software ).
There is also the aspect of support : A lot of companies will only use open source software, if they can get support on it. That certainly results in new jobs.
It's a change : you can hate it, or you can try to make the best of it. But you can't stop it.
I read it like that too ( trying to drive a glass bowl ) .
It's interesting : different people like different aspects of a joke. Which is what the article is all about.
I read it like that too. But I'm from Belgium that might explain it .
No, he seems to have a good grasp of what net neutrality stands for.
Net neutrality has advantages to the customer, but it also has disadvantages for service providers.
However, the point that companies won't go so far as to piss off customers, only works if there is a viable competition. If there isn't, then they will not think twice to screw over customers if it improves their profits.
But that's what i wonder : why is there no competition ? You would think that, if a company screws it's customers for long enough, someone would see a the market opportunity to do things differently. Why is this not the case ?
Now it comes down to surrendering your Internet connection to either a large corporation ( no net neutrality ) , or to the government ( net neutrality ).
And who do you think is paying for Greece ( Greek bailout ) ?
We keep pouring money into it, while knowing that it won't solve anything. And that money comes from the taxpayer.
The problem is not the economy itself , it's that our governments are giving our money away to fill a hole that can't be filled.
But that has an impact on the economy, because people who have less money left ( after taxes), buy less.
You have a choice. You can implement it yourself ( or wait until someone does it for you )
Really, i have been burning the Ubuntu iso's on DVD since a long time : they boot up faster than CD's .
The problem with FOSS is that everyone wants the benefits, but no one wants to be part of it. And then you complain when they don't do it the way you like it.
That's funny since every grievance i ever had with C# was solved with Java :-)
Though i prefer groovy.
"Science ! I kill you ..."