Linus was incredibly lucky to be in the right place at the right time.
How many men could have been at the same place and time, and simply fail the job? (True for Linus Torvalds, also Bill Gates, etc...)
This.
I used to think the "right place at the right time" argument had some merit. It's probably still true a little bit, but only as an opportunity for Linus. It was when I saw how rapidly git was developed and became reliable and usable that I realized it was no fluke. Either Linus was incredibly lucky to be in the right place at the right time *twice*, or the "luck" argument is nonsense.
No, that argument is nonsense because when he released git, there were a bunch of factors that have nothing to do with some external, unknown, random "right place and time."
1) Linus was much much more famous than any of the developers of the competing version control systems 2) The others that were open source were lacking features that many, including Linus, had publicly been saying were necessary. Source control was the subject of many jokes about software quality. 3) Linus was getting a lot of attention for using a proprietary source tracking tool, and refusing to use an open source one because none of them had the features he felt were essential to the linux development pattern 4) Linus had the ability to switch linux to git, and linux was one of the biggest software projects in the world. Instant, guaranteed adoption by millions... even if it had been awful!
This may indeed paint Linus in a positive light in regards to project management, but it says nothing about the "right place/time" stuff related to linux originally. In fact I'd say it might even support your older idea; that there was a time/place opportunity that he was more able to take advantage of than others at the same career phase in the same time period.
I was a SunOS user in the 90s when I switched to linux. I was mostly not using GNU tools on SunOS, either.
And I'll tell you, the reason that GNU tools were liberating was 100% that I prefer things I have freedom to use, and having the knowledge that somebody else could run the same tools for free made me feel more free to collaborate.
Without linux, that is no freedom; people who already have a commercial *nix installation could already use mostly-compatible tools.
If linux didn't have GNU tools, it wouldn't have been a deal-breaker. For one thing, there is no special magic about GNU that made them able to implement tools with compatible command-line options. I mean seriously, that is nice but it wasn't ground-breaking.
For academics who had easy access to commercial *nix, but didn't always have all the tools they needed on each installation, I can see GNU tools having mattered more. But once there was a freely available *nix, people would have been motivated to provide close enough compatibility for them to get their work done.
I really love gcc. I use it frequently. I prefer it over any other compiler. But still, I don't really agree with the official GNU ponies-and-unicorns-were-invented-here story line.
And the set of system tools is just a decision, not an enabling element or prerequisite. Especially in a world that already had POSIX standards that anybody could implement. The GNU tools were implemented right after the POSIX standards, and the planning was taking place at the same time.
Also, nobody is "emulating" those commands. They're simply implementing the interfaces, among other available interfaces.
What is really liberating is to keep the manual open when deciding which options to use, so you can quickly and easily get exactly the behavior you want.
Worrying about https implies that you have increased trust if it is https.
This is the internet. Stop trusting.
I'm not saying not to use HTTPS. But complaining that things aren't trustworthy without it is daft. Things are not trustworthy.
There are a whole bunch of steps that should be taken before even being willing to consider trust. Those haven't been taken when it is a link from some guy in the comments on a website. There is no trust to be had. The only reason to worry about HTTPS in that case would be if the data you're submitting is confidential. In this case, it is just a demo script, not an actual password tool. There is no confidentiality implied.
Yeah, think about it... look how much effort Saudi Arabia is putting into maintaining market share. Price isn't everything.
It isn't enough to walk to the gas station and make a purchase. If you're a big user, you need to arrange deliveries far in advance, and the current spot price isn't that important. Companies like Halliburton are military suppliers. You don't just sign a contract with whoever has the lowest rate, you also have to worry about if they will be able to fulfill their promises. So there are legitimate reasons why it would be necessary for this to be done contractually, and for governments to be involved; after all they are often the final recipient. That sets the stage for corruption to determine which finalist actually gets the contract.
Why would you be averse to Huffington Post when they're the ones who did the reporting?
Seems a bit irrational.
It is one thing to prefer wire news from a particular source... or to avoid the story entirely because you don't trust the investigative reporters. But to prefer to hear it second hand is... insane. Does it become more truthy if your friend repeats it to you?
The linked article from The Age who is the other investigator than Huffington Post, and the Huffington Post links to that article too as the "full investigation."
Nice attempt at an underpants gnome, but you left out the... in the middle.
At the start you acknowledge that the context is an "aggressive growth plan capitalized by debt," but then you just do some handwaving and end up at "It turn out that in order to install solar panels and make any money doing it, not only do you need a huge subsidy..." which is just a load of crap that doesn't in any way follow from this situation.
You're just trolling with anti-PV nonsense.
The only thing this situation proves is that if you use "financial engineering" (as opposed to traditional credit ratings and collateral) in order to get loans, and you fall slightly behind your predicted performance, then you crash and burn very quickly. It says nothing about the profitability of projects that limit themselves to the installation size they can afford based on the collateral that they actually have and normal, non-engineered, honest financials.
Yeah, it is pretty stupid because it doesn't establish what the goals are, or what "winning" means. The US isn't trying to stop people from being asshats online, so it can't "lose" at that. The strategy is actually instead to track them silently so as to know who to drop a missile on, and what bank accounts are big enough to be worse seizing.
If some part of the US Government was actually tasked with disrupting online activities they don't like, then the premise might make sense.
And as for the general concept of "propaganda war," that is just specious. Look at all the refugees pouring out of Syria; they're running away from those asshats, not joining them. They're not even trying to fight a "propaganda war," they're using a niche strategy of recruiting angry people from the fringe. There is no premise by which you "lose" a "propaganda war" because 2% of the people supported the other side.
No, you're sticking to an opinion that you lie and call a "fact." That doesn't make it facty or truthy, it just means you don't know the difference between them.
And above you were already making false assumptions that you thought were facts, and now you're conflating opinion and fact. So you don't seem capable of reasoned conversation.
Don't forget to include an idea with your insults. You said the word "hypocrite," but since you didn't point to any hypocrisy, I can only assume you don't know what the word means.
Oh, maybe you thought that knowing factual details means you're advocating for some similar political position? Yeah. No.
I'm "paranoid" (or maybe I've just been around the block) enough that I mostly stick to F-Droid apps, and if it asks for more permissions than I want I just download the source, remove the permissions I don't like, and comment out any code that tries to use the errant permission.
Maybe 5% of the time they're even using for it something worthwhile... at times they're even going to the bother to store the phone id in the app's database (which is just a sqlite file) when they don't have internet permissions. But there is no way to differentiate between incompetent handling of my data, and future plans of adding internet permissions and misusing it.
A lot of the time I'm turning off all the internet access, because I'm not using any sort of social media data sharing with the app, and that is the only reason it asks for it. I really prefer to have my mobile apps load their data in advance in most cases, or talk directly to another computer over bluetooth instead of a routeable network.
Stuff like "Phone state" seems scary, but a practical reason is so a media player can pause playback when you get a phone call.
This may vary by OS, but on Android there are different volume settings for media and for the phone, and even when I'm using an IP-phone app it can mute the other media on its own. There is no need for all the other apps that can play sound to be given access to your phone status for that.
That is the sort of horseshit that so many users just gobble up.
No, look, they're going to be lying to you. The question isn't, "is there a plausible excuse for having asked for it," the question is, "is it actually necessary for the main purpose of the app?"
If the app can, the app will. Does the app have your personal details? Then you don't have personal details, you replaced them with public details.
Does the app need to know your phone id and call status? Like, is the app a phone dialer, or not? No? Is it asking for that? Why would they ask for that? Would you give that out to a stranger on the sidewalk? Who you at least have a physical description of? Then why give it out to a strange computer, that is who knows where doing who knows what?
Come on, people... don't give out your phone number in order to track spam numbers... that is exactly the opposite direction than the information should be flowing there.
Yeah, my own personal opinion is that some sort of "re-education camp" is a good idea if it is being used for real criminals.
The places that send political prisons to that sort of place has given the whole idea a bad name.
But it seems like 10 years of brainwashing them to be a better person would be more useful than just 10 years of punishment, victimization at the hands of their peers, and the resulting hardening of their attitudes and personalities.
I'd want to reduce the guard tower setup, reduce the unstructured personal contact, increase the monitoring, and put a real focus on having psychologically trained staff monitoring the details of their interactions and life and trying to figure out what brainwashing they need.
And I'd also want to take the drug addicts out of the prison in many cases, and use a civil process to put them in an inpatient hospital instead. And maybe just give them free drugs, but they can't even apply to exit the facility unless they've got some amount of time clean. If they're violent, they get sent back to the prison and no more free drugs. That would keep security costs fairly low, if done right.
It certainly doesn't apply to all prisons, but if it is true sometimes then it is true. I didn't say it is always true, or imply that. They don't all get those things, that is for sure. Many are issued a razor entering the shower and give it back when leaving. Others only get an electric clipper cut from the barber.
Inmates in NY sometimes get access to power grinders, which is a known fact, but they're really not supposed to have them.
Slashdot Mirror
LOL most of those don't even have the GNU tools ;)
Queue the "but they compiled it with gcc and everybody knows the compiler name is included in the name of the every product."
Linus was incredibly lucky to be in the right place at the right time.
How many men could have been at the same place and time, and simply fail the job? (True for Linus Torvalds, also Bill Gates, etc...)
This.
I used to think the "right place at the right time" argument had some merit. It's probably still true a little bit, but only as an opportunity for Linus. It was when I saw how rapidly git was developed and became reliable and usable that I realized it was no fluke. Either Linus was incredibly lucky to be in the right place at the right time *twice*, or the "luck" argument is nonsense.
No, that argument is nonsense because when he released git, there were a bunch of factors that have nothing to do with some external, unknown, random "right place and time."
1) Linus was much much more famous than any of the developers of the competing version control systems
2) The others that were open source were lacking features that many, including Linus, had publicly been saying were necessary. Source control was the subject of many jokes about software quality.
3) Linus was getting a lot of attention for using a proprietary source tracking tool, and refusing to use an open source one because none of them had the features he felt were essential to the linux development pattern
4) Linus had the ability to switch linux to git, and linux was one of the biggest software projects in the world. Instant, guaranteed adoption by millions... even if it had been awful!
This may indeed paint Linus in a positive light in regards to project management, but it says nothing about the "right place/time" stuff related to linux originally. In fact I'd say it might even support your older idea; that there was a time/place opportunity that he was more able to take advantage of than others at the same career phase in the same time period.
I was a SunOS user in the 90s when I switched to linux. I was mostly not using GNU tools on SunOS, either.
And I'll tell you, the reason that GNU tools were liberating was 100% that I prefer things I have freedom to use, and having the knowledge that somebody else could run the same tools for free made me feel more free to collaborate.
Without linux, that is no freedom; people who already have a commercial *nix installation could already use mostly-compatible tools.
If linux didn't have GNU tools, it wouldn't have been a deal-breaker. For one thing, there is no special magic about GNU that made them able to implement tools with compatible command-line options. I mean seriously, that is nice but it wasn't ground-breaking.
For academics who had easy access to commercial *nix, but didn't always have all the tools they needed on each installation, I can see GNU tools having mattered more. But once there was a freely available *nix, people would have been motivated to provide close enough compatibility for them to get their work done.
I really love gcc. I use it frequently. I prefer it over any other compiler. But still, I don't really agree with the official GNU ponies-and-unicorns-were-invented-here story line.
And the set of system tools is just a decision, not an enabling element or prerequisite. Especially in a world that already had POSIX standards that anybody could implement. The GNU tools were implemented right after the POSIX standards, and the planning was taking place at the same time.
That's why we have --gnu-style-long options ;)
http://www.gnu.org/prep/standa...
Also, nobody is "emulating" those commands. They're simply implementing the interfaces, among other available interfaces.
What is really liberating is to keep the manual open when deciding which options to use, so you can quickly and easily get exactly the behavior you want.
Worrying about https implies that you have increased trust if it is https.
This is the internet. Stop trusting.
I'm not saying not to use HTTPS. But complaining that things aren't trustworthy without it is daft. Things are not trustworthy.
There are a whole bunch of steps that should be taken before even being willing to consider trust. Those haven't been taken when it is a link from some guy in the comments on a website. There is no trust to be had. The only reason to worry about HTTPS in that case would be if the data you're submitting is confidential. In this case, it is just a demo script, not an actual password tool. There is no confidentiality implied.
I ran to github right away to look at the details, but I left at "Bots are stateless which helps them scale."
But since you're not a software person (obviously) I can inform you that the words "MIT license" above make your joke lame.
Because this isn't even the same decade as that stuff, and is unrelated.
The word "news" that you ask about... it is stuff that is new. That is why it is news. Teapot Dome? That is olds. Also known as history.
Yeah, think about it... look how much effort Saudi Arabia is putting into maintaining market share. Price isn't everything.
It isn't enough to walk to the gas station and make a purchase. If you're a big user, you need to arrange deliveries far in advance, and the current spot price isn't that important. Companies like Halliburton are military suppliers. You don't just sign a contract with whoever has the lowest rate, you also have to worry about if they will be able to fulfill their promises. So there are legitimate reasons why it would be necessary for this to be done contractually, and for governments to be involved; after all they are often the final recipient. That sets the stage for corruption to determine which finalist actually gets the contract.
Why would you be averse to Huffington Post when they're the ones who did the reporting?
Seems a bit irrational.
It is one thing to prefer wire news from a particular source... or to avoid the story entirely because you don't trust the investigative reporters. But to prefer to hear it second hand is... insane. Does it become more truthy if your friend repeats it to you?
The linked article from The Age who is the other investigator than Huffington Post, and the Huffington Post links to that article too as the "full investigation."
See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Nice attempt at an underpants gnome, but you left out the ... in the middle.
At the start you acknowledge that the context is an "aggressive growth plan capitalized by debt," but then you just do some handwaving and end up at "It turn out that in order to install solar panels and make any money doing it, not only do you need a huge subsidy..." which is just a load of crap that doesn't in any way follow from this situation.
You're just trolling with anti-PV nonsense.
The only thing this situation proves is that if you use "financial engineering" (as opposed to traditional credit ratings and collateral) in order to get loans, and you fall slightly behind your predicted performance, then you crash and burn very quickly. It says nothing about the profitability of projects that limit themselves to the installation size they can afford based on the collateral that they actually have and normal, non-engineered, honest financials.
Yeah, it is pretty stupid because it doesn't establish what the goals are, or what "winning" means. The US isn't trying to stop people from being asshats online, so it can't "lose" at that. The strategy is actually instead to track them silently so as to know who to drop a missile on, and what bank accounts are big enough to be worse seizing.
If some part of the US Government was actually tasked with disrupting online activities they don't like, then the premise might make sense.
And as for the general concept of "propaganda war," that is just specious. Look at all the refugees pouring out of Syria; they're running away from those asshats, not joining them. They're not even trying to fight a "propaganda war," they're using a niche strategy of recruiting angry people from the fringe. There is no premise by which you "lose" a "propaganda war" because 2% of the people supported the other side.
No, you're sticking to an opinion that you lie and call a "fact." That doesn't make it facty or truthy, it just means you don't know the difference between them.
And above you were already making false assumptions that you thought were facts, and now you're conflating opinion and fact. So you don't seem capable of reasoned conversation.
Don't forget to include an idea with your insults. You said the word "hypocrite," but since you didn't point to any hypocrisy, I can only assume you don't know what the word means.
Oh, maybe you thought that knowing factual details means you're advocating for some similar political position? Yeah. No.
We're supposed to understand to be kind to the submitter because they are Special.
I'm "paranoid" (or maybe I've just been around the block) enough that I mostly stick to F-Droid apps, and if it asks for more permissions than I want I just download the source, remove the permissions I don't like, and comment out any code that tries to use the errant permission.
Maybe 5% of the time they're even using for it something worthwhile... at times they're even going to the bother to store the phone id in the app's database (which is just a sqlite file) when they don't have internet permissions. But there is no way to differentiate between incompetent handling of my data, and future plans of adding internet permissions and misusing it.
A lot of the time I'm turning off all the internet access, because I'm not using any sort of social media data sharing with the app, and that is the only reason it asks for it. I really prefer to have my mobile apps load their data in advance in most cases, or talk directly to another computer over bluetooth instead of a routeable network.
No, that is why I stop and go somewhere else when asked for private information.
Stuff like "Phone state" seems scary, but a practical reason is so a media player can pause playback when you get a phone call.
This may vary by OS, but on Android there are different volume settings for media and for the phone, and even when I'm using an IP-phone app it can mute the other media on its own. There is no need for all the other apps that can play sound to be given access to your phone status for that.
That is the sort of horseshit that so many users just gobble up.
No, look, they're going to be lying to you. The question isn't, "is there a plausible excuse for having asked for it," the question is, "is it actually necessary for the main purpose of the app?"
I have no trouble finding useful apps, I just have less trouble trying out sucky apps.
Maybe apps that ask for more than they need are full of sloppiness or sleaziness?
I probably have a lot less apps installed than you, but that doesn't guarantee I get less utility from my device.
There is an answer, and you seem to miss it; there is no need for everybody to have a clue. It can be done on an individual basis, and is effective.
You giving out your personal details doesn't give out mine. I'm not "paying the price," I'm turning down the crap.
If the app can, the app will. Does the app have your personal details? Then you don't have personal details, you replaced them with public details.
Does the app need to know your phone id and call status? Like, is the app a phone dialer, or not? No? Is it asking for that? Why would they ask for that? Would you give that out to a stranger on the sidewalk? Who you at least have a physical description of? Then why give it out to a strange computer, that is who knows where doing who knows what?
Come on, people... don't give out your phone number in order to track spam numbers... that is exactly the opposite direction than the information should be flowing there.
Yeah, my own personal opinion is that some sort of "re-education camp" is a good idea if it is being used for real criminals.
The places that send political prisons to that sort of place has given the whole idea a bad name.
But it seems like 10 years of brainwashing them to be a better person would be more useful than just 10 years of punishment, victimization at the hands of their peers, and the resulting hardening of their attitudes and personalities.
I'd want to reduce the guard tower setup, reduce the unstructured personal contact, increase the monitoring, and put a real focus on having psychologically trained staff monitoring the details of their interactions and life and trying to figure out what brainwashing they need.
And I'd also want to take the drug addicts out of the prison in many cases, and use a civil process to put them in an inpatient hospital instead. And maybe just give them free drugs, but they can't even apply to exit the facility unless they've got some amount of time clean. If they're violent, they get sent back to the prison and no more free drugs. That would keep security costs fairly low, if done right.
There is absolutely no reason to think I was talking about that.
Put away your AM radio, and stick to facts.
You were wrong in more ways than there are Latin insults to describe.
Um, that sounded like sarcasm to me.
It certainly doesn't apply to all prisons, but if it is true sometimes then it is true. I didn't say it is always true, or imply that. They don't all get those things, that is for sure. Many are issued a razor entering the shower and give it back when leaving. Others only get an electric clipper cut from the barber.
Inmates in NY sometimes get access to power grinders, which is a known fact, but they're really not supposed to have them.
It is from Japan, it is probably written in Ruby or C.
I'm thinking likely some of the "strike by object" combined with "pressure release."
Ommon is the dialect they speak in his village.