Do we really want Big Brother stepping in to regulate our network activities? As much as I believe spam is an abhorrent practice (I am a devotee of TMDA), I don't believe the government is acting in my best interest. How, exactly, do they determine what is spam and what is not? How soon will it be before the feds come knocking at your door after unleashing a flood of e-mails requesting your money back from an on-line vendor?
The bad thing about all this is that the government is making the rules up as it goes along. Anybody who believes this is A Good Thing is deluding themselves. Every time cases like these are prosecuted successfully, a little freedom is taken away from the governed, and a little more power is granted to the governors.
Great./. tries to do the right thing and tell us about PanIP's predatory tactics, and then you guys (Timothy, this means you) turn around and slashdot their site.
Yeah, the subject line applies to you, Timothy, and any other guilty/. party who continue to do good causes "favors" by posting links to their websites in a manner that is guaranteed to cause giant short-term traffic spikes. Why don't you guys think about what you are doing before posting direct links?
Wouldn't setting it to something like 0 be better?
In most areas of the world (unless you're flying over the Dead Sea, or Death Valley, or New Orleans), if your altimeter reads 0, you're probably already dead. Altimeters used for navigation read MSL (height above mean sea level), not AGL (height above ground). There are radar altimeters that read in AGL, but these are used for close-to-ground maneuvers like landing.
As a pilot and former aircraft owner, I can assure you the FAA will create an insurmountable obstacle for aircraft owners wishing to convert. All aircraft in the US are certified to run on certain fuel. Deviation from this certification must be made on a case-by-case basis, backed up by engineering data for each aircraft to be modified. Obviously, this can be cost-prohibitive for individual aircraft owners.
Usually what happens is a company will spring for the engineering studies, then sell an STC (supplemental type certificate) to aircraft owners wishing to modify their aircraft. (The company still controls the STC, and each aircraft must have its own STC). For instance, owners of certain aircraft wanting to burn auto fuel can buy STCs from two different companies.
At any rate, the bottom line is that the conversion to alternative fuels in production aircraft (at least in the US) is extremely prohibitive, thanks to the FAA. You can read more about the hoops that have to be jumped through here.
I've always thought it would be possible to construct license plate frames that bathe a license plate in infrared and/or ultraviolet light, thereby making it "invisible" to speed control cameras (or, for the truly criminal out there, tollboth cameras), or any other CCD device. Would such a scheme actually work? Maybe put some sort of "diffuser" over the license plate to better diffuse the energy...
I am an active Perl developer, have been for several years. All the information I need is available on-line: PerlMonks, newsgroups, etc. I have never run across a question I've had that hasn't been asked by someone else, in one form or another.
So give me one good reason why I would choose to spend my hard-earned dollars on a resource that is (1) dated as soon as the PDF hits the mailbox and (2) replicated by on-line resources?
To support the Perl movement, you say? I do that already by teaching others about Perl. That is my contribution to the world of Perl: My time in exchange for evangelization, certainly a cause Larry Wall would find acceptable.
I'm sorry, but in this day and age where information is abundantly available on the 'net, I see journal publication (dead-tree or on-line) as a poor, not-profitable business model. The idea that profit can be made from information is becoming obsolete, especially in the IT world (unless you have control over proprietary information, like Sun or Microsoft).
BTW, I'm using the term "profit" loosely here, to simply mean money available from revenues that can be put back into the business. Nothing in this post is meant to reflect upon the business motives of any of the TPJ organizers.
All good comments, but save for one, no one really justifies the use of version control software as the appropriate place to archive binaries. The beauty of VCS is that the revisions themselves are not saved, but the deltas between them. Saving binaries under VCS serves to do nothing mor than bloat the repositories with data best archived elsewhere.
I don't think there is a law that says I, as a private individual, can't discriminate against gun owners. If there is, please let me know. And please don't bother to quote the constitution - that's for discrimination by the Federal gov't.
Please refrain from undermining your arguments with baseless assertions. Courts have upheld the Constitution in many cases that do not involve the Federal government. Illegal search and seizure? Applies to local governments as well. Due process? Can be extended to local school districts. And on and on.
This article, along with crap such as this and this, simply proves/. editors are out-of-touch with what is really going on in geekdom and what can truly pass as "news for nerds". It's almost as if/. has outlived itself, or maybe it's time for some fresh blood who have a clue.
I'm sure the/. groupies will mod this down in record time, but to you I say: Get a life, stop being a follower, and use the energy you would otherwise use to get into a snit and start pressuring the/. editors to bring us meaningful, timely content.
Applied Java Patterns is an adequate Design Patterns reference for those who must have a Java version of the classic Gamma et al (aka Gang of Four, or GoF) Design Patterns
If you feel you need the Java version of the original GoF (gang of four) book, I have a recommendation: Skip the book, and buy Eckel's "Thinking in Java," because you have some catching up to do if you can't translate the original design patterns into Java (or any other OO language, for that matter).
Too many developers use design patterns as either (1) a crutch due to poor design methodology or (2) sparkle and glitter in order to impress the boss with an otherwise sound design methodology. Learn the language first, work with the language, and write some software before worrying about design patterns. The original GoF book will work with any OO language, but you will have to supply the necessary skills to get the job done. Another design pattern book isn't going to help you.
Seems to me there's some confusion between "obsolete" and "usable." Those websites that will be obsolete with fubar 6.x are the same ones that cram a lot of visual shit down your throat, making you work very hard to extract the useful information out of the noise.
Fight designed obsolescence, and write text-based web content with a minimum of static content. Otherwise, don't bitch when fubar 6.x fubars your site.
At the risk of losing karma points I don't need, I confess to being at a loss as to what the point of this article is...does this mean Linux is better than OS X? Given that both Linux and Darwin are open-source, shouldn't the headline be something like "Open-Source Desktops Gain on Proprietary, Non-Customizable Desktops"?
Why do we insist upon parading Linux around as the "spokesmodel" for the open-source movement? Wouldn't the advancement of open-source efforts be better served and made more visible by combining the efforts of Linux, *BSD, Darwin/OS X, and other open-source O/Ses, and comparing their collective advance against the Evil Empire?
I notice that you still didn't provide me with any studies (from a medical journal, or other scientific journal) proving your point.
I don't know of any scientific double-blind studies, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to be found. Again, this whole issue hinges on whether or not anecdotal evidence in and of itself is proof that something works. You claim it isn't; I claim it is. It's a circular argument neither of us will win.
I'm very willing to accept that 'alternative' therapies work, but advocates need to do the work, and prove their case. If they worked as well as you claim you do, then shouldn't they be mainstream therapies by now anyway?
I don't claim anything I suggested works "well"; I simply brought up the point that there exist many alternatives to accepted medical practices which may work based upon other than scientific evidence. Personally, I don't use silver, because I don't know how much it would take to start exhibiting symptoms of arygria (skin discoloration). But the anti-microbial effects are well-known (it was commonly used as an antibiotic in the early 20th century), and if there are people out there who claim to have cured themselves with silver, who am I or anyone else to disagree with them?
As far as being mainstream: What pharmaceutical company is going to spend millions to conduct double-blind research into a substance like silver that will bring them no royalties, no patent fees, and very little profit?
Scientific research, performed properly and without a profit motive, is a very valid means of scientific proof and discovery. But where is it writ in stone that scientific research is the only means of showing efficacy?
For years the government denied that Gulf War vets were exposed to something that caused medical symptoms clearly out of sync with what would be statistically predicted. Yet anecdotal evidence clearly pointed to something they were exposed to, and it's only been very recently that the government has finally come to grips with what the non-scientific evidence has pointed to all along. Scientific research has its place in the world, but so does observational research.
BTW, there is always water present in av fuel due to condensation inside the storage containers and absorption from the air. The reason why water is dangerous is because it doesn't combust well in 4-stroke engines. Checking for, and draining, water from your fuel tanks is something you do prior to every flight. (Well, the smart pilots do...)
I can't speak for silver (I've not done enough reading on this particular 'treatment'), but I can say that both
acupuncture and homeopathy are NOT proven treatments, nothing even close. I challenge you to produce
one paper in a reputable medical journal that demonstrates the effectiveness of these treatments.
"A reputable medical journal"? Like the AMA's journal, in which doctors subsidized by pharmaceutical firms carry on "research" in the name of objective science?
I challenge you to show me where it says the only effective demonstration of a medical treatment is to be found in medical journals. I've had friends die of cancer, horrible and lingering suffering, after being treated with cancer drugs declared "proven" by "reputable medical journals"...evidence-based medicine isn't all that it's cracked up to be. You've obviously been duped into believing anything the for-profit medical industry has to say about medicine.
A little ignorance goes a long way at Quackwatch...and anyways, if you read it on the 'net, it must be true.
Turn you "permanently gray"? Like a photographic plate? Please...do a little more research. Are your eyes gray? Mine aren't...and if you were born in the US, you got a dose of silver nitrate right after you popped out at birth.
It's people like you, closed-minded, but otherwise intelligent, who (1) believe everything they read on the web, (2) think that the government is here to help us, and (3) believe the medical industry doesn't let profit margins get in the way of keeping people healthy.
Even if the linked article proves to be true, we will never see widespread adoption of this low-cost treatment. Why? Because it directly threatens the large profit margins enjoyed by pharmaceutical companies the world over. Take silver, for instance. A well-known anti-microbial, it is cheap to process (effective colloidal solutions require only a few ppm of Ag), and has a devastating effect on many harmful microbes. So why aren't we all brewing up our own silver colloid and treating so-called "mycin-resistant" microbes? Because to do so would dig deeply in the billions of dollars pocketed by the big pharmaceuticals every year. Since the pharmaceuticals pretty much hold the pursestrings for the AMA, you won't see the AMA throwing in their support either.
Proven medical treatments, such as silver, acupuncture, homeopathy, etc. (proven not by a few piddly years of research, but in most cases many decades or centuries of use) will never be embraced by the mainstream medical establishment as long as the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to dictate medical policy and control the way we are permitted to keep ourselves healthy.
I teach at a suburban high school (approx. 2700 students). Although our Internet access is fast, it is so hobbled by censorware that most research on the web is useless. The machines themselves are locked down with Fortres, which prevents knowledgeable teachers like myself from even being able to introduce the kids to new technologies (I teach computer science, and it's a real pain in the ass to get the student machines updated and reimaged every time I want to work with open-source software I find on the web).
Add to this the fact that most school district technology staffers are woefully ignorant of technology (many are teachers who have no background in technology but thought it would be "cool" to learn how to jockey a mouse around like a pro), and you have the situation described in the article. It's a sad, sad situation, and it frustrates me to no end that I must deal with so-called district technology "gurus" who have no idea what the hell they're doing, but do happen to know how to type a password in.
Slashdot Mirror
Do we really want Big Brother stepping in to regulate our network activities? As much as I believe spam is an abhorrent practice (I am a devotee of TMDA), I don't believe the government is acting in my best interest. How, exactly, do they determine what is spam and what is not? How soon will it be before the feds come knocking at your door after unleashing a flood of e-mails requesting your money back from an on-line vendor?
The bad thing about all this is that the government is making the rules up as it goes along. Anybody who believes this is A Good Thing is deluding themselves. Every time cases like these are prosecuted successfully, a little freedom is taken away from the governed, and a little more power is granted to the governors.
No wonder the GNU people laugh at me when I ask questions about their software.
Hey, Pudge, where I live, speed bumps are used to slow people down. I couldn't figure out why in the hell Apple would want to slow their laptops down.
Mayhaps you were looking for "speed boost" or "speed increase"?
Great. /. tries to do the right thing and tell us about PanIP's predatory tactics, and then you guys (Timothy, this means you) turn around and slashdot their site.
/. party who continue to do good causes "favors" by posting links to their websites in a manner that is guaranteed to cause giant short-term traffic spikes. Why don't you guys think about what you are doing before posting direct links?
Yeah, the subject line applies to you, Timothy, and any other guilty
But pedophilia images and personal information can also be published through this channel with no ways to remove it.
This is the price you pay for freedom. You take the good and the bad, and hope the good outshines the bad.
I'm sure the pediphiles and crackers would find other ways to distribute their shit if it weren't for Freenet.
Wouldn't setting it to something like 0 be better?
In most areas of the world (unless you're flying over the Dead Sea, or Death Valley, or New Orleans), if your altimeter reads 0, you're probably already dead. Altimeters used for navigation read MSL (height above mean sea level), not AGL (height above ground). There are radar altimeters that read in AGL, but these are used for close-to-ground maneuvers like landing.
...the sysadmins would have to don gas masks for routine maintenance.
As a pilot and former aircraft owner, I can assure you the FAA will create an insurmountable obstacle for aircraft owners wishing to convert. All aircraft in the US are certified to run on certain fuel. Deviation from this certification must be made on a case-by-case basis, backed up by engineering data for each aircraft to be modified. Obviously, this can be cost-prohibitive for individual aircraft owners.
Usually what happens is a company will spring for the engineering studies, then sell an STC (supplemental type certificate) to aircraft owners wishing to modify their aircraft. (The company still controls the STC, and each aircraft must have its own STC). For instance, owners of certain aircraft wanting to burn auto fuel can buy STCs from two different companies.
At any rate, the bottom line is that the conversion to alternative fuels in production aircraft (at least in the US) is extremely prohibitive, thanks to the FAA. You can read more about the hoops that have to be jumped through here.
The plant efficiently pumps arsenic from the soil and stores it in its leaves, where it can be easily harvested and disposed of.
Presumably, said plant is efficiently pumping arsenic from a Superfund site containing large amounts of..."disposed" arsenic!
Do I detect circular logic here?
WHERE THE HELL DO YOU DUMP THE PLANTS? (Another Superfund site?)
I've always thought it would be possible to construct license plate frames that bathe a license plate in infrared and/or ultraviolet light, thereby making it "invisible" to speed control cameras (or, for the truly criminal out there, tollboth cameras), or any other CCD device. Would such a scheme actually work? Maybe put some sort of "diffuser" over the license plate to better diffuse the energy...
I am an active Perl developer, have been for several years. All the information I need is available on-line: PerlMonks, newsgroups, etc. I have never run across a question I've had that hasn't been asked by someone else, in one form or another.
So give me one good reason why I would choose to spend my hard-earned dollars on a resource that is (1) dated as soon as the PDF hits the mailbox and (2) replicated by on-line resources?
To support the Perl movement, you say? I do that already by teaching others about Perl. That is my contribution to the world of Perl: My time in exchange for evangelization, certainly a cause Larry Wall would find acceptable.
I'm sorry, but in this day and age where information is abundantly available on the 'net, I see journal publication (dead-tree or on-line) as a poor, not-profitable business model. The idea that profit can be made from information is becoming obsolete, especially in the IT world (unless you have control over proprietary information, like Sun or Microsoft).
BTW, I'm using the term "profit" loosely here, to simply mean money available from revenues that can be put back into the business. Nothing in this post is meant to reflect upon the business motives of any of the TPJ organizers.
All good comments, but save for one, no one really justifies the use of version control software as the appropriate place to archive binaries. The beauty of VCS is that the revisions themselves are not saved, but the deltas between them. Saving binaries under VCS serves to do nothing mor than bloat the repositories with data best archived elsewhere.
First, CVS is built on top of RCS and, as such, doesn't handle binary files.
Give me one good scenario in which a version control system would be the appropriate place to archive binaries.
I believe you are trying to use the wrong tool for the job.
I don't think there is a law that says I, as a private individual, can't discriminate against gun owners. If there is, please let me know. And please don't bother to quote the constitution - that's for discrimination by the Federal gov't.
Please refrain from undermining your arguments with baseless assertions. Courts have upheld the Constitution in many cases that do not involve the Federal government. Illegal search and seizure? Applies to local governments as well. Due process? Can be extended to local school districts. And on and on.
This article, along with crap such as this and this, simply proves /. editors are out-of-touch with what is really going on in geekdom and what can truly pass as "news for nerds". It's almost as if /. has outlived itself, or maybe it's time for some fresh blood who have a clue.
/. groupies will mod this down in record time, but to you I say: Get a life, stop being a follower, and use the energy you would otherwise use to get into a snit and start pressuring the /. editors to bring us meaningful, timely content.
I'm sure the
Applied Java Patterns is an adequate Design Patterns reference for those who must have a Java version of the classic Gamma et al (aka Gang of Four, or GoF) Design Patterns
If you feel you need the Java version of the original GoF (gang of four) book, I have a recommendation: Skip the book, and buy Eckel's "Thinking in Java," because you have some catching up to do if you can't translate the original design patterns into Java (or any other OO language, for that matter).
Too many developers use design patterns as either (1) a crutch due to poor design methodology or (2) sparkle and glitter in order to impress the boss with an otherwise sound design methodology. Learn the language first, work with the language, and write some software before worrying about design patterns. The original GoF book will work with any OO language, but you will have to supply the necessary skills to get the job done. Another design pattern book isn't going to help you.
For the mathematically challenged (guess that includes me), that should have been "0.1%...".
"99.9% of all websites are obsolete."
Ergo,
"0.01% of all websites render nicely in Lynx."
Seems to me there's some confusion between "obsolete" and "usable." Those websites that will be obsolete with fubar 6.x are the same ones that cram a lot of visual shit down your throat, making you work very hard to extract the useful information out of the noise.
Fight designed obsolescence, and write text-based web content with a minimum of static content. Otherwise, don't bitch when fubar 6.x fubars your site.
Why do we insist upon parading Linux around as the "spokesmodel" for the open-source movement? Wouldn't the advancement of open-source efforts be better served and made more visible by combining the efforts of Linux, *BSD, Darwin/OS X, and other open-source O/Ses, and comparing their collective advance against the Evil Empire?
I notice that you still didn't provide me with any studies (from a medical journal, or other scientific journal) proving your point.
I don't know of any scientific double-blind studies, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to be found. Again, this whole issue hinges on whether or not anecdotal evidence in and of itself is proof that something works. You claim it isn't; I claim it is. It's a circular argument neither of us will win.
I'm very willing to accept that 'alternative' therapies work, but advocates need to do the work, and prove their case. If they worked as well as you claim you do, then shouldn't they be mainstream therapies by now anyway?
I don't claim anything I suggested works "well"; I simply brought up the point that there exist many alternatives to accepted medical practices which may work based upon other than scientific evidence. Personally, I don't use silver, because I don't know how much it would take to start exhibiting symptoms of arygria (skin discoloration). But the anti-microbial effects are well-known (it was commonly used as an antibiotic in the early 20th century), and if there are people out there who claim to have cured themselves with silver, who am I or anyone else to disagree with them?
As far as being mainstream: What pharmaceutical company is going to spend millions to conduct double-blind research into a substance like silver that will bring them no royalties, no patent fees, and very little profit?
Scientific research, performed properly and without a profit motive, is a very valid means of scientific proof and discovery. But where is it writ in stone that scientific research is the only means of showing efficacy?
For years the government denied that Gulf War vets were exposed to something that caused medical symptoms clearly out of sync with what would be statistically predicted. Yet anecdotal evidence clearly pointed to something they were exposed to, and it's only been very recently that the government has finally come to grips with what the non-scientific evidence has pointed to all along. Scientific research has its place in the world, but so does observational research.
BTW, there is always water present in av fuel due to condensation inside the storage containers and absorption from the air. The reason why water is dangerous is because it doesn't combust well in 4-stroke engines. Checking for, and draining, water from your fuel tanks is something you do prior to every flight. (Well, the smart pilots do...)
I can't speak for silver (I've not done enough reading on this particular 'treatment'), but I can say that both
acupuncture and homeopathy are NOT proven treatments, nothing even close. I challenge you to produce
one paper in a reputable medical journal that demonstrates the effectiveness of these treatments.
"A reputable medical journal"? Like the AMA's journal, in which doctors subsidized by pharmaceutical firms carry on "research" in the name of objective science?
I challenge you to show me where it says the only effective demonstration of a medical treatment is to be found in medical journals. I've had friends die of cancer, horrible and lingering suffering, after being treated with cancer drugs declared "proven" by "reputable medical journals"...evidence-based medicine isn't all that it's cracked up to be. You've obviously been duped into believing anything the for-profit medical industry has to say about medicine.
A little ignorance goes a long way at Quackwatch...and anyways, if you read it on the 'net, it must be true.
Turn you "permanently gray"? Like a photographic plate? Please...do a little more research. Are your eyes gray? Mine aren't...and if you were born in the US, you got a dose of silver nitrate right after you popped out at birth.
It's people like you, closed-minded, but otherwise intelligent, who (1) believe everything they read on the web, (2) think that the government is here to help us, and (3) believe the medical industry doesn't let profit margins get in the way of keeping people healthy.
To quote you, give me a break.
Even if the linked article proves to be true, we will never see widespread adoption of this low-cost treatment. Why? Because it directly threatens the large profit margins enjoyed by pharmaceutical companies the world over. Take silver, for instance. A well-known anti-microbial, it is cheap to process (effective colloidal solutions require only a few ppm of Ag), and has a devastating effect on many harmful microbes. So why aren't we all brewing up our own silver colloid and treating so-called "mycin-resistant" microbes? Because to do so would dig deeply in the billions of dollars pocketed by the big pharmaceuticals every year. Since the pharmaceuticals pretty much hold the pursestrings for the AMA, you won't see the AMA throwing in their support either.
Proven medical treatments, such as silver, acupuncture, homeopathy, etc. (proven not by a few piddly years of research, but in most cases many decades or centuries of use) will never be embraced by the mainstream medical establishment as long as the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to dictate medical policy and control the way we are permitted to keep ourselves healthy.
I teach at a suburban high school (approx. 2700 students). Although our Internet access is fast, it is so hobbled by censorware that most research on the web is useless. The machines themselves are locked down with Fortres, which prevents knowledgeable teachers like myself from even being able to introduce the kids to new technologies (I teach computer science, and it's a real pain in the ass to get the student machines updated and reimaged every time I want to work with open-source software I find on the web).
Add to this the fact that most school district technology staffers are woefully ignorant of technology (many are teachers who have no background in technology but thought it would be "cool" to learn how to jockey a mouse around like a pro), and you have the situation described in the article. It's a sad, sad situation, and it frustrates me to no end that I must deal with so-called district technology "gurus" who have no idea what the hell they're doing, but do happen to know how to type a password in.