The only folks who win in class-action lawsuits are lawyers and the defendant. The suits take a large proportion of the award. The defendant is usally punished by requiring them to send out dollar-off coupons to the plaintiffs, like what happened with GM.
This decision most certainly isn't a coup for the common man. It's just an opportunity to get a discount on your next purchase of Windows.
As I chronicled in this article, you are pretty much powerless to change DSL providers once they pull the rug from under you. That's because the contract for service is between the CLEC and your local phone provider -- not between you and the telco. So even though it's your name on the phone bill, you'll have a tough time convincing the phone company to terminate your current (underwater) DSL service so you can move to another service.
You won't find this little tidbit of information in your DSL service agreement. You're at the mercy of the CLEC to terminate its contract with the phone company.
Obviously, when you talk about 128kbps for DSL, you're talking about ADSL. Dunno about Canada, but here in the states, the ADSL and cable providers don't see a need for increased upload throughput because most of the providers prohibit any kind of server run "in connection with the service." Download throughputs on cable modems in the Dallas area max out at around 500-600Kbps (according to my totally non-scientific survey of fellow cable modem users).
Even in the larger cities, DSL availability is extremely limited. I live within 20 miles of Dallas, yet DSL is not available, nor will it be for a long time to come because we're serviced by a "remote CO" -- basically a small building that doesn't have the room for DSL equipment. You have to live with what you can get.
...we can begin by forcing the FTC to aggressively pursue the fraudulent claims being made by DSL carriers/providers alleging coverage areas far greater than they can currently support.
The upshot is this: even though the two bogus certificates say they are Microsoft certificates, they are not trusted by default. You are guaranteed to see the warning dialogue the first time you encounter a program signed using either of these certificates, and will continue to see it unless you select "Always trust content from Microsoft Corporation" in response to the warning dialogue.
So does Microsoft seriously believe that the public, the same audience to which Microsoft caters as the "lowest common denominator" when developing such novelties as the talking paperclip, will suddenly divine an understanding of public key cryptography and the meaning behind these certificates? I think this might be the death knell for Microsoft as far as the ideas of "trust" and "security" are concerned.
...they hype is bigger than the fact. If one actually reads the bill, the only requirement is that software is included with the machine. Nowhere does it say "include censorware on the machines..."
I volunteered at a local high school to help strip down approximately 60 486's donated by the IRS. From the 60, we rebuilt approximately 40 (including a nice file server and web server). We didn't test each component individually, as we didn't have access to that kind of equipment. Instead, we tested each machine as a unit. Those that passed were put in one pile; those that didn't (for whatever reason) were immediately stripped down, and those parts were put in the appropriate pile
Then we determined how many working computers could be built from the remaining parts. It helped that we were also donated a large box of NICs (some worked, some didn't, but beggars can't complain). From the remaining parts, we built as many working computers as we could.
We initially tried to install RedHat, but we could figure out no way to save the install configuration so we could configure all the machines alike. SuSE works beautifully in this regard: Configure one machine, save the configuration. Plug all the machines in the network, boot from a SuSE install disk, select NFS, and fire up the installs. I believe we had three NFS servers running, and we could get installs going on 20 machines at a time at a fairly good clip.
I think what you're doing is fantastic. I only wish I could convince more schools where I live to do the same. I approached the so-called "technical administrator" of our school district about using some of the boxes I saw piled up in my son's elementary school to ask about getting a low-cost Linux-based network up and running for the kids. At the mention of "Linux," said "administrator" blanched and told me in no uncertain terms that nothing but Microsoft would ever be allowed on school district computers. I just love narrow-minded people.
AT&T in D/FW does seem a bit more tolerant of "other operating systems" than the other horror stories I've been reading in this thread. In fact, I had prepared for @home installation by setting up the Win95 gaming machine as the "host" computer for the @home tech monkey to jack with, after which I would simply replace the Win machine with a Linux box. Well, it took only a couple of words with the tech -- "multi-node LAN" -- for here to drop off the paperwork, modem, and NIC and wish me a good day.
I even got a static IP address out of the deal.
For some reason, though, I think all of this is too good to be true, and I fear all of this will come crashing down on me once they figure out I'm actually using my own mail server instead of @home's lousy mail service.
Then it will be time to set up one of those "community wireless" networks.
This whole "snitch" business is yet another attempt by school boards across America to absolve themselves of any and all culpability by making students and teachers responsible for reporting any and all threats. In this way, a school board can make the claim that it is in no way responsible that little Johnny shot up the school because nobody every reported that little Johnny threatened to do so.
This is very much like "zero tolerance": Force zero tolerance policies so that school boards and other administrators never have to open them up to responsibility by doing the wrong thing. It's a no-brainer for them: Everybody is treated like the criminal they are, so nobody can sue for disparate treatment.
Parents need to take the initiative and teach their children the difference between a "real" threat ("See this AK-47? I'm gonna blow some jocks away") and a "perceived threat" ("I wish I could kill every student in this fucked-up place"). All too often, vague or unspecified threats are being taken way too seriously by school officials -- again, it all boils down to school administrators not wanting to have to shoulder any blame in the event they actually use an intelligent decision-making process to separate the wackos from the disenfranchised. It's much easier just to assume every student is a criminal, especially for intellectually-challenged school boards.
In a previous life, I was an air traffic controller. Since we didn't have the luxury of using PDA's to store the information we needed, we depended upon our ability to store short-term information (aircraft callsigns, requests, temporary procedures) along with long-term information (area maps, long-term procedures, regulations). As my career progressed, I could easily keep track of ten or twelve 5-character aircraft ID's and recall them instantly from memory, all while listening to radio traffic and some guy trying to talk to you on the landline while issuing control instructions to several different aircraft in my airspace. The good controllers could do this. The ones that couldn't ended up as supervisors.
When I quit this line of work (there's not an awful lot of market demand for burnt-out air traffic controllers), my short-term memory went to shit. I'm lucky to be able to remember my home phone number, and I certainly can no longer listen to someone rattle off a string of characters or instructions, and then regurgitate them verbatim. It's apparent to me that short-term memory is something that's developed over time, and is also something that atrophies over time when it's not used. Long-term memory is still there: I can rattle off an approach clearance per the 7110.65, although there's nowhere on my resume to put that particular skill.
The airlines have been doing this for years: Employment candidates pay for their training, and are then offered a job based on their performance. Comair, a subsidiary of Delta, does just this.
H&R Block offers people who successfully complete their tax course possibility of employment.
I sat in on a white paper presentation by Craig Larman, author of Applying UML and Patterns, in which he discussed his experiences with XP while managing a small (8-10 programmer) software project. A summary of his observations:
XP is most useful for small, "low-ceremony" projects. However, parts of XP can and should be selectively adopted for use in larger projects that might not lend themselves to a total XP approach.
Some practices (pair programming) apply to all project scales. Others (fast, continual integration, for example) do not scale well in certain parallel development projects.
Practices to usually adopt:
1. Write unit tests first.
2. Pair programming.
3. On-site customer.
4. Rapid integration.
5. Common project room.
6. 3-4 week dev cycles.
7. Simplest design possible.
8. Collective code ownership.
9. 40-hour week.
10. Shared coding standards.
11. Constant refactoring.
12. Programmer is designer.
Practices best to avoid:
1. Minimalist formal analysis and design.
2. Avoidance of diagramming.
3. Constant refactoring, especially on short engagements or proof-of-concept apps.
There is also no empirical data pointing to the success of XP in projects of a large scale.
The practice of "doing the simplest thing possible" is predicated upon the assumption that late-change is becoming less costly, and the classic exponential cost curve for late change is no longer always true. Of course, there are many counter examples. C++ is more costly to change the Java, which is more costly to change that Smalltalk. New software designs that are coupled with new hardware designs are very costly to change late in the game.
Katz, do you even bother to check facts before you write?
President Bush,
who outlined his educational initiatives this week without once even mentioning computers or technology.
Thus claims Katz. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth: Bush explicitly asked for increased funding for school computers and other technology. Show some responsibility and check your facts before clogging the/. pages with your leftist bullshit.
One day, someone on the North Texas Linux Users' Group m/l posted a request for filtering software that would run on Linux so they could filter their home service. I suggested that instead of using software that was next to useless, I helpfully suggested that he simply put the computer in a public place and communicate with his kids about the Internet. Set boundaries and limits, and if they're youngsters, be proactive and monitor their activities.
I was mercilessly flamed for daring to suggest that parents become involved in their children's activities on the 'net. I was seen as accusing someone of bad parenting because I had the gall to suggest practical solutions over commercial snake-oil.
Given this attitude, I would imagine this rule will fairly sail through the rule-making process. We certainly can't have parents taking on the responsibility of monitoring their kids on the web, or even instilling in them the moral values necessary to differentiate between what parents consider to be acceptable and unacceptable content.
Maybe we don't read The Economist because what they have to say just isn't news. Folks like Ian Clarke and Brian Oblivion have been actively mustering the troups for at least a year now to counteract the obvious: The biggest threat of existence to any government is free flow of information
Maybe instead of posting out-of-date articles from financial rags, you all could actually start posting articles that link to people who are actively working to stop this erosion of information freedom.
Are there any broadband providers out there that allow such things as client-side servers and unfettered spam? No, I'm not interested in spamming anybody...my point is that I don't see anything more restrictive in this TOS than my broadband provide.
In all seriousness, I would be interested in alternatives to the "mainstream" broadband providers...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm still waiting for my rebate from SyQuest :) Count yourself lucky!
The only folks who win in class-action lawsuits are lawyers and the defendant. The suits take a large proportion of the award. The defendant is usally punished by requiring them to send out dollar-off coupons to the plaintiffs, like what happened with GM. This decision most certainly isn't a coup for the common man. It's just an opportunity to get a discount on your next purchase of Windows.
If anyone is using Hotmail for serious, private e-mail, they deserve to be exploited.
One down, eighteen thousand three hundred seventy-four more projects to go.
You won't find this little tidbit of information in your DSL service agreement. You're at the mercy of the CLEC to terminate its contract with the phone company.
The solution to the problem is here.
Even in the larger cities, DSL availability is extremely limited. I live within 20 miles of Dallas, yet DSL is not available, nor will it be for a long time to come because we're serviced by a "remote CO" -- basically a small building that doesn't have the room for DSL equipment. You have to live with what you can get.
...we can begin by forcing the FTC to aggressively pursue the fraudulent claims being made by DSL carriers/providers alleging coverage areas far greater than they can currently support.
So does Microsoft seriously believe that the public, the same audience to which Microsoft caters as the "lowest common denominator" when developing such novelties as the talking paperclip, will suddenly divine an understanding of public key cryptography and the meaning behind these certificates? I think this might be the death knell for Microsoft as far as the ideas of "trust" and "security" are concerned.
Good riddance.
Yet another dreamland article courtesy of /.
junkbuster
If they're solar-powered, what do you need jet fuel for?
Check it out here!
Then we determined how many working computers could be built from the remaining parts. It helped that we were also donated a large box of NICs (some worked, some didn't, but beggars can't complain). From the remaining parts, we built as many working computers as we could.
We initially tried to install RedHat, but we could figure out no way to save the install configuration so we could configure all the machines alike. SuSE works beautifully in this regard: Configure one machine, save the configuration. Plug all the machines in the network, boot from a SuSE install disk, select NFS, and fire up the installs. I believe we had three NFS servers running, and we could get installs going on 20 machines at a time at a fairly good clip.
I think what you're doing is fantastic. I only wish I could convince more schools where I live to do the same. I approached the so-called "technical administrator" of our school district about using some of the boxes I saw piled up in my son's elementary school to ask about getting a low-cost Linux-based network up and running for the kids. At the mention of "Linux," said "administrator" blanched and told me in no uncertain terms that nothing but Microsoft would ever be allowed on school district computers. I just love narrow-minded people.
I even got a static IP address out of the deal.
For some reason, though, I think all of this is too good to be true, and I fear all of this will come crashing down on me once they figure out I'm actually using my own mail server instead of @home's lousy mail service.
Then it will be time to set up one of those "community wireless" networks.
Researcher 1: I tell ya, Eidola is spreading across the campus like wildfire!
Researcher 2: Shouldn't we be quarantined or something?
This whole "snitch" business is yet another attempt by school boards across America to absolve themselves of any and all culpability by making students and teachers responsible for reporting any and all threats. In this way, a school board can make the claim that it is in no way responsible that little Johnny shot up the school because nobody every reported that little Johnny threatened to do so.
This is very much like "zero tolerance": Force zero tolerance policies so that school boards and other administrators never have to open them up to responsibility by doing the wrong thing. It's a no-brainer for them: Everybody is treated like the criminal they are, so nobody can sue for disparate treatment.
Parents need to take the initiative and teach their children the difference between a "real" threat ("See this AK-47? I'm gonna blow some jocks away") and a "perceived threat" ("I wish I could kill every student in this fucked-up place"). All too often, vague or unspecified threats are being taken way too seriously by school officials -- again, it all boils down to school administrators not wanting to have to shoulder any blame in the event they actually use an intelligent decision-making process to separate the wackos from the disenfranchised. It's much easier just to assume every student is a criminal, especially for intellectually-challenged school boards.
When I quit this line of work (there's not an awful lot of market demand for burnt-out air traffic controllers), my short-term memory went to shit. I'm lucky to be able to remember my home phone number, and I certainly can no longer listen to someone rattle off a string of characters or instructions, and then regurgitate them verbatim. It's apparent to me that short-term memory is something that's developed over time, and is also something that atrophies over time when it's not used. Long-term memory is still there: I can rattle off an approach clearance per the 7110.65, although there's nowhere on my resume to put that particular skill.
H&R Block offers people who successfully complete their tax course possibility of employment.
What makes Linuxgruven's practices any different?
Thus claims Katz. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth: Bush explicitly asked for increased funding for school computers and other technology. Show some responsibility and check your facts before clogging the /. pages with your leftist bullshit.
Here's another open-source community link that might be of interest.
I was mercilessly flamed for daring to suggest that parents become involved in their children's activities on the 'net. I was seen as accusing someone of bad parenting because I had the gall to suggest practical solutions over commercial snake-oil.
Given this attitude, I would imagine this rule will fairly sail through the rule-making process. We certainly can't have parents taking on the responsibility of monitoring their kids on the web, or even instilling in them the moral values necessary to differentiate between what parents consider to be acceptable and unacceptable content.
Maybe instead of posting out-of-date articles from financial rags, you all could actually start posting articles that link to people who are actively working to stop this erosion of information freedom.
In all seriousness, I would be interested in alternatives to the "mainstream" broadband providers...