Highly talented and intelligent people get exasperated with us mortals and let us know in no uncertain terms that we are stupid. I knew someone in school like this once. He would put pointed questions out that would show people's stupidity in broad daylight. But he was so intelligent, and I had enough intelligence still left, to know when he was right.
True intelligence is being able to recognize someone more intelligent than you are and to be able to support their work even if they have a grating personality.
Don't ever make the mistake of putting them in a role of managing people, though.
Re:Let's hear it for legacy free!
on
Legacy-Free PCs
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I wish that more vendors offered them, but they don't. The ones that do, do so at exorbitant prices.
Aye, there's the rub.
The original IBM PC had the advantage of being standardized and allowed other vendors to implement those same standards.
While there's some hope that the legacy-free PC will implement interfaces that conform closely to freely-available published standards (USB, IEEE1394), there's always this temptation: companies (Rambus) would love to own a standard and just have the checks come rolling in.
The success of breaking PCs free of legacy hardware will hinge on whether similarly-unencumbered new standards are there to take the place of the old ones.
You're certainly free to setup a whitelist and delete all email that is not from someone you know.
I try to look at restrictions on email and anonymity from the point of view of a Chinese dissident criticizing his government.
If I looked only through the context of "me being annoyed by spammers", I would too easily revoke protections and freedoms that are not instantly valuable to me here and now, but may be incredibly precious and dear there and then.
I still like the idea of anonymous email, although with the high level of spam it's likely to go the way of the passenger pigeon before long.
The reason is that anonymous expression of ideas is a helpful way of tearing down any kind of repressive political regime that relies upon controlling free expression and feeding people its own version of reality.
Too many places in the world still suffer from suppression of alternative points of view. For that reason anonymity is worth preserving, even if spammers can hide behind it.
That said, since spammers want to connect you up to a particular sales transaction, there's no reason why any individual shouldn't be free to dig down to find out who the spammer is and to publish that information.
So I'm in favor of anonymous email, but don't mind if a spammer is found out by the spam that he sends.
Glad to see someone in a position of such great power and influence (arguably he is the most influential single person in American) considering these issues with deliberation.
Reform of IP laws for the better have long suffered from the impediment of entrenched special interests benefitting from the current laws.
To gain the trust of the extremely important business community, Greenspan has had to cultivate an aura of being above the fray of petty politics where insistent congressman want him to push the gas pedal to the floor just in time to make the economy "look good" right around re-election time, even if such policies are not in the long term best interest of the economy as a whole. Since Volker, the Chairman of the Fed has been the Wizard of Oz and business people like the predictability of low inflation.
Being in that position gives special credence to his words.
this story breaks the surface of the mainstream media to become a potential source of embarrassment about how the Land of the Free and the Home of Brave is treating detainess, then Plan B will be put into effect.
mumble, mumble, protecting citizens from terrorists, mumble, mumble, Arab descent, mumble, mumble, hacker, mumble, mumble.
and it will be time for a commercial break on CNN.
People develop most of those because they think they will be useful and for fun,
Open source development is different from commercial development frequently because in the former case the user and the developer are often one and the same.
I've often found myself developing tools that I will use myself. I will eat my own dogfood. And I will quickly learn if I make poor dogfood.
In the commercial arena it often starts out that someone has a great idea, but after the company starts growing and specialization takes hold the developers and users become separated to where development of a great products depends strongly on maintaining excellent lines of communication between the two groups. If the developer and user can be the same person, then you can reduce interpersonal communication to intrapersonal communication.
So has anyone done exhaustive performance comparisons of all the x86 OS under different kinds of loads (network connections, processes, I/O, multiple processors)?
In the days of yore FreeBSD was highly regarded for its performance in some areas and I'm wondering if that's still an accurate assessment compared to Linux, Win2K/XP, other BSDs.
We have a government of for and by the people right?
That was the ideal.
In practice it's a little more complicated and you'll notice that the people in government are really not the same as the people that walk in and out of Walmart (i.e., the voters).
There's the nature of the republic, too, where intermittent elections mean there's a time lag where it's possible that the representatives we elected aren't doing what we wanted them to do. That's OK, control theory tells me that PI controller is more stable than a P controller:)
And that potential difference between what the people want and what the government does is really the crux of the entire issue about how much information "the government" is permitted to collect.
Since governments are made of fallible people (boy are they ever sometimes), it's possible for elected officials to misuse their power; the intense information gathering concentrates their grip on power and increase the severity of the consequences if they decide to suspend elections and impose martial law "to help combat terrorism and be patriotic".
People generally don't like having to trust other people with more and more power over their lives. Every single bit of power that I give to the government better have a damn good reason: if the government thinks that a particular power of surveillence will make their job more "convenient", then that alone is insufficient justification for me.
What do the people want...?
Digressing somewhat on the issues of the day I notice how disparate are the sets of beliefs on the American street, the Arab street and the European street. Despite living in the same world we have vastly different views of it; some of "our" views and some of "their" views must be incorrect or incomplete.
media, culture and education (indoctrination) influences and determines popular opinion much more than the facts of a situation;
popular opinion is swayed more by emotion than it is by critical, rational analysis.
And leave with this disturbing thought:
Hitler was originally elected.
So even if you trust your government now with great powers, be absolutely certain that you'd trust anyone that the "people" elected with those powers.
When the latest movies shows up in a Chinese DVD factory before they are released to theatres in the U.S., it just kind of suggests that it is not the general public doing the "pirating", but rather someone with special access to the film.
That being the case, I'd expect that it will still be possible for the same folks to tap into the final output video stream and save a copy for their friend$. It's just a stream of bits; you can keep it encrypted for as long as you can, but at the very end, just before the light hits the screen, it's got to be unencrypted.
Those of us are competant will still be able to find work
Of course, it wouldn't hurt if we wuz gud spelerz ether:)
Seriously, though, competence is only the first step.
A close friend manages a couple of dozen IT people and frequently is in a position to evaluate candidates for positions. Turnover is less than the booming late 1990's, but still happens.
She looks for people that are
competent technically (in fact, top-notch)
have a professional and friendly attitude (yes they'll fill out the stupid TPR reports on time and won't cuss out stupid lusers)
There have been a few candidates that have met the first criterion, not the second, and were passed over.
And yes, the flip side is true, too. Professional friendly people without technical expertise translates into "Aren't there any other candidates?"
How much development is still done in "regular" C and C++?
Making some comparison to the C# issue here, I'd say that no development is done in "regular" C and C++.
By "regular" I mean C without the standard C library (eg, printf()) or other libraries, or C++ without the standard C++ library or the STL.
Likewise, C# can be a fine standard but practically useless if you don't have standard libraries.
Just as with Java, C and C++, C# too will be useless unless you also have standard libraries implemented anywhere you want to run it. If you can only run your program on a platform provided by a single vendor, then you've made yourself vulnerable to the whims of that vendor.
Not only are you, but are uniquely Mr Methane, because each individual author has unique and identifying characteristics that can be measured using - guess what - compression algorithms.
Anyone with a nice working NT 4 based shop have no choice but to believe MS' explanation, since no one else has access to the source code to verify the story.
It's possible they're being truthful in their explanation, but since there's no conflict-of-interest-free source of independent verification, the paranoid among us will suspect it's all just a plot to get us spending time and money on an otherwise needless upgrade path to XP.
Not to diminish the valiant efforts of the sparsely populated team of Moz SVG developers, but the Moz SVG viewer tends to crash more and lag in level of standards implement when compared to Adobe's SVG viewer.
But please do NOT hold up AJ as the bastion of truth and objectivity.
Not my words, but in the context of the article, by comparison with other Arab sources, it is. As for CNN, I watched them through the first Gulf War and was disgusted by their flag-waving jingoism.
That's the really scary part of this whole mess.
First, that A-J is considered rather factual and objective by way of comparison with most Arab media. So most Arabs on the street are getting a diet of information that would confound most Westerners.
Second, that CNN, which was considered overly jingoistic and pro-American during the Gulf War is now considered "too liberal" by much of the American public, fed a constant diet of right wing talk shows that play just as much on the emotions, ignore the facts, avoid deep investigations to the same extent as those deplorable Arab media sources.
So after all the V-chip things going on, I have to wonder why there simply isn't a move by ICANN to require any registered domains that serve up HTML to include tags for browsers to tailor their display
I know that some consensus would be hard to achieve between people with vastly different ideas of what is proper (repressive governments, for example, would want more tags for outlawing Bad Thought), but I think something like this could work and permit pornophiles their pleasures while allowing young kids an internet that wasn't rife with smutty pop-ups.
Slashdot Mirror
1. Posses huge, pain-in-the-ass ego.
Alas, this happens.
Highly talented and intelligent people get exasperated with us mortals and let us know in no uncertain terms that we are stupid. I knew someone in school like this once. He would put pointed questions out that would show people's stupidity in broad daylight. But he was so intelligent, and I had enough intelligence still left, to know when he was right.
True intelligence is being able to recognize someone more intelligent than you are and to be able to support their work even if they have a grating personality.
Don't ever make the mistake of putting them in a role of managing people, though.
I wish that more vendors offered them, but they don't. The ones that do, do so at exorbitant prices.
Aye, there's the rub.
The original IBM PC had the advantage of being standardized and allowed other vendors to implement those same standards.
While there's some hope that the legacy-free PC will implement interfaces that conform closely to freely-available published standards (USB, IEEE1394), there's always this temptation: companies (Rambus) would love to own a standard and just have the checks come rolling in.
The success of breaking PCs free of legacy hardware will hinge on whether similarly-unencumbered new standards are there to take the place of the old ones.
You're certainly free to setup a whitelist and delete all email that is not from someone you know.
I try to look at restrictions on email and anonymity from the point of view of a Chinese dissident criticizing his government.
If I looked only through the context of "me being annoyed by spammers", I would too easily revoke protections and freedoms that are not instantly valuable to me here and now, but may be incredibly precious and dear there and then.
I still like the idea of anonymous email, although with the high level of spam it's likely to go the way of the passenger pigeon before long.
The reason is that anonymous expression of ideas is a helpful way of tearing down any kind of repressive political regime that relies upon controlling free expression and feeding people its own version of reality.
Too many places in the world still suffer from suppression of alternative points of view. For that reason anonymity is worth preserving, even if spammers can hide behind it.
That said, since spammers want to connect you up to a particular sales transaction, there's no reason why any individual shouldn't be free to dig down to find out who the spammer is and to publish that information.
So I'm in favor of anonymous email, but don't mind if a spammer is found out by the spam that he sends.
Glad to see someone in a position of such great power and influence (arguably he is the most influential single person in American) considering these issues with deliberation.
Reform of IP laws for the better have long suffered from the impediment of entrenched special interests benefitting from the current laws.
To gain the trust of the extremely important business community, Greenspan has had to cultivate an aura of being above the fray of petty politics where insistent congressman want him to push the gas pedal to the floor just in time to make the economy "look good" right around re-election time, even if such policies are not in the long term best interest of the economy as a whole. Since Volker, the Chairman of the Fed has been the Wizard of Oz and business people like the predictability of low inflation.
Being in that position gives special credence to his words.
this story breaks the surface of the mainstream media to become a potential source of embarrassment about how the Land of the Free and the Home of Brave is treating detainess, then Plan B will be put into effect. and it will be time for a commercial break on CNN.
People develop most of those because they think they will be useful and for fun,
Open source development is different from commercial development frequently because in the former case the user and the developer are often one and the same.
I've often found myself developing tools that I will use myself. I will eat my own dogfood. And I will quickly learn if I make poor dogfood.
In the commercial arena it often starts out that someone has a great idea, but after the company starts growing and specialization takes hold the developers and users become separated to where development of a great products depends strongly on maintaining excellent lines of communication between the two groups. If the developer and user can be the same person, then you can reduce interpersonal communication to intrapersonal communication.
Naturally the questioner was confused.
And for a very good reason; here on Slashdot there have been many references to kids or, rather, full-grown goats.
So has anyone done exhaustive performance comparisons of all the x86 OS under different kinds of loads (network connections, processes, I/O, multiple processors)?
In the days of yore FreeBSD was highly regarded for its performance in some areas and I'm wondering if that's still an accurate assessment compared to Linux, Win2K/XP, other BSDs.
We have a government of for and by the people right?
That was the ideal.
In practice it's a little more complicated and you'll notice that the people in government are really not the same as the people that walk in and out of Walmart (i.e., the voters).
There's the nature of the republic, too, where intermittent elections mean there's a time lag where it's possible that the representatives we elected aren't doing what we wanted them to do. That's OK, control theory tells me that PI controller is more stable than a P controller:)
And that potential difference between what the people want and what the government does is really the crux of the entire issue about how much information "the government" is permitted to collect.
Since governments are made of fallible people (boy are they ever sometimes), it's possible for elected officials to misuse their power; the intense information gathering concentrates their grip on power and increase the severity of the consequences if they decide to suspend elections and impose martial law "to help combat terrorism and be patriotic".
People generally don't like having to trust other people with more and more power over their lives. Every single bit of power that I give to the government better have a damn good reason: if the government thinks that a particular power of surveillence will make their job more "convenient", then that alone is insufficient justification for me.
What do the people want...?
Digressing somewhat on the issues of the day I notice how disparate are the sets of beliefs on the American street, the Arab street and the European street. Despite living in the same world we have vastly different views of it; some of "our" views and some of "their" views must be incorrect or incomplete.
- media, culture and education (indoctrination) influences and determines popular opinion much more than the facts of a situation;
- popular opinion is swayed more by emotion than it is by critical, rational analysis.
And leave with this disturbing thought:So even if you trust your government now with great powers, be absolutely certain that you'd trust anyone that the "people" elected with those powers.
When the latest movies shows up in a Chinese DVD factory before they are released to theatres in the U.S., it just kind of suggests that it is not the general public doing the "pirating", but rather someone with special access to the film.
That being the case, I'd expect that it will still be possible for the same folks to tap into the final output video stream and save a copy for their friend$. It's just a stream of bits; you can keep it encrypted for as long as you can, but at the very end, just before the light hits the screen, it's got to be unencrypted.
We fully support FreeBSD RE's approach to fixing necessary problems before officially releasing the product.
I mean, like, aren't you going on a limb there expressing your opinion?
You're just not afraid of controversy!
Those of us are competant will still be able to find work
Of course, it wouldn't hurt if we wuz gud spelerz ether:)
Seriously, though, competence is only the first step.
A close friend manages a couple of dozen IT people and frequently is in a position to evaluate candidates for positions. Turnover is less than the booming late 1990's, but still happens.
She looks for people that are
There have been a few candidates that have met the first criterion, not the second, and were passed over.
And yes, the flip side is true, too. Professional friendly people without technical expertise translates into "Aren't there any other candidates?"
How much development is still done in "regular" C and C++?
Making some comparison to the C# issue here, I'd say that no development is done in "regular" C and C++.
By "regular" I mean C without the standard C library (eg, printf()) or other libraries, or C++ without the standard C++ library or the STL.
Likewise, C# can be a fine standard but practically useless if you don't have standard libraries.
Just as with Java, C and C++, C# too will be useless unless you also have standard libraries implemented anywhere you want to run it. If you can only run your program on a platform provided by a single vendor, then you've made yourself vulnerable to the whims of that vendor.
Too bad it's not being settled on the technical merits of both products."
Certainly there's money involved in the decision or else it wouldn't be in the courts.
But even a "technical" evaluation for complex software products involves many aspects which are subjective and depend on the users.
Exhibit A: Is Perl or Python better? The answer depends on the application and the reviewer. Likewise "Tastes great. Less filling."
Acid will generate too much chaos.
I can see it now...
Step 1: Pick up pen.
Step 2: Marvel at the wonder of the universe.
Step 3: Huh? What?
I did the contracting for my own house and did one thing that I thought would be invaluable.
When I put in the underground utilities (phone, power) I made sure to bury an empty conduit with a string inside so I'd be ready when the time came.
It didn't cost much at all, and I know most contractors and builders will cut this tiny corner, but it will make a big difference to me.
Not only are you, but are uniquely Mr Methane, because each individual author has unique and identifying characteristics that can be measured using - guess what - compression algorithms.
Given enough samples, individual authors can be identified and graphs of language relationships, too.
I think it's interesting because it raises the bar on preserving anonymity if you publish widely.
Add some entropy to your life; write drunk.
And MS wonders why people get upset with them!
Anyone with a nice working NT 4 based shop have no choice but to believe MS' explanation, since no one else has access to the source code to verify the story.
It's possible they're being truthful in their explanation, but since there's no conflict-of-interest-free source of independent verification, the paranoid among us will suspect it's all just a plot to get us spending time and money on an otherwise needless upgrade path to XP.
Is it crappy?
You mean as in "Does a bear in the woods?"
Not to diminish the valiant efforts of the sparsely populated team of Moz SVG developers, but the Moz SVG viewer tends to crash more and lag in level of standards implement when compared to Adobe's SVG viewer.
Keep looking here to find out.
Not my words, but in the context of the article, by comparison with other Arab sources, it is. As for CNN, I watched them through the first Gulf War and was disgusted by their flag-waving jingoism.
That's the really scary part of this whole mess.
First, that A-J is considered rather factual and objective by way of comparison with most Arab media. So most Arabs on the street are getting a diet of information that would confound most Westerners.
Second, that CNN, which was considered overly jingoistic and pro-American during the Gulf War is now considered "too liberal" by much of the American public, fed a constant diet of right wing talk shows that play just as much on the emotions, ignore the facts, avoid deep investigations to the same extent as those deplorable Arab media sources.
On the topic of Marching Band, I was reminded that being a cheerleader can be good training for higher level executive positions.
It's not all about brains and brawn, but it seems as if effective management takes some recognition and ability in how to rally a crowd of people.
I'm of the opinion that spammers represent an infection of the net and that we are watching how the network is adapting to fight it off.
So after all the V-chip things going on, I have to wonder why there simply isn't a move by ICANN to require any registered domains that serve up HTML to include tags for browsers to tailor their display
I know that some consensus would be hard to achieve between people with vastly different ideas of what is proper (repressive governments, for example, would want more tags for outlawing Bad Thought), but I think something like this could work and permit pornophiles their pleasures while allowing young kids an internet that wasn't rife with smutty pop-ups.I guess I'll pine away hoping for solid SVG support until, what, Moz 1.5?