I highly recommend Jitsi as a Skype replacement. Check out http://www.jitsi.org./ It is also worthwhile to check out http://www.gnutelephony.org./ Both these sites have some good info on free, open source Skype replacement plans.
I loved Duke Nukem 3D. It was crap loads of fun and I miss it! I might just have to either get a machine for Windows so I can run Duke Nukem Forever or figure out how to use wine to my advantage.
Seriously. Cisco has helped Chinese leaders and their minions attack loads of western computers and steal money,info from them. Perhaps, if a group lawsuit is done, this could be taken on in a large way.
Ideally, it would lead Cisco to pull out of China.
I think I'd sooner hit Cisco, where it counts, the wallet. There are now viable open source alternatives to Cisco routers: OpenBSD's OSPF/BGP implementation and Vyatta. Both can do VLANs, VRF, VRRP, and MPLS. Both can effectively be drop in replacements. I run a small business on the side and all of my infrastructure is OpenBSD-based.
These days companies do what is in their own best interests, making money. It is a shame that the world has become so unprincipled as to accept money knowing it would be used for doing harm. I was raised to be aware of social issues and with a sense of ethics. Had I been an executive at Cisco, I would have told the CCP to go fly a kite and that I would not be complicit in assisting them with potential civil rights abuses. No amount of money would make up for the guilt I would feel knowing that my products would be used to potentially arrest and torture a member of a peaceful protesting movement only seeking to better their own lives.
If I were you as a one-man operation, I would definitely look into a cloud-based service - not so much for technical reasons but for reasons of practicality. It is challenging enough to manage your sales, marketing, and accounting let alone your information technology. The cloud will at least alleviate one significant headache allowing you to focus on earning money. I run my own IT consulting business part-time and I use Google Apps for Business because the last thing I want to do is maintain an Windows Domain Controller and Exchange Server. By all rights, I have experience as both a Windows and UNIX admin but my focus needs to be on drumming up business, not worrying about malware, viruses, and database corruption. I believe you can find competitive Windows Server Hosting from companies like 1and1 at http://www.1and1.com./
This decision may be unbelievably shortsighted because, the risks and waste notwithstanding, nuclear power generation is still the most carbon-friendly method. Coal and natural gas fired plants produce tons of greenhouse gases. It is almost typical of politicians to engage in knee-jerk reactions without thinking of the potential socio-economic uphieval by large changes. I kind of had higher hopes for the Swiss government being more rational than ours in the U.S. but that just got thrown out the door. A better reaction would be to take a lesson learned from the Tokyo Electric Company and upgrade and examine safety measures.
CS is quintessentially an academic degree designed for people who want to go into high level academic research. You are correct, it is not, in the purest sense, vocational. Maybe CS needs to be split into separate academic and vocational majors, depending upon the students' interests.
No, nobody can be expected to learn how to program in a 15 week course. But I don't see this as a flaw of the CS course. Just as studying mathematics doesn't start with learning how to add and to subtract, studying CS needn't start with basic programming. I'd expect that from someone who wants to study CS.
We expect medicine students to know latin, we expect students in some foreign language to have a basic knowledge of it, we expect history students to have a basic knowledge of history and that human history didn't start with Columbus crossing the ocean. Why can't we expect CS students to know how to program?
You have to be able to walk before you can run. You have to be given the opportunity to learn to walk.
Getting an A in a formally structured course does not necessarily equate to being a good, real-world programmer. It simply means that you can learn along a linear-logical fashion. I took CS101 and CS102 and did miserably yet I am a UNIX admin and fairly competent at perl and bash scripting. Teaching of CS desperately needs to be revamped.
And even then, University has left me pretty unprepared for the workforce. I got an excellent theoretical background which would serve me well for a Masters or Ph.D but does little to help in the corporate grind. I went to college for a degree in Criminal Justice and I work in IT as a UNIX Admin. I started as a lowly help desk guy and moved up the ranks. How is that possible? Self taught. I learned more on my own through trial, error, and curiosity. Learning does not necessarily require a formal classroom structure with an "expert" teaching you. It is always better when you learn yourself through your own experience. Knowing I hated Windows, I set up OpenBSD and Linux, broke in, repaired it and practiced installing software, upgrading, and compiling from source. When you learn for the pure enjoyment of it and on your own, it is much more fruitful and productive.
If you didnt already begin in a high school class, or at the very least on hobby projects?
That is oversimplified. Not everyone tries something in a high school class and decides that they want to major in that field in college. Part of going to college is career exploration. In fact it is not uncommon to change majors. Say a freshman is curious about computer programming and decides to take the entry level course. Expecting said freshman to be a software engineer at the end of a semester is ridiculous. Plus, CS courses are taught from a theoretical, academic perspective versus a real world one. CS should be taught by building a real world application over the course of two semesters - not this lab style, oh gee let's compute PI or whatever else gets a mathematics professor off. If it were taught by building real world applications, students would be much better programmers and better prepared for life beyond academia.
I am all for that. Check out http://theconnective.net./ They are trying to do just that. You don't need a municipality or government to take action to build a broadband network. All you need is the power of the community.
Due to how badly Gibson's big screen adaptation of Johnny Mnemonic butchered the original story, I am worried this too will tarnish my memories of William Gibson's works. Some stories are better off not being made into movies at all versus being made into a bad movie.
While we are at it, lets ruin a few other cyberpunk classics such as Snowcrash by Stephenson and Software/Wetware from Rudy Rucker.
BTW: Get off my lawn.
technoid_
Yeah, that worries me slightly too. The screenplay of Johnny Mnemonic was poor. I think if they borrowed some of the folks that worked on The Matrix trilogy, the filmmakers might actually be able to weave a good story. I think the entire premise hinges on remaining exactly true to the book and only deviating in the slightest, most invisible ways. They should even borrow dialogue from the book.
I don't support this at all. OpenBSD runs gnome very well, arguably better than Linux. I didn't want this to become a fanboy vs fanboy comment but it is going to turn out that way because dropping support for other operating systems is antithetical to the whole purpose of openness. I don't see Linux's technical superiority to the BSDs. They complement each other well but if a few hard-nosed devs want to rekindle that flame, so be it. OpenBSD is the most secure operating system in the world and I'll trust it over a Linux box any day. OpenBSD's inteldrm(4) and radeondrm(4) work much better. I guess OpenBSD devs will consider forking Gnome and making it way better.
That lobbyists are trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill with the whole copyright thing. I definitely believe in the right for an author to protect his or her works but it has gone to far. We are creating legislation that is stifling creativity and making people fearful of being sued for creating works of their own. In the end, our society is continuing to contribute to its own demise a la Ancient Rome. Not only has the United States mostly outsourced innovation, we've practically made it illegal through copyright, patent-abuse, and other forms of IP protection. How can the United States become a global leader if we are more concerned about suing for profit? I blame politicians for being greedy and shortsighted. They want their personal wealth and power and be damned what adverse effects result. Most of this huge deal over copyright and IP results from fabricated studies by lobby groups in attempt to "recoup perceived lost profit." Textbook companies charge an arm and a leg over something that costs a mere fraction to produce. The time is ripe for a change and a big change in the way business is done in the US or we will find our children living in third-world, service economy.
As a UNIX admin who does light shell, perl, and python coding a dual monitor setup really makes life a lot easier and allows me to be more productive. There is time and concentration lost when switching and minimizing windows. LCD monitors are not that expensive anymore that you cannot justify the purchase of a second one.
Hit the TSA where it counts, the wallet. Face it, the body scanners aren't really doing anything anyway. In fact, security screening measures should be privatized again. There is no concrete evidence to suggest TSA is doing anything to thwart terrorism. Rather, they seem to enjoy groping people.
Is it too cynical to mention that the US government has a vested interest in denigrating Bin Laden, and that he's no longer around to deny this claim?
No, it is not too cynical at all. I believe that there is a nugget of truth to OBL having pornography because we have seen religious zealots and conservative politicians here in the US having closet sexual perversions. However, the Obama Administration wants to parade OBL's faults and make his hypocrisy well-known thereby lessening his martyrdom. By denigrating him, Obama et al hope to further weaken the resolve to potentially avenge Bin Laden's death.
There is absolutely no corollation between software piracy and jobs. While lesser minds will easily be fooled into this argument, those who are more intelligent will see right through this. In fact, software piracy and jobs are totally unrelated which makes this "study" laughable. If anything, by vigorously enforcing copyright and licensing, there will be fewer copies of said software to support meaning fewer jobs for skilled technicians. This basically takes the BSA argument and nullifies it. As an open source advocate, I do not condone software piracy at all but these efforts to fight it are largely misguided and the dues that the software industry pays the BSA would be better spent elsewhere. An entire industry has grown up around software piracy so as much as they preach against it, the lawyers that specialize in this kind of thing depend upon it for their livelihood. This is what makes the BSA so absolutely absurd. We are seeing another rehash of the sue for windfall profits and hide behind a non-profit organizational umbrella a la RIAA and MPAA. The BSA, RIAA, and MPAA should be required by law to show their corporate incomes and make them publicly available. They are tax-exempt, their lawyers are reaping the benefits, and everyone else suffers under stifled innovation.
I blame Apple for not doing more. You cannot control the Chinese socio-economic system through political discussions on human rights violations. Instead, you have to hit Chinese companies like Foxconn where it hurts, the wallet. Apple wants to market itself as a socially responsible company but by doing business with companies that abuse their employees, they do just the opposite. Apple has the power to deliver a strong financial blow to Foxconn should Foxconn not fall in line with expectations. However, corporate greed will enable executives at Apple to turn a blind eye to this all the while raking in money.
I've got some mixed feelings about this because of the vast expense and dangers of a mission like this. However, a large scientific mission such as mining and transporting He3 is just what the US needs to get out of its innovative slump and start leading the world again. We are missing the unity of purpose that we had when NASA, DARPA, and others were at the helm of innovation. It would be nice to bring a lot of that back on shore with engineering, construction, and project management done here in the United States by its citizens and for its citizens.
Slashdot Mirror
I highly recommend Jitsi as a Skype replacement. Check out http://www.jitsi.org./ It is also worthwhile to check out http://www.gnutelephony.org./ Both these sites have some good info on free, open source Skype replacement plans.
I loved Duke Nukem 3D. It was crap loads of fun and I miss it! I might just have to either get a machine for Windows so I can run Duke Nukem Forever or figure out how to use wine to my advantage.
Seriously. Cisco has helped Chinese leaders and their minions attack loads of western computers and steal money,info from them. Perhaps, if a group lawsuit is done, this could be taken on in a large way. Ideally, it would lead Cisco to pull out of China.
I think I'd sooner hit Cisco, where it counts, the wallet. There are now viable open source alternatives to Cisco routers: OpenBSD's OSPF/BGP implementation and Vyatta. Both can do VLANs, VRF, VRRP, and MPLS. Both can effectively be drop in replacements. I run a small business on the side and all of my infrastructure is OpenBSD-based.
These days companies do what is in their own best interests, making money. It is a shame that the world has become so unprincipled as to accept money knowing it would be used for doing harm. I was raised to be aware of social issues and with a sense of ethics. Had I been an executive at Cisco, I would have told the CCP to go fly a kite and that I would not be complicit in assisting them with potential civil rights abuses. No amount of money would make up for the guilt I would feel knowing that my products would be used to potentially arrest and torture a member of a peaceful protesting movement only seeking to better their own lives.
If I were you as a one-man operation, I would definitely look into a cloud-based service - not so much for technical reasons but for reasons of practicality. It is challenging enough to manage your sales, marketing, and accounting let alone your information technology. The cloud will at least alleviate one significant headache allowing you to focus on earning money. I run my own IT consulting business part-time and I use Google Apps for Business because the last thing I want to do is maintain an Windows Domain Controller and Exchange Server. By all rights, I have experience as both a Windows and UNIX admin but my focus needs to be on drumming up business, not worrying about malware, viruses, and database corruption. I believe you can find competitive Windows Server Hosting from companies like 1and1 at http://www.1and1.com./
This decision may be unbelievably shortsighted because, the risks and waste notwithstanding, nuclear power generation is still the most carbon-friendly method. Coal and natural gas fired plants produce tons of greenhouse gases. It is almost typical of politicians to engage in knee-jerk reactions without thinking of the potential socio-economic uphieval by large changes. I kind of had higher hopes for the Swiss government being more rational than ours in the U.S. but that just got thrown out the door. A better reaction would be to take a lesson learned from the Tokyo Electric Company and upgrade and examine safety measures.
CS is quintessentially an academic degree designed for people who want to go into high level academic research. You are correct, it is not, in the purest sense, vocational. Maybe CS needs to be split into separate academic and vocational majors, depending upon the students' interests.
+1 Mod Parent Up
No, nobody can be expected to learn how to program in a 15 week course. But I don't see this as a flaw of the CS course. Just as studying mathematics doesn't start with learning how to add and to subtract, studying CS needn't start with basic programming. I'd expect that from someone who wants to study CS.
We expect medicine students to know latin, we expect students in some foreign language to have a basic knowledge of it, we expect history students to have a basic knowledge of history and that human history didn't start with Columbus crossing the ocean. Why can't we expect CS students to know how to program?
You have to be able to walk before you can run. You have to be given the opportunity to learn to walk.
Getting an A in a formally structured course does not necessarily equate to being a good, real-world programmer. It simply means that you can learn along a linear-logical fashion. I took CS101 and CS102 and did miserably yet I am a UNIX admin and fairly competent at perl and bash scripting. Teaching of CS desperately needs to be revamped.
And even then, University has left me pretty unprepared for the workforce. I got an excellent theoretical background which would serve me well for a Masters or Ph.D but does little to help in the corporate grind. I went to college for a degree in Criminal Justice and I work in IT as a UNIX Admin. I started as a lowly help desk guy and moved up the ranks. How is that possible? Self taught. I learned more on my own through trial, error, and curiosity. Learning does not necessarily require a formal classroom structure with an "expert" teaching you. It is always better when you learn yourself through your own experience. Knowing I hated Windows, I set up OpenBSD and Linux, broke in, repaired it and practiced installing software, upgrading, and compiling from source. When you learn for the pure enjoyment of it and on your own, it is much more fruitful and productive.
If you didnt already begin in a high school class, or at the very least on hobby projects?
That is oversimplified. Not everyone tries something in a high school class and decides that they want to major in that field in college. Part of going to college is career exploration. In fact it is not uncommon to change majors. Say a freshman is curious about computer programming and decides to take the entry level course. Expecting said freshman to be a software engineer at the end of a semester is ridiculous. Plus, CS courses are taught from a theoretical, academic perspective versus a real world one. CS should be taught by building a real world application over the course of two semesters - not this lab style, oh gee let's compute PI or whatever else gets a mathematics professor off. If it were taught by building real world applications, students would be much better programmers and better prepared for life beyond academia.
I am all for that. Check out http://theconnective.net./ They are trying to do just that. You don't need a municipality or government to take action to build a broadband network. All you need is the power of the community.
Let it come! I love a challenge! We are all going to wake up tomorrow morning to business as usual.
Due to how badly Gibson's big screen adaptation of Johnny Mnemonic butchered the original story, I am worried this too will tarnish my memories of William Gibson's works. Some stories are better off not being made into movies at all versus being made into a bad movie.
While we are at it, lets ruin a few other cyberpunk classics such as Snowcrash by Stephenson and Software/Wetware from Rudy Rucker.
BTW: Get off my lawn.
technoid_
Yeah, that worries me slightly too. The screenplay of Johnny Mnemonic was poor. I think if they borrowed some of the folks that worked on The Matrix trilogy, the filmmakers might actually be able to weave a good story. I think the entire premise hinges on remaining exactly true to the book and only deviating in the slightest, most invisible ways. They should even borrow dialogue from the book.
I don't support this at all. OpenBSD runs gnome very well, arguably better than Linux. I didn't want this to become a fanboy vs fanboy comment but it is going to turn out that way because dropping support for other operating systems is antithetical to the whole purpose of openness. I don't see Linux's technical superiority to the BSDs. They complement each other well but if a few hard-nosed devs want to rekindle that flame, so be it. OpenBSD is the most secure operating system in the world and I'll trust it over a Linux box any day. OpenBSD's inteldrm(4) and radeondrm(4) work much better. I guess OpenBSD devs will consider forking Gnome and making it way better.
That lobbyists are trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill with the whole copyright thing. I definitely believe in the right for an author to protect his or her works but it has gone to far. We are creating legislation that is stifling creativity and making people fearful of being sued for creating works of their own. In the end, our society is continuing to contribute to its own demise a la Ancient Rome. Not only has the United States mostly outsourced innovation, we've practically made it illegal through copyright, patent-abuse, and other forms of IP protection. How can the United States become a global leader if we are more concerned about suing for profit? I blame politicians for being greedy and shortsighted. They want their personal wealth and power and be damned what adverse effects result. Most of this huge deal over copyright and IP results from fabricated studies by lobby groups in attempt to "recoup perceived lost profit." Textbook companies charge an arm and a leg over something that costs a mere fraction to produce. The time is ripe for a change and a big change in the way business is done in the US or we will find our children living in third-world, service economy.
As a UNIX admin who does light shell, perl, and python coding a dual monitor setup really makes life a lot easier and allows me to be more productive. There is time and concentration lost when switching and minimizing windows. LCD monitors are not that expensive anymore that you cannot justify the purchase of a second one.
Hit the TSA where it counts, the wallet. Face it, the body scanners aren't really doing anything anyway. In fact, security screening measures should be privatized again. There is no concrete evidence to suggest TSA is doing anything to thwart terrorism. Rather, they seem to enjoy groping people.
Is it too cynical to mention that the US government has a vested interest in denigrating Bin Laden, and that he's no longer around to deny this claim? No, it is not too cynical at all. I believe that there is a nugget of truth to OBL having pornography because we have seen religious zealots and conservative politicians here in the US having closet sexual perversions. However, the Obama Administration wants to parade OBL's faults and make his hypocrisy well-known thereby lessening his martyrdom. By denigrating him, Obama et al hope to further weaken the resolve to potentially avenge Bin Laden's death.
may be old but I still say that it is cool as hell!
There is absolutely no corollation between software piracy and jobs. While lesser minds will easily be fooled into this argument, those who are more intelligent will see right through this. In fact, software piracy and jobs are totally unrelated which makes this "study" laughable. If anything, by vigorously enforcing copyright and licensing, there will be fewer copies of said software to support meaning fewer jobs for skilled technicians. This basically takes the BSA argument and nullifies it. As an open source advocate, I do not condone software piracy at all but these efforts to fight it are largely misguided and the dues that the software industry pays the BSA would be better spent elsewhere. An entire industry has grown up around software piracy so as much as they preach against it, the lawyers that specialize in this kind of thing depend upon it for their livelihood. This is what makes the BSA so absolutely absurd. We are seeing another rehash of the sue for windfall profits and hide behind a non-profit organizational umbrella a la RIAA and MPAA. The BSA, RIAA, and MPAA should be required by law to show their corporate incomes and make them publicly available. They are tax-exempt, their lawyers are reaping the benefits, and everyone else suffers under stifled innovation.
I blame Apple for not doing more. You cannot control the Chinese socio-economic system through political discussions on human rights violations. Instead, you have to hit Chinese companies like Foxconn where it hurts, the wallet. Apple wants to market itself as a socially responsible company but by doing business with companies that abuse their employees, they do just the opposite. Apple has the power to deliver a strong financial blow to Foxconn should Foxconn not fall in line with expectations. However, corporate greed will enable executives at Apple to turn a blind eye to this all the while raking in money.
I've got some mixed feelings about this because of the vast expense and dangers of a mission like this. However, a large scientific mission such as mining and transporting He3 is just what the US needs to get out of its innovative slump and start leading the world again. We are missing the unity of purpose that we had when NASA, DARPA, and others were at the helm of innovation. It would be nice to bring a lot of that back on shore with engineering, construction, and project management done here in the United States by its citizens and for its citizens.
Very stupid, bro, very stupid. Gang bangers are definitely not the sharpest tools in the shed.