Do you really think young teenagers get pregnant because of porn on the net and magazines? As much as we'd like to blame things we don't like, it still doesn't justify it. It's not like a teenager gets pregnant from wanking in the toilet, or in front of the computer. Teenagers have gotten pregnant for ages, and it's increasing because sex is now being tolerated before marriage. With higher toleration of drugs and booze, it's a lethal combination. Especially when kids think they don't have to use protection (surely a "brilliant" idea from comrades who says it's better that way).
Before, kids were forced to get married before anyone noticed, or they went to a "clinic", possibly getting scarred for life. So going back is definately not an option, or possible. About drugs and booze, they're too much used now, but it's more like a symptom adding to the problem, than the real problem itself. I don't know about alcoholism, and maybe it's genetical, but people getting problems with drugs or booze usually have bigger problems lurking under the surface, in combination with making some bad decisions.
We have more freedom now, especially social acceptable freedoms. I think it would have boggled our minds to talk to someone who lived (and died) 100 years ago, and vica versa. But this newly-won freedom also gives us more responsibility in our own lives. Our current problems is the price we pay for getting rid of old rules and dogmas so fast.
You said: "Sex sites demean women and men in them, they teach that sex is something you can purchase or engage in with out relationships or consequences."
This is such a standard-phrase I just have to attack it. I believe you cut everything over one comb here. Surely it depends on how the pictures were taken, if the persons involved consented, in fact, love to do it! We're all different, and if there were such thing as "pornism" (aka racism), I think that's very much present in todays society.
So how this would "demean" those pictured on the site I don't know. Maybe it's you who feel demeaned? Do you seriously believe that illegalizing and banning activities, you are helping those individuals? There are laws against murdering, yet still people get shot every day in the US. You can't make a rule for everything to fix it, what you can do is make people aware of how they live, without judgement. It's impossible to forcibly rescue other people, but you can help them realize how to help themselves. Sometimes using strong methods can help, sometimes it makes matters even worse. Most important is to help yourself, or else you risk doing more damage than good.
About sex having implications and consequences, that also depends on how you do it. I don't think a pornsite is designed to teach kids about ethics, they should get that from somewhere else. Surely educated people who view pornsites doesn't suddenly think condoms are all rubbish. Well it's time to educate those kids, and stop being afraid.
Fact is, there are people all around the world that like to have promiscuous sex. Even with multiple partners at the same time, without necessarily involving too much long-term relationships in it. That may mean there are different feelings involved than in a long-term relationships, but they're still feelings that need to be acted out.
Now it's not up to you or me to judge what relationships are most healthy. But many monogoman long-term relationships are not as beneficial as we may believe. Not only counting abusive relationships, but also relationships where the partner is too much emotionally dependent on the other, and countless other types. They're not something to illegalize, they're something to make people aware of! Hopefully without putting them down or judging them, so that we can feel better about ourself for a little time.
In the end, we don't have relationships with others as a goal in itself. It's more like something we can learn and grow on, preferrably but not always, while having fun! A perfect relationship is not one that lasts forever, but one that ends so that we can continue with our next, or be alone if we need that. A relationship doesn't have to involve strong feelings or sex, you can have more than one relationship at the same time, even sexual ones.
To me this is pretty obvious. Of course you gotta come up with the idea first, but that may come naturally after you have examined the problems with current CGI scripts. For simplicity though, I would still prefer to keep webserving (service to many sites for instance) and session-related stuff apart. Certainly such a solution should be standardized and made available to all, so that you avoid dirty and different hacks into every webserver around.
Not everyone has special privileges to their webhost, just one more reason to use CGI or standardize this thing. Why not just use cookies?
I think the most probable reason people haven't done this much before, is that they don't like to hack up their webserver, or maybe we're all just clueless. Whatever.
This is all good news. If there's something we like, it's open cross-platform APIs. It's just too bad that the Windows OpenAL will probably be supported through DirectSound instead of native drivers, as for OpenGL and Direct3D now. So you have one more reason to delete your FAT partitions and start gaming in Linux.
Expect FUD about this from your nearby Microserf.
All other PC audio companies signing up on this is good in my book and I will start buying one card a week to show my appreciation. Or maybe two. They probably deserve all my money, and somebody gotta pay when they start losing all their money supporting open standards.
Bill Gates: We cannot open the source on Windows, as people wouldn't know what they get when they buy Windows anymore.
[Aside from the obvious paradox:]
Me: Your problem is that people are beginning to realize just exactly what they really get!
This all boils down to the word "ownership". Is it really something that exists? It seems more likely that it's more a construct of our minds, than something real. There's nothing in the universe that states ownership of this-and-that object found lying on the ground, excepts in our minds. WE come up with answers, and WE live by them for better and for worse.
But yet we treat ownership as something real, because we live in a society. And we come up with more and more rules to cover more grounds, so that everything seems "fair" and everyone can live "happily" together (except for those in the 3rd world, etc, etc. *sarcasm on* But they can hardly be called people right? I mean, they live so far away, they're just RGB-dots on our expensive TVs. *sarcasm off*).
The problem is that ancient rules gets outdated with each new technology. It's ALWAYS been so, and we're going to experience this even more, not just with information, but with real physical objects and energy too. What happens if someone invents a car that doesn't consume any fuel and pollutes less for instance?
Fact is there are people out there that are willing to do just about anything to prevent viable alternatives to develop "too soon". That's because they hold power and influence over us, not just fantastic wealth. Rich people get richer on controlled stagnation, and yet they earn our respect. That only shows how much influence money can have. It's the same foolish admiration people had for conquerors in the past, until their own village got pillaged and raped.
This debate isn't about free speech or our "rights". Those words are meaningless in the universal sense. This debate is about ourself wanting to take back the power that we have given away. Perhaps unknowingly and in our upbringing, but still we're responsible for our own lives. We'll only win if we know what this issue is REALLY about, or else we'll compromise on these issues until we're left with nothing.
Why do we accept the current power-structures? It's because we've already forgotten that we can do whatever fucking thing we want to do in this life. But if we continue down the road we're on, we'll soon have implants that could even prevent that!
There's nothing basical in the universe forcing us how to live, we choose that ourselves. I'm not saying let's start a revolution, instead let's spread more information at how this world really works. Informed people tend to make more informed choices.
This is so simple. If you think the email address is not unique enough, add a count number at the end. If you think this is a bit impersonal, just add the personal number at the end.
It's an interesting argument which looks strong. Somehow you manage to distance yourself to the whole problem, and just calmly and coldly make a verdict based on cold and short-sighted values which looks okay on paper.
>the music still belongs to them. No matter how justified you are in doing whatever the hell you want in your mind, it still belongs to them.
As in: All music belongs to them, thus they should control every possible use of it?
What planet are you from?
>No matter how self-righteously indignant you can make yourself, its still belongs to them.
So there's no reason to fight back at anything, because the authorities and big companies are always right? Why do you want to give up so easily?
>How you justify the idea that pirating music really isn't pirating music, and that you somehow have a "right" to download it without ever making any pretense of purchasing it, is really amusing.
Who decides what is right and wrong? Who decides our rights? Who have the "right" to enforce the law. There are no definite answers to these questions, they're illusions of our minds. We all submit to whatever powers we choose, mainly those our parents brings us up to. It sounds like you have given up all your individuality there is.
So basically, your argument isn't an argument at all. It's a verdict from a cold judge that resistance is useless, submit all your rights and powers now and become drones of the New Society.
For heaven's sake Katz, do you really believe a report is either the full truth or not at all? That because statistics and studies one days says 60% of Internet junkies feel lonely one day, there is 60% chance of _you_ feeling lonely? That there exists such thing as an _unbiased_ interrgotation and interpretation method? That there must be only one truth, and it's either 60% or 42?
The frightening thought here isn't that people are lonely, people have been lonely for ages. What's frightening is what power such reports have to influence people's opinions and belief systems. What's the typical discussion topic at lunch? The latest and greatest news, especially reports that tells us who we are. We are very keen on finding out who we are. Just too bad we let other people decide it for us all the time..
Don't you think that for each person connected to the Internet, there is a unique story? Why do you, or those making reports, feel the urge to brush everyone over the same comb? As if truth is a boolean switch that is either true or false. And at all times the rest of us commoners should worship the current state of this switch..
Let's stop that silly game here and now.
The simple truth is that there are many truths, and many different kinds of truths, more than any of us can imagine. People react to certain things _differently_. Lots of people (students) get lost in the Internet world for years. Their family and friends hardly ever sees them offline anymore. While others spends just a couple of minutes surfing and reading email everyday. Some people learn to be more expressive and grows on using the Internet, while others becomes obsessive and closed.
The point is that the Internet transcends good and bad, just like everything else. It's just an illusion we maintain to judge people and their behaviour. The real responsibility and choice all comes back to us. We attack others when we discover something something "nasty" about ourself. Do you for example believe that you "could never pull the trigger to blow someone's head off"? Or some other nasty action you can think of?
I doubt that it's impossible for anyone of us given optimal circumstance. Now, try to figure out if that circumstance is present for that other person you attack. Don't we all have reasons to do what we do?
Don't let reports and summaries tell you who you are and what is bad for you. Don't push your truth down the throats of other people, let them find out for themselves instead!
Instead of taking criticism and report like this personally, try and find the core of truth in it and utilize it. Now if that frightens you welcome to the club.
Attacking it won't make it go away.
- Steeltoe
(Now I'm doing the same mistake that every other arrogant authorative figure do, pushing my truth down your throats. Please accept my apology for that, I just hoped I made sense, else I've made a fool out of myself for nothing;-)
It's so typical of people to attack what they don't like, even if they would have done the same thing. The point is that it's you and me that have been fooled around by Microsoft, and then we start whining when we realize the prize to pay. It's not Microsofts fault that people are so easy to screw around, and what company won't take people's money? We should really think more about our lives and take responsibility for our own silliness.
How about a cool mobile processor up in my brain, to help me think better on this problem? Of course, I know what OS _NOT_ to install. Can you imagine a BSOD up there?!
I know I'll get moderated up several times for this, that's why I wrote it.
What I think is Überc00l is that IBM actually releases this under the GPL, not some bullshit IBM-Artistic license. It looks like they really have understanding and confidence to how GPL works, or else they would have invented their own silly license. This is a good thing, since it's much easier to relate to one type of license, GPL or LGPL. It will also help IBM leveraging their Open Source efforts by getting more help from people who want to test and develop. The GPL ensures that all changes must be released with full sourcecode available, preventing unnecessary code-forks.
Of course you can argue that GPL have more restrictions than the BSD license. But it's a necessary evil to educate certain people about the benefits of sharing. Borrowing and extending ideas are fundamental to development,
IMHO, That must the most ridiculous explanation to why USA are literally burning up billions of dollars each year. It's like saying, the more money you throw up in the air, the more money lands on the feet of someone poor. Of course, those that have power still get their 99%. Not always as money in their bank accounts, but in their industries and so on.
People should see money for what it is. In our society, it's a flow of energy that enables you to change your life. Everyone needs it to sustain life at a decent level, and to have fun. It should be used for the good of society, to build a good structure for us to live in. But for many reasons this doesn't happen, most likely because of those controlling the flodgates. Sometimes the moneyflow go into projects that doesn't serve much purpose other than empowering a few individuals, get someone elected and/or ease the general fears and paranoia.
I'm not saying space exploration is one of these bad money-burning projects, because we have learned much from it and we will learn even more than we had ever dreamed of. This may justify such research, to a certain degree. However, it does NOT justify it if you use the benefits gained from space exploration only for a rich minority.
Much money could indeed have been better spent making everybody's life easier. The crucial aspect here is the decisionmakers. You can only control them if you have complete openness in the process. Voters should demand this, and check on what is really happening behind the doors, on all levels from government to small organisations.
I think saying things like "I didn't get what I paid for" doesn't tell enough about the problem, since everyone can release whatever they want. Maybe you just got the version that didn't include the specs? It's your own fault for buying and using a product not supported enough from said company. What's disturbing is too often you can't get the formats and specs _anywhere_.
This limits our freedom, and halts all development as everyone in the industry is forced to wait for one company. The guy who complained about whiners and slashdot snotts just don't get it. If you want to work with proprietary solutions you must reverse-engineer sometimes. Because you don't get any help from the companies, and even reverse-engineering is a painfully hard and slow process.
As long as customers are ignorant of the practices in this industry, it'll just continue. But as more and more get aware of the problem, they will make more informed decisions and not buy from companies who want to stagnate all development. Just to earn more money for their invested research.
Wouldn't a proxy combined with the use of encryption solve most firewall problems? In the worst case, a firewall that only accepts emails with normal characters, you can uuencode the transmitions.
Of course, a technical solution doesn't help you alot when the police comes knocking down your door...
I have sent letters to companies, and gotten replies. My guess is that they reply on as many letters they manage, because this is what serves them best. Any good company _want_ feedback so they can get better. If they don't heed their customers, this will generate bad PR and is not good. Noone likes arrogant people, and you can publish corespondence with them anywhere you like.
Just too bad S3 decided to stop support of my newly bought ViRGE/MX+ card (1 1/2 year ago). Needless to say I won't buy from them anymore.
So we should buy another card- or playback device and that solves the problem? Sorry Mac, this is the real world. Customers should demand usability of what they have already bought, not be dictated by a rich industry feeding off their purses and naivity.
The DVD-format will likely change in the future (yet again) so everyone must upgrade anyways. If there's no upgrade available for your device, you're out of luck (as usual). How many cards out there do you think can be upgraded easily?
It doesn't matter if the upgrade is free or not, as this is the "free market". Prices will go up a little just to pay for this paranoia of the movie industry.
What is making the CDs rot? Is this an oxidic reaction (with air), or an unstability in the CDs themselves? Wouldn't keeping your CDs in a vacuum plastic bag help? You can buy such bags to use with a pump to store stuff for longer periods of time.
You're totally right. We as people and society is not yet mature enough to have a full Open Source in our technological development. You can't suddenly force models of this and that down the throats of people. This is something that's going to take time to gradually improve. It's basically up to people to adopt and adapt, if they choose so.
This means people will have to be more willing to share, knowing that people will share with them too. It's like in a family, we need to learn to trust each other. Not breaking that trust, but also be strong enough to not break apart when promises eventually gets broken. Like it is now, we're frantically hogging on to our belongings. Our attitudes towards eachother creates alot of resistance in the community we live in.
Btw, Redhat and other supporting companies have and will in the future hire Open Source authors. Sometimes even finance their projects, especially with commercial hardware and software. Bottom line is: As things are now, everything needs money to exist in our society. There are alot of ways of making money flow into the vein of Open Source movement not yet fully explored.
Good points. Both sides need to chill down. No matter what model you follow, it's the driving force behind you that will ultimately leverage the result. No model is going to do this for you.
Now, there's little doubt in my mind that in the end, free mindshare and collaboration, even on forked projects, are superior to proprietary (forked) projects. But if the driving force is missing, you won't accomplish anything. Any company wishing to go Open Source, must do some real thinking before they go on with it. This is the real world, newcomers are eaten for breakfast every day.
I think the solution lies in the consumer. People should start using Open Source, and support companies that contribute to it with MONEY. Not because proprietary technologies are "evil", but because Open Source is superior and more beneficial in the end. Money is in the bloodstream of our society. People should learn that while corporations talk, money walks the walk.
Power to the people! Yeah!! Flower power!!! Etc...
From the looks of it, Gartner Group is trying to save their sorry asses. When they released the report on Linux vs NT, many sites came up with contra-reports showing everyone how much clueless FUD Gartner Group were really spawning. Now they try to save their credibility by stating some facts the OSS people has been saying all along. Gee, that's really clever.
I don't buy it. If there's supposed to be any use for Gartner Group they better tell me things I don't already know. And their opinion is just that. What happened to researching for answers yourself instead of handing the power of your own decisions over to some over-paid consultant? It's not like you can sue Gartner Group if things are wrong. Just look at the nice disclaimer at bottom of their reports.
I agree that experiencing racism is a really disgusting experience, both for the victim as well as for casual bystanders. But don't forget that there are _always_ a reason that people feel this or that way. It's much easier to judge racists and keep the distance, rather than to try to understand and talk to them.
Now thats a challenge, and a way to help the situation. By talking I _don't_ mean screaming at them that they're wrong and stupid. People who do that should know in their heart that there are better ways, and that they are in reality only lashing out at themselves. Fact is we hate and fear such parts of ourselves. Also, censoring will not do much good. It will rather promote an underground movement, and their members will be more eager to get the word out than ever before. In the more extreme end, you have imprisonment and execution as means to control "bad influence" to society. But cruel action has its dubious rewards. The resistance will only grow greater, perhaps not in numbers at first, but in ferocity and hate.
Instead we should strive for more openness in society. When certain dark elements of our lives are exposed, it will be a painful realization, but also an oportunity to identify the core of the problem and find real solutions.
Yes, I admit that I think rasistically at times. This is a spell we're all slaves under in very varying degrees. Those that say they don't are either very loving and open persons, or they should get to know themselves better.
As all interesting questions this is a matter of how things are implemented. JIT isn't automatically faster than one-time compilation. Without optimization based on runtime data, platform information and profiling, JIT will be slower than compiling by default. Because JIT includes a significant overhead by converting, profiling and optimizing the program. Anyone who has compiled some big programs knows what kind of overhead we're talking about here. Especially with full optimization, there are worlds between time-consumption figures.
My proposal for JIT compilers is to _store_ and rerun the bytecode and profiling information for later. It should be possible to further optimize already compiled code, especially in much-visited code. So that over time, you can spread the optimization efforts to when you have CPU cycles to spare. As a result first-time execution will not be as painfully slow as it is now, and you will still appreciate fully optimized code after a while, yes, even better than compiled code. This really makes sense with runtime profiling.
For the best average effect in every scenario, I would recommend an automatic (perhaps weighted?) hybrid between interpretation, JIT and compilation. Also, leave the final choice up to the users of the system.
For all I know, this might already be implemented in some JIT compilers. Like I said in the beginning, it's all in the implementation. The use of hardware in Crusoe seems very promising for JIT, runtime profiling and platform-independence in general.
For games, I would recommend an ability (choice) to precompile Java programs and store the entire bytecode. Just because I meet a new type of monster in JavaQuake shouldn't mean my demise (unless I forget to strafe).
Slashdot Mirror
How about:
;-)
"Let's Just Do It!"(tm) [x]
Dating is for wimps
- Steeltoe
Do you really think young teenagers get pregnant because of porn on the net and magazines? As much as we'd like to blame things we don't like, it still doesn't justify it. It's not like a teenager gets pregnant from wanking in the toilet, or in front of the computer. Teenagers have gotten pregnant for ages, and it's increasing because sex is now being tolerated before marriage. With higher toleration of drugs and booze, it's a lethal combination. Especially when kids think they don't have to use protection (surely a "brilliant" idea from comrades who says it's better that way).
Before, kids were forced to get married before anyone noticed, or they went to a "clinic", possibly getting scarred for life. So going back is definately not an option, or possible. About drugs and booze, they're too much used now, but it's more like a symptom adding to the problem, than the real problem itself. I don't know about alcoholism, and maybe it's genetical, but people getting problems with drugs or booze usually have bigger problems lurking under the surface, in combination with making some bad decisions.
We have more freedom now, especially social acceptable freedoms. I think it would have boggled our minds to talk to someone who lived (and died) 100 years ago, and vica versa. But this newly-won freedom also gives us more responsibility in our own lives. Our current problems is the price we pay for getting rid of old rules and dogmas so fast.
You said:
"Sex sites demean women and men in them, they teach that sex is something you can purchase or engage in with out relationships or consequences."
This is such a standard-phrase I just have to attack it. I believe you cut everything over one comb here. Surely it depends on how the pictures were taken, if the persons involved consented, in fact, love to do it! We're all different, and if there were such thing as "pornism" (aka racism), I think that's very much present in todays society.
So how this would "demean" those pictured on the site I don't know. Maybe it's you who feel demeaned? Do you seriously believe that illegalizing and banning activities, you are helping those individuals? There are laws against murdering, yet still people get shot every day in the US. You can't make a rule for everything to fix it, what you can do is make people aware of how they live, without judgement. It's impossible to forcibly rescue other people, but you can help them realize how to help themselves. Sometimes using strong methods can help, sometimes it makes matters even worse. Most important is to help yourself, or else you risk doing more damage than good.
About sex having implications and consequences, that also depends on how you do it. I don't think a pornsite is designed to teach kids about ethics, they should get that from somewhere else. Surely educated people who view pornsites doesn't suddenly think condoms are all rubbish. Well it's time to educate those kids, and stop being afraid.
Fact is, there are people all around the world that like to have promiscuous sex. Even with multiple partners at the same time, without necessarily involving too much long-term relationships in it. That may mean there are different feelings involved than in a long-term relationships, but they're still feelings that need to be acted out.
Now it's not up to you or me to judge what relationships are most healthy. But many monogoman long-term relationships are not as beneficial as we may believe. Not only counting abusive relationships, but also relationships where the partner is too much emotionally dependent on the other, and countless other types. They're not something to illegalize, they're something to make people aware of! Hopefully without putting them down or judging them, so that we can feel better about ourself for a little time.
In the end, we don't have relationships with others as a goal in itself. It's more like something we can learn and grow on, preferrably but not always, while having fun! A perfect relationship is not one that lasts forever, but one that ends so that we can continue with our next, or be alone if we need that. A relationship doesn't have to involve strong feelings or sex, you can have more than one relationship at the same time, even sexual ones.
- Steeltoe
What do you do today to limit yourself?
To me this is pretty obvious. Of course you gotta come up with the idea first, but that may come naturally after you have examined the problems with current CGI scripts. For simplicity though, I would still prefer to keep webserving (service to many sites for instance) and session-related stuff apart. Certainly such a solution should be standardized and made available to all, so that you avoid dirty and different hacks into every webserver around.
Not everyone has special privileges to their webhost, just one more reason to use CGI or standardize this thing. Why not just use cookies?
I think the most probable reason people haven't done this much before, is that they don't like to hack up their webserver, or maybe we're all just clueless. Whatever.
- Steeltoe
This is all good news. If there's something we like, it's open cross-platform APIs. It's just too bad that the Windows OpenAL will probably be supported through DirectSound instead of native drivers, as for OpenGL and Direct3D now. So you have one more reason to delete your FAT partitions and start gaming in Linux.
Expect FUD about this from your nearby Microserf.
All other PC audio companies signing up on this is good in my book and I will start buying one card a week to show my appreciation. Or maybe two. They probably deserve all my money, and somebody gotta pay when they start losing all their money supporting open standards.
Bill Gates: We cannot open the source on Windows, as people wouldn't know what they get when they buy Windows anymore.
[Aside from the obvious paradox:]
Me: Your problem is that people are beginning to realize just exactly what they really get!
- Steeltoe
This all boils down to the word "ownership". Is it really something that exists? It seems more likely that it's more a construct of our minds, than something real. There's nothing in the universe that states ownership of this-and-that object found lying on the ground, excepts in our minds. WE come up with answers, and WE live by them for better and for worse.
But yet we treat ownership as something real, because we live in a society. And we come up with more and more rules to cover more grounds, so that everything seems "fair" and everyone can live "happily" together (except for those in the 3rd world, etc, etc. *sarcasm on* But they can hardly be called people right? I mean, they live so far away, they're just RGB-dots on our expensive TVs. *sarcasm off*).
The problem is that ancient rules gets outdated with each new technology. It's ALWAYS been so, and we're going to experience this even more, not just with information, but with real physical objects and energy too. What happens if someone invents a car that doesn't consume any fuel and pollutes less for instance?
Fact is there are people out there that are willing to do just about anything to prevent viable alternatives to develop "too soon". That's because they hold power and influence over us, not just fantastic wealth. Rich people get richer on controlled stagnation, and yet they earn our respect. That only shows how much influence money can have. It's the same foolish admiration people had for conquerors in the past, until their own village got pillaged and raped.
This debate isn't about free speech or our "rights". Those words are meaningless in the universal sense. This debate is about ourself wanting to take back the power that we have given away. Perhaps unknowingly and in our upbringing, but still we're responsible for our own lives. We'll only win if we know what this issue is REALLY about, or else we'll compromise on these issues until we're left with nothing.
Why do we accept the current power-structures? It's because we've already forgotten that we can do whatever fucking thing we want to do in this life. But if we continue down the road we're on, we'll soon have implants that could even prevent that!
There's nothing basical in the universe forcing us how to live, we choose that ourselves. I'm not saying let's start a revolution, instead let's spread more information at how this world really works. Informed people tend to make more informed choices.
- Steeltoe
Reimburse him for his kindness??? What planet are you from?=??\+
That'd be like, admitting something or something.. We can't have that can we? That's what lawsuits are for!
*grin*
- Steeltoe
This is so simple.
If you think the email address is not unique enough, add a count number at the end.
If you think this is a bit impersonal, just add the personal number at the end.
Simple, as I said.
- Steeltoe
It's an interesting argument which looks strong. Somehow you manage to distance yourself to the whole problem, and just calmly and coldly make a verdict based on cold and short-sighted values which looks okay on paper.
>the music still belongs to them. No matter how justified you are in doing whatever the hell you want in your mind, it still belongs to them.
As in: All music belongs to them, thus they should control every possible use of it?
What planet are you from?
>No matter how self-righteously indignant you can make yourself, its still belongs to them.
So there's no reason to fight back at anything, because the authorities and big companies are always right? Why do you want to give up so easily?
>How you justify the idea that pirating music really isn't pirating music, and that you somehow have a "right" to download it without ever making any pretense of purchasing it, is really amusing.
Who decides what is right and wrong? Who decides our rights? Who have the "right" to enforce the law. There are no definite answers to these questions, they're illusions of our minds. We all submit to whatever powers we choose, mainly those our parents brings us up to. It sounds like you have given up all your individuality there is.
So basically, your argument isn't an argument at all. It's a verdict from a cold judge that resistance is useless, submit all your rights and powers now and become drones of the New Society.
Luckily for you, not everyone buys such crap.
- Steeltoe
For heaven's sake Katz, do you really believe a report is either the full truth or not at all? That because statistics and studies one days says 60% of Internet junkies feel lonely one day, there is 60% chance of _you_ feeling lonely? That there exists such thing as an _unbiased_ interrgotation and interpretation method? That there must be only one truth, and it's either 60% or 42?
;-)
The frightening thought here isn't that people are lonely, people have been lonely for ages. What's frightening is what power such reports have to influence people's opinions and belief systems. What's the typical discussion topic at lunch? The latest and greatest news, especially reports that tells us who we are. We are very keen on finding out who we are. Just too bad we let other people decide it for us all the time..
Don't you think that for each person connected to the Internet, there is a unique story? Why do you, or those making reports, feel the urge to brush everyone over the same comb? As if truth is a boolean switch that is either true or false. And at all times the rest of us commoners should worship the current state of this switch..
Let's stop that silly game here and now.
The simple truth is that there are many truths, and many different kinds of truths, more than any of us can imagine. People react to certain things _differently_. Lots of people (students) get lost in the Internet world for years. Their family and friends hardly ever sees them offline anymore. While others spends just a couple of minutes surfing and reading email everyday. Some people learn to be more expressive and grows on using the Internet, while others becomes obsessive and closed.
The point is that the Internet transcends good and bad, just like everything else. It's just an illusion we maintain to judge people and their behaviour. The real responsibility and choice all comes back to us. We attack others when we discover something something "nasty" about ourself. Do you for example believe that you "could never pull the trigger to blow someone's head off"? Or some other nasty action you can think of?
I doubt that it's impossible for anyone of us given optimal circumstance. Now, try to figure out if that circumstance is present for that other person you attack. Don't we all have reasons to do what we do?
Don't let reports and summaries tell you who you are and what is bad for you. Don't push your truth down the throats of other people, let them find out for themselves instead!
Instead of taking criticism and report like this personally, try and find the core of truth in it and utilize it. Now if that frightens you welcome to the club.
Attacking it won't make it go away.
- Steeltoe
(Now I'm doing the same mistake that every other arrogant authorative figure do, pushing my truth down your throats. Please accept my apology for that, I just hoped I made sense, else I've made a fool out of myself for nothing
It's so typical of people to attack what they don't like, even if they would have done the same thing. The point is that it's you and me that have been fooled around by Microsoft, and then we start whining when we realize the prize to pay. It's not Microsofts fault that people are so easy to screw around, and what company won't take people's money? We should really think more about our lives and take responsibility for our own silliness.
- Steeltoe
Now we can have them :-) :-)
Anyone know the coordinates?
And please email me photos if you beat me to them
- Steelie
How about a cool mobile processor up in my brain, to help me think better on this problem? Of course, I know what OS _NOT_ to install. Can you imagine a BSOD up there?!
I know I'll get moderated up several times for this, that's why I wrote it.
- Steeltoe
What I think is Überc00l is that IBM actually releases this under the GPL, not some bullshit IBM-Artistic license. It looks like they really have understanding and confidence to how GPL works, or else they would have invented their own silly license. This is a good thing, since it's much easier to relate to one type of license, GPL or LGPL. It will also help IBM leveraging their Open Source efforts by getting more help from people who want to test and develop. The GPL ensures that all changes must be released with full sourcecode available, preventing unnecessary code-forks.
Of course you can argue that GPL have more restrictions than the BSD license. But it's a necessary evil to educate certain people about the benefits of sharing. Borrowing and extending ideas are fundamental to development,
- Steeltoe
IMHO, That must the most ridiculous explanation to why USA are literally burning up billions of dollars each year. It's like saying, the more money you throw up in the air, the more money lands on the feet of someone poor. Of course, those that have power still get their 99%. Not always as money in their bank accounts, but in their industries and so on.
People should see money for what it is. In our society, it's a flow of energy that enables you to change your life. Everyone needs it to sustain life at a decent level, and to have fun. It should be used for the good of society, to build a good structure for us to live in. But for many reasons this doesn't happen, most likely because of those controlling the flodgates. Sometimes the moneyflow go into projects that doesn't serve much purpose other than empowering a few individuals, get someone elected and/or ease the general fears and paranoia.
I'm not saying space exploration is one of these bad money-burning projects, because we have learned much from it and we will learn even more than we had ever dreamed of. This may justify such research, to a certain degree. However, it does NOT justify it if you use the benefits gained from space exploration only for a rich minority.
Much money could indeed have been better spent making everybody's life easier. The crucial aspect here is the decisionmakers. You can only control them if you have complete openness in the process. Voters should demand this, and check on what is really happening behind the doors, on all levels from government to small organisations.
- Steeltoe
I think saying things like "I didn't get what I paid for" doesn't tell enough about the problem, since everyone can release whatever they want. Maybe you just got the version that didn't include the specs? It's your own fault for buying and using a product not supported enough from said company. What's disturbing is too often you can't get the formats and specs _anywhere_.
This limits our freedom, and halts all development as everyone in the industry is forced to wait for one company. The guy who complained about whiners and slashdot snotts just don't get it. If you want to work with proprietary solutions you must reverse-engineer sometimes. Because you don't get any help from the companies, and even reverse-engineering is a painfully hard and slow process.
As long as customers are ignorant of the practices in this industry, it'll just continue. But as more and more get aware of the problem, they will make more informed decisions and not buy from companies who want to stagnate all development. Just to earn more money for their invested research.
- Steeltoe
Wouldn't a proxy combined with the use of encryption solve most firewall problems? In the worst case, a firewall that only accepts emails with normal characters, you can uuencode the transmitions.
Of course, a technical solution doesn't help you alot when the police comes knocking down your door...
- Steeltoe
I have sent letters to companies, and gotten replies. My guess is that they reply on as many letters they manage, because this is what serves them best. Any good company _want_ feedback so they can get better. If they don't heed their customers, this will generate bad PR and is not good. Noone likes arrogant people, and you can publish corespondence with them anywhere you like.
Just too bad S3 decided to stop support of my newly bought ViRGE/MX+ card (1 1/2 year ago). Needless to say I won't buy from them anymore.
- Steeltoe
So we should buy another card- or playback device and that solves the problem? Sorry Mac, this is the real world. Customers should demand usability of what they have already bought, not be dictated by a rich industry feeding off their purses and naivity.
The DVD-format will likely change in the future (yet again) so everyone must upgrade anyways. If there's no upgrade available for your device, you're out of luck (as usual). How many cards out there do you think can be upgraded easily?
It doesn't matter if the upgrade is free or not, as this is the "free market". Prices will go up a little just to pay for this paranoia of the movie industry.
- Steeltoe
How about:
"Linux, raising user awareness-level of stuff they don't wanna know since 1992."
or
"Linux - Everything M$ without the $"
or perhaps
"Linux - You better believe our FUD, or your SOL"
I shudder to think of this one
"Linux - Sponsored by Redhat"
also
"Linux - Sponsored by Coke and Srg. Pepper"
is perhaps a bit too close to the truth?
or
"Linux, what's OO?"
or even
"Linux, because C is superior in every way."
Christ. How about just:
Linux
finally putting a stop of user-dumbing slogans once and for all. Let the users figure it out themselves.
- Steeltoe
What is making the CDs rot? Is this an oxidic reaction (with air), or an unstability in the CDs themselves? Wouldn't keeping your CDs in a vacuum plastic bag help? You can buy such bags to use with a pump to store stuff for longer periods of time.
- Steeltoe
You're totally right. We as people and society is not yet mature enough to have a full Open Source in our technological development. You can't suddenly force models of this and that down the throats of people. This is something that's going to take time to gradually improve. It's basically up to people to adopt and adapt, if they choose so.
This means people will have to be more willing to share, knowing that people will share with them too. It's like in a family, we need to learn to trust each other. Not breaking that trust, but also be strong enough to not break apart when promises eventually gets broken. Like it is now, we're frantically hogging on to our belongings. Our attitudes towards eachother creates alot of resistance in the community we live in.
Btw, Redhat and other supporting companies have and will in the future hire Open Source authors. Sometimes even finance their projects, especially with commercial hardware and software. Bottom line is: As things are now, everything needs money to exist in our society. There are alot of ways of making money flow into the vein of Open Source movement not yet fully explored.
- Steeltoe
Good points. Both sides need to chill down. No matter what model you follow, it's the driving force behind you that will ultimately leverage the result. No model is going to do this for you.
Now, there's little doubt in my mind that in the end, free mindshare and collaboration, even on forked projects, are superior to proprietary (forked) projects. But if the driving force is missing, you won't accomplish anything. Any company wishing to go Open Source, must do some real thinking before they go on with it. This is the real world, newcomers are eaten for breakfast every day.
I think the solution lies in the consumer. People should start using Open Source, and support companies that contribute to it with MONEY. Not because proprietary technologies are "evil", but because Open Source is superior and more beneficial in the end. Money is in the bloodstream of our society. People should learn that while corporations talk, money walks the walk.
Power to the people! Yeah!! Flower power!!! Etc...
- Steeltoe
From the looks of it, Gartner Group is trying to save their sorry asses. When they released the report on Linux vs NT, many sites came up with contra-reports showing everyone how much clueless FUD Gartner Group were really spawning. Now they try to save their credibility by stating some facts the OSS people has been saying all along. Gee, that's really clever.
I don't buy it. If there's supposed to be any use for Gartner Group they better tell me things I don't already know. And their opinion is just that. What happened to researching for answers yourself instead of handing the power of your own decisions over to some over-paid consultant? It's not like you can sue Gartner Group if things are wrong. Just look at the nice disclaimer at bottom of their reports.
- Steeltoe
I agree that experiencing racism is a really disgusting experience, both for the victim as well as for casual bystanders. But don't forget that there are _always_ a reason that people feel this or that way. It's much easier to judge racists and keep the distance, rather than to try to understand and talk to them.
Now thats a challenge, and a way to help the situation. By talking I _don't_ mean screaming at them that they're wrong and stupid. People who do that should know in their heart that there are better ways, and that they are in reality only lashing out at themselves. Fact is we hate and fear such parts of ourselves. Also, censoring will not do much good. It will rather promote an underground movement, and their members will be more eager to get the word out than ever before. In the more extreme end, you have imprisonment and execution as means to control "bad influence" to society. But cruel action has its dubious rewards. The resistance will only grow greater, perhaps not in numbers at first, but in ferocity and hate.
Instead we should strive for more openness in society. When certain dark elements of our lives are exposed, it will be a painful realization, but also an oportunity to identify the core of the problem and find real solutions.
Yes, I admit that I think rasistically at times. This is a spell we're all slaves under in very varying degrees. Those that say they don't are either very loving and open persons, or they should get to know themselves better.
- Steeltoe
As all interesting questions this is a matter of how things are implemented. JIT isn't automatically faster than one-time compilation. Without optimization based on runtime data, platform information and profiling, JIT will be slower than compiling by default. Because JIT includes a significant overhead by converting, profiling and optimizing the program. Anyone who has compiled some big programs knows what kind of overhead we're talking about here. Especially with full optimization, there are worlds between time-consumption figures.
My proposal for JIT compilers is to _store_ and rerun the bytecode and profiling information for later. It should be possible to further optimize already compiled code, especially in much-visited code. So that over time, you can spread the optimization efforts to when you have CPU cycles to spare. As a result first-time execution will not be as painfully slow as it is now, and you will still appreciate fully optimized code after a while, yes, even better than compiled code. This really makes sense with runtime profiling.
For the best average effect in every scenario, I would recommend an automatic (perhaps weighted?) hybrid between interpretation, JIT and compilation. Also, leave the final choice up to the users of the system.
For all I know, this might already be implemented in some JIT compilers. Like I said in the beginning, it's all in the implementation. The use of hardware in Crusoe seems very promising for JIT, runtime profiling and platform-independence in general.
For games, I would recommend an ability (choice) to precompile Java programs and store the entire bytecode. Just because I meet a new type of monster in JavaQuake shouldn't mean my demise (unless I forget to strafe).
- Steeltoe