Due to the fact that somebody (I assume it's the religious right) has given our Drug Czar permission to do whatever the fuck he wants with our freedom, to prevent drug dealers opening bank accounts, we are not allowed to open a bank account with only a cell phone number.
Of course you can TRY, and hope they never call you. .. --
Is not a synonym for "few" or "easy". 2.4 has had a ton of major features added to it (more than any stable branch of the kernel I've yet seen, and I've been around since 1.1). This results in a ton of defects, from the features themselves, and more from their interaction with the other new features.
At least Linus & co. are aware of them, make you aware of them, and are actively fixing them BEFORE.0. --
We have caller ID, and anonymous call rejection. We still get anonymous calls that don't show up in the Caller ID screen. It doesn't work, it's not worth paying for, and we're getting rid of it. The only way to get rid of anonymous calls is not to connect your phone to the wall. (Unfortunately you gotta have a phone number to get anything in this country, cuz banks require a land line, no cell phones--thanks, Drug Czar! Nothing says you gotta have a phone, though.) --
Part of the reason the statute of limitations exists is due to the ephermerality of evidence. Seven years after the fact, it becomes too difficult to prove that someone is really guilty, so it's not worth pursuing further -- better to close the door, as you would on an unreproducible software defect, rather than allow the unsolved cases to simply accrue and accrue. At the same time, it also becomes easier to falsify traditional evidence over time, or to claim you had evidence which no longer exists (and thereby win points with a jury).
These concerns don't exist with computerized data -- rather, they exist, but they are not related to time. You can falsify evidence at any time on a computer, so the problem becomes securing the evidence IMMEDIATELY after the investigations begin, rather than allowing hackers to mess with your forensics. Once that is done, you can be sure of the data's truthfulness (if not its bit-by-bit integrity) over any amount of time. When you're talking about Usenet and email, this task becomes even easier, because you've got redundant copies of the data distributed throughout the world -- you can only falsify a finite number of copies.
Finally, he proposes imposing a law to make a precise and literal system ephemeral and arbitrary. This goes against the grain of what computers do, and thus philosophy should teach us that it's doomed to failure.
For these reasons, I don't think there should be a statute of limitations on computerized data. --
I just checked and the mean temperature around here in January was 62 degrees F. By July the mean temperature was 75 degrees F. If this trend continues, by the year 2010 the mean temperature will be 296 degrees Fahrenheit! Let's get out of here while there's still time!! --
Large blocks of commented-out, unexplained and badly written code are your lot in life when you didn't write the original code.
I can't blame him for wanting to see what's a comment and what's not when he has no control over what became a comment in the first place. Although I must agree with you about cleaning out those damn comments in the code you're writing. --
How big is this company? It can't have that many executives. I bet that between them, AMD, Transmeta, Micron and the rest could probably scrape up enough for some goons to take out Rambus' lawyers and upper management.
Not that I would condone such an act, or quietly applaud if it was ever on the 10 o'clock news. --
OK, so I love being pedantic. In physics, a can be either positive or negative, so you could call slowing down acceleration. In a news article, and in the context of normal conversational english, slowing down is always "deceleration" and speeding up is always "acceleration".
And no, people aren't that fuckin' stupid. But reporters are.
Software should be designed to provide the necessary tools to get things done, but it should never attempt to be smarter than the user. The user needs to learn how to use the tools.
"I hereby declare a change in philosophy!"
These things don't just happen. I'm not going to go into whether they SHOULD happen - I just hate to see post after post of people declaring the way things should be with nary a word about how to make it work. At least the parent post had a suggestion - revive the demo scene.
With no further ado, I therefore present my own suggestions for "fixing the kids these days".
(1) The kids these days aren't the problem. Neither is the government, nor the corporations. You (my illustrious reader) are the problem. Get off your duff and learn a language, write some code, write some documentation, make something work that didn't. If you don't like the way computers work, if you see things that need fixing, do something to fix them. And try to throw something original in while you're doing it - too many programs out there now where people simply didn't check to see if someone had already written something to do exactly the same thing.
(2) In that vein, vote goddammit. (If you live in a country where you can't vote, move goddammit.) Bitching about throwing away your vote doesn't cut it any more - if you don't like the mainstream candidates, vote for one of the smaller candidates. Your vote will count for MORE; if Ralph Nader got 2 votes in the last election, and your vote makes it 4 in the next election, the pundits will be able to say his following doubled between elections. Political advocacy aside, your political activism will put pressure to change the things that cause script kiddiez, whatever you believe them to be. (Unless you believe the FBI is orchestrating the DDoS attacks--if so, I can't help you.)
(3) Finally, teach someone how to use a computer. If you say 'rtfm' on a regular basis, I have an acronym for you: 'uyfps' (use your fucking people skills). Don't wave your hands about how people aren't using computers creatively/constructively -- show someone how to use computers constructively, and teach them why. Give them some of your enthusiasm. A teenager whom you've taught to write a database app isn't going to try and bring down eBay, cuz he knows that'll hurt his job offers when he gets out of college.
Xant, maintainer of packet2sql, author of Repairlix, writer of documentation. (Not bragging, just doing a preemptive strike against accusations of hypocrisy.)
I'm not sure exactly what his paradox means, but by his examples I take it to mean no one will buy this technology and it will fail in the marketplace. History has shown this to be true, and it doesn't matter how hard it is to circumvent it - it will be circumvented by default, because no one will use it. Why would you pay more for a hard drive that just made life more difficult for you? Given the equally-priced choice of a hard drive that makes life difficult and one that doesn't, which one would you buy?
And actually, they addressed the sillier half of the claim - that Yahoo was going out of its way to demote every conceivable directory on the web, including obscure medical directories nobody's ever heard of. And that Google agreed to help them do this.
So fine, they didn't do that - now explain why Yahoo's rankings shot UP? I heard a few plausible and non-evil theories on how this happened, but I want to hear it from Yahoo.
Apparently unauthorized software means Gaim and other Linux clones. It doesn't seem to extend to commercial software, because, as of this morning, my connection is still accepted using Sametime Connect (Lotus' messenging client, which works both with Lotus' own messenging protocol and AIM).
At first AOL's action seemed more than a little hypocritical to me in light of this, but then I noticed that, because of the presence of the actual AIM icon on the GUI, there must have been some sort of licensing fee paid to AOL by Lotus.
So I guess AOL just wants those licensing fees. I'm not saying this is a smart move on their part - there's plenty of ways to make money off the service without restricting the open clients.
Hand-waving about the crisis the Internet will face when all these AOL users get fat pipes is irrelevant. The fact is, the average home user WILL get fat bandwidth, and we should give it to them as soon as possible to find out what the impact will be. We can't predict the impact of all new economic or technological changes without some hard data as to what they actually do.
So I say, roll out that fiber, and let the chips fall where they may. If somehow everyone had this tech tomorrow, the 'net might bog down in the short term, but at least we'd have some real world testing and know what the problem areas were. Then we'd pay to fix them, and everything would be smooth again. That's the way technology rollouts work. Release, test, release, test, release . . .
Sure, it's irresponsible to use your customers to do QA (which is what would happen if we rolled it out tomorrow), but it wouldn't be the end of the world, and it's not going to happen tomorrow. It's going to happen gradually, and gradually, technology will rise to meet the demand.
That's the central argument. I don't impoverish you by taking it. And I don't believe corporations should spend millions to entertain me for free. I think corporations and entertainment simply don't mix - what I find enlightening, uplifting, and entertaining is not the same as every other audience member around the world, despite what that corporation wants. So I say fuck off, corporation, I'll get my entertainment hand made by the artists.
Well, now, that's academia. Clearly plagiarism of this sort is verboten in academia, because academic environments exist for the purpose of teaching, and nothing is learned by hitting the 'Paste' button. Also, in academia, the ONLY thing of value is the credit you get for having produced an idea first, which is something that is lost when someone takes your work without crediting you.
In other realms, including the realm in which linux.com operates, plagiarism is tolerable, and even, in open source, useful. After all, the source is open so people can USE it, right?
In any discussion of plagiarism, people should wonder who is being hurt by the "theft" of the idea, in this case the layout (and, apparently, the icons - I couldn't verify that because the hobbes site was/.'ed). My answer is that no one was hurt. Does anyone really believe Linux.com will lose hits because of this new site that has their layout? It's the information the site provides that matters, and if you don't think so, you shouldn't be running a website.
Now, many people will be saying "credit should be given where credit is due." To them I say yes, you're absolutely right, but the ability to use ideas from someone else (notice I didn't say take), no matter how many of them you use, is fundamental to the ability to produce any new ideas. Linux.com didn't arise in a vacuum, it came about because of many similar layouts that came before it. Which came about because of the invention of HTML, and HTTP. Which came about because of the invention of networking . . . etc.
And sure, outright carbon copying is lazy and largely useless to the rest of the community since it provides nothing new, but that's the extent of his crime.
I also work for a closed source developer, but I think the shift will affect us less than some shops. I work for a major eBusiness player and we've started to put a lot of money into our ASP side. In addition, a big chunk of our change has always come from service revenue: training, consulting, etc.
And this will be the fundamental shift. Instead of selling the software, you sell the services that companies need to run the software. And you still have to have someone developing the software. Open Source or not, there's still value to putting bodies behind desks working on the code. At least, RedHat certainly thinks so, and I tend to agree.
Bear in mind that I make these comments from behind a product that is still closed source and has no plans to be any other way. Despite that fact, we're already making the changes that will keep us strong when the source code is no longer a product. After all, like most eBusiness vendors, all our metadata (the real meat of the product) is in the database, and is therefore "open source" already.
So how will it change life? For me, not much. My employer will remain in business because quite simply there is no open source product that can compete with us, and it's not likely that there ever will be, until the day that we finally succumb to pressure and open our own source. The reason is simply labor: We have roughly 700 developers, and they've been working on this product for more than 10 years. It's an incredibly intricate system, and unless development tools take a quantum leap (something I can't rule out), it will be hard bordering on impossible to ever put together enough concerted manpower to produce a software product like this "in the bazaar".
I only wish it were possible, so my employer would feel that pressure to open the source today - would make life a lot easier for me.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course you can TRY, and hope they never call you. . .
--
At least Linus & co. are aware of them, make you aware of them, and are actively fixing them BEFORE .0.
--
We have caller ID, and anonymous call rejection. We still get anonymous calls that don't show up in the Caller ID screen. It doesn't work, it's not worth paying for, and we're getting rid of it. The only way to get rid of anonymous calls is not to connect your phone to the wall. (Unfortunately you gotta have a phone number to get anything in this country, cuz banks require a land line, no cell phones--thanks, Drug Czar! Nothing says you gotta have a phone, though.)
--
These concerns don't exist with computerized data -- rather, they exist, but they are not related to time. You can falsify evidence at any time on a computer, so the problem becomes securing the evidence IMMEDIATELY after the investigations begin, rather than allowing hackers to mess with your forensics. Once that is done, you can be sure of the data's truthfulness (if not its bit-by-bit integrity) over any amount of time. When you're talking about Usenet and email, this task becomes even easier, because you've got redundant copies of the data distributed throughout the world -- you can only falsify a finite number of copies.
Finally, he proposes imposing a law to make a precise and literal system ephemeral and arbitrary. This goes against the grain of what computers do, and thus philosophy should teach us that it's doomed to failure.
For these reasons, I don't think there should be a statute of limitations on computerized data.
--
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Apple will sue them again? bastards.
--
I just checked and the mean temperature around here in January was 62 degrees F. By July the mean temperature was 75 degrees F. If this trend continues, by the year 2010 the mean temperature will be 296 degrees Fahrenheit! Let's get out of here while there's still time!!
--
I want THIS. And I want it now. If it's not out by Christmas, there will be many wedgies unleashed upon the world.
--
I can't blame him for wanting to see what's a comment and what's not when he has no control over what became a comment in the first place. Although I must agree with you about cleaning out those damn comments in the code you're writing.
--
Not that I would condone such an act, or quietly applaud if it was ever on the 10 o'clock news.
--
It's still Rob's fault. And zero credit to you for brown-nosing the people who accept articles.
--
And no, people aren't that fuckin' stupid. But reporters are.
"I hereby declare a change in philosophy!"
These things don't just happen. I'm not going to go into whether they SHOULD happen - I just hate to see post after post of people declaring the way things should be with nary a word about how to make it work. At least the parent post had a suggestion - revive the demo scene.
With no further ado, I therefore present my own suggestions for "fixing the kids these days".
(1) The kids these days aren't the problem. Neither is the government, nor the corporations. You (my illustrious reader) are the problem. Get off your duff and learn a language, write some code, write some documentation, make something work that didn't. If you don't like the way computers work, if you see things that need fixing, do something to fix them. And try to throw something original in while you're doing it - too many programs out there now where people simply didn't check to see if someone had already written something to do exactly the same thing.
(2) In that vein, vote goddammit. (If you live in a country where you can't vote, move goddammit.) Bitching about throwing away your vote doesn't cut it any more - if you don't like the mainstream candidates, vote for one of the smaller candidates. Your vote will count for MORE; if Ralph Nader got 2 votes in the last election, and your vote makes it 4 in the next election, the pundits will be able to say his following doubled between elections. Political advocacy aside, your political activism will put pressure to change the things that cause script kiddiez, whatever you believe them to be. (Unless you believe the FBI is orchestrating the DDoS attacks--if so, I can't help you.)
(3) Finally, teach someone how to use a computer. If you say 'rtfm' on a regular basis, I have an acronym for you: 'uyfps' (use your fucking people skills). Don't wave your hands about how people aren't using computers creatively/constructively -- show someone how to use computers constructively, and teach them why. Give them some of your enthusiasm. A teenager whom you've taught to write a database app isn't going to try and bring down eBay, cuz he knows that'll hurt his job offers when he gets out of college.
Xant, maintainer of packet2sql, author of Repairlix, writer of documentation. (Not bragging, just doing a preemptive strike against accusations of hypocrisy.)
Hell, I'll even round them up for ya.
I'm not sure exactly what his paradox means, but by his examples I take it to mean no one will buy this technology and it will fail in the marketplace. History has shown this to be true, and it doesn't matter how hard it is to circumvent it - it will be circumvented by default, because no one will use it. Why would you pay more for a hard drive that just made life more difficult for you? Given the equally-priced choice of a hard drive that makes life difficult and one that doesn't, which one would you buy?
So fine, they didn't do that - now explain why Yahoo's rankings shot UP? I heard a few plausible and non-evil theories on how this happened, but I want to hear it from Yahoo.
I have to clean them out of my cereal box every morning. I don't know how the darn things get in there. . .
At first AOL's action seemed more than a little hypocritical to me in light of this, but then I noticed that, because of the presence of the actual AIM icon on the GUI, there must have been some sort of licensing fee paid to AOL by Lotus.
So I guess AOL just wants those licensing fees. I'm not saying this is a smart move on their part - there's plenty of ways to make money off the service without restricting the open clients.
So I say, roll out that fiber, and let the chips fall where they may. If somehow everyone had this tech tomorrow, the 'net might bog down in the short term, but at least we'd have some real world testing and know what the problem areas were. Then we'd pay to fix them, and everything would be smooth again. That's the way technology rollouts work. Release, test, release, test, release . . .
Sure, it's irresponsible to use your customers to do QA (which is what would happen if we rolled it out tomorrow), but it wouldn't be the end of the world, and it's not going to happen tomorrow. It's going to happen gradually, and gradually, technology will rise to meet the demand.
And I'll compensate them well for doing it.
He's getting annoying. I say he should get some stock options from Sega to shut him up for, say, 2 consecutive days.
In other realms, including the realm in which linux.com operates, plagiarism is tolerable, and even, in open source, useful. After all, the source is open so people can USE it, right?
Now, many people will be saying "credit should be given where credit is due." To them I say yes, you're absolutely right, but the ability to use ideas from someone else (notice I didn't say take), no matter how many of them you use, is fundamental to the ability to produce any new ideas. Linux.com didn't arise in a vacuum, it came about because of many similar layouts that came before it. Which came about because of the invention of HTML, and HTTP. Which came about because of the invention of networking . . . etc.
And sure, outright carbon copying is lazy and largely useless to the rest of the community since it provides nothing new, but that's the extent of his crime.
That should put a stop to all this silliness.
And this will be the fundamental shift. Instead of selling the software, you sell the services that companies need to run the software. And you still have to have someone developing the software. Open Source or not, there's still value to putting bodies behind desks working on the code. At least, RedHat certainly thinks so, and I tend to agree.
Bear in mind that I make these comments from behind a product that is still closed source and has no plans to be any other way. Despite that fact, we're already making the changes that will keep us strong when the source code is no longer a product. After all, like most eBusiness vendors, all our metadata (the real meat of the product) is in the database, and is therefore "open source" already. So how will it change life? For me, not much. My employer will remain in business because quite simply there is no open source product that can compete with us, and it's not likely that there ever will be, until the day that we finally succumb to pressure and open our own source. The reason is simply labor: We have roughly 700 developers, and they've been working on this product for more than 10 years. It's an incredibly intricate system, and unless development tools take a quantum leap (something I can't rule out), it will be hard bordering on impossible to ever put together enough concerted manpower to produce a software product like this "in the bazaar".
I only wish it were possible, so my employer would feel that pressure to open the source today - would make life a lot easier for me.
I'm digging through Gnome, here and here and I haven't seen word 1 about Lotus Notes. Where's the real link? Or did you just make this up?