fortinbras47 - Slashdot User

Are More Choices Really Better? 309

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday November 22, 2006 @02:09PM from the how-to-hit-the-off-switch-let-me-count-the-ways dept.

A. Bosch writes to mention that Joel Spolsky of Fog Creek software has a commentary that examines the need for choices in software. From the article: "This highlights a style of software design shared by Microsoft and the open source movement, in both cases driven by a desire for consensus and for 'Making Everybody Happy,' but it's based on the misconceived notion that lots of choices make people happy, which we really need to rethink." With software steadily becoming more sophisticated, are more choices really necessarily better?

Comment Re:Did you go to public or private school? (Score 1) 1095

by fortinbras47 on Tuesday November 21, 2006 @09:03PM (#16943146) Attached to: What's the Problem With US High Schools?

Private K-8, public high school.

I was just curious because it sounded like another public school story... (I went to public school myself). My sister went to private girls school, and there's no way they would let persist that level of incompetence you just described. Unfortunately, almost all public schools just lack accountability or good feedback mechanisms that will correct problems.

More Voting Shenanigans in Florida 680

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @02:51PM from the just-don't-feed-them-after-midnight dept.

stewwy writes "It looks like the the shenanigans have started already, the Register is running a story about the difficulty early voters are having with casting votes for Democrats." From the article: "The touch-screen gizmos seem strangely attracted to Republican candidates. One voter needed assistance from an election official, and even then, needed three tries to convince the machine that he wanted to vote for Democrat Jim Davis in the gubernatorial race, not his Republican opponent Charlie Crist."

McAfee Blames Open Source for Botnets 223

Posted by timothy on Monday July 17, 2006 @12:51PM from the how-conveeeeenient dept.

v3xt0r writes "It seems that 'the Open Source Development Model' is to be blamed for the recent increase in botnet development. 'We're not taking aim at the open-source movement; we're talking about the full-disclosure model and how that effectively serves malware development,' the spokesman for McAfee says. Why not just blame the IRC Protocol? Or simply admit that Proprietary vendors cannot keep pace with the Open Source Model?"

Governments, Beyond the Open Source Hype 180

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @06:05PM from the hype-isn't-always-a-bad-thing dept.

An anonymous reader writes "ForeignPolicy.com takes a look at Open Source as it applies to governments and some of the reasons that a governing body may or may not like OSS. From the article: 'Governments around the world are enchanted by open-source software. Unlike proprietary software, for which the code is kept secret, the open-source variety can be copied, modified, and shared. [...] Trouble is, the benefits of open source are not always so clear-cut. Software is too complicated a creation to be captured in rhetoric, and assertions about some of the technical benefits of open source fail to tell the whole story.'"

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