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'Senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired "sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable" atom bomb'.

Wow! Panic, everyone!!

Oh, wait. An American high school kid already did that - 32 years ago.

http://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-True-Story-Bomb-Kid/dp/0671827316/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254673660&sr=1-7

I bet no one at the Pentagon knew that...

Nazi importation through Project Paperclip disclosure: Lab 257, Hotzone, author Mike Carroll. Here's the Amazon page for Lab 257.

Documenting the aliases and secret associations of wicked societies, "Vatican Assassins" by Eric J. Phelps, VaticanAssassins.org, SprituallySmart.com is offline so here's Google Cache

There are many music download and music access services available. Just go elsewhere. Like so many "firsts" on the Net - e.g. eBay, Yahoo, etc. - iTunes seems old in the tooth. Couple that with egregious DRM policies and attempts to choke interoperability. Why bother. I like Apple products, but who really needs iTunes for music. Other than as a software platform for playback, I could care less about the iTunes music store. Try these: http://www.amazon.com/MP3-Music-Download/b?ie=UTF8&node=163856011 http://pandora.com/ http://www.emusic.com/ http://www.slacker.com/ http://www.napster.com/ http://music.myspace.com/ www.youtube.com http://www.rhapsody.com/home.html http://www.walmart.com/music http://www.last.fm/ http://social.zune.net/music/ http://www.seeqpod.com/

Wouldn't those shitty little devices that broad cast your iPod over public radio waves so you can listen to it in your car fall into the same category? Unless something changed recently they weren't banned. I think they just sucked hard (low quality music), and were replaced by other technologies. They might even sell them if you looked for it. Yup they still exist.

645$, for only 30fps 1080p .. That's even worst than this!

....Isn't your God supposed to be unknowable and random...

That's maybe what your God is like, but mine has revealed himself as a human, Jesus Christ.

(...destroying whole cities because of the actions of a few....)

The God I know hates all forms of sin and corruption, in the same way that a surgeon "hates" germs. In a hospital operating room ALL infectious agents, germs viruses or whatever, have to be killed. If any of those poor bacteria, who of course also want to live, are not killed, they will make the patient sick at best or even kill him or her. If there is a cancer in your body, it has to be removed in total, with not even one innocent little cancer cell left behind.

A holy, pure and perfect God likens all of us humans, even the best and nicest of us, including women and children as sinful and corrupt. Back in Noah's day he destroyed not only a few cities, but wiped out all of humanity safe for Noah and his family. Even here it says that Noah found mercy in the eyes of the Lord.

Because we all are sinful and corrupt, we all, including you, can and must call upon God to be merciful. The only criteria that God has is to believe in him and in believing ask for his mercy and grace. Belief is the only criteria that is universal to all humans. Anybody, including a child can believe. That is why God chose BELIEF as the only acceptable path to him.

If you require evidence, here is some:
There is a man by the name of Lee Strobel wrote a book named "The Case for Christ" You can get it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation/dp/0310209307/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1254515449&sr=1-1-spell

If you require more evidence, you can read a book that is little more than an essay by one of the founders of Harvard Law school.
"The Testimony of the Evangelists: The Gospels Examined by the Rules of Evidence" by Siman Greenleaf

You can get it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Testimony-Evangelists-Gospels-Examined-Evidence/dp/0825427479/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254515750&sr=1-1

....Isn't your God supposed to be unknowable and random...

That's maybe what your God is like, but mine has revealed himself as a human, Jesus Christ.

(...destroying whole cities because of the actions of a few....)

The God I know hates all forms of sin and corruption, in the same way that a surgeon "hates" germs. In a hospital operating room ALL infectious agents, germs viruses or whatever, have to be killed. If any of those poor bacteria, who of course also want to live, are not killed, they will make the patient sick at best or even kill him or her. If there is a cancer in your body, it has to be removed in total, with not even one innocent little cancer cell left behind.

A holy, pure and perfect God likens all of us humans, even the best and nicest of us, including women and children as sinful and corrupt. Back in Noah's day he destroyed not only a few cities, but wiped out all of humanity safe for Noah and his family. Even here it says that Noah found mercy in the eyes of the Lord.

Because we all are sinful and corrupt, we all, including you, can and must call upon God to be merciful. The only criteria that God has is to believe in him and in believing ask for his mercy and grace. Belief is the only criteria that is universal to all humans. Anybody, including a child can believe. That is why God chose BELIEF as the only acceptable path to him.

If you require evidence, here is some:
There is a man by the name of Lee Strobel wrote a book named "The Case for Christ" You can get it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation/dp/0310209307/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1254515449&sr=1-1-spell

If you require more evidence, you can read a book that is little more than an essay by one of the founders of Harvard Law school.
"The Testimony of the Evangelists: The Gospels Examined by the Rules of Evidence" by Siman Greenleaf

You can get it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Testimony-Evangelists-Gospels-Examined-Evidence/dp/0825427479/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254515750&sr=1-1

I find it just as possible, actually even maybe more so, that the whole system could be just simulated. Like we have computer simulations, but our simulation would be just a little bit more advanced.

Except we have actual evidence for evolution and the 'matrix'-like hypothesis you are referring to cannot even be proved scientifically. Be careful not to fall into the trap of going to these pseudo science theories when we actually have very good (and just as wondrous) scientific explanations. Read some books like "The Demon-Haunted World" or "Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time" about why and how people fall nto these fallacies. They sure helped me.

I find it just as possible, actually even maybe more so, that the whole system could be just simulated. Like we have computer simulations, but our simulation would be just a little bit more advanced.

Except we have actual evidence for evolution and the 'matrix'-like hypothesis you are referring to cannot even be proved scientifically. Be careful not to fall into the trap of going to these pseudo science theories when we actually have very good (and just as wondrous) scientific explanations. Read some books like "The Demon-Haunted World" or "Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time" about why and how people fall nto these fallacies. They sure helped me.

I now pay more in taxes every single year than all of my student loans put together

And you call US stupid.

If you like paying taxes, fine, knock yourself out, but if you think this argument will convince me that public-ANYTHING is worthwhile you have another thing coming to yuo. The government is incompetent, wasteful and corrupt. Only the free market can overcome, and only the free market will do. Why don't you educate yourself some more and read some smart books instead of the statist liberal claptrap you read in university.

I now pay more in taxes every single year than all of my student loans put together

And you call US stupid.

If you like paying taxes, fine, knock yourself out, but if you think this argument will convince me that public-ANYTHING is worthwhile you have another thing coming to yuo. The government is incompetent, wasteful and corrupt. Only the free market can overcome, and only the free market will do. Why don't you educate yourself some more and read some smart books instead of the statist liberal claptrap you read in university.

If you're going to label HP based on your experiences with their color, laser printers, then that is a little broad. Their B&W laser printers are a thing to behold.

Color will always run out infinitely more quickly and cost you a fortune more.

Second, piles of vendors chip their toner cartridges and lock them after one "usage" - that is by no means HP specific.

Third, HP may obsolete consumer-level printers pretty frequently, but they have a common stock of different toner cartridges that work in many of their machines.

Lastly, Amazon buyers give that specific printer a pretty crappy rating.

I'm not on HP's payroll, but I have administered piles of HP laser printers in small business that routinely pushed out 400-700 pages per day per printer and are still going strong after a decade. They have been serviced a few times, but they have withstood the test of time and simply keep on going.

You should pick up a copy of the classic book that has certainly inspired many children to study science / engineering.

The Way Things Work.

Pick examples of mechanisms from there. Use a page or two from the book to introduce the topic. Then build a working model of it with the class. Or have the class draw up their own takes on the mechanism (modifications, alternate uses, etc.)

-
Paul K.

This amazon article's comments are nearly as good as the Tuscan Milk one's!

"When did ignorance became a point of view?", by Scott Adams of Dilbert fame.

I thought the Little Ice Age was caused by boring volcanism.

The current cosmic ray flux, I think, isn't too far out of normal, just outside of the immediate (short term) norm.

My $500 ethernet cable reflects them back at government spy satellites!

Read and use Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking by Nicolas Collins.

I think I saw this on Make TV. I can't wait to find more time to dive in.

Check out the book, "The Complete Problem Solver" by Arnold ( http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Problem-Solver-Competitive-Decision/dp/0471541982/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top ) . Then use these methods for troubleshooting technical problems that abound locally, in order to teach principles. Take easy problems, and reward students for finding and reporting on useful examples of their learning during the week. This way you can find a variety of problems in different technical areas and keep them interested. Advanced methods of this sort are in, "The New Rational Manager" by Kepner and Tregoe and, "The Thinker's Toolkit" by Jones.

Basic Electricity is a good topic to work with, as is, "Caveman Chemistry" by Dunn ( http://www.amazon.com/Caveman-Chemistry-Projects-Creation-Production/dp/1581125666 ) . Remember, technology is not just about computers and electronics; it is a way of thinking. US Army Combat Engineering courses have pretty good low tech instruction (as do some Boy Scout courses) and basic Geometry/Trig problems in doing things like finding the height of a tree/cliff/building or basic astronomy principles all contribute. I'd suggest treating it more like a lab than a lecture. Good luck.

Check out the book, "The Complete Problem Solver" by Arnold ( http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Problem-Solver-Competitive-Decision/dp/0471541982/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top ) . Then use these methods for troubleshooting technical problems that abound locally, in order to teach principles. Take easy problems, and reward students for finding and reporting on useful examples of their learning during the week. This way you can find a variety of problems in different technical areas and keep them interested. Advanced methods of this sort are in, "The New Rational Manager" by Kepner and Tregoe and, "The Thinker's Toolkit" by Jones.

Basic Electricity is a good topic to work with, as is, "Caveman Chemistry" by Dunn ( http://www.amazon.com/Caveman-Chemistry-Projects-Creation-Production/dp/1581125666 ) . Remember, technology is not just about computers and electronics; it is a way of thinking. US Army Combat Engineering courses have pretty good low tech instruction (as do some Boy Scout courses) and basic Geometry/Trig problems in doing things like finding the height of a tree/cliff/building or basic astronomy principles all contribute. I'd suggest treating it more like a lab than a lecture. Good luck.

Yes, James Randi is good at pointing out how humans can be easily fooled. The video you linked to is an apt example of why common newspaper astrology is pretty useless. It's also a good example of how a flakey astrologer with a turban and a crystal ball can con people. This is all very true, and I've seen countless versions of this argument, and the example Randi offers in that classroom video was an excellent presentation of that feature of the human psyche.

But it brings to mind the logical fallacy, "All cows are animals, therefore all animals are cows."

Randi is missing one key detail, as is everybody else who thinks that the above example is all there is to astrology. --And that detail is this: When you remove the con artists and the vague newspaper horoscope section, astrology actually works.

When you read a real astrology book, it is actually not so vague as one is led to believe all horoscope material is. A good book is filled with very specific descriptions which cannot apply to everybody, filled with key details which match up with the individual being described and which totally fail to describe those it does not apply to. I've never seen Randi look at that kind of astrology, and because he's such a giant ego himself who has based his entire reputation and self-worth on being right about his many assertions about reality, he will probably continue to avoid such sources. Some of his arguments when has been cornered have been childish and ridiculous and petty in the extreme. That's what happens when somebody cannot let go of their sacred cows.

If you want to test this out for yourself, (if you aren't scared of letting go of your own sacred cows), then I would recommend this book. Amazon appears to have used copies available for less than a dollar plus postage. You can probably own your very own for less than the price of a food court lunch. Most people will not do this, precisely because they assume they know everything already, or worse, they don't want to risk being wrong, but this is the kind of research I am talking about and which needs to be done before a valid opinion can been obtained. --It's easy to read all manner of studies and watch James Randi videos, but the research which skeptics never seem to do is to actually find a competent source and read a few horoscopes and gauge for themselves the accuracy. There's a very big difference between vague bullshit descriptions about what geminis and cancers might be like, -and having very specific details about your life described to you in a single paragraph.

In the book linked above, every eastern sign with its specific element is given a two paragraph specific treatment which is quite upsetting for the hardened skeptic because it blows them out of the water by describing them down to their shoelaces with stark accuracy in terms which cannot be handed back over their shoulders to accurately describe the student sitting behind them. It just doesn't work. --And it's a little humbling to discover that there are only 60 basic human templates walking around. Of course, there are infinite variations on each theme, but the hard specifics are frighteningly nailed down. This is something people find very upsetting, as it should. Everybody, with very, very few exceptions, is a slave to their robotic, automatic nature and astrology makes this plain. People hate that truth and so they fight it at every turn, but the only way to truly fight it is to look it straight in the face and learn how it works. Only then can one attempt to stop being a robot. But that's the advanced stuff. We're still on basic astrology at the moment. . .)

Now, you bring up a fascinating point. . . The fact that the stars have moved over the last thousand years or so.

However, in Western astrology this simple doesn't represent any difficulties. Western astrology is based not on stars but planets, and the planets

Pardon me while I repost those links. . .

Theodora Lau's Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes. (A good book for Eastern Astrology).

Susan Miller's website is a fairly robust example of the Western model.

-FL

If you're trapped in one of these classes, my suggestion is: do like the Geography Coloring Book and use a brightly colored border all around the outside of everything important, and press lightly to color in the middle. It does wonders for neatness grades.

Amazing how many haters there are of education, seeing as how this forum is supposed to be for educated people. Yes yes, you were bored in school and it was too easy, woe is you. For the rest of the people, the current school system works a lot better than no system. It seems that Obama is taking a cue from the evidence given in The Outliers. Our school system is based on an agrarian society where kids needed to be home to work the fields in the summer so we have an extended summer vacation. The studies outlined in the book have shown that kids of all backgrounds advance similarly in reading comprehension during the school year. It is only during summer vacation that poorer kids start falling behind because they aren't encouraged to read in their homes, as opposed to children from wealthier parents who continue to encourage their children's education outside of class. As the write-up said, we don't need longer school days, we need a longer school year. If that's what Obama's proposing, then it should be encouraged.

I would expect the presence of books in the home to be correlated with parent intelligence, not necessarily parental involvement. Parent intelligene is strongly correlated with child intelligence. I suspect that student intelligence is actually the biggest factor, but this factor is either not studied or not published in the results, because it goes against widely held politically correct ideals.

Actually it has been well researched. If I remember correctly, Freakonomics spends two whole chapters on a readable summary of the research into child test scores. And if I remember correctly, parenting itself has no observable effect on test scores, which is surprising for most people to hear.

Here's an extract:

The most interesting conclusion here is one that many modern parents may find disturbing: Parenting technique is highly overrated. When it comes to early test scores, it's not so much what you do as a parent, it's who you are.

It is obvious that children of successful, well-educated parents have a built-in advantage over the children of struggling, poorly educated parents. Call it a privilege gap. The child of a young, single mother with limited education and income will typically test about 25 percentile points lower than the child of two married, high-earning parents.

So it isn't that parents don't matter. Clearly, they matter an awful lot. It's just that by the time most parents pick up a book on parenting technique, it's too late. Many of the things that matter most were decided long ago - what kind of education a parent got, how hard he worked to build a career, what kind of spouse he wound up with and how long they waited to have children.

The privilege gap is far more real than the fear that haunts so many modern parents - that their children will fail miserably without regular helpings of culture cramming and competitive parenting. So, yes, parents are entitled to congratulate themselves this month over their children's acceptance letters. But they should also stop kidding themselves: The Mozart tapes had nothing to do with it.

The linked to article is just an overview, there's a lot more content in the actual book.

There are times when the Kindle edition can save you a substantial amount:
$1519.05 off the price of the hardcover version in this case.

I know, I've used them. They're pretty cool, actually. But sales people do have a tendency to use Cool Sounding Words. It was the "quartz" I was referring to. Obviously, I have no idea ... and I'm guessing most people have no idea ... what "patented quarts convection technology" does for me. Besides "even heating." Yipee.

I've seen more expensive toasters for $150... like this one by Breville for $180.

• 1800-watt 4-slice toaster with intelligent one-touch auto lowering function
• Push-button controls for toast, a bit more, bagel, defrost, and lift-and-look functions
• LED panel illuminates according to selected setting on variable browning control
• Brushed die-cast metal housing; end-of-cycle beep; 1-1/5-inch-wide slots; cord wrap
• Measures 13-1/4 by 13-1/4 by 9-1/2 inches; 1-year limited warranty

Oddly enough, I've actually bought from Breville before, and appreciate the die-cast bit. But $170 toaster?

The Man from Pakistan: The True Story of the World's Most Dangerous Nuclear Smuggler Read this book, and wonder why A. Q. Khan has not been punished till date for spreading the nuclear know how to states like north korea, Iran and Libya.

If you're being invaded and use nukes, wouldn't that mean you're nuking your own country?

You ARE talking about the country and leadership that sent thousands of THEIR OWN high-school kids charging through minefields in "human waves".
Continuously. It was a strategy, not a one time thing.

"There is not a single school or town that is excluded from the happiness of "holy defence" of the nation, from drinking the exquisite elixir of martyrdom, or from the sweet death of the martyr, who dies in order to live forever in paradise."

Theocracies don't lose wars. How can they? You die, you go to heaven. It's a win-win situation.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is an easy read to start with.
Not that much about the details of the war, but it is quite insightful regarding life prior, during and after the war that lasted for nearly a decade and gave birth to today's Iran.

Another good book to read on this subject - Nuclear Express

http://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Express-Political-History-Proliferation/dp/0760335028/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254152895&sr=8-1

Yeah, it's pretty depressing...

The Inheritance, by David Sanger. A terrific book, I read it from cover to cover in three sittings. It's basically what Obama was sat down and told about the world and global nuclear proliferation and what his options are. It details some fascinating history, esp. around Khan in Pakistan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan) that will be making you shake your fist and say "Khaaaaaaaaaannn!". (He gave the Iranians much of what they needed to build a nuclear program).

http://www.amazon.com/Inheritance-World-Confronts-Challenges-American/dp/0307407926

Posturing aside, giving the talking heads and think tankers something to chirp about on CNN - the real threat isn't Iran. Pakistan is the threat. Iran has uranium and reactors. They don't have a warhead. Pakistan has LOTS of warheads, and they MAY or MAY NOT meet your definition of "secure". They could very easily go missing, as the programs in place to account in such matters sort of don't work in Pakistan.

Again - the book lays all this out in exacting detail. I recommend the book to everyone.

There are a number of sources of evidence that many top executives today have little scruples and perhaps less intelligence.

You don't think the recent worldwide financial collapse began from the bottom up do you?

That's interesting - reading Demon-Haunted World also made me consider what the "must read" books for people leaving school should be. I'd certainly have that and include "Why People Believe Weird Things" http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0716733870 and a "A Short History of Nearly Everything" http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/076790818X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254133445&sr=1-2.

That's interesting - reading Demon-Haunted World also made me consider what the "must read" books for people leaving school should be. I'd certainly have that and include "Why People Believe Weird Things" http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0716733870 and a "A Short History of Nearly Everything" http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/076790818X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254133445&sr=1-2.

I didn't know karma-whoring could be so powerful. Weee! 100.000 points! I must be *great!* (My mom loves me...)

This looks a bit like a troll, but I'll bite. The person on Stack Overflow with over 100,000 reputation is Jon Skeet who also happens to write technical books which is part of the reason he has so much reputation on the site. There are a lot of questions on Stack Overflow relating to C# that were answered by Jon Skeet which is where all of those reputation points came from.

Post apocalypse, however...

"USB2 won't even come close to cutting it for a GbE replacement, which is why you don't see any USB GbE dongles, only the 10/100 ones."

That's funny, I've got a GigE USB2.0 dongle sitting on my shelf... It won't do 100MiB/sec but it will let me transfer files over my home network at about 20MiB/sec, noticeably faster than a 100Mib/sec Ethernet connection which usually tops out at about 8MiB/sec data transfers. From what I recall it uses the AX88178 chip which you'll find in a lot of mains wiring networking kit such as Homeplug.

http://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-USB-Gigabit-Ethernet-Adapter/dp/tech-data/B000NIX7A4/ref=de_a_smtd

is an off-the-shelf GigE USB2.0 dongle. 35 bucks.

AppLocker WILL make it more difficult to run unauthorised apps, even if they're distributed/run via USB. It won't block things entirely but just like every security measure, it will make things more difficult, and that's all you should be able to expect. Give Microsoft some credit - I'd love to get a hold of one of these netbooks.

Credit for what? A false sense of security? AppLocker is next to useless. In reality, it can be easily bypassed. In addition to the fact (as pointed out so many times) that you can always install another OS and/or hack the BIOS.

And so what if it has no CD drive? See here.

But what about the poor corn farmers???!????

Their subsides basically end up in the pockets of the big grain companies. In the first section of "The Omnivore's Dilemma", there's a farmer who explains how the government subsidies actually has distorted the relationship between supply and demand pushing prices down and down. Basically, the farmer gets less for his corn, has to produce more to get paid more and get more subsidies, which then because of greater supply, the price falls, so the farmer having to make payments, produces even more corn, and down and down we go. The benefits go to the HFC/Corn processors. They're getting cheap corn at the expense of the tax payers.

I can't remember the farmer's name, but he actually wants the subsidies to end because it will allow corn prices to increase - at least when he was interviewed.

I disagree with the article, and would have replied there, but your posting seemed like a good location to reply. All food comes with enzymes that promote the breakdown of itself, and all digestive systems can allow for the enzymes in the food to do the work. Cook the food and you kill the enzymes. And when you kill the enzymes, the body has to redirect resources to the production of enzymes for breaking down food. There are several notable works available that provide empirical evidence to support this notion:

Enzyme Nutrition, by Dr. Edward Howell,

The Wheatgrass Book

The Pottenger Experiments.

The use of fire by humans is relatively recent in evolutionary time scales. And based on the evidence above, I doubt that cooking food did very much to advance the evolution of our digestive system, or our intelligence. And as to the immune system, I don't have enough information to form an opinion other than to say if the body is redirecting resources to create enzymes to digest food, then the immune system could be disadvantaged to the extent that resources are redirected to the production of digestive enzymes.

I disagree with the article, and would have replied there, but your posting seemed like a good location to reply. All food comes with enzymes that promote the breakdown of itself, and all digestive systems can allow for the enzymes in the food to do the work. Cook the food and you kill the enzymes. And when you kill the enzymes, the body has to redirect resources to the production of enzymes for breaking down food. There are several notable works available that provide empirical evidence to support this notion:

Enzyme Nutrition, by Dr. Edward Howell,

The Wheatgrass Book

The Pottenger Experiments.

The use of fire by humans is relatively recent in evolutionary time scales. And based on the evidence above, I doubt that cooking food did very much to advance the evolution of our digestive system, or our intelligence. And as to the immune system, I don't have enough information to form an opinion other than to say if the body is redirecting resources to create enzymes to digest food, then the immune system could be disadvantaged to the extent that resources are redirected to the production of digestive enzymes.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell deals with this in some detail.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=outliers&x=0&y=0

How about:
8 years after release: $62.71
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Starfleet-Command-Expansion-Pc/dp/B00005JD51

You'll be hard pressed to find a better price on a new copy of a game with such huge replayability and moddability.

I really like when people make insightful comments, while shooting themselves in the foot -- hard.

>As your program goes on, you clean it up, add abstractions where needed. The first version of Word for Windows didn't look ANYTHING like the current version. If you are going to make a new word processor, you go after the old version, not aim at the sky.

Let me copy page 207 of Taming Wild Software Schedule, because this is just too good to be ignored (you can find the text in amazon by doing a "search in content for WinWord"):

The development of Microsoft Word for Windows 1.0 provides an object lesson in the effects of optimistic scheduling practices. Word for Windows, aka "WinWord," spent 5 years in development, consumed 660 man-months of developer effort, and produced a system of 249.000 lines of code (lansiti 1994). The final 5-year schedule was approximately five times as long as originally planned. Table 9-1 on the next page summarizes WinWord's scheduling history.

WinWord had an extremely aggressive schedule. The shortest possible schedule for a project of its size is about 460 days. The longest estimate for WinWord 1.0's schedule was 395 days, which is 65 days shorter than the shortest possible schedule.

Development of WinWord 1.0 contained classic examples of the things that go wrong when a software project is scheduled too aggressively:
â WinWord was beset by unachievable goals. Bill Gates's directive to the team was to "develop the best word processor ever" and to do it as fast as possible, preferably within 12 months. Either of those goals individually would have been challenging. The combination was impossible.

No hard feeling, but that was too good to miss. Anyway, it can actually be used to prove your point: they aimed too high. But, being Microsoft, they succeeded anyway. Overall, I am almost ok with your argument. The only dark side, is that sooo many companies now deliver crappy duct tape one-shot software that hardly work, and never update it, because they go under due to pissed customers...

:)

> Shuttleworth said. 'You sit and watch someone struggle with the software that you've so lovingly produced.'"

(In Russel from Independence Day voice) I've been sayin' that for ten damned years! And not just for Linux, for all apps and OSes.

The Inmates Are Running The Asylum

For behavior:

Microwave + computer = computer
Jet airplane + computer = computer
X-ray machine + computer = computer

And this was hardly my first exposure to it. I recall a "usability test" in a computer class 20+ years ago that showed people sitting with an old-school AT computer and the paper instruction to start the computer by "putting the floppy disc in the drive slot".

They proceeded to put the disc in an open space between the two stacked floppy drives, where it fell inside the case somewhere.

This problem goes way, way beyond Linux and the "Gramma, just do tar -xvf..." crap.

http://www.amazon.com/Transaction-Processing-Concepts-Techniques-Management/dp/1558601902/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253900733&sr=8-1

or any decent transaction processing book that uses him as a reference. Now with cloud computing this is more important than ever.

And just because your DB has row level locking doesn't mean you have transactional integrity. Distributed transactions, ISAM databases, Hibernate, XML databases, race conditions, sloppy programming, poor DB design and outages can all conspire against you.

There is no magic bullet.

Because you never need an adapter for USB right ?

I am always amazed that people can be both assertive and utterly wrong. I despise Microsoft, for a variety of reason, but that isn't a reason to be blind at their qualities:

> Microsoft is far to big to change direction.

Internet, WindowsNT, XBox are counter examples. Microsoft is one of the most agile company out there. A lot of dead / moribond companies and a lot of products are there to serve as a warning to others.

> They have never been a technology company

I beg to differ. It is possible to argue that their are not a technology company anymore, but not that they never were

> They could develop new and better OS's at a fraction of their current research costs by simply giving cash to universities to do the work and keeping their hands off the projects

To build an OS that they would get no benefits of ? Wtf? And why does MS would need a new OS ? What is wrong with the current OS model ? They need better apps, they need better subsystems, they need to remove cruft and to clean up stuff, but the core OS is still fine for its uses and can be improved by evolutions.

They just need Microsoft Research for a few things, mainly:
* To prevent people working here from working elsewhere, where they could create and apply disruptive technology.
* To get ideas that may or may not integrated into products (given the origins of the talking paperclip, the latter may be better)
* To have a better time-to-market IF they needed to produce something due to some disruptive tech appearing from competitors

Giving cash to university and keeping their hands off the projects obviously wouldn't make any sense

I'm not sure that's really dogma. Sure, it's not widely accepted that there is life on Mars, and a number of people think it's unlikely, but there's quite a lot of fairly open discussion about the possibility.

Anon cause I moderated.

Read Zubrin's The Case for Mars. Water is all we really need.