Domain: eplugz.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to eplugz.com.
Comments · 441
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Re:I think we have our answer!!![What the heck, I got karma to burn]
2. No Pets. Scientologists like to release the "Thetans" in Pets. By killing them.
This comment reminds me of the hindus in India who think Catholics are cannibals because in the sacrament of Holy Communion you "eat the Body of Christ". [This used to be a widespread belief many years ago, and you still find it out in the less educated areas in India.]
The main criticism here is plain technique. FUD is best reserved for use by the Microsofties, not someone who is supposed to be intelligent.
I really dislike seeing FUD used by folks. Just a pet peeve. I greatly admire intelligent argument based on issues.
Philosophy is an Operating dSystem for the Mind. You have your OS, I have Mine. They have theirs. When was the last time you even looked at your own source code? For most people, it is spaghettifried code like you would never imagine. Some modules never fire up correctly.
(man - i got to get a job. Let's Play Quake Instead! ok
..)They apparently succeed just because they have some kind of system for inspecting code. Just something, somehow. So they say in their own way. [They haven't gone away in fifty years, and they seems to be growing.]
Never mind if you would never agree to the design principals, or whatever. or are horrifried by what they do. If you want to rant and rave and spit blood, fine.
You probably know how to pull apart a piece of source code and criticise it from a design viewpoint. You can use that here in this context.
Saying "MS code sucks" is a lame statement. Being able to say how and why under what functionality is far more useful. Now applying that to the Operating System of the Mind could be useful.
You could critique various systems usefully, instead of FUDding around. You could what functionality would be useful, and which should be dropped.
Heck, it would even be an intelligent debate.
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An Alternate Study?Probably the most damning would be this customer satisfaction statistic:
Of all servers shipping with Windows software, as many as 50% (whatever the number is) have the Windows software erased and replaced by an alternate system that the owners believe to be simply superior, simple more usable and suitable (insert your favorite adjectives) for their own purposes.
Someone ought to compile this statistics and issue a white paper on the increasing number of people who erase their windows systems.I am sure it would be damning.
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Implications ...?the court said the key test was whether law enforcement officers would have had to enter the home to obtain the same information if they did not have access to modern devices. In such a case, the majority said, the officers must first show probable cause of a crime and obtain a search warrant, just as they do to physically enter a home and conduct a search.
I find this interesting in the context of other forms of technology survaillence, such as software back doors, etc. This ruling is probably more important than we first realize, just for that reason.
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Assorted linksAssorted sites that mess with this siort of stuff:
http://www.emf.com/
http://www.rfsafe.com/
http://www.emfsafe.com
http://www.radiation.org.uk/
http://www.shieldworks.com/
http://emfpollutionsolutions.com/
http://www.cell-phone-radiation-emf-shield.com/
http://www.rpmwebworx.com/cellphoneradiation/
Some of these look like they are a little flakey.
so you are on your own
;-)
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The medical condition is real.Pain is far more complicated than most people recko.
for example, with hypnotism you can cause someone to experience and displayed the most amazing and diverse display of medical symptoms, all of which when examined by a doctor would be completely convincing.
Under such a situation, you could even have surgury ordered. But since the original cause would have been a hypnotic session, the symptoms would always return.
I do not recommend this as a personal experiment.
Under such a situation, the symptoms would be drastically real, regardless of the source. The problem is, of course, if you say to some one that it is "all in their mind" that the immediate reaction is that it is not real, that it is a fantasy. What that critic would need would be to live with a hynotically induced headache or toothache for a few days. This would be convincing as far was how much a fantasy it is. It would, of course, be under-helpful to criticise the person all along that they were imagining it all. The pain is real.
What all this seems to indicate is that there are multiple causes for the set of symptoms for Carpal Tunnel. And that mental conditions can contribute to the medical condition
and that the medical condition is quite quite real. Of course, do they know what it really is?
The list of hysterical diseases in the article is fascinating, but does not make even those conditions less real. Mis-diagnosed, maybe, but still real.
Of course, how are they going to treat this? just shout at everyone that they are hoaxing?
feh.
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by coincidenceBy coincidence, today's (11.june.2001) User Friendly comic has a similar item about a company needing more office space.
makes sense to me.
;-)
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Take a Law Course?It might seem that way to someone studying law at a school so prestigous and selective, where the current and former members of the student body are surely the most brilliant and ambitious of all academia, but if i may speak for the Slashdot crowd, it's a little boggling for us.
A long time programming friend of mine mentioned that the most useful courses he took outside of the programming course were a business law course, just to cover the basics of things like this, and a business accounting course, just to get his mind wrapped around modelling what bean counters were doing in the first place.
You would think with all of the legal issues running around, technical types could spend time just to get a toe wet, and get some familiarity with the concepts. It seems very much worth it.
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Re:Seeds of the BorgAnd is this "borg" you speak of a bad thing?
precisely the point. (sorry to see you moderated as off topic)
because some *will* see it as radical cool, and others recall in horror. The next big series of wars ( say, compared to the crusades, or the recent spat of european wars since napoleon) may be based on precisely this philosophical point.
I am sure that for many, it would be perfect, until it is over populated by the weekminded imps on weekend vacation, or all of the psychos get online. Imagine Borg Spam for example. Advertising right into your mind, and not being able to filter it! Imagine America, Land of the Free, home of the Brave, and Birthplace of the Borg.
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Seeds of the BorgThe typical knee-jerk reaction to all this stuff is to recall the Borg.
What people never looked at in the various trek series was how the Borg became the Borg.
My thought on this is that they would become the borg because in the beginning someone, somegroup, thought that all of that embedded/wearable technology is radically completely cool.
I can imagine the first network where a human can access computer data directly via a wire to that skull. Or where direct interfaces happen from brain to brain. Someone is going to have the equivalent of a religious experience as far as the significance of this vs Nirvana and the group mind.
People tend to become the things they resist. [Note for example, cops going criminal in their actions against crime] So already the seeds of the Borg are among us.
If you do not want to become a Borg in the present or future life, you will have to provide a better solution than the experience that the Borg will be.
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Audio vs infrared.this one takes the que from the tv in the form of a special audio signal, so the computer has to be in the same room as the tv
All if can imagine is the effect on house pets. Obviously it has to be above the range of human hearing. But if it gets into bat range, then it is far more directional.
Presumably they decided to do it this way instead of using IR because otherwise all of the sequences in the scanning of URLs just interfered with too many other remotes.
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future speedsThe implications of developing such small and fast transistors are significant: Silicon will be able to be used to make chips until 2007, and it will make possible microprocessors containing close to 1 billion transistors running at 20 gigahertz by that year. [...] Some of the components in the transistors Intel announced -- [...] are only three atoms thick.
I keep thinking about the problems with military gear where they have to worry about cosmic rays knocking out circuits. I don't know how usable these things will be in high radiation areas unless there is substantial redundancy built in.
And to speculate on what we'll run on this puppies. or the cooling systems.
Oh My!
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1 bit Mono?In my case, I want to edit multi-channel audio. A Color display adds almost nothing to the information that I extract from the screen. I can select, cut, copy paste, apply effects, and otherwise mangle the sounds as well on a 1-bit per pixel display as I can on a 32-bpp monster.
Actually, what you want is grey scale, not 1 bit Mono.
You can see the effect by taking any BW photo, and convert it to 1 bit color.
You also see this in printing. Laser Print IS 1 bit color, more or less, but you get true photo-grade at about 1500 dpi. Contrast this with grey scale, say on a screen, where 70 - 100 dpi is adequate for a photo, if you are using grey scale. 100 dpi in 2 bit color is horrible.
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Biggest attractionThis is what I thinkis the biggest attraction. [It is from the article of course]
The idea for the CL160 came from manufacturing and transportation companies frustrated with what CargoLifter calls b.u.f. - big, ugly freight.
So for a lot of folks , the idea of being able to move something straight up and over interevening obstacles makes sense.Moving it often means working in the middle of the night and yanking utility lines out of the way or building roads and bridges into remote areas. Companies spend thousands of extra dollars assembling and disassembling large equipment that could be moved intact.
The bottom line: The biggest, ugliest thing about moving big, ugly freight is usually the cost. "Folks we talked to were desperately searching for something new," Edwards says. "Existing technology was holding them back."
In disaster areas I can see roads and transport being messed up badly, so againthe ability to go over the obstacles makes some sense there as well. Although clearing the landing site from things large boulders, errant children, panicked refugees, etc are separate issues.
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Geek Toys at C. Crane CompanyC. Crane company (www.ccrane.com) has had this and other nifty stuff for years and years. They sold bucketfuls of this stuff along with the hand crank radios and night scopes and other geeky survivor type stuff before the Y2k crunch.
One of my favorite toys they have is the radio set wall clock . It checks itself every hour, and is great for things like daylight savings time, etc.
I am sure that this is not the only place to get this stuff, but a second source is always nice.
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Re:Can't do everythingremember that computer training for first and second graders is very different that training for 5th and 6th graders - make adjustments accordingly
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Can't do everythingYou can't cover everything, and you should not try.
Each week should make them familiar with some aspect of computers, with some practical info
something like:
week 1 basic ideas of computing. calculations. relationships of bytes to character to dots on your screen, etc.
week 2 computer insides. Open one up. see what happens if you disconnect somesomething. (error messages etc)
week 3: basic Concepts of OSen [guis, command lines, etc.]
week 4 basic concepts of word processors
week 5 basic concepts of spread sheets
week 6 basic concepts of databases
week 7 basics of games and networks
week 8 basics of programming and loose ends - how to learn moremake sure as you go along that you cover the things that make people truly clueless. Like how to follow directions, etc.
Make sure you give lots of practical details. (what to do when the computer catches on fire, etc) and what is wrong about computers you see in movies, etc.
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Re:Bias?Bias? (Score:1, Offtopic)
If they had said Win 2000, they would have been biased, according to some. and If they said Mac OSX, they are biased, according to others.
Of course, you realize that the only correct answer of this question, of W2k vs OSx is Linux. [runs and ducks to avoid getting hit by airborne vegetables]
(spelling error corrected)(apologies to the vegans)
I note that in the Slash moderation system, the author of the article can have unlimited moderation ability as far as comments to their story
We have a discussion about a shoot out between two Senior operating systems. And where there is obvious motivation on both sides to claim that the other is biased.
Obviously the author feels that discussion of other alternatives as a possible third choice is off topic, even if offered in a manner intended to be tongue in cheek.
Sometimes folks are just a bit too serious.
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Bias?Color us shocked, but our panel of seven judges delivered a solid victory to the revolutionary Mac OS. We couldn't overlook the Mac's legendary installation ease and its smooth hardware integration--most notably, digital video media such as cameras and videocameras, thanks to its FireWire support.
If they had said Win 2000, they would have been biased, according to some. and If they said Mac OSX, they are biased, according to others.
Of course, you realize that the only correct answer of this question, of W2k vs OSx is
.
.
.LINUX!
[runs and ducks to avoid getting hit by airborne vegatables]
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Re:Newspeak?well juno has the option of the official "you must use our ScreamSaver."
This was discussed here on slash earlier this year.
otherwise you have to sell them on the value of the "improved" service. For example, I think they charge 5 bucks a year(?) or something like that for the ability to do email attachments.
for some folks that will do the job, they do not need broadband.
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common SenseWho would have thought that honesty in commerce would enhance commerce?
I wonder when someone will get a ruling against that.
Having seen some late night infomercials, I suspect that an awful lot of the money made in spam is made by the people who promote systems to advertise using spam, and that most small time operators do not get much out of it anyhow.
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Attitudes towards Tolkien[quotes taken from the Village voice articles]
Germaine Greer, who arrived at Cambridge as a student in 1964, wrote "it has been my nightmare that Tolkien would turn out to be the most influential writer of the twentieth century. The bad dream has materialized." Nor does the official stance seem to have softened any since.
which sort of sums up the official attitude towards Tolkien. The Literatti are appalled that something with so much mass appeal would become so meaningful to so many people.
that said, while Tolkien may not have been the most profound or the most skilled of the twentieth century writers, the canvas that he wrote own, the size of his unified work and its' integrity has ensured it a place in the history of the 20th century. people tend tyo romanticize it a bit. seaking symbolisms thatmight not be true to the author. As is said of one review:
It fails to take Tolkien's literary project as seriously as he took it himself. "I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations," he famously wrote in one foreword to the trilogy, warning readers against the temptation of finding in it "any inner meaning or 'message.' " Nearly every thoughtful piece of Tolkien criticism makes some kind of nod to the letter of that admonition, but very few can resist violating its spirit.
So simply it is its own creation, intended to be separate from the traditions that are part of our culture. In a sense, it is intended to be a true history of a different world. even so:
Because of its extra-cinematic life [online, etc], it can't escape being a monument to its own built-in cult, which is roughly the size of humanity.
sounds about right to me.
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Re:Say what?There's going to be some serious CPU usage (which could eventually be partially alleviated by the DSP development) because you still have to modulate/demodulate the DSL signal from audio to data
I guess the idea is that if you have spare CPU cycles, the everything is fine.
Myself, I prefer dedicated hardware.
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Pleasantly surprisedI find this a profoundly rational and moral action on the part of Netscape.
Too bad other companies can't do the same thing.
not going to say much else, because I'm all ranted out for today
;-)
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Radical?I'm going to propose something radical. I'm going to claim that the current system of pop music, funded by centralized capital which loses money on 100 bands to make it all back on one megahit, distributed through relatively closed channels, promoted mainly through essentially-free mass-market play on commercial monopoly airwaves, and fueled by the dollars of 10-to-24 year-olds' disposable income, colors our popular music just as much and just as fundamentally as the social structure of the female pianist colored the pop of the 19th century.
This is not radical at all, although it is not immediately intuitive to someone who has not been deeply involved in the music scene. Artists and Musicians see this all the time, where the current establishment oozes praise over their pet projects, often and usually to the penalty of the talented no-name palying in the corner bar.
All too often it is who you know.
An example in the tech field is the IPO market. Who made the connection was often based on who knew who, and not on the merit of ideas. For every idea that got funded in silicon valley, I am sure there were hundreds, if not thousands around the country that got nailed because bankers demanded the souls and the first born of those looking to get started.
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Re:But...With this in mind, I suppose all the WSJ needs to do in order to be in complience is to put similar verbage on their site that if you're in austrelia, you are not permitted to proceed further on the website.
I somehow think this would not fly. I am reminded of the French law suite vs Yahoo regarding Nazi materials.
But that was France where they are a bit daffy anyhow.
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Re:trade offsNew features are fine when they are truly innovative. If MS had invented Napster, that would be one thing.
MS has more than 25 billion dollars cash reserve. but they need the money, I guess
80 % of the Users use 20% of the features.
I have seen too many companies been bought out by MS where the technology vanished, never to be seen again. And where if you didn't want to sell out, your product became their innovation in the software, or the next urgeant core feature to the OS.
I do know someone is playing a kind of "keep up with the Jones" thing in buying software and Hardware. All of his "expert friends" (people who would get confused by a name like "slashdot") say you have to have "XYZ" this and "ABC" that. And the result is that this guy has thousands of dollars of software that he has never even used once. Things like Photoshop, PageMaker, etc. because of this clueless urge for the latest thing.
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trade offsit almost sound like Microsoft wants access to the AOL instant messanger market in exchange of AOL being on the desktop.
And Aol is pushing to have the AOL Instant messanger be the standard or else it will start converting lots of its users to Netscape. or something like that
This somehow ties into the fight over Windows XP. The big companies didn't care as much when microsoft was going after smaller companies like Netscape. Now suddenly it is their lunch on the table, and it becomes important.
And of course, I am cynical about how all of these optional features are now suddenlly urgeant core features of the MS OS, but that is a rant for another day.
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Re:Slow speed but also horrendous ping timeForget playing Quake in Antartica
...[Insert Tongue in Cheek]
You would likely need a text mode version of quake. And play only other people on polar expeditions.
wireless text mode quake vs the russians.
could possibly compete with WAP mode Quake.
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if ATT wins?If ATT wins this, then what?
Does MS have to pay out billions and billions of dollars?
Or will ATT be happy with MS removing the offending code from all versions of windows present and past? (in addition to a "smaller" fine?)
I am particularly fascinated by the idea of punitary damages, which traditionally triple damages.
Say the damage is assesses at 10 billion. times three is 30 billion, larger than their (MS) current cash on hand.
this is going to be fascinating to watch. After all ATT has enough money to feed the lawyers. And there could be a side effect to this in terms of ATTs ability to retain control of other market sectors.
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Growing up in FinlandIn the NPR interview the other day, one of the things I was fascinated by was the benifits of growing up in Finland. Apparently it is far enough of the beaten path that there are none of the political stresses that you have in a place like, say jerusalem.
(yes I know about the Sammi people, and greatly admire the resurgence of their culture!)
But with the large social safety net, and the ability to go to university at low cost, etc. the stress that you experience in places like the US (gotta get successful NOW!) is simply not there. and this leads to an interesting perspective on the US.
I can imagine coming to the US is like coming in from Mars or someplace like that. There are going to be a lot of things that seem quite daffy.
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RoboSoccerThe "Beyond Computers" tv show, not related to the old radio show(?), has had stuff on the RoboSoccer just this past week.
I tried to find a link, but it looks like it might only be on locally.
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Re:Google CopyInteresting idea -- post the link to the google cache of the article when the page hasn't even gone down,
Considering I tried to access it from work where we have the usual t-1 line, it I couldn't get it, what was I supposed to think? after all, not everyone has an OC line
And I've been maxed for months. I wish they would tweak/fix the moderation system so that I could use some more of the karma.
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Re:Google CopyHate to be the one to tell you, but Vinny the Vampire is some horrendously unfunny shit. Maybe it's time for a new sig?
No accounting for taste, of course. I'll pass the info on to the pair running it, a couple of of my teenage nephews.
(gotta help out family and all that)
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Google Copy{Sigh}
Here is the link to the copy in the Google Cache
enjoy!
(oops - forgot the password)
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Broadband Legislative infoYou should check out:
It has all kinds of links to good stories on Broadband Issues, each of which would be worthy submissions to SlashDot.
enjoy!
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Wood Case linksOverclockers has this article:
http://www.overclockers.com/articles154/
about wood computer cases by TechStyle Computers
There was this Ask Slashdot story on the EMF questions as well.
And Tech Style was featured in a slash story here
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For the future, not now!We need to think of this as a infra-structure solution for the future, not for now. It would take too long to put in place to be able to use as an immediate solution for the current California solution.
California's problem is more of an infrastructure problem based on contradictory laws, many of which seek to avoid the consequences of the laws of nature. Mix that in with corporate and civic oportunism, and there is enough blame to go around to tar and feather everyone.
They have run into the classic "Pick two out of thre problem": Cheap, Reliable, Easy/Fast
They want to have all three, and it isn't there.
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Re:Gee Wiz* There is a high rate of scamming in the security industry, wherein "auditors" will go in and scan, poke, prod, and bleed a network into shambles, dump the results into a tidy little report, and walk out with a cool $5,000 (or even up to $15,000). No answers. No solutions. No fixes. And certainly no security. Now where'd I put my ethics...
This is the same thing as all of those internet consultants who advised spending huge amounts if investment capital to make a name and run up the stock price of a IPO. Who then bail out when the company has not enough income flow to justify the existance of the company in the first place.
After all they made theirs. Not that I am all that surprised.
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Re:Intenet Universe, etc.One could also call it karma whoring. You didn't think the rest of your article carried any weight, so you threw in a anti-Microsoft attack hoping that the polarized community of slashdot would see that and go "Ohhhh, he's insightful!" and mod you up.
I've been maxed out on karma for awhile now. It is a summer weekend, and the odds on anyone one being interested enough to mod it up are slim. But that point was intended as a bit of irony given the polarized nature of the community. If a member of the polarized community can think this through, the enhancement of nueron connections will be theraputic.
;-)
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Re:Reminds me of.....the "Linux is a cancer" comment that Ballmer made yesterday...oh wail, that wasn't satire...
Exactly!
if you substituted all the terms so that it was MS giving amnesty to users of Linux, the MS freaks would complain that it was too mean spirited. and it would be just a bit chilling, since it would expose the inherent evil in the action a little too forcefully.
Flipping it around so that Linux users would be giving amnesty to MS users would be funnier as a satire.
You realize that with Linux would force MS to innovate. This is an admission that MS has not innovated in the past. a tragic slip of the tongue that reveals the truth
;-)
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Re:Intenet Universe, etc.The removal of trees changed the climate.I always heard that it was the change of the climate that removed the trees... Nature is not static you know.
Don't you love feedback loops? A classic example indeed!
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Intenet Universe, etc.Several thoughts come to mind.
While the example of King Canute trying to order the tides to stop is an example of the overwhelming power of nature, perhaps this example is not entirely appropriate. Certainly the conclusions are not shared.
Humans as a force of nature have a certain capacity to muck up nature. Easy examples are areas where humans have lived for a while.
Evidence now suggests that Iceland was well forested when first discovered. The same applies to Easter Island. Both are devoid of trees now. In the Middle East we have from classical literature and the Bible mentions of the Trees of Lebanon, specimens of which are said to have been used for some of the pillars in the temple of King Solomon. Obviously, the region used to be well forested, and now it is not. (Isreal has a long term reforestation program in place). Similarly, the deserts of Iraq all used to be well forested, rich in plant and animal life. The removal of trees changed the climate. We now have a desert. I wonder how much of the Sahara desert is based purely on climate change, and how much climate change was human caused. The Sahara, too, was forested 10 to 15 thousand years ago.
In the Middle East, part of this was a certain type of political warfare. One of old religions there worshipped the trees, among other things. One of their competitors did not, and took to things like building homes out of wood. This went hand in hand with certain like the introduction of goats, etc.
so the point of this is that people in their short sightedness do things that are destructive to the things the like and want to preserve. Part of the problem here is the quantity of people who move in, so that by the time things are figured out, it is too late. If they figure it out at all.
Looking at the example in the NY Times article:
On the conservative Web site "FreeRepublic.com," the discussion began by referring relatively mildly to Mr. Sunstein's book about the political consequences of the Internet as "thinly veiled liberal." But as the discussion picked up steam, the rhetoric of the respondents, who insisted that they had not and would not read the book itself, became more heated. Eventually, they were referring to Mr. Sunstein as "a nazi" and a "pointy headed socialist windbag."
The discussion illustrated the phenomenon that Mr. Sunstein and various social scientists have called "group polarization" in which like-minded people in an isolated group reinforce one another's views, which then harden into more extreme positions. Even one of his critics on the site acknowledged the shift. "Amazingly enough," he wrote, "it looks like Sunstein has polarized this group into unanimous agreement about him." An expletive followed.
We see this in many places, even in Slashdot, where people familiar with technologies, philosophies, and even religions not condoned by the group are harrased and punished by the virulent commentary and conduct of some members. The alternate views are surpressed, even if there may be some benifit from them if you actually looked at them.
This isolates the communities and makes them easier to handle by outside interests. It isolates the slashdot community.
Philosophies are operating systems for the mind. It pays to understand the design principles of these operating systems in detail, and how they work and go together.
Coming back to our example of King Canute, the internet might not be like the ocean. To some extant, it may be like islands of territories that we are creating ourselves with our activities. It may be a universe built up of the activities of all of its participants. This universe, even though it is still growing at a large rate, is limited in thew technical sense. It may be large, but it is limited. You can control sections of it, even large sections of it. The game for some is to control the most important sections of it.
Thus we have MS usurping the jargon of calling the Internet the Net with their
.NET. They are positioning themselves to control what they feel is the most important sector of the net, and marginalize the rest. Other interests are doing the same such as China, France, etc. each being polarized from the rest of the world.The future of the Net (not the
.NET) is difficult to predict indeed.
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What MS really fearsThis sums it up nicely:
Of all those nicely dressed Microsoft staffers, which ones do you think were manning the booths, shaking hands, handing out swag, and answering dumb questions on their own dime? How many of them do you think would hang around if the district manager called and said, "Hey, we're a little over budget this quarter, so would you mind staffing the XP expo for free?"
Even if one or two of them agreed to spend a couple of hours there off the clock, it would be ridiculous to think for a second that any of them would spend most of their spare time for months preparing for the show, making repeated calls to vendors, recruiting assistance, and attending to the myriad details that go into getting a show presence ready. But that's exactly what the SLUG show committee did, tirelessly, just because they wanted to.
This is what they are afraid of, because ultimately, a drone is just a drone.
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A common roadA common road is the shareware route.
You get version 1.0 up which provides proof of concept and proof of potential coolness factor and lots of feedback.
This also gets you going on a basic website where you can find places to do basic merchandising for you life coffe mugs and t-shirts There are places out there that will seel t-shirts, for example, make their profit in the base price, and send you a check for your markup.
And then you can start moving to version 2.0 - Point being that you set yourself up so that the cost of everything is either free, or covered by the money you bring in.
Basic economics: Money In minus Money Out equals profits.
It is possible to be proftible from very early on, but it takes discipline
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Ballmer admits lack of MS Innovation?Yeah. It's good competition. It will force us to be innovative.
Isn't this admitting that they had no innovation before?
sort of a fruedian slip there, accidently admit something that they wish to deny.
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Freedom as a cancerLet it said that unlimited freedom with no restrictions and no responsibilies and no consequences is as destructive as unlimited restrictionas. These are two sides of the same coin.
More and more often little thoughts come into my mind, things like MS is to the Net (not
.NET) as Ebola is to a Human. With the rising security issues raised by Gibson of GRC Research, this is starting to become realistic.Ms is becoming the thing they say they are not. Because MS has adopted the position a that anyone else's freedom is evil. That is the voice of a fascist.
Maybe not using the words of a fascist, but certainly, in the heart.
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GlassThe best solution I ever saw to this problem that I ever saw proposed was to mix radioactive material in glass, encasing it in glass, then dump it at the bottom of the marianas trench (which is 7 miles deep) where it will eventually get subducted back into the earth.
You can make the glass pellets small enough that they will spread out evenly over a large area.
It is that, or launch it into the sun, but we do not want a challenger type disaster when launching nuclear waste.
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Re:This was built several years agothere is a press release on the Ford Excursion here:
http://www.ford-trucks.com/news/news88.html
Apparently there were going to run it off of propane.
But an even larger one is the Chrysler Unimog, snippet here:
http://www.climateark.org/articles/2001/1st/dachv
e hi.htmwhich is somewhat imprssive:
DaimlerChrysler's decision to market its nine-foot-tall Unimog truck as a luxurious off-road vehicle has environmentalists fuming about the necessity for this oversized "dinosaur" on US roads. The 12,500-pound behemoth--bigger than General Motors' Hummer and Ford's Excursion--gets about 10 miles to the gallon. SUVs, driven by many urban and suburban residents who never go off-road, have come under fire for a number of reasons, including poor gas mileage and safety issues when involved in two-car collisions.
I have this picture of this being driven by a short little old lady who only visists the grandkids, and plays doom on the weekends.
(I really did know a silver haired lady who used to go into one store to get the latest doom expansion packs. It was funny as heck to hear her talk!)
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Writing StyleI have found that while Steve Gibson has had a taste for a melodramatic writing style, that the technical detail in his writing is fairly solid and is certainly above average. So with that grain of salt the article is worth looking at:
Fortunately -- the attacking machines were all security-compromised Windows-based PC's. In a fluke of laziness (or good judgement?) that has saved the Internet from untold levels of disaster, Microsoft's engineers never fully implemented the complete "Unix Sockets" specification in any of the previous version of Windows. (Windows 2000 has it.) As a consequence, Windows machines (compared to Unix machines) are blessedly limited in their ability to generate deliberately invalid Internet packets.
It is impossible for an application running under any version of Windows 3.x/95/98/ME or NT to "spoof" its source IP or generate malicious TCP packets such as SYN or ACK floods.
As a result, Internet security experts know that non-spoofing Internet attacks are almost certainly being generated by Windows-based PC's. Forging the IP address of an attacking machine (spoofing) is such a trivial thing to do under any of the various UNIX-like operating systems, and it is so effective in hiding the attacking machines, that no hacker would pass up the opportunity if it were available
This has horribly changed for the worse with the release of Windows 2000 and the pending release of Windows XP. For no good reason whatsoever, Microsoft has equipped Windows 2000 and XP with the ability FOR ANY APPLICATION to generate incredibly malicious Internet traffic, including spoofed source IP's and SYN-flooding full scale Denial of Service (DoS) attacks!
So we are left with the vision of Loads of potentially insecure Windows boxes - open to the world - being used for more DDOS attacks.
None of which will be pleasing to the MS loyalists
thank you microsoft. This last point is kinda important:
I hope it is becoming clear to everyone reading this, that we can not have a stable Internet economy while 13 year-old children are free to deny arbitrary Internet services with impunity.
and we wonder about the future of the internet.
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wanted: Space MechanicsI think it is becoming obvious that we are going to need nore and more often the space going equivalent of a construction worker in space. Someone in their late 20s early 30s, who is not a scientist, but whose job it is to help handle the repair jobs and construction work.
I believe that the majority of people who make the flight average then to twenty years older. I hate to say it, but at that point often you are starting to slide physically, even if you are peaking metally. This will take a whole new training approach as well, since you are dealing with someone with a technician/mechanic level of knowledge. Side note: you will be looking for the short guys. The day of the 6'4" astronaut is not here yet, just due to weight considerations.
Which brings up the idea of a new job title: space mechanic.
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