It's not that we trump your sovereignty, it's the fact that you wanted a piece of the pie that we created (and controlled) in the first place.
Back then, it was simply a business matter. These days, it shouldn't be treated as such.
It needs to be treated like a political matter. You have your territory, and we have ours, just as you have your infrastructure in your country, and we have ours.
By the way, we aren't the world police if we haven't been acting as such. 3 generations ago, perhaps we did, but our current idea of having a bigger stick isn't about keeping the world's peace, it's about keeping internal peace, which other nations happen to depend on for a sense of their own internal peace.
What we've already observed is the fact that cyber-warfare is a very real reality. Sure, it hasn't become a problem for the lowest common denominator, but there is no un-crossing that line, and no amount of pretending can make that potential threat go away. We can prevent cyber-warfare, or we can promote it.
One of the simplest ways to promote it is to treat it like "anything goes". Rules (including social rules!) have to apply; and politics has shown us a way. Treaties, alliances, and all that good stuff -have- to happen, or it'll be a dog eat dog world (just imagine... another country trashing the NYSE - wouldn't that be a problem)
Politics isn't all bad. It brings us a lot of the sense of safety we tend to take for granted. We can say that we actually trust someone, and we don't have to look over our shoulder at them so much. Those boundaries have made economic and national interests a reality.
Cyberspace can be relegated to a position where it's just a national asset. However, it must be stressed that it's also a national asset that can hurt us just as much as it can help us, and where the boundaries exist is becoming more and more blurred. One country can (very easily) do nefarious things with another country's connection to the internet.
In the advent of a high-tech war (not a low-tech guerrilla warfare), we're at a disadvantage. We have the most to lose, because so much of our assets depend on the Internet Backbone. Can you imagine a NYSE without an internet to connect it to places? It would mean simultaneous economic woes as well as mass confusion and panic.
The very design of the internet works against us. Right now, the entire backbone of the internet is not one that lends itself easily to politics. Right now, it's a sort of uber-organization, but we can't exactly just depend on it to be around forever without a backup plan, can we? It simply has to be politicized for it to exist in the long run. Net neutrality provides a framework where it can happen, and where things can become heterogeneous (and independent) in a peaceful manner.
The next step up from Net Neutrality is to draw up equivalents of treaties, which would allow everyone a chance to protect their (business or national) interests. After all, cyberspace is not just an asset, it's a territory where things can happen. Those treaties will mostly fall along the lines of political boundaries.
Of course, a treaty has no weight without a penalty attached to its violation. Even if that penalty is very simple (i.e. you just hacked us, so you can't have a connection to us any more).
We're talking about the dawn of a new age, where we're going to be hiring politicians to talk computer lingo. This -has- to be handled with care, and with all of the expertise that is relevant to politics, for it to not blow up in our faces. If we go about this the wrong way, it could lead to open warfare, which is why we need the right approach.
By the way, the last thing I want as the cyberwarfare czar is a RIAA lawyer... because they'll demand things of other nations that would blow up in our face(s)... and they already extort the average Joe. They've already got into many other places of the gov't.
The boss' hot 18-year-old daughter won't get Mr. Nice Guy enough places.
Firstly, do you really need the office drama that much? If you do, just "anonymously" have a bunch of strippers show up for your hated enemy's office lunch. That itself would liven things up in a lot of ways.
Secondly, do you really need to risk a social faux pas? If you do, simply stick it to the Man. Tell him it was his responsibility for making your job a living hell.
Thirdly, do you really want to come across as "that desperate guy"? Once you get tagged on that, you're everyone's doormat.
There's a lot to be said about being the nice guy. It doesn't mean you're everyone's doormat, nor does it mean that you have to prove your little man's worth to the world. What it does mean is that you're able to say "no" politely, with no drama, and with little liability to anyone.
There's plenty of ways to vent that angst; "Scoring" isn't dependent on someone's worth as an individual.
Agreed. They are changing their business model (for the better!), they should at least get a little encouragement from us.
Truth be told, the number of undisclosed vulnerabilities that MS has patched is... undisclosed. Take for example anti-trojan patches. How many individual patches were made to keep a single trojan from spreading? Were they lumped together and called something else?
Never underestimate corporate ingenuity when it comes to telling a white ie. Sure, a patch is a patch, but it's not always what we think it is.
That being said, I like honesty. I'll continue using Linux instead (and I'm dreading updating Vista now).
Disney is a marketing and entertainment machine; its skills in the storytelling department were present up until the old guard died.
As a kid, I never liked Disney movies much. There were only a few recent movies I really enjoyed from them (Lion King, etc), and the reason I liked them is because those stories had -depth- and were told well. As it turns out, though, I'm a difficult person to please.
I'm someone who likes to be able to find the hidden truths in things. As a kid, I read the entire Hans Christian Andersen collection, and I was quite surprised to find out that the stories I grew up with were Disney-ified quite a bit. (did you know that The Little Mermaid was originally a horror story?) The Disney-ification is most apparent in its whole princess thing (just look at Hannah Montana for a reminder), which is enlightening up to a point, but beyond that, it's like expecting substance that isn't really there. Granted, you have to appease an audience to make a story work, so it's only a petty irk.
Pixar does things differently. It tells a story, it even bends the truth (look at Toys, Cars, Monsters Inc, etc), but it's very cut-and-dried where the truth ends (toys don't really move, there's no monsters in the closet, etc). The connection to reality is there on many levels (even the various romance scenes that Pixar comes up with), whereas Disney's idea of reality is rooted in the Disney sub-culture, which is... unique. (much of the time, it mirrors Disneyland)
Disclaimer: I've never been to any Disney theme park, and I have no plans to do so (yet). Perhaps that's why I'm so cynical towards Disney.
I agree with the gist of the parent post. However, does 'shell shock' really apply well to broader definitions (say... rape victims)? PTSD is dehumanizing, I agree, but it's accurate.
Being able to communicate concisely is important too. Saying the equivalent of "oogah boogah" doesn't translate well when everyone else is saying "boo".
If you want a word that fits the description better, make it up! English is a flexible language, it's not set in stone.
This technology will go much farther than intended...
Parents who want to track "problem" children Husband/Wife who wants to know where you really were last night And for the random person who really wants to know how lost he got himself...
This technology won't become ubiquitous, but it'll certainly be fun to abuse.
When you -own- the books, you don't mind marking it up. Whether you do it for easier note-taking, or better information absorption, or whatever, it's still helpful. Books from the past are also entertaining to look at, because you see "oh, so that's how good my handwriting was" and things like that. It's much more personal. PDFs would have a very hard time matching that, simply due to the nature of the technology.
The difference between reading on a laptop vs out of a book is the same difference between going outside and staying inside. Yes, the outside is 'always there', but a stereotypical nerd doesn't usually go there without a task to do, right? When things are out of the mind of the individual, they tend to do different things.
Go make a study and let us know what you think with science behind you, not superstition.
Try gardening, and tell me that there's not a part of humanity that isn't connected to the ground. Hunting is the same way, and there's no reason why story telling is any different. This is practical experience, not superstition, and science can back it up; I simply haven't bothered to do my own empirical tests on my own observations. (study the effects of color on the psyche sometime!)
College-goers can most likely afford a Kindle-knockoff sooner than the average grade schooler. The incentives are there, as well as the reasoning (fewer books to carry everywhere? why not?) It doesn't mean it makes good sense if it throws their study habits out of the window though. At the age of middle school, things like History, English, and Math tend to be very book-bound. If I had to make textbooks obsolete, I'd start at that age, on those subjects, because it's at that age that study habits can be built from the ground up.
Your entire rant seems like a knee-jerk reaction to new technology. Would you kindly read it again and tell me if I'm really all that wrong?
I enjoy new technology quite a bit, but I'm observant enough to see that it can also be more than what we bargain for. Newer isn't always better, as old, good technology (the functional good, not the sentimental good) can attest. Perhaps it was a knee-jerk reaction, and for that I'll apologize, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong, or that your judgment of my post is wrong.
I simply don't enjoy wallowing in an intellectual quagmire. "What's the difference" is a world of difference for people who care.
That glorified "doc reader" can do far more than you think, Adobe makes it possible to have a document in a file, with all of the features of a website.
Yes, it's "only a glorified.doc reader", but only things as powerful as TeX and such even compare. This is akin to saying "MS Word is only a glorified.txt reader".
I see this as a quick fix, but it's using some strong medicine.
Putting it into.pdf form (or whatever form they might fancy) will only inhibit the ability to think. You can't write down notes in the margins, even if you can highlight sections of text. This is analogous to freehand drawing vs computer aided drawing (creativity vs productivity). The single exception I can think of is taking pictures out of the.pdf's (if the DRM allows it).
By suddenly moving away from textbooks, we're moving further away from an old part of the brain, which has aided us in learning ever since humanity learned to tell stories from wall paintings. In general, computers can inhibit the brain processes that aid us in mental growth, mostly because it prevents the mind from subconsciously dwelling on a topic for extended periods. Computerized reading devices (Kindle-type products) would fare much better, but those require an investment that California may not be willing to buck up.
I'm not saying this can't work, but I am saying that it would work for people who have adapted to it (which most of the system there has not). What I'm also saying is that creativity within the 'new school' students will plummet. For people to adapt best to this change in learning mediums, they should start from a young age. You can expect old dogs to learn new tricks works, but does it work well enough?
Something I will stress though: there will be people who cotton to this new medium fairly well, and there will be those who won't. I personally would feel that (if I were a child again) I would end up in the camp who wouldn't, mostly because of the subculture that will show up around this policy change. (I went through textbooks very quickly as a child, it wouldn't be in my interests to be "stuck with" the rest of the class simply because of DRM issues)
There will be good aspects to this though: social life will figure out ways to conform to these electronic resources. Instant messaging is proof of this.
Say what you will about doodles being good, or doodles being bad, or even a philosophical debate over things like television and such; but not everything that technology's subcultures has brought us has been benign. While this new policy does sound benign to the regular person, it will affect people both positively and negatively. It needs to be respected as a dual-edged sword, instead of a stress-borne whim.
Please excuse this poem, which some could argue is cornier than a corn cob...
The Lawyer who turned Pirate:
There once was a lawyer from Switzerland
Who was paid to take things hand over hand
When someone called the kettle black
And at this lawyer took a whack
He's now known as part of a pirate band.
Fragmentation may be an issue, but trying to fix fragmentation by making a one-shot wonder isn't going to make it less fragmented, it's only going to make it more so.
Especially because it -is- Linux... I'm sure there's still people out there that are using e9 and xfce (for their own reasons).
I myself am not disappointed with the fragmented nature of things. It gives me choice. I got tired of toying with GNOME, so I moved to KDE.
Both of them have good applications, and yes, there are some applications that I'd still use over the 'native' counterparts, because they're just that much better. That's not a problem (to me) either.
Android is lighter and all; which is a significant plus. Providing an alternative to the heavyweights (like X) is a good thing! However, as another alternative, it's only going to fragment the landscape that much more. (i.e. can I run Android apps on my linux netbook? yes, but only if you run a container app).
And then, I have to ask: would you still want to use that KDE or GNOME app on your android netbook? Would you want it to be -capable- of running GNOME or KDE apps? (at worst, this means running a minimalized X server on top of Android).
The only solution to being able to run those apps at all would mean getting a high-end smartbook. This would include things like more ram, some sort of hard drive (I'd go with SSD here), and things like that.
And in the meantime, the general public would have to deal with a limited application environment. Which... isn't a big problem, provided it can at least do the basics.
Can it be used against us? Yes. Can we prevent those attacks? Most likely, and with a little time.
The real question is -how likely- is it to be a problem?
DoS attacks on the internet can be sent from anywhere. DoS attacks on the celluar network can only be sent from within that area. (afaik)
This limitation alone limits the scope of this type of DoS attack, making it a tool of advance planning and high-profile national security aspects than a tool to be feared by the average Joe.
If M$ were to move outside of the USA, anyone with a brain (and a mind for subterfuge) would see that it's a target for electronic espionage and sabotage.
Take for example, MS knows every backdoor that it's built into its own software, most (or all) of those made at the request of the Pentagon.
Then take for example, China or Turkey or wherever seeing a "for sale" sign on all future backdoors being made. Isn't that a yummy idea?
Then, anyone who doesn't want to move away from M$ software would be subject to the plannings of the foreign governments who bribe M$!
I have to ask though: if M$ is this money-starved, why don't they put that 'for sale' sign up now?
Mumbai wouldn't work; not because of it's location, but because the culture shock would be too much for most of the people in Redmond.
Cheap? I think M$ would want quality. It can get cheap from the tax benefits, but quality is much harder to find (and keep).
Fast-growing also tends to go hand-in-hand with under-regulation. I'm not saying that Mumbai is under-regulated (I haven't been there to say one way or another) but it is an observation.
M$ moving to Mumbai would disrupt things more than you'd think. Consider the crime that it would bring with it (pirate from the M$ labs instead of buying their overpriced products? sure), as well as the political corruption (we bring you jobs, you owe us a favor, and another favor, and another...)
In a completely computer-oriented hospital system (as more and more hospitals are doing, due to the tax benefits and lack of penalties), it's important that it's up and functional always.
Take for example: you don't want to give a patient food that they're allergic to, or medicine that they're allergic to for that matter. All of that is tracked by computers.
When there's actual paperwork involved with a computerized medical establishment, it gets very hairy. A patient may have notified someone of an important condition, only for it to be noted down and slipped into a stack (in this case, a growing stack) of paper. Such things can lead to lawsuits of malpractice and various other thing, including damaging the reputation of the hospital.
Furthermore, even when things are going -right-, you don't want paperwork at all in a computerized record system. Paperwork means that something hasn't been processed yet, and it may be days (or weeks) when that paperwork is found or processed. In the meantime, people are getting the (wrong) treatment.
I remember reading a story about a chronic asthma case where only a specific medication worked. He notified the same clinic 4 times, and the same hospital endlessly, of this, and it nearly led to his death. He lived because after a week (!) of being in the hospital, someone finally got around to the paperwork, and he was given the appropriate prescription.
Computerization of the medical establishment sounds like progress, but enforced computerization is -not- a step in the right direction. Proper computer management (especially in clinics and such) is important, and it's exactly those people who don't know how to make backups and such.
Washington, if the system works, don't break it, please!
Slashdot Mirror
It's not that we trump your sovereignty, it's the fact that you wanted a piece of the pie that we created (and controlled) in the first place.
Back then, it was simply a business matter. These days, it shouldn't be treated as such.
It needs to be treated like a political matter. You have your territory, and we have ours, just as you have your infrastructure in your country, and we have ours.
By the way, we aren't the world police if we haven't been acting as such. 3 generations ago, perhaps we did, but our current idea of having a bigger stick isn't about keeping the world's peace, it's about keeping internal peace, which other nations happen to depend on for a sense of their own internal peace.
What we've already observed is the fact that cyber-warfare is a very real reality. Sure, it hasn't become a problem for the lowest common denominator, but there is no un-crossing that line, and no amount of pretending can make that potential threat go away. We can prevent cyber-warfare, or we can promote it.
One of the simplest ways to promote it is to treat it like "anything goes". Rules (including social rules!) have to apply; and politics has shown us a way. Treaties, alliances, and all that good stuff -have- to happen, or it'll be a dog eat dog world (just imagine... another country trashing the NYSE - wouldn't that be a problem)
Politics isn't all bad. It brings us a lot of the sense of safety we tend to take for granted. We can say that we actually trust someone, and we don't have to look over our shoulder at them so much. Those boundaries have made economic and national interests a reality.
Cyberspace can be relegated to a position where it's just a national asset. However, it must be stressed that it's also a national asset that can hurt us just as much as it can help us, and where the boundaries exist is becoming more and more blurred. One country can (very easily) do nefarious things with another country's connection to the internet.
In the advent of a high-tech war (not a low-tech guerrilla warfare), we're at a disadvantage. We have the most to lose, because so much of our assets depend on the Internet Backbone. Can you imagine a NYSE without an internet to connect it to places? It would mean simultaneous economic woes as well as mass confusion and panic.
The very design of the internet works against us. Right now, the entire backbone of the internet is not one that lends itself easily to politics. Right now, it's a sort of uber-organization, but we can't exactly just depend on it to be around forever without a backup plan, can we? It simply has to be politicized for it to exist in the long run. Net neutrality provides a framework where it can happen, and where things can become heterogeneous (and independent) in a peaceful manner.
The next step up from Net Neutrality is to draw up equivalents of treaties, which would allow everyone a chance to protect their (business or national) interests. After all, cyberspace is not just an asset, it's a territory where things can happen. Those treaties will mostly fall along the lines of political boundaries.
Of course, a treaty has no weight without a penalty attached to its violation. Even if that penalty is very simple (i.e. you just hacked us, so you can't have a connection to us any more).
We're talking about the dawn of a new age, where we're going to be hiring politicians to talk computer lingo. This -has- to be handled with care, and with all of the expertise that is relevant to politics, for it to not blow up in our faces. If we go about this the wrong way, it could lead to open warfare, which is why we need the right approach.
By the way, the last thing I want as the cyberwarfare czar is a RIAA lawyer... because they'll demand things of other nations that would blow up in our face(s)... and they already extort the average Joe. They've already got into many other places of the gov't.
The boss' hot 18-year-old daughter won't get Mr. Nice Guy enough places.
Firstly, do you really need the office drama that much? If you do, just "anonymously" have a bunch of strippers show up for your hated enemy's office lunch. That itself would liven things up in a lot of ways.
Secondly, do you really need to risk a social faux pas? If you do, simply stick it to the Man. Tell him it was his responsibility for making your job a living hell.
Thirdly, do you really want to come across as "that desperate guy"? Once you get tagged on that, you're everyone's doormat.
There's a lot to be said about being the nice guy. It doesn't mean you're everyone's doormat, nor does it mean that you have to prove your little man's worth to the world. What it does mean is that you're able to say "no" politely, with no drama, and with little liability to anyone.
There's plenty of ways to vent that angst; "Scoring" isn't dependent on someone's worth as an individual.
Or they could just take the technology to Mars, and have a worldwide monopoly ready-made.
These are not the droids you are looking for.
Move on.
Real stillsuits don't have a setting, either they work or they don't work.
Did you get that doodad by fraternizing with the enema? really.
Friend or enema? There is no difference to the Fremen.
Don't forget the meaningless eye candy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob
Lies. Try updating Gentoo.
Agreed. They are changing their business model (for the better!), they should at least get a little encouragement from us.
Truth be told, the number of undisclosed vulnerabilities that MS has patched is... undisclosed. Take for example anti-trojan patches. How many individual patches were made to keep a single trojan from spreading? Were they lumped together and called something else?
Never underestimate corporate ingenuity when it comes to telling a white ie. Sure, a patch is a patch, but it's not always what we think it is.
That being said, I like honesty. I'll continue using Linux instead (and I'm dreading updating Vista now).
Disney is a marketing and entertainment machine; its skills in the storytelling department were present up until the old guard died.
As a kid, I never liked Disney movies much. There were only a few recent movies I really enjoyed from them (Lion King, etc), and the reason I liked them is because those stories had -depth- and were told well. As it turns out, though, I'm a difficult person to please.
I'm someone who likes to be able to find the hidden truths in things. As a kid, I read the entire Hans Christian Andersen collection, and I was quite surprised to find out that the stories I grew up with were Disney-ified quite a bit. (did you know that The Little Mermaid was originally a horror story?) The Disney-ification is most apparent in its whole princess thing (just look at Hannah Montana for a reminder), which is enlightening up to a point, but beyond that, it's like expecting substance that isn't really there. Granted, you have to appease an audience to make a story work, so it's only a petty irk.
Pixar does things differently. It tells a story, it even bends the truth (look at Toys, Cars, Monsters Inc, etc), but it's very cut-and-dried where the truth ends (toys don't really move, there's no monsters in the closet, etc). The connection to reality is there on many levels (even the various romance scenes that Pixar comes up with), whereas Disney's idea of reality is rooted in the Disney sub-culture, which is... unique. (much of the time, it mirrors Disneyland)
Disclaimer: I've never been to any Disney theme park, and I have no plans to do so (yet). Perhaps that's why I'm so cynical towards Disney.
The Lion King was a blatant rip of Kimba the White Lion (Jungle Emperor in Japan).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimba_the_White_Lion
Yes, it was a wonderful story. It's not necessarily original though.
and the new princess that all of the news outlets tittered over
I was thinking of this:
http://www.duelinganalogs.com/comic/2009/06/08/the-fat-princess-diaries/
Enjoy! (p.s. click the link at the bottom)
I agree with the gist of the parent post. However, does 'shell shock' really apply well to broader definitions (say... rape victims)? PTSD is dehumanizing, I agree, but it's accurate.
Being able to communicate concisely is important too. Saying the equivalent of "oogah boogah" doesn't translate well when everyone else is saying "boo".
If you want a word that fits the description better, make it up! English is a flexible language, it's not set in stone.
This technology will go much farther than intended...
Parents who want to track "problem" children
Husband/Wife who wants to know where you really were last night
And for the random person who really wants to know how lost he got himself...
This technology won't become ubiquitous, but it'll certainly be fun to abuse.
When you -own- the books, you don't mind marking it up. Whether you do it for easier note-taking, or better information absorption, or whatever, it's still helpful. Books from the past are also entertaining to look at, because you see "oh, so that's how good my handwriting was" and things like that. It's much more personal. PDFs would have a very hard time matching that, simply due to the nature of the technology.
The difference between reading on a laptop vs out of a book is the same difference between going outside and staying inside. Yes, the outside is 'always there', but a stereotypical nerd doesn't usually go there without a task to do, right? When things are out of the mind of the individual, they tend to do different things.
Go make a study and let us know what you think with science behind you, not superstition.
Try gardening, and tell me that there's not a part of humanity that isn't connected to the ground. Hunting is the same way, and there's no reason why story telling is any different. This is practical experience, not superstition, and science can back it up; I simply haven't bothered to do my own empirical tests on my own observations. (study the effects of color on the psyche sometime!)
College-goers can most likely afford a Kindle-knockoff sooner than the average grade schooler. The incentives are there, as well as the reasoning (fewer books to carry everywhere? why not?) It doesn't mean it makes good sense if it throws their study habits out of the window though. At the age of middle school, things like History, English, and Math tend to be very book-bound. If I had to make textbooks obsolete, I'd start at that age, on those subjects, because it's at that age that study habits can be built from the ground up.
Your entire rant seems like a knee-jerk reaction to new technology. Would you kindly read it again and tell me if I'm really all that wrong?
I enjoy new technology quite a bit, but I'm observant enough to see that it can also be more than what we bargain for. Newer isn't always better, as old, good technology (the functional good, not the sentimental good) can attest. Perhaps it was a knee-jerk reaction, and for that I'll apologize, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong, or that your judgment of my post is wrong.
I simply don't enjoy wallowing in an intellectual quagmire. "What's the difference" is a world of difference for people who care.
Kinkos can't print all of the feature bloat that Adobe has put into its PDF format though.
How do you print a sound clip?
That glorified "doc reader" can do far more than you think, Adobe makes it possible to have a document in a file, with all of the features of a website.
Yes, it's "only a glorified .doc reader", but only things as powerful as TeX and such even compare. This is akin to saying "MS Word is only a glorified .txt reader".
My first impression was "it's that time of month?"
I see this as a quick fix, but it's using some strong medicine.
Putting it into .pdf form (or whatever form they might fancy) will only inhibit the ability to think. You can't write down notes in the margins, even if you can highlight sections of text. This is analogous to freehand drawing vs computer aided drawing (creativity vs productivity). The single exception I can think of is taking pictures out of the .pdf's (if the DRM allows it).
By suddenly moving away from textbooks, we're moving further away from an old part of the brain, which has aided us in learning ever since humanity learned to tell stories from wall paintings. In general, computers can inhibit the brain processes that aid us in mental growth, mostly because it prevents the mind from subconsciously dwelling on a topic for extended periods. Computerized reading devices (Kindle-type products) would fare much better, but those require an investment that California may not be willing to buck up.
I'm not saying this can't work, but I am saying that it would work for people who have adapted to it (which most of the system there has not). What I'm also saying is that creativity within the 'new school' students will plummet. For people to adapt best to this change in learning mediums, they should start from a young age. You can expect old dogs to learn new tricks works, but does it work well enough?
Something I will stress though: there will be people who cotton to this new medium fairly well, and there will be those who won't. I personally would feel that (if I were a child again) I would end up in the camp who wouldn't, mostly because of the subculture that will show up around this policy change. (I went through textbooks very quickly as a child, it wouldn't be in my interests to be "stuck with" the rest of the class simply because of DRM issues)
There will be good aspects to this though: social life will figure out ways to conform to these electronic resources. Instant messaging is proof of this.
Say what you will about doodles being good, or doodles being bad, or even a philosophical debate over things like television and such; but not everything that technology's subcultures has brought us has been benign. While this new policy does sound benign to the regular person, it will affect people both positively and negatively. It needs to be respected as a dual-edged sword, instead of a stress-borne whim.
Please excuse this poem, which some could argue is cornier than a corn cob...
The Lawyer who turned Pirate:
There once was a lawyer from Switzerland
Who was paid to take things hand over hand
When someone called the kettle black
And at this lawyer took a whack
He's now known as part of a pirate band.
Fragmentation may be an issue, but trying to fix fragmentation by making a one-shot wonder isn't going to make it less fragmented, it's only going to make it more so.
Especially because it -is- Linux... I'm sure there's still people out there that are using e9 and xfce (for their own reasons).
I myself am not disappointed with the fragmented nature of things. It gives me choice. I got tired of toying with GNOME, so I moved to KDE.
Both of them have good applications, and yes, there are some applications that I'd still use over the 'native' counterparts, because they're just that much better. That's not a problem (to me) either.
Android is lighter and all; which is a significant plus. Providing an alternative to the heavyweights (like X) is a good thing! However, as another alternative, it's only going to fragment the landscape that much more. (i.e. can I run Android apps on my linux netbook? yes, but only if you run a container app).
And then, I have to ask: would you still want to use that KDE or GNOME app on your android netbook? Would you want it to be -capable- of running GNOME or KDE apps? (at worst, this means running a minimalized X server on top of Android).
The only solution to being able to run those apps at all would mean getting a high-end smartbook. This would include things like more ram, some sort of hard drive (I'd go with SSD here), and things like that.
And in the meantime, the general public would have to deal with a limited application environment. Which... isn't a big problem, provided it can at least do the basics.
DoS is a natural part of the race of technology.
Can it be used against us? Yes.
Can we prevent those attacks? Most likely, and with a little time.
The real question is -how likely- is it to be a problem?
DoS attacks on the internet can be sent from anywhere.
DoS attacks on the celluar network can only be sent from within that area. (afaik)
This limitation alone limits the scope of this type of DoS attack, making it a tool of advance planning and high-profile national security aspects than a tool to be feared by the average Joe.
There's also the security aspect:
If M$ were to move outside of the USA, anyone with a brain (and a mind for subterfuge) would see that it's a target for electronic espionage and sabotage.
Take for example, MS knows every backdoor that it's built into its own software, most (or all) of those made at the request of the Pentagon.
Then take for example, China or Turkey or wherever seeing a "for sale" sign on all future backdoors being made. Isn't that a yummy idea?
Then, anyone who doesn't want to move away from M$ software would be subject to the plannings of the foreign governments who bribe M$!
I have to ask though: if M$ is this money-starved, why don't they put that 'for sale' sign up now?
Mumbai wouldn't work; not because of it's location, but because the culture shock would be too much for most of the people in Redmond.
Cheap? I think M$ would want quality. It can get cheap from the tax benefits, but quality is much harder to find (and keep).
Fast-growing also tends to go hand-in-hand with under-regulation. I'm not saying that Mumbai is under-regulated (I haven't been there to say one way or another) but it is an observation.
M$ moving to Mumbai would disrupt things more than you'd think. Consider the crime that it would bring with it (pirate from the M$ labs instead of buying their overpriced products? sure), as well as the political corruption (we bring you jobs, you owe us a favor, and another favor, and another...)
It makes sense for all the wrong reasons.
In a completely computer-oriented hospital system (as more and more hospitals are doing, due to the tax benefits and lack of penalties), it's important that it's up and functional always.
Take for example: you don't want to give a patient food that they're allergic to, or medicine that they're allergic to for that matter. All of that is tracked by computers.
When there's actual paperwork involved with a computerized medical establishment, it gets very hairy. A patient may have notified someone of an important condition, only for it to be noted down and slipped into a stack (in this case, a growing stack) of paper. Such things can lead to lawsuits of malpractice and various other thing, including damaging the reputation of the hospital.
Furthermore, even when things are going -right-, you don't want paperwork at all in a computerized record system. Paperwork means that something hasn't been processed yet, and it may be days (or weeks) when that paperwork is found or processed. In the meantime, people are getting the (wrong) treatment.
I remember reading a story about a chronic asthma case where only a specific medication worked. He notified the same clinic 4 times, and the same hospital endlessly, of this, and it nearly led to his death. He lived because after a week (!) of being in the hospital, someone finally got around to the paperwork, and he was given the appropriate prescription.
Computerization of the medical establishment sounds like progress, but enforced computerization is -not- a step in the right direction. Proper computer management (especially in clinics and such) is important, and it's exactly those people who don't know how to make backups and such.
Washington, if the system works, don't break it, please!