You want Star Trek to happen for real? It has to start somewhere, and here comes the best thing to help that along
No, Bush's proposal will not help you get Star Trek technology faster.
Star Trek occurs several centuries into the future. In the meantime, we will deal with ordinary issues like rising retirement and health care costs. We need a balanced budget, a sustainable environment, and peace. Otherwise, you may end up with NO space program.
The key word here is "sustainable". NASA may get an extra billion $$$ now, but what will happen to that Star Trek future when the deficit gets out of control?
Without a self sufficent population off planet, we are one slip up from lacking existance.
So, you want to ensure the survival of the species by colonizing space. Okay, fine.
But pumping funding into NASA now is not necessarily the best way to accomplish that.
Space colonization is not something that you do overnight. It's not like buying a new computer, where you pay for it and then you've got it. It's research, and the definition of research is that you don't know what the results will be.
So you need a long-term, sustainable effort for who-knows-how-long.
But space exploration doesn't happen in a vacuum. (oh, I guess it does -- heh). I mean, it's not the only thing happening here on Earth. There is the economy, the environment, etc. This is a complex system.
Think of an ecosystem. You look at the ocean and you see fish. To get fish, you need the stuff that fish feed on, like insects. In fact, you need lots of other things too, like light. You need the whole ecosystem before you can have fish.
Your space mission is analogous to my fish. To have space travel, you need scientists, materials, and lots of other things. To get those things, you need an economy. In fact, this is a really BIG fish, so you need a sustainable economy that will be healthy for a long time. I bet that you'll need a sustainable environment, too. I don't seriously believe that we'll outrun the need for a sustainable environment by jumping planets.
So, to accomplish space exploration, nations need to deal with ordinary things like health care first. It's all one ecosystem. That is why I want to see a balanced budget more than I want to see a new Mars initiative.
So we'll dodge the next killer asteroid by ferrying everyone to Mars? You have a thing for drama!
I'm not against space travel or against establishing distant colonies. Someday. But what about pacing ourselves? Fix the problems relevant to 2004 first; for example, by getting a balanced and sustainable budget. Then we'll be more prepared to achieve scientific greatness in the next centuries.
all the little perceived speed gains mean as much as Expose for me.
Do you really find Expose useful? I think it's easier just to click on the application icon in the dock, then look within the windows of that particular application (for example, by using the Window menu). Everything is where I expect it to be... not randomly placed into tiles.
A distressingly large number of iBook owners have suffered logic board failures.
Yes, indeed. My own iBook died 13 months after I purchased it -- just one month after the warranty expired. I brought it to my local Apple store. They told me that it would cost over $700 for a new logic board. At the time, laptops similar to mine were selling for just $900 on eBay.
I refused to pay for it. I told the manager that I'd replace it with a PC. That was no bullshit... I was really prepared to do exactly that. However, she gave me a phone number to call. I guess it was their pissed-off-customer hotline. After some discussion with the phone rep, he agreed to cut the price down to about the cost of the AppleCare plan. So I bought the repair.
The repair was nice and easy. Less than 72 hours after I put my iBook in the mail, I got it back. Still works great today -- over 15 months since it was fixed. With service like that, I almost forgot any bad words that I ever said about Apple.
mac ie still gets used quite a bit soley because it's the default browser shipped with 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2.
IE is still necessary because a lot of websites break other browsers. I've encountered several government web sites that don't work with Safari. For example:
Dear Direct Loan Borrower,
Thank you for your email inquiry. The Safari browser for MAC is not a supported browser to access our web site. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Sincerely,
The Direct Loan Servicing Center Email Support
Each web site that broke was an ordinary fill-out-the-form web site that had some code to verify that the input was well-formed. You can't submit the form until you've entered valid data. When using Safari, there is always a field for which the verification fails, usually something completely ordinary like a date field. How hard is it to code up a browser-independent way of verifying that the date looks correct? What happened to standards compliance?
I guess when your work is done by the lowest bidder, details like this get ignored. The government says "make it do this and that", then the cheapest contractor says "that can only be done on IE". Bullshit.
U.S. Corporations get a lot of help from the government in the form of tax breaks, subsidies, etc. This is all based on the premise that the businesses contribute to the local economy, so they're worth it. When that's no longer the case, then the corporations should be cut off from all of those bonuses. Then fairness ensues.
Apple will miss their goal. They sold 1 million songs in 3 days, so they'll sell 87 million in the next 261 days... reaching 100 million next June. Apple said they'd sell that many by April. Sales are low -- by Apple's own benchmark!
Despite that, I love their music store. I contributed to that 1 million sales figure this weekend. I hadn't bought any new music for three years before iTMS was launched. Now it's a real treat to browse for new music, especially in older genres (Jazz, Opera) that aren't so mainstream nowadays. Hey, just because it's old doesn't mean it doesn't rock (figuratively speaking).
The ignorance of both business and law displayed in his article is nothing short of breathtaking.
Yeah, I had the same feeling when I read some of his articles about software development. He seemed pretty off-the-wall for a guy who has run development groups charged with very large projects including an entire from-scratch operating system for Apple and the first version of AOL.
But I enjoy his columns anyway, because he has so many risky ideas. I like crazy ideas. Which would you rather read about: "lateral solutions" that fail in interesting ways, or more retreads of "industry = evil, so I'm just gonna grab what I can get"?
The CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario. Take the trip up to Sky Pod, which is the highest public observation deck in the world, at 447m
I was there on a foggy day. There wasn't much fog; in fact, I had no idea that it was foggy until I got up into the tower. Then I couldn't see the ground anywhere. Disappointing.
Sec. 4. (1) A person who sends or causes to be sent an unsolicited commercial e-mail through an e-mail service provider located in this state or to an e-mail address held by a resident of this state shall not do any of the following:
it's quite funny sometimes when they get all riled up and resort to the old "I'm gonna trade it in for a PC" line.
You just described me.
The motherboard on my first Mac died one month after the warranty expired. I wouldn't pay for a new motherboard. I told the repair rep that I'd replace it with a PC. She gave me a phone number. I guess it was their pissed-off-customer hotline. The new rep agreed to cut the price in half, so I bought the repair.
My iBook returned less than 72 hours after I mailed it across the US. Still works great today. Count me in for a new G5 / PowerPC 970.
there was more than one occasion when driving home after playing netrek for too long I felt the quite natural urge to ogg the oncoming traffic.
Netrek affected my driving too. Like when that guy pulled out in front of me last week. "Damn twink!" And when I got stuck on the freeway behind one semi passing the other at.1 MPH more. "Retarded Twinks!" And basically anyone who bought an SUV just to drive around downtown Detroit. "Twinks!"
The fact that Fox news has become so popular shows how far off the likes of CNN were from the "joe average" american feelings about topics.
CNN has become irrelevant, but not because they hold some political view that disagrees with "joe average".
CNN is the network that spent months fixating on Chandra Levy. When that went nowhere, they filled the void with "more soft news" (quoting their CEO). Today, my farts are more insightful than CNN.
Slashdot seems to run a lot of obituaries. Perhaps there should be a topic for it.
With what icon?
Some of the most obvious choices seem like the worst. I don't want some cheezy grim reaper cartoon. A tombstone is just morbid. There must be some better way to represent a lifetime of accomplishment.
Something earthy (from nature, not cyberspace) and subtle. Perhaps footsteps in the sand.
Slashdot Mirror
You want Star Trek to happen for real? It has to start somewhere, and here comes the best thing to help that along
No, Bush's proposal will not help you get Star Trek technology faster.
Star Trek occurs several centuries into the future. In the meantime, we will deal with ordinary issues like rising retirement and health care costs. We need a balanced budget, a sustainable environment, and peace. Otherwise, you may end up with NO space program.
The key word here is "sustainable". NASA may get an extra billion $$$ now, but what will happen to that Star Trek future when the deficit gets out of control?
Without a self sufficent population off planet, we are one slip up from lacking existance.
So, you want to ensure the survival of the species by colonizing space. Okay, fine.
But pumping funding into NASA now is not necessarily the best way to accomplish that.
Space colonization is not something that you do overnight. It's not like buying a new computer, where you pay for it and then you've got it. It's research, and the definition of research is that you don't know what the results will be.
So you need a long-term, sustainable effort for who-knows-how-long.
But space exploration doesn't happen in a vacuum. (oh, I guess it does -- heh). I mean, it's not the only thing happening here on Earth. There is the economy, the environment, etc. This is a complex system.
Think of an ecosystem. You look at the ocean and you see fish. To get fish, you need the stuff that fish feed on, like insects. In fact, you need lots of other things too, like light. You need the whole ecosystem before you can have fish.
Your space mission is analogous to my fish. To have space travel, you need scientists, materials, and lots of other things. To get those things, you need an economy. In fact, this is a really BIG fish, so you need a sustainable economy that will be healthy for a long time. I bet that you'll need a sustainable environment, too. I don't seriously believe that we'll outrun the need for a sustainable environment by jumping planets.
So, to accomplish space exploration, nations need to deal with ordinary things like health care first. It's all one ecosystem. That is why I want to see a balanced budget more than I want to see a new Mars initiative.
And the dinosaurs couldn't handle one asteroid.
So we'll dodge the next killer asteroid by ferrying everyone to Mars? You have a thing for drama!
I'm not against space travel or against establishing distant colonies. Someday. But what about pacing ourselves? Fix the problems relevant to 2004 first; for example, by getting a balanced and sustainable budget. Then we'll be more prepared to achieve scientific greatness in the next centuries.
Diverting funds from NASA to domestic programs will not change anything except to kneecap our development as a multi-planet species.
"multi-planet" species? We can't handle one planet.
The biggest FLOPS can be found here.
all the little perceived speed gains mean as much as Expose for me.
Do you really find Expose useful? I think it's easier just to click on the application icon in the dock, then look within the windows of that particular application (for example, by using the Window menu). Everything is where I expect it to be... not randomly placed into tiles.
A distressingly large number of iBook owners have suffered logic board failures.
Yes, indeed. My own iBook died 13 months after I purchased it -- just one month after the warranty expired. I brought it to my local Apple store. They told me that it would cost over $700 for a new logic board. At the time, laptops similar to mine were selling for just $900 on eBay.
I refused to pay for it. I told the manager that I'd replace it with a PC. That was no bullshit... I was really prepared to do exactly that. However, she gave me a phone number to call. I guess it was their pissed-off-customer hotline. After some discussion with the phone rep, he agreed to cut the price down to about the cost of the AppleCare plan. So I bought the repair.
The repair was nice and easy. Less than 72 hours after I put my iBook in the mail, I got it back. Still works great today -- over 15 months since it was fixed. With service like that, I almost forgot any bad words that I ever said about Apple.
mac ie still gets used quite a bit soley because it's the default browser shipped with 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2.
IE is still necessary because a lot of websites break other browsers. I've encountered several government web sites that don't work with Safari. For example:
Each web site that broke was an ordinary fill-out-the-form web site that had some code to verify that the input was well-formed. You can't submit the form until you've entered valid data. When using Safari, there is always a field for which the verification fails, usually something completely ordinary like a date field. How hard is it to code up a browser-independent way of verifying that the date looks correct? What happened to standards compliance?
I guess when your work is done by the lowest bidder, details like this get ignored. The government says "make it do this and that", then the cheapest contractor says "that can only be done on IE". Bullshit.
You're merely being forced to compete fairly.
Not quite.
U.S. Corporations get a lot of help from the government in the form of tax breaks, subsidies, etc. This is all based on the premise that the businesses contribute to the local economy, so they're worth it. When that's no longer the case, then the corporations should be cut off from all of those bonuses. Then fairness ensues.
the "United Nations" (ironic designation if there ever was one)
"I'm a uniter, not a divider."
Apple will miss their goal. They sold 1 million songs in 3 days, so they'll sell 87 million in the next 261 days... reaching 100 million next June. Apple said they'd sell that many by April. Sales are low -- by Apple's own benchmark!
Despite that, I love their music store. I contributed to that 1 million sales figure this weekend. I hadn't bought any new music for three years before iTMS was launched. Now it's a real treat to browse for new music, especially in older genres (Jazz, Opera) that aren't so mainstream nowadays. Hey, just because it's old doesn't mean it doesn't rock (figuratively speaking).
It does suck that Windows doesn't allow any more fine-grained control than Small, Large or Extra Large fonts.
Yeah, I wish that MS had "innovated" up an antialiased font for Win2000.
Bleh.
The ignorance of both business and law displayed in his article is nothing short of breathtaking.
Yeah, I had the same feeling when I read some of his articles about software development. He seemed pretty off-the-wall for a guy who has run development groups charged with very large projects including an entire from-scratch operating system for Apple and the first version of AOL.
But I enjoy his columns anyway, because he has so many risky ideas. I like crazy ideas. Which would you rather read about: "lateral solutions" that fail in interesting ways, or more retreads of "industry = evil, so I'm just gonna grab what I can get"?
The CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario. Take the trip up to Sky Pod, which is the highest public observation deck in the world, at 447m
I was there on a foggy day. There wasn't much fog; in fact, I had no idea that it was foggy until I got up into the tower. Then I couldn't see the ground anywhere. Disappointing.
Who and what has to be in Michigan for this to work?
Read the article:
Sec. 4. (1) A person who sends or causes to be sent an unsolicited commercial e-mail through an e-mail service provider located in this state or to an e-mail address held by a resident of this state shall not do any of the following:
they never wrote anything back..
...probably because they were shut down.
it's quite funny sometimes when they get all riled up and resort to the old "I'm gonna trade it in for a PC" line.
You just described me.
The motherboard on my first Mac died one month after the warranty expired. I wouldn't pay for a new motherboard. I told the repair rep that I'd replace it with a PC. She gave me a phone number. I guess it was their pissed-off-customer hotline. The new rep agreed to cut the price in half, so I bought the repair.
My iBook returned less than 72 hours after I mailed it across the US. Still works great today. Count me in for a new G5 / PowerPC 970.
there was more than one occasion when driving home after playing netrek for too long I felt the quite natural urge to ogg the oncoming traffic.
Netrek affected my driving too. Like when that guy pulled out in front of me last week. "Damn twink!" And when I got stuck on the freeway behind one semi passing the other at .1 MPH more. "Retarded Twinks!" And basically anyone who bought an SUV just to drive around downtown Detroit. "Twinks!"
The fact that Fox news has become so popular shows how far off the likes of CNN were from the "joe average" american feelings about topics.
CNN has become irrelevant, but not because they hold some political view that disagrees with "joe average".
CNN is the network that spent months fixating on Chandra Levy. When that went nowhere, they filled the void with "more soft news" (quoting their CEO). Today, my farts are more insightful than CNN.
In fact there are lots of comments that state that capitalism is working.
I'm not moved by the number of knee-jerk replies. They're easy to submit so they characteristically come in droves.
However, I can hardly blame anyone for that. I don't have much time or patience for slashdot comments either.
Salon has failed, capitalism has suceeded.
Look at the media landscape, and try to find the "success". Decent news and analysis is going extinct like the dinosaurs.
I don't have much to say, except that I'm a Salon Premium subscriber and I DEPEND on Salon. There is nothing else like it. No substitute.
I'm sure there will be a lot of comments like: "this is just capitalism at work, survival of the fittest, etc."
If Salon goes under, then it's an example of how capitalism can FAIL.
Read more about the loop-hole that NEEDS to get plugged
But the SUV loophole won't be plugged. In fact, it will be expanded.
I think the article doesn't tell the whole story:
the judge agreed that Russian law does not apply to the agents' actions.
I suspect that the judge's opinion was more like this:
"It is not my duty as a federal judge in the U.S. to enforce Russian law."
So it's not an issue for the courts, but for diplomacy. "I'll respect your laws if you respect mine."
I must have been entirely too used to reading articles on CNN, Salon, etc. which look entirely too much like press releases for Microsoft
Salon?!?
Does this look like a Microsoft press release?
Slashdot seems to run a lot of obituaries. Perhaps there should be a topic for it.
With what icon?
Some of the most obvious choices seem like the worst. I don't want some cheezy grim reaper cartoon. A tombstone is just morbid. There must be some better way to represent a lifetime of accomplishment.
Something earthy (from nature, not cyberspace) and subtle. Perhaps footsteps in the sand.