Choice has a cost, but it also has benefits, and the benefits tend to outweigh the costs up to a point. I don't think open source has even reached that point yet. There are about half a dozen significant open source IDEs around, and that is not too many for a market with millions of developers. There are about half a dozen significant Linux distros around, and, again, that's a good number, and it's self-limiting.
And it's not like Microsoft is offering a consistent, coherent, compatible product line either: Microsoft has half a dozen supported but obsolete versions of Windows, a fuzzy platform strategy, multiple incompatible APIs, etc.
Arguing that handing over computers to a single company is a good thing is about like arguing that the Soviet Union represented a better economic system than the US; it does not. Choices have costs, but those are costs we need to bear if we want to have long-term growth, innovation, and success. We need more alternatives to Microsoft, not fewer.
Vibrant colors is trivial to achieve. dSLRs attempt to achieve accurate colors instead, which makes images from dSLRs actually look less good than many consumer cameras out of the box.
Many if not all red dwarfs are flare stars, which may pose a serious radiation problem for nearby life. If the planet is tidally locked, that might actually help.
I don't defend MS at all costs but I do see that the way to "beat" MS is by producing a better product, not by overstepping in legislation.
People have tried that for two decades and it doesn't work; through monopolistic practices,bundling, tying, and loss leaders, Microsoft kills any competition, no matter how good the technology.
Reining in Microsoft's abusive behavior is not "overstepping legislation", it's what government is supposed to do, and neither the US nor the EU are doing it aggressively enough.
Because the Jesse Helms's in those states would declare war on the Bill Clinton's in those states. That's real war, as in guns and tanks, not US$150M state-sponsored pornography.
assert that they are the only two available. this is false. historically, we've got the Articles of Confederation, of course, to illustrate an obviously distinct alternative
It's fine to talk about "alternatives", but those alternatives need to be stable in the real world. Obviously, none of the forms of government and balance of federal/state power that the US has tried before now were stable, because if they were stable, they'd still be around.
And Europe is, in fact, trying one of those alternatives: independent nation states that got together voluntarily to cooperate in some areas. They don't, in fact, share the military yet. So, maybe Europe is using the "alternative" that the US failed to achieve. But, then, the US also tried state militias, and you know what happened to them.
In the end, I think it's inevitable: if you give an organization authority to regulate commerce and to make common defense policy, that organization will end up controlling the member states, no matter what pieces of paper exist. That's clearly what happened in the US, and it's what seems to be happening in Europe.
If you don't like it, you need to come up with more than wishful thinking.
You could limit the scope of federal power to prevent it from being a hassle while still letting you pool resources when it is beneficial.
No, you couldn't, because control of the military and the ability to regulate interstate commerce are sufficient for the federal government to get essentially unlimited power. And the same is happening in Europe.
But it isn't necessarily bad; 50 states, each with their own military and braindead politicians would be far worse. The US federal government may be wasting money like there is no tomorrow (across parties, one might add), but it beats dozens of little wars and trade restrictions any day. Just ask the Europeans, who used to live that way, until a nation ruled by rednecks called "Germany" demonstrated conclusively that that kind of political organization simply didn't work anymore once the world had discovered tanks and chemical weapons. Of course, the US already got an inkling of that with its own civil war, and those conflicts wouldn't have stopped even if the US had split in two (or three or four).
Seriously, developers of security-related software often neglect usability, either making their systems insecure because people just disable or work around security, or making their systems unusable by many people.
That's like complaining about the US Federal Government. Yeah, it may suck, but the alternative--50 independent nation states on the US continent--would suck even more.
Linux users looking for open source 3D graphics drivers is NOT 5% of the market. Its not even 0.1% of the market.
With Beryl and Compiz, it's pretty much 100% of Linux users who want 3D graphics support. Furthermore, once it's there, the games and other 3D tools will follow.
They said you do not have any obligation to move or go faster than the speed-limit whatsoever.
Your primary obligation is to drive safely and avoid accidents. In most cases, that means that you don't have to go faster than the speed limit, but you still have to heed "slow traffic keep right".
Honestly, I think your type are assholes.
I stay with traffic flow, and I haven't gotten a moving violation in the 20 years I have had a license. And if you drive too slow in the left lane, I keep a safe distance.
Nevertheless, I have my opinion about people like you, and let me say: you're the asshole. It's people like you who put some intellectual game ahead of the safety of people around them. You know full well that you will get some bumper-hugging type-A personality behind you who doesn't keep safe distance from you, and when you two have an accident on the highway, you're going to take other people with you and block traffic for hours. You're just as much a "type-A" personality as the person who speeds, and you're just as dangerous. It's just that you're passive-aggressive instead of simply aggressive.
The only safe thing to do is that if the guy behind you isn't keeping a safe distance, you get out of the way. If you don't, you endanger yourself and everybody around you needlessly.
The speed laws are not reasonable -- they take neither car's age and quality nor the driver's experience and health into consideration. What's too fast for an inexperienced 17- or half-blind
What seems to be the primary source of accidents is not absolute speed, but difference in speed: if you have some people going 100mph (no matter how experienced) and other 60mph, bad accidents seem more likely than if everybody goes 100mph or everybody goes 60mph.
So, I think we shouldn't take into account the car or driver. If they can't drive at the speed limit, they shouldn't be driving at all (with few exceptions, like certain trucks).
However, I do think US speed limits are unreasonably low. A speed limit of maybe 80-90mph seems OK given modern cars. Of course, that would mean maintaining our roads better... if they continue to deteriorate like they do, then 65mph may be a good choice:-(
The company has really been doing a good job in terms of processor technology.
Maybe a company with less than 20% market share should stop sneezing at 5%+ of the market and start aggressively supporting Linux? They could start by high quality open source support for 3D graphics. They might consider driving the adoption of Linux-ready PCs and laptops through some kind of initiative (machines with working wireless, power management, 3D with open source drivers).
There are probably half a dozen institutions collecting this kind of data about you: your ISP, a couple of federal and state agencies, several advertising networks, etc. At least Google is open about it and you can have a look at the data.
The fact is, to set up a good learning algorithm you essentially have to craft your own interpreted language to let it use, which is a good sign that none of the available languages are doing the trick.
Modern machine learning algorithms are largely about numerical algorithms and graphs. Many modern programming languages support numerical algorithms and graphs very well.
No, the thing is that the more patents they have for what we might consider as insignificant crap, the less likely it will be that someone could come along and derail their products by producing a patent to some piece of technology it contains.
And how do you think that works? Patenting something yourself doesn't protect you from patent infringement claims by others. Furthermore, there are too many things to patent, so even if patents did protect them, "less likely" translates into "insignificantly less likely".
They don't need all of it, only enough to sue irritations like this into oblivion (or to force a hostile takeover with the threat of doing so).
What are they going to sue over? Does Vertical even make any products? And if they did, many of these patents are held by companies that don't make any products.
Owning patents yourself in hopes you can countersue is pointless; it doesn't work.
What makes them so special is that you can encode much, much more data into them than a typical barcode (the blac&white QR codes can hold about 3KB, I assume this color version can do better).
Except that they don't really hold a lot more data.
Basically it holds all of the promise of RFID with none of the scary privacy issues. But this is slashdot, so I realize I must spin this as evil. DIE MICROSOFT DIE! There, happy?
Basically, this is old stuff. There have been tons of 2D barcodes and color barcodes before. The only thing that is new is that this particular one is proprietary to Microsoft, patented, and that Microsoft is using its monopoly power to push their proprietary standard onto the market. Wait a sec, that isn't new... that's the way Microsoft operates.
Slashdot Mirror
The Google Code page says it's Apache 2, and I think that is what actually counts (rather than the announcement).
The Google add-ons are under Apache 2, while the open source version of MySQL is under GPLv2. Doesn't this present a problem?
Choice has a cost, but it also has benefits, and the benefits tend to outweigh the costs up to a point. I don't think open source has even reached that point yet. There are about half a dozen significant open source IDEs around, and that is not too many for a market with millions of developers. There are about half a dozen significant Linux distros around, and, again, that's a good number, and it's self-limiting.
And it's not like Microsoft is offering a consistent, coherent, compatible product line either: Microsoft has half a dozen supported but obsolete versions of Windows, a fuzzy platform strategy, multiple incompatible APIs, etc.
Arguing that handing over computers to a single company is a good thing is about like arguing that the Soviet Union represented a better economic system than the US; it does not. Choices have costs, but those are costs we need to bear if we want to have long-term growth, innovation, and success. We need more alternatives to Microsoft, not fewer.
Vibrant colors is trivial to achieve. dSLRs attempt to achieve accurate colors instead, which makes images from dSLRs actually look less good than many consumer cameras out of the box.
Many if not all red dwarfs are flare stars, which may pose a serious radiation problem for nearby life. If the planet is tidally locked, that might actually help.
I don't defend MS at all costs but I do see that the way to "beat" MS is by producing a better product, not by overstepping in legislation.
People have tried that for two decades and it doesn't work; through monopolistic practices,bundling, tying, and loss leaders, Microsoft kills any competition, no matter how good the technology.
Reining in Microsoft's abusive behavior is not "overstepping legislation", it's what government is supposed to do, and neither the US nor the EU are doing it aggressively enough.
The EU has been very heavy handed recently using any and all trade laws to hurt tech companies.
Good.
It would be nice to have one or two of them say "screw you" and pull out of the market. A EU without Apple, Hitachi, Toshiba or Microsoft?
Yes, indeed, it would be nice. Microsoft: don't let the door hit you on the way out. The sooner the better as far as I'm concerned.
I don't see why you need anything from Blackberry; many E-mail clients and servers support IMAP IDLE, which gives you the equivalent of push email.
Why would they suck?
Because the Jesse Helms's in those states would declare war on the Bill Clinton's in those states. That's real war, as in guns and tanks, not US$150M state-sponsored pornography.
assert that they are the only two available. this is false. historically, we've got the Articles of Confederation, of course, to illustrate an obviously distinct alternative
It's fine to talk about "alternatives", but those alternatives need to be stable in the real world. Obviously, none of the forms of government and balance of federal/state power that the US has tried before now were stable, because if they were stable, they'd still be around.
And Europe is, in fact, trying one of those alternatives: independent nation states that got together voluntarily to cooperate in some areas. They don't, in fact, share the military yet. So, maybe Europe is using the "alternative" that the US failed to achieve. But, then, the US also tried state militias, and you know what happened to them.
In the end, I think it's inevitable: if you give an organization authority to regulate commerce and to make common defense policy, that organization will end up controlling the member states, no matter what pieces of paper exist. That's clearly what happened in the US, and it's what seems to be happening in Europe.
If you don't like it, you need to come up with more than wishful thinking.
You could limit the scope of federal power to prevent it from being a hassle while still letting you pool resources when it is beneficial.
No, you couldn't, because control of the military and the ability to regulate interstate commerce are sufficient for the federal government to get essentially unlimited power. And the same is happening in Europe.
But it isn't necessarily bad; 50 states, each with their own military and braindead politicians would be far worse. The US federal government may be wasting money like there is no tomorrow (across parties, one might add), but it beats dozens of little wars and trade restrictions any day. Just ask the Europeans, who used to live that way, until a nation ruled by rednecks called "Germany" demonstrated conclusively that that kind of political organization simply didn't work anymore once the world had discovered tanks and chemical weapons. Of course, the US already got an inkling of that with its own civil war, and those conflicts wouldn't have stopped even if the US had split in two (or three or four).
then it's probably very secure :-)
Seriously, developers of security-related software often neglect usability, either making their systems insecure because people just disable or work around security, or making their systems unusable by many people.
Student: I'm enlightened: reality is an illusion.
Master: (hits student with a cane)
Is it contagious?
It's sexually transmitted (usually, F->M), so don't worry about it.
That's like complaining about the US Federal Government. Yeah, it may suck, but the alternative--50 independent nation states on the US continent--would suck even more.
Linux users looking for open source 3D graphics drivers is NOT 5% of the market. Its not even 0.1% of the market.
With Beryl and Compiz, it's pretty much 100% of Linux users who want 3D graphics support. Furthermore, once it's there, the games and other 3D tools will follow.
It seems to me that by the time you apply the GBH in soap, it seems to be a little too late to be worrying about date rape drugs...
They said you do not have any obligation to move or go faster than the speed-limit whatsoever.
Your primary obligation is to drive safely and avoid accidents. In most cases, that means that you don't have to go faster than the speed limit, but you still have to heed "slow traffic keep right".
Honestly, I think your type are assholes.
I stay with traffic flow, and I haven't gotten a moving violation in the 20 years I have had a license. And if you drive too slow in the left lane, I keep a safe distance.
Nevertheless, I have my opinion about people like you, and let me say: you're the asshole. It's people like you who put some intellectual game ahead of the safety of people around them. You know full well that you will get some bumper-hugging type-A personality behind you who doesn't keep safe distance from you, and when you two have an accident on the highway, you're going to take other people with you and block traffic for hours. You're just as much a "type-A" personality as the person who speeds, and you're just as dangerous. It's just that you're passive-aggressive instead of simply aggressive.
The only safe thing to do is that if the guy behind you isn't keeping a safe distance, you get out of the way. If you don't, you endanger yourself and everybody around you needlessly.
The speed laws are not reasonable -- they take neither car's age and quality nor the driver's experience and health into consideration. What's too fast for an inexperienced 17- or half-blind
:-(
What seems to be the primary source of accidents is not absolute speed, but difference in speed: if you have some people going 100mph (no matter how experienced) and other 60mph, bad accidents seem more likely than if everybody goes 100mph or everybody goes 60mph.
So, I think we shouldn't take into account the car or driver. If they can't drive at the speed limit, they shouldn't be driving at all (with few exceptions, like certain trucks).
However, I do think US speed limits are unreasonably low. A speed limit of maybe 80-90mph seems OK given modern cars. Of course, that would mean maintaining our roads better... if they continue to deteriorate like they do, then 65mph may be a good choice
The company has really been doing a good job in terms of processor technology.
Maybe a company with less than 20% market share should stop sneezing at 5%+ of the market and start aggressively supporting Linux? They could start by high quality open source support for 3D graphics. They might consider driving the adoption of Linux-ready PCs and laptops through some kind of initiative (machines with working wireless, power management, 3D with open source drivers).
There are probably half a dozen institutions collecting this kind of data about you: your ISP, a couple of federal and state agencies, several advertising networks, etc. At least Google is open about it and you can have a look at the data.
The fact is, to set up a good learning algorithm you essentially have to craft your own interpreted language to let it use, which is a good sign that none of the available languages are doing the trick.
Modern machine learning algorithms are largely about numerical algorithms and graphs. Many modern programming languages support numerical algorithms and graphs very well.
No, the thing is that the more patents they have for what we might consider as insignificant crap, the less likely it will be that someone could come along and derail their products by producing a patent to some piece of technology it contains.
And how do you think that works? Patenting something yourself doesn't protect you from patent infringement claims by others. Furthermore, there are too many things to patent, so even if patents did protect them, "less likely" translates into "insignificantly less likely".
They don't need all of it, only enough to sue irritations like this into oblivion (or to force a hostile takeover with the threat of doing so).
What are they going to sue over? Does Vertical even make any products? And if they did, many of these patents are held by companies that don't make any products.
Owning patents yourself in hopes you can countersue is pointless; it doesn't work.
What makes them so special is that you can encode much, much more data into them than a typical barcode (the blac&white QR codes can hold about 3KB, I assume this color version can do better).
Except that they don't really hold a lot more data.
Basically it holds all of the promise of RFID with none of the scary privacy issues. But this is slashdot, so I realize I must spin this as evil. DIE MICROSOFT DIE! There, happy?
Basically, this is old stuff. There have been tons of 2D barcodes and color barcodes before. The only thing that is new is that this particular one is proprietary to Microsoft, patented, and that Microsoft is using its monopoly power to push their proprietary standard onto the market. Wait a sec, that isn't new... that's the way Microsoft operates.