The funniest thing to me is that we are so fixated on the planet/not-a-planet debate. Let em both in, don't let either in...
Both bodies will continue to be studied, and when the time comes, they will be exploited for their natural resources.
This debate will only matter fifty years from now when we actually begin mining other planets and mining related laws discriminate between bodies with different scientific designations.
It was in a regional semi-pro zine I believe... way too small for WJW. I think I have read the story you are talking about as well... Did it appear in one of Dozois's best of anthologies?
Anyhow, I will see if I still have a copy.
If you are into Sci-Fi short work you can e-mail me @ ushering.sleeps(at)gmail.com.
I haven't had time to read up on the field in about 18 months (been involved in a startup) and would like some recommendations. I have yet to get through the submissions for my own publication which has never seen the light of day!
It is the government that is the biggest danger in the USA, not the other parties mentioned.
Now, if you could seize control of Microsoft (or any other patent troll org) by spending a ton of cash to win a popularity contest every four years, then they would be the most dangerous organizations.
About ten years ago I read a sci-fi story about a private investigator who had one ace up her sleeve.. She aggregated and mined vacation photos from the web using facial recognition software to track people when they were otherwise off the map. The plot line revolved around tracking someone who appeared in the background in something like two out of several million web-posted photos.
Not a terribly good story, but kinda interesting all the same. The author pointed out that with the number of recording devices constantly on the increase, and the impulse people have to 'share' their photos on the web, it would not require a big brother type scenario to see personal privacy become a thing of the past... even if you take hardcore measures to hide.
Oh, and the suggested google search to find 'neck face' returns a lot more than 99 photos.
As to the conflict of interest point: It would be nice if the world worked like that.
Cheney/Halliburton... Monsanto Brass/FDA (revolving door)... Energy lobbyists/DIO appointments(the forced resignatin of Bush's first appointee didn't stop him doing the same thing a second time, currently under investigation for misconduct a second time)... the list goes on.
A presidential hopeful wants someone who actively opposes fair competition/cooperation in the industry to advise him on tech policy.
This is not trollish conjecture, the anti-trust lawsuits didn't come out of thin air, and the anti-cooperation charge should require no explanation.
Allow me to also note the increasing movement among U.S. State governments to pursue open standards technology. You want to talk friction? What sort of leverage would MS have on this issue? They already threatened contract-infringement legal action against the state of California just because the state considered having an official conversation about open standards.
Izhevsk Machine Tool Factory, referred to in the summary no longer exists as such. It is now commonly referred to as Izhmash (a collaborative of multiple guv owned manufacturing sites in the region), is owned by the government, and has been granted the right to produce contracts with whoever they want without governmental approval... giving them a leg up over most competition.
Yeah. There are various more technical names as there are various types of technology.
The unit he used had a stationary computational unit with a tethered box that contained the sonic pulse generator/echo reciever.
The tethered unit would traverse the survey area, direct the sonar pulses into the ground, recieve the echo, and then relay data back. The tether was required because large amounts of juice had to be delivered, so they ran the data and the juice (two seperate, heavily shielded lines) through the tether.
Different types of soil composition provided wildly different resolutions. The resulting maps could be presented in various ways, some showing sub-surface topo-type info with others displaying various densities etc... all very cool, and extremely time consuming.
My brother in law was an archeologist who utilized ground based sonar devices to look for Native American ruins. The resolution on the unit he was using was something like 10 meters below the ground, and required a very slow transit time and a good deal of energy.
Yes, tech progresses, but 75 m from outer space using only UV, Xray, and Infra photography? I am very skeptical.
On another note... if this new process is true then construction will have to pretty much halt in many areas of Southern California. There are stringent rules in place governing building on areas that contain either significant fossil remains or any sort of Native American relics. Several hundred million USD per year is spent on archeological surveys to determine what may be beneath a construction site. Various companies have reputations for finding little if anything, and so environmental groups sometimes employ other companies that usually find a good deal of things that will prevent construction.
Decently resolved pictures up to 75 m below the surface will prove what some archeos in the field already believe to be true... under current laws it should be almost impossible to build anywhere in the greater L.A. area because of the shear volume of fossil record.
They pulled two gigantic whales out of a toll road excavation in the middle of the desert... etc.
Lotsa posts on this thread are focusing on how small the dollar amounts are etc.. I just want to know why it was these fifty politicians who recieved the cash.
Oh wait. The article doesn't say that these are the only fifty who accepted RIAA money, just that these are fifty who did. There is not enough info presented to determine anything.
Now, if they had posted voting records for fifty pols who took cash and fifty that didn't this would be a decent article. As it is, though, this is just filler.
Celera is a bad news company, and news involving them should always set off alarm bells.
They are decent at motivating people, though. Based on their track record and stated intentions they caused a massive movement to decode the human genome as public property after they announced they would compete with the federally funded decoding initiatives for the purpose of patenting the findings and licensing that data to private companies. As John Sulston, who led the British arm of the Human Genome Project put it: 'We were in a position of responsibility... without us, the human genome would be privatized.'
Here's a quote from The New Atlantis:
"Celera's mission was to sequence the human genome better and faster than its government-funded rival. It aimed to sell access to genomic information as well as the tools to interpret it, with an eye to "big pharma" and other biotechnology companies looking for a treasure trove of new drug targets."
Venter, named in the submission, was the CEO of Celera at the time this strategy was developed and was deposed several months after it became clear that the public would beat Celera to the goal.
This is admitedly troll bait, but I feel a burning personal need to inform people about this man's actions whenever I see his name in print.
Apparently this protein enables the body's reactions to cold including motivating feelings of numbness/pain in response to cold temps.
This must not be a one-size-fits-all type thing. I spent my first four Winters in VT wearing only light jackets even in the middle of winter.
Some research would be nice to discover if you can test for sensitivity levels. If so, it would also be nice to have someone incorporate that testing into a dating service. My (beloved) lady cranks the heaters all but about three months out of the year and it just might be the end of me.
I now have to wear heavy jackets throughout the winter to keep myself from going into shock over the temp differentials.
I guess you could incorporate this ability into research into Seasonal Affectation Disorder as well. I hear that motivates a good number of suicides every year, and treatment would inprove if you could show a quantifiable correlation between sensitivity to temperature and seasonal depression.
Anyone want to bet that this is the beginning of a little landslide?
I wish the Google team all the best in dealing with this issue... but I am scratching my head at the speed with which they are attempting to diversify their offerings.
Google did not become a dominant force overnight. They fought battles, learned lessons, and refined/defined search capabilities for the entire world. Why have they been shooting off in a dozen different directions? Is there any way that even they can stay on top of all the little details considering the number of immature products they are floating?
Anyhow, the next couple of days will go a long way towards showing exactly how far the Google team needs to go before I trust them on my desktop. Here's hoping they prove to have the response time/customer centric attitude that made them my preferred search provider.
CC and related retailers still exist in the numbers they do because people like to be able to play with tech before they buy it. It is not safe to assume that customers have simply switched to buying online, or that CC competitors have made enough of a market incursion to justify these sorts of layoffs (after all, CC has a huge established client base due largely to their longevity in the market).
CC laying people off is not the same as, say, Tower Records doing the same. There is no emerging technology that is going to replace the physical retail outlet for consumer electronics until the generation raised with online purchases begins to age up a little.
The fact that CC is having difficulties could be an indicator that the next round of profit reports will look pretty grim for numerous consumer electronic manufacturers.
Then the effect trickles down, and outward, and touches other aspects of the industry through measures like consolidations to reduce overhead, offshoring unrelated divisions to make up for lost revenue from the Consumer Electronic divisions, and pricing wars.
The consumer electronic industry is not in a good position with all the other rising costs in America (with power prices being one key marker). Would you rather have a new digital camera or heating oil? We could see some big players get hammered if war related costs continue to rise and those costs continue to affect pricing in key markets like power.
In short, the information about CC fits in the summary.
Regards.
P.S. Not to start a flame war or anything, but employees at consumer electronic outlets are often sales people who have been displaced from other industries by the emergence of consumer tech. Hardware stores, auto part outlets, and numerous other more established retail sectors have suffered mightily from changes in the market. A friend who works LP @ a big-box construction supply chain saw his 12 person unit reduced to 3 people over the course of two years. Might not hurt to assume they *might be* working @ CC because selling the products they know and understand is no longer an option.
An old tech veteran I know made a good point. The industry does not need to be healthier for there to be more positions than back in the boom. We are just years down the line and the integration of technology into our society has continued apace... becoming more prevelant in everyday life... less visible and more taken for granted (except for when, say, your cell phone erases your car key).
The industry is larger but not necessarily healthier, more profitable, or better-off in general.
The submission suggests the decision to open new stores while closing others is weird... but it is not.
BGI (Borders, Waldenbooks, Brentanos, Paperchse) announced they would be closing/spinning off all international operations a day before they announced the opening of several new international stores. The intertia behind the construction, planning, hiring, etc was too great to halt. Additionally, the purchasing departments negotiate deals based on volume and there was *years* of planning/analysis/spending that affected the entire chain and would need to be revisited if the stores did not open as planned.
The damage to the company would have been greatly compounded if the new stores had not opened.
Finally, while closing locations is common practice for companies that are in difficult times, it is not unusual to continue expanding in markets that show more promise than the failing ones that were cut. Shoring up existing markets does less to placate edgy shareholders than showing aggressive pursuit of new opportunities.
Given recent decisions by numerous web content providers I would think YouTube will be blocking the rogue broadcasters after short blackout of the site by the offended country.
The minute YouTube began actively filtering submissions (in other situations) they opened themselves to accountability for all submissions.
I have to think that user tagging/moderation would have been a better way to go... That type of system is actually the main reason I prefer this news site over most others. It allows the website to actually take a stand on many types of speech issues instead of being forced to bow down to whatever entity gets pissy with them.
I love sci-fi. A new sci-fi flick is one of the few things that will get me out to the theaters.
I liked the Matrix movies when they first came out, but they have not aged well. Looking back I see most of the initial success being in the films' visual appeal, not the execution of a well charted, multi-installment story line.
Pirates aspires to less, and therefore its failings are more palatable IMO... even though it lacks the high-minded 'message' content that the Matrix attempted. I own Pirates for those random days where I want some swashbuckling noise in the background while I type away on my computer. I have no plans to buy the Matrix.
The failings of the Matrix are more frustrating for me. I can't deny that the Matrix broke ground visually. That is just not enough to get any more views from a viewer like me.
Last time I looked into it numerous U.S. states required certification before you could legally be in possesion of certain types of locksmithing tools. These certs were incrediblly easy to obtain (basically cash and a short course), making the whole thing look like yet another set of rules designed to increase cash flow for an industry.
From the N.C. statute:
" 74F-2. Purpose. Locksmiths have the knowledge and tools to bypass or neutralize security devices in vehicles, homes, and businesses. The laws of this State do not protect citizens from the unscrupulous use and abuse of this knowledge and these tools by persons who are untrained or have criminal intent. Therefore, the licensing of locksmiths is necessary to protect public health, safety, and welfare."
And I have step four covered. I have tried various distros and even rolled my own Gentoo install. Not claiming to be a guru or anything.
My issue is user adoption. My opinion is the opinion of only one of their providers.
You are correct on most points, but like many others fail to address one thing. Users want the simplest solution. They are correct in believing that MS is the simplest solution. They don't mind sacrificing security, freedom, and mobility so that they can have something that is monocultural and uniform like Windows.
Thank you for taking the time to write your post. Maybe it will help.
Unfortunately, as I have posted on other threads here, most of my customers rely on multiple small applications to run their businesses. Porting them to OSS would be a massive undertaking and would require cash that most of them don't have, and applications that don't exist (take construction-specific management apps for instance).
I have defended MONO and it's developers on this site and others with the stated purpose of promoting an alternative to MS. The fact remains, however, that most of my customers do not have equal options on OSS platforms at the current time.
I would be unable to develop equal options considering the wide variety of applications that have developed in the MS ecosystem over the last 15 years or so, and that my customers depend upon.
I would walk away from MS, but that would involve abandoning my customers who are locked in, and with whom I share the common goal of feeding our families by running our own companies instead of working for others.
Slashdot Mirror
The funniest thing to me is that we are so fixated on the planet/not-a-planet debate. Let em both in, don't let either in...
Both bodies will continue to be studied, and when the time comes, they will be exploited for their natural resources.
This debate will only matter fifty years from now when we actually begin mining other planets and mining related laws discriminate between bodies with different scientific designations.
Regards.
It was in a regional semi-pro zine I believe... way too small for WJW. I think I have read the story you are talking about as well... Did it appear in one of Dozois's best of anthologies?
Anyhow, I will see if I still have a copy.
If you are into Sci-Fi short work you can e-mail me @ ushering.sleeps(at)gmail.com.
I haven't had time to read up on the field in about 18 months (been involved in a startup) and would like some recommendations. I have yet to get through the submissions for my own publication which has never seen the light of day!
Regards.
It is the government that is the biggest danger in the USA, not the other parties mentioned.
Now, if you could seize control of Microsoft (or any other patent troll org) by spending a ton of cash to win a popularity contest every four years, then they would be the most dangerous organizations.
Regards.
About ten years ago I read a sci-fi story about a private investigator who had one ace up her sleeve.. She aggregated and mined vacation photos from the web using facial recognition software to track people when they were otherwise off the map. The plot line revolved around tracking someone who appeared in the background in something like two out of several million web-posted photos.
Not a terribly good story, but kinda interesting all the same. The author pointed out that with the number of recording devices constantly on the increase, and the impulse people have to 'share' their photos on the web, it would not require a big brother type scenario to see personal privacy become a thing of the past... even if you take hardcore measures to hide.
Oh, and the suggested google search to find 'neck face' returns a lot more than 99 photos.
Regards.
n/t.
As to the conflict of interest point: It would be nice if the world worked like that.
Cheney/Halliburton... Monsanto Brass/FDA (revolving door)... Energy lobbyists/DIO appointments(the forced resignatin of Bush's first appointee didn't stop him doing the same thing a second time, currently under investigation for misconduct a second time)... the list goes on.
Regards.
A presidential hopeful wants someone who actively opposes fair competition/cooperation in the industry to advise him on tech policy.
This is not trollish conjecture, the anti-trust lawsuits didn't come out of thin air, and the anti-cooperation charge should require no explanation.
Allow me to also note the increasing movement among U.S. State governments to pursue open standards technology. You want to talk friction? What sort of leverage would MS have on this issue? They already threatened contract-infringement legal action against the state of California just because the state considered having an official conversation about open standards.
Regards.
Izhevsk Machine Tool Factory, referred to in the summary no longer exists as such. It is now commonly referred to as Izhmash (a collaborative of multiple guv owned manufacturing sites in the region), is owned by the government, and has been granted the right to produce contracts with whoever they want without governmental approval... giving them a leg up over most competition.
For a list of AK-47 producing sites follow the link: http://www.ak-47.us/AK47_Factories.php
Regards.
Yeah. There are various more technical names as there are various types of technology.
The unit he used had a stationary computational unit with a tethered box that contained the sonic pulse generator/echo reciever.
The tethered unit would traverse the survey area, direct the sonar pulses into the ground, recieve the echo, and then relay data back. The tether was required because large amounts of juice had to be delivered, so they ran the data and the juice (two seperate, heavily shielded lines) through the tether.
Different types of soil composition provided wildly different resolutions. The resulting maps could be presented in various ways, some showing sub-surface topo-type info with others displaying various densities etc... all very cool, and extremely time consuming.
Regards.
My brother in law was an archeologist who utilized ground based sonar devices to look for Native American ruins. The resolution on the unit he was using was something like 10 meters below the ground, and required a very slow transit time and a good deal of energy.
Yes, tech progresses, but 75 m from outer space using only UV, Xray, and Infra photography? I am very skeptical.
On another note... if this new process is true then construction will have to pretty much halt in many areas of Southern California. There are stringent rules in place governing building on areas that contain either significant fossil remains or any sort of Native American relics. Several hundred million USD per year is spent on archeological surveys to determine what may be beneath a construction site. Various companies have reputations for finding little if anything, and so environmental groups sometimes employ other companies that usually find a good deal of things that will prevent construction.
Decently resolved pictures up to 75 m below the surface will prove what some archeos in the field already believe to be true... under current laws it should be almost impossible to build anywhere in the greater L.A. area because of the shear volume of fossil record.
They pulled two gigantic whales out of a toll road excavation in the middle of the desert... etc.
Regards.
If you are really gonna pimp your pad /. style might I recommend a significant UPS system at the heart of things.
Just a thought.
Regards.
Lotsa posts on this thread are focusing on how small the dollar amounts are etc.. I just want to know why it was these fifty politicians who recieved the cash.
Oh wait. The article doesn't say that these are the only fifty who accepted RIAA money, just that these are fifty who did. There is not enough info presented to determine anything.
Now, if they had posted voting records for fifty pols who took cash and fifty that didn't this would be a decent article. As it is, though, this is just filler.
Regards.
That site stayed up all of what... two minutes? There has to be a better way.
Just for anyone not following along:
Celera is a bad news company, and news involving them should always set off alarm bells.
They are decent at motivating people, though. Based on their track record and stated intentions they caused a massive movement to decode the human genome as public property after they announced they would compete with the federally funded decoding initiatives for the purpose of patenting the findings and licensing that data to private companies. As John Sulston, who led the British arm of the Human Genome Project put it: 'We were in a position of responsibility... without us, the human genome would be privatized.'
Here's a quote from The New Atlantis:
"Celera's mission was to sequence the human genome better and faster than its government-funded rival. It aimed to sell access to genomic information as well as the tools to interpret it, with an eye to "big pharma" and other biotechnology companies looking for a treasure trove of new drug targets."
Venter, named in the submission, was the CEO of Celera at the time this strategy was developed and was deposed several months after it became clear that the public would beat Celera to the goal.
This is admitedly troll bait, but I feel a burning personal need to inform people about this man's actions whenever I see his name in print.
Regards.
Apparently this protein enables the body's reactions to cold including motivating feelings of numbness/pain in response to cold temps.
This must not be a one-size-fits-all type thing. I spent my first four Winters in VT wearing only light jackets even in the middle of winter.
Some research would be nice to discover if you can test for sensitivity levels. If so, it would also be nice to have someone incorporate that testing into a dating service. My (beloved) lady cranks the heaters all but about three months out of the year and it just might be the end of me.
I now have to wear heavy jackets throughout the winter to keep myself from going into shock over the temp differentials.
I guess you could incorporate this ability into research into Seasonal Affectation Disorder as well. I hear that motivates a good number of suicides every year, and treatment would inprove if you could show a quantifiable correlation between sensitivity to temperature and seasonal depression.
Regards.
Anyone want to bet that this is the beginning of a little landslide?
I wish the Google team all the best in dealing with this issue... but I am scratching my head at the speed with which they are attempting to diversify their offerings.
Google did not become a dominant force overnight. They fought battles, learned lessons, and refined/defined search capabilities for the entire world. Why have they been shooting off in a dozen different directions? Is there any way that even they can stay on top of all the little details considering the number of immature products they are floating?
Anyhow, the next couple of days will go a long way towards showing exactly how far the Google team needs to go before I trust them on my desktop. Here's hoping they prove to have the response time/customer centric attitude that made them my preferred search provider.
Regards.
CC and related retailers still exist in the numbers they do because people like to be able to play with tech before they buy it. It is not safe to assume that customers have simply switched to buying online, or that CC competitors have made enough of a market incursion to justify these sorts of layoffs (after all, CC has a huge established client base due largely to their longevity in the market).
CC laying people off is not the same as, say, Tower Records doing the same. There is no emerging technology that is going to replace the physical retail outlet for consumer electronics until the generation raised with online purchases begins to age up a little.
The fact that CC is having difficulties could be an indicator that the next round of profit reports will look pretty grim for numerous consumer electronic manufacturers.
Then the effect trickles down, and outward, and touches other aspects of the industry through measures like consolidations to reduce overhead, offshoring unrelated divisions to make up for lost revenue from the Consumer Electronic divisions, and pricing wars.
The consumer electronic industry is not in a good position with all the other rising costs in America (with power prices being one key marker). Would you rather have a new digital camera or heating oil? We could see some big players get hammered if war related costs continue to rise and those costs continue to affect pricing in key markets like power.
In short, the information about CC fits in the summary.
Regards.
P.S. Not to start a flame war or anything, but employees at consumer electronic outlets are often sales people who have been displaced from other industries by the emergence of consumer tech. Hardware stores, auto part outlets, and numerous other more established retail sectors have suffered mightily from changes in the market. A friend who works LP @ a big-box construction supply chain saw his 12 person unit reduced to 3 people over the course of two years. Might not hurt to assume they *might be* working @ CC because selling the products they know and understand is no longer an option.
An old tech veteran I know made a good point. The industry does not need to be healthier for there to be more positions than back in the boom. We are just years down the line and the integration of technology into our society has continued apace... becoming more prevelant in everyday life... less visible and more taken for granted (except for when, say, your cell phone erases your car key).
The industry is larger but not necessarily healthier, more profitable, or better-off in general.
Regards.
The submission suggests the decision to open new stores while closing others is weird... but it is not.
BGI (Borders, Waldenbooks, Brentanos, Paperchse) announced they would be closing/spinning off all international operations a day before they announced the opening of several new international stores. The intertia behind the construction, planning, hiring, etc was too great to halt. Additionally, the purchasing departments negotiate deals based on volume and there was *years* of planning/analysis/spending that affected the entire chain and would need to be revisited if the stores did not open as planned.
The damage to the company would have been greatly compounded if the new stores had not opened.
Finally, while closing locations is common practice for companies that are in difficult times, it is not unusual to continue expanding in markets that show more promise than the failing ones that were cut. Shoring up existing markets does less to placate edgy shareholders than showing aggressive pursuit of new opportunities.
Regards.
Given recent decisions by numerous web content providers I would think YouTube will be blocking the rogue broadcasters after short blackout of the site by the offended country.
The minute YouTube began actively filtering submissions (in other situations) they opened themselves to accountability for all submissions.
I have to think that user tagging/moderation would have been a better way to go... That type of system is actually the main reason I prefer this news site over most others. It allows the website to actually take a stand on many types of speech issues instead of being forced to bow down to whatever entity gets pissy with them.
Regards.
I love sci-fi. A new sci-fi flick is one of the few things that will get me out to the theaters.
I liked the Matrix movies when they first came out, but they have not aged well. Looking back I see most of the initial success being in the films' visual appeal, not the execution of a well charted, multi-installment story line.
Pirates aspires to less, and therefore its failings are more palatable IMO... even though it lacks the high-minded 'message' content that the Matrix attempted. I own Pirates for those random days where I want some swashbuckling noise in the background while I type away on my computer. I have no plans to buy the Matrix.
The failings of the Matrix are more frustrating for me. I can't deny that the Matrix broke ground visually. That is just not enough to get any more views from a viewer like me.
Regards.
Last time I looked into it numerous U.S. states required certification before you could legally be in possesion of certain types of locksmithing tools. These certs were incrediblly easy to obtain (basically cash and a short course), making the whole thing look like yet another set of rules designed to increase cash flow for an industry.
From the N.C. statute:
" 74F-2. Purpose.
Locksmiths have the knowledge and tools to bypass or neutralize security devices in
vehicles, homes, and businesses. The laws of this State do not protect citizens from the
unscrupulous use and abuse of this knowledge and these tools by persons who are
untrained or have criminal intent. Therefore, the licensing of locksmiths is necessary to
protect public health, safety, and welfare."
Regards.
And I have step four covered. I have tried various distros and even rolled my own Gentoo install. Not claiming to be a guru or anything.
My issue is user adoption. My opinion is the opinion of only one of their providers.
You are correct on most points, but like many others fail to address one thing. Users want the simplest solution. They are correct in believing that MS is the simplest solution. They don't mind sacrificing security, freedom, and mobility so that they can have something that is monocultural and uniform like Windows.
Thank you for taking the time to write your post. Maybe it will help.
Regards.
Because others in my situation might need a laugh before the ship sinks.
Regards.
I agree.
Unfortunately, as I have posted on other threads here, most of my customers rely on multiple small applications to run their businesses. Porting them to OSS would be a massive undertaking and would require cash that most of them don't have, and applications that don't exist (take construction-specific management apps for instance).
I have defended MONO and it's developers on this site and others with the stated purpose of promoting an alternative to MS. The fact remains, however, that most of my customers do not have equal options on OSS platforms at the current time.
I would be unable to develop equal options considering the wide variety of applications that have developed in the MS ecosystem over the last 15 years or so, and that my customers depend upon.
I would walk away from MS, but that would involve abandoning my customers who are locked in, and with whom I share the common goal of feeding our families by running our own companies instead of working for others.
Regards.