I'm wondering when the monkeys will learn to use their new arm to, you know, -ahem- spank the monkey. (poor things... locked alone in cages... arms immobilized... a monkey's gotta do SOMETHING to relieve the er, boredom, right?)
On a separate note, when can I get my cyborg-enhanced trunkmonkey> ?
Sure, but as a movie version of a video game (effectively a sequel), that movie is almost guaranteed to suck, and therefore not generate the royalties he's looking for.
Right, so what's their point? Why would MS patent something that doesn't look enforceable? Do they even have any product plans building on it? Are they simply trolling?
And on a different note, what good is our patent system if it can't sniff out obvious discrepancies like this? Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe their patent is very narrow and does not come into conflict with pre-existing solutions.
the solar plan would use less land, but it requires lots and lots of 'fragile mirrors' Yeah, and considering how dusty the TX-CA solar corridor is, I'd hate to be the one who has to wipe all those things down after a duststorm. Heh. Maybe they'll all be equipped with little windshield wipers. Either way, it's pretty exciting to see wind and solar projects start to come closer to reality.
I'm surprised they aren't doing that right now (or if they are, I haven't heard of it) with circuit boards and other techno-trash. Seems it would be a great way to a) make oil, b) recycle plastic so it doesn't end up in the landfill, c) recover heavy/valuable metals.
The last time I looked up an article on the TDP plant by the Butterball factory, their cost to produce 1 barrel was $80, and they were selling it at a loss at the time. High oil prices may suck for consumers, but at least they help to give alternative solutions like TDP a chance to become profitable.
The land in the Texas / New Mexico / Arizona / California area is dry, sparsely populated, and receives lots of sun. It's perfect for a solar farm. Recently, a paper was published which described how 92 square miles of solar farms could fulfill the power needs of the US.
'... as good as... ' is one thing. 'Good enough' is something else. GIMP has more tools and abilities than I ever would use, and I use it on Linux frequently. Do I really need Photoshop? No. I'm not sure what problems you see with OpenOffice, but I use it all the time, and it does everything I need.
Plus, as more apps become web-deployed, desktop apps become less and less important.
I remember going to the gym once with my cousin. He drove around for 3-4 minutes to get the closest parking spot possible. I thought the irony was going to make my head explode.
... what about all the trim, muscular, athletic people? Think about it. If some guy runs, bikes, or goes to the gym a hour per day and lifts weights, isn't he eating more food, burning a lot more calories, and exhaling a lot more CO2 than a lazy s.o.b. sitting on his couch in a semi-vegetative state?
When you see a really obese person, don't think of them as 'fat'. Think of them as mobile carbon sequestration units.
But if they're doing this to somehow trick themselves into believing that they are "helping the cause" then they need to pull their head out of their ass. We can't transition to your nuke/hydrogen world overnight. In the meantime, we need to do something to lower net CO2 output. Algae gets is carbon from the world around us. Turning algae into fuel only recycles it. Pumping crude out of the ground and burning it is a net increase in CO2. If we can find a way to burn less crude out of the ground, we are better off. Problem solved? No, not yet. But in the meantime, we're doing less harm.
We NEED hydrogen power. Not fuel cells, Huh? Hydrogen fuel cells exist. Of course, right now you can't power a jetliner with hydrogen fuel cells, so for the purposes of this article that's pretty much moot anyway.
Step 1: Build nuclear power plant
Step 2: Split salt water into hydrogen and oxygen
Step 3: Profit
Step 4: Goto 1 Expanding our nuclear infrastructure is important, but it's also important that we do it intelligently. CO2 may be bad, but 100,000 years worth of toxic, radioactive actinides is pretty nasty too. We need to invest in nuclear technologies that don't leave such unwelcome stuff behind. Newer reactor technologies are being explored that a) can burn through stuff that is now part of the waste problem, b) leave waste behind with a much shorter half-life, c) are less risky to operate than a lot of the older technology in use today.
Driving a Prius isn't helping, buying a hybrid Chevy Suburban isn't helping. If hybrids can cut your CO2 output by anything (and yes, they do), that helps.
Priuses and other hybrids are not addressing the root of the problem, which is our assumption of cheap transportation. THAT is what we need to cure. Gas prices are already doing that.
The neo-hippies with their lattes and they horn rimmed glasses are not helping the cause, they're hurting it by buying into a false reality and encouraging others to do so. Giving in to sterotypes is another form of false reality.
I respectfully disagree with your analogy. He was practicing law (something he has education and experience with) not engineering, and made an error in a matter of law. Instructions by any judge to a jury are not intended to be technological in nature; they are designed to help the jury understand how the law views something.
The error does not involve technical ignorance. It involves not being aware of a relevent precedent that had been set in a higher court.
Judges cannot be expected to be experts in all subjects that come before them. They are supposed to be experts in the law, and the information (technical or otherwise) necessary to decide a case is supposed to be brought forward through evidence and testimony via plaintiff's and defendant's attorneys.
A big difference here is that the efforts of the women (Drew and Grills) were targeted at one person, and were designed to hurt and deceive. Whether that's criminal or not may be debatable. Girls in the 11-to-15 age range go through hell emotionally, hormonally, socially, etc, and each of these factors magnifies the others. What may appear to be drama and hyperbole to adults is often very real in the mind of a young teenager. I never really realized that until I had a teenage daughter, and I can say that when she was at that age, I did notice that the online world (AIM, mostly)seemed to be a trigger that brought out the worst in her. The argument that Megan and her mother had is very similar to ones my wife and I had with our daughter. I am convinced that the same issues crop up with most teenage girls and their parents.
Drew and Grills should have known better. They were once adolescent girls, (at 19, Grills might arguably still be one) who now as adults are morally required to take the high road. Solution? Dunno.
[Starting rant; invoking wishful_thinking()... ]
Revoke their adulthood. Driver's license? Gone. Checking account? Get a legal guardian to approve your expenditures. Car loan? Get a cosigner. Set a curfew. Make them ride a schoolbus every day. At work, make them raise their hand and get a hall pass before they go to the bathroom. Voting? Drinking? Smoking? Forget it. Not mature enough. Make them write 10,000-word essays about being nice to others. Make them fill a blackboard with "I will not torment vulnerable teens online" hundreds of times. Daily. After they spend sufficient time slogging through 'childhood', maybe they'll someday be worthy of adult status.
One of the guitars downstairs belongs to my youngest son. He wanted it desperately one year for Christmas. He actually took lessons for awhile, but rarely practiced, and then eventually got bored.
I wonder if they will outsource the call center taking 1st level support calls on XP for OLPC to one or more of the countries where kids are using the laptops?
Without trolling for MS fans, and without faulting any of the philanthropic gifts from the Gates Foundation, I can honestly say that I don't think that Microsoft as a company is concerned about these kids' education. I think they are more concerned about training new users to use MS rather than linux, and with keeping 90%+ of desktop OS market.
What really pisses me off is that including XP on these things will increase the cost directly and indirectly ($3+$7) a total of 10% of the target $100 price of the laptop. It's taken a lot of hard work to put something together that is workable and to get the price down to the $200 it is at now. If they license at $3/copy, and are successful enough to get it on a million laptops, they've grossed $3 million... which is nothing to them. So why bother?
You're right. Their corporate image would look a lot better if they just said 'Okay, here, install it all you want, this is on us.'
Slashdot Mirror
You're right. What's really sad is the number of sighted people who can but simply don't bother.
I'm wondering when the monkeys will learn to use their new arm to, you know, -ahem- spank the monkey. (poor things ... locked alone in cages ... arms immobilized ... a monkey's gotta do SOMETHING to relieve the er, boredom, right?)
On a separate note, when can I get my cyborg-enhanced trunkmonkey> ?
Pff. Done already.
Sure, but as a movie version of a video game (effectively a sequel), that movie is almost guaranteed to suck, and therefore not generate the royalties he's looking for.
Right, so what's their point? Why would MS patent something that doesn't look enforceable? Do they even have any product plans building on it? Are they simply trolling?
1) build insecure OS
2) patent proactive antivirus
3) ???
4) profit
And on a different note, what good is our patent system if it can't sniff out obvious discrepancies like this? Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe their patent is very narrow and does not come into conflict with pre-existing solutions.
I'm surprised they aren't doing that right now (or if they are, I haven't heard of it) with circuit boards and other techno-trash. Seems it would be a great way to a) make oil, b) recycle plastic so it doesn't end up in the landfill, c) recover heavy/valuable metals.
The last time I looked up an article on the TDP plant by the Butterball factory, their cost to produce 1 barrel was $80, and they were selling it at a loss at the time. High oil prices may suck for consumers, but at least they help to give alternative solutions like TDP a chance to become profitable.
The land in the Texas / New Mexico / Arizona / California area is dry, sparsely populated, and receives lots of sun. It's perfect for a solar farm. Recently, a paper was published which described how 92 square miles of solar farms could fulfill the power needs of the US.
If you've been losing weight at the gym congratulations. I've got to start doing the same.
' ... as good as ... ' is one thing. 'Good enough' is something else. GIMP has more tools and abilities than I ever would use, and I use it on Linux frequently. Do I really need Photoshop? No. I'm not sure what problems you see with OpenOffice, but I use it all the time, and it does everything I need.
Plus, as more apps become web-deployed, desktop apps become less and less important.
I remember going to the gym once with my cousin. He drove around for 3-4 minutes to get the closest parking spot possible. I thought the irony was going to make my head explode.
... what about all the trim, muscular, athletic people? Think about it. If some guy runs, bikes, or goes to the gym a hour per day and lifts weights, isn't he eating more food, burning a lot more calories, and exhaling a lot more CO2 than a lazy s.o.b. sitting on his couch in a semi-vegetative state?
When you see a really obese person, don't think of them as 'fat'. Think of them as mobile carbon sequestration units.
I wish you didn't post as an AC. You're probably my brother.
-Ahem- the Challenger has no further need for a self-destruct button.
AFAIK, all space launch vehicles have a self-destruct mechanism on board, just in case.
Err ... didn't someone already try a hydrogen-filled aircraft? ;)
Step 2: Split salt water into hydrogen and oxygen
Step 3: Profit
Step 4: Goto 1 Expanding our nuclear infrastructure is important, but it's also important that we do it intelligently. CO2 may be bad, but 100,000 years worth of toxic, radioactive actinides is pretty nasty too. We need to invest in nuclear technologies that don't leave such unwelcome stuff behind. Newer reactor technologies are being explored that a) can burn through stuff that is now part of the waste problem, b) leave waste behind with a much shorter half-life, c) are less risky to operate than a lot of the older technology in use today. Driving a Prius isn't helping, buying a hybrid Chevy Suburban isn't helping. If hybrids can cut your CO2 output by anything (and yes, they do), that helps. Priuses and other hybrids are not addressing the root of the problem, which is our assumption of cheap transportation. THAT is what we need to cure. Gas prices are already doing that. The neo-hippies with their lattes and they horn rimmed glasses are not helping the cause, they're hurting it by buying into a false reality and encouraging others to do so. Giving in to sterotypes is another form of false reality.
I respectfully disagree with your analogy. He was practicing law (something he has education and experience with) not engineering, and made an error in a matter of law. Instructions by any judge to a jury are not intended to be technological in nature; they are designed to help the jury understand how the law views something.
The error does not involve technical ignorance. It involves not being aware of a relevent precedent that had been set in a higher court.
Judges cannot be expected to be experts in all subjects that come before them. They are supposed to be experts in the law, and the information (technical or otherwise) necessary to decide a case is supposed to be brought forward through evidence and testimony via plaintiff's and defendant's attorneys.
A big difference here is that the efforts of the women (Drew and Grills) were targeted at one person, and were designed to hurt and deceive. Whether that's criminal or not may be debatable. Girls in the 11-to-15 age range go through hell emotionally, hormonally, socially, etc, and each of these factors magnifies the others. What may appear to be drama and hyperbole to adults is often very real in the mind of a young teenager. I never really realized that until I had a teenage daughter, and I can say that when she was at that age, I did notice that the online world (AIM, mostly)seemed to be a trigger that brought out the worst in her. The argument that Megan and her mother had is very similar to ones my wife and I had with our daughter. I am convinced that the same issues crop up with most teenage girls and their parents.
... ]
... ]
Drew and Grills should have known better. They were once adolescent girls, (at 19, Grills might arguably still be one) who now as adults are morally required to take the high road. Solution? Dunno.
[Starting rant; invoking wishful_thinking()
Revoke their adulthood. Driver's license? Gone. Checking account? Get a legal guardian to approve your expenditures. Car loan? Get a cosigner. Set a curfew. Make them ride a schoolbus every day. At work, make them raise their hand and get a hall pass before they go to the bathroom. Voting? Drinking? Smoking? Forget it. Not mature enough. Make them write 10,000-word essays about being nice to others. Make them fill a blackboard with "I will not torment vulnerable teens online" hundreds of times. Daily. After they spend sufficient time slogging through 'childhood', maybe they'll someday be worthy of adult status.
[End rant; invoking return_to_reality()
"What do other geeks think? Am I being paranoid?"
Yes, but unfortunately you're not being paranoid enough.
One of the guitars downstairs belongs to my youngest son. He wanted it desperately one year for Christmas. He actually took lessons for awhile, but rarely practiced, and then eventually got bored.
Just went back and read that. I'd like to say that I am surprised and shocked, but I'm not.
Nice. But in that case, don't let them near GTA. ;)
I wonder if they will outsource the call center taking 1st level support calls on XP for OLPC to one or more of the countries where kids are using the laptops?
Without trolling for MS fans, and without faulting any of the philanthropic gifts from the Gates Foundation, I can honestly say that I don't think that Microsoft as a company is concerned about these kids' education. I think they are more concerned about training new users to use MS rather than linux, and with keeping 90%+ of desktop OS market.
... which is nothing to them. So why bother?
What really pisses me off is that including XP on these things will increase the cost directly and indirectly ($3+$7) a total of 10% of the target $100 price of the laptop. It's taken a lot of hard work to put something together that is workable and to get the price down to the $200 it is at now. If they license at $3/copy, and are successful enough to get it on a million laptops, they've grossed $3 million
You're right. Their corporate image would look a lot better if they just said 'Okay, here, install it all you want, this is on us.'
They have to install a special blue screen to run MS products.