I'm more or less a liberal, but there are a couple things I like about the current administration, and thinking strategically with an eye on advancing the state of the art of military technology is one of them.
There may come a day where we wish we had ASAT lasers. China's military leadership knows the major US advantage over every other military nation is its superiority over space, and are intent on building their own satellite infrastructure for waging war. If we find ourselves fighting them over Taiwan, scarce oil resources, or bad noodles, I'd rather us play for keeps and blow their satellites out of the sky and retain the high ground.
So I support this research. I'd rather prepare now to fight and win future wars against a technologically adept adversary than waiting until tensions heat up to perform basic research into building new weapons that would help us keep our primary asset and destroy our enemy's. If this means kicking off a new so-called arms race, so be it. Just because we choose not to pursue researching laser technology doesn't mean China or others won't. I guess our elected leaders learned nothing from the history of development of the nuclear bomb.
you'd think that people on slashdot would be a little more enlightened than to engage in bigotry and prejudice. but here you are, proving me wrong.
i don't know how else to put it. you're an asshole who is prejudiced against people with mental illnesses. if spindler was a paraplegic or had cerebral palsy, would you be criticizing his job performance because of that? mental illness is just another disability. lots of people with mental illnesses function just fine when treated with medication and therapy. your comment shows off how little you care about other human beings. so stick your prejudice up your ass.
You're spot on. We have a fancy collaboration system at my work (famous ISP). It does a lot of things to facilitate colleagues working together. But it's not self-contained; it sends emails to employees' Exchange mailboxes when some event gets triggered inside the system.
It's not an either/or proposition. The right approach to building collaboration systems is to integrate notifications/alerts/etc. into existing email systems, not to assume that users will use the inboxes inside the collaboration systems.
one killer feature that ajaxwrite must have is styles and formatting. it's simply not useable for anything but writing notes without it........... kris
I'm not a Microsoft fanboy, but their InfoCard system is clearly the right answer for Firefox. InfoCard built into Firefox would not only put it on equal ground with Vista/IE 7, it would provide a consistent user experience and user control over identity when visiting web sites, and most importantly would offer bulletproof protection against phishing.
InfoCard would accomplish this by using the OASIS-ratified WS-Trust protocol to pass tokens generated from InfoCard meta-data through an identity selector that positively identifies web sites running instances of a security token service that signs the tokens using a public/private key pair. If the InfoCard-enabled user visits a web site that is masquerading as a valid web site, the identity selector on the local machine pops up a dialog box informing the user that the keys don't match and gives the user a choice whether to divulge his/her identity.
This is strong-ass protection against phishing, and InfoCard/STS/WS-Trust/IE7 will ship with every copy of Vista, quickly becoming a de facto standard as Vista takes hold. If Firefox wants to play with the next generation of Internet identity and security, it needs InfoCard support, period. The only hangup is that InfoCard is proprietary to Microsoft, but I'm sure someone will get around to building an open source reference implementation for Firefox . . . I can think of a group who is up to the task.
I concur with the parent poster. Given that home theatre setups are just as cheap and sound a lot better, the Hi-Fi is a product that is overpriced and that does too little. You can spend a little more and get something REALLY nice. See below . . .
I personally have no reason to buy a Hi-Fi, since I already have audiophile components in the living room that work just fine with my iPod, sans ultraintegration, as well as a PC in the den running iTunes with a buttkicking audio/speaker setup. Here's what I already have in my living room:
All in all, these components provide audiophile sound reproduction that the Hi-Fi can't touch at any price. For roughly the price of 1 1/2 more Hi-Fis you too can have a system that will absolutely kill the Hi-Fi in sound quality. There's nothing like hearing Sarah Maclachlan's voice veritably leap out of the Maggies' soundstage when playing from an iPod....
Here's my den setup:
-- iTunes running on my five-year-old P4 Intel box (amortized) -- Sound Blaster Audigy ($35) -- Klipsch speakers + sub ($120)
Warm and bright sound reproduction with kickin' bass, and everyone's got an old PC sitting around that can run iTunes. The Hi-Fi would cost double and it wouldn't sound any better.
The Hi-Fi is a product that is overpriced and that does too little in comparison to what you can build/buy separately.
The reviewer didn't mention InfoCards and the Identity Metasystem. No wonder, since they are still works in progress. Still, InfoCards and the Metasystem will be a compelling reason to upgrade to Vista.
InfoCards are built into IE7 and run on top of the new Identity Metasystem. InfoCards are metadata representing identity data such as username, password, VISA card number, age, etc., that are converted into tokens protected by private keys. These tokens will be passed to Metasystem servers on the Internet running the Security Token Service via Web service protocols standardized by OASIS and supported by Sun and IBM. These Metasystem servers running STS will process the token, validate the key with a public key, and allow user access to their remote resources.
The Metasystem itself is a major advance in identity technology because it layers itself on top of existing identity infrastructure rather than replacing it. In other words, it doesn't require web site administrators to rip out their existing directories and databases; they just deploy a running instance of the Metasystem and an STS server that talks to their local identity store and they can talk to InfoCards.
The end result is no more passwords, no more phishing, and users get to control their own identity information. Enterprise users will love it, IT administrators will love it, and it's just one more reason why I want to upgrade to Vista. I for one am sick of remembering ten million passwords and being phished and if InfoCards and the Metasystem can save my butt I'll be first in line at Fry's.
some guy sends steve jobs an email, gets a canned response, sends another email, gets another canned response, and the ensuing result is that the four-email thread makes it to the front page of/.
there have got to be more than enough bottles of champagne to go around in the world to drink than to be concerned about things like this . . .
the striking difference between this mission plan and apollo is the earth orbit rendezvous of the excursion module and the exploration module. i guess this is because the heavy-lift vehicle is not man-rated. doesn't matter--separate crew/cargo launches just mean more payload to orbit, and like someone else said, the extra bonus cargo capacity means nasa has greater in-orbit construction capacity.
"The sad truth is this is beginning of the end of apple as a computer hardware company. They are going to use use Intel motherboards in pretty Apple cases. Pretty much the same thing that Dell does now."
pointless despair. intel inside != generic hardware. one of the reasons intel wooed apple for so long is that apple has a history of designing extraordinary hardware around a chip architecture.
if history is any guide (existing macs, next machines, etc.) there will be plenty of design tweaks apple's superior hardware design team will use to differentiate macs from pcs, despite using intel chips.
I have a nice laptop, but playing DVDs on it is the last thing I want to do. When I'm using my laptop I'm working or playing. When I'm watching a DVD, I'm in my home theater area (if you can call a 4 year old HDTV, cheap 5.1 setup, and 4 year old progressive scan DVD player a "home theater"). If I do want to run a DVD on my laptop, chances are I want to do other stuff as well.
speak for yourself. when my wife is in day-long MSNBC/Food Network mode using the home theater setup or when the power goes out, watching DVDs on the laptop with my Grado headphones are a great way to stay entertained.
this is really going to blow a hole in the marketing schemes of aol, earthlink, netzero, netscape, and others who depend on the accelerator feature. google has leveled those in one fell swoop. i expect the stocks of dialup-centric companies to drop significantly.
on an intel box, just try installing them and see what i mean.
0. on fedora core 2, firefox actually has an installer! great! things are looking up.
1. firefox installs to my trash. why?
2. i downloaded and unpacked thunderbird, which is just a bunch of executables that have to be placed somewhere in the file system to run. no installer to be seen.
3. in gnome you have to make a launcher icon for both programs for the panel. this is no better than kde in solaris or unixware as far as usability goes. to add insult to injury, neither of the apps have appropriate icons to represent them in the user interface.
4. when running thunderbird, it fails to pick up new messages in linux or in windows when using gmail's pop service. is this a real app or is it that NaDa app i keep hearing so much about?
don't tell me to pitch in and make these apps better. i'm a writer, not a programmer. i want things to JUST WORK on linux. i spent my years as a professional open source advocate, but i just want things to WORK now. but of course they don't, since this is linux we're talking about. that's why i don't even bother with these apps since my primary work machine is a powerbook! i have safari and mail that handle my needs perfectly.
if only computing life could be as effortless under linux or windows--if only i could use my mac all the time . ..
you probably had heard in advance that AOL still sucked. why did you even bother trying it out again? nothing personal here, but wasted your time with AOL, and on top of it you let some phone droid waste 30 minutes of your life. now you're considering doing it all over again. what is up with that?
-- do you go to movies you know you won't like and sit through them until the bitter end?
-- do you listen to prerecorded telemarketing messages all the way through when they ring through on your telephone, then curse the company that placed the call in the first place?
-- do you let chatty clerks at gas stations keep you from getting in your car and driving off to go about your business, then fume afterward because they wasted your time?
timewasters will suck the life right out of you, and AOL is right up there at the top of the list. be careful of timewasters, and you'll have more time left for you and your family.
(this is not advice, this is a suggestion from someone who used to let these things happen to me. now i just walk off or hang up the phone because I DON'T BUY INTO OTHER PEOPLES' BULLSHIT AGENDAS.).......... kris
words, though ethereal, semiotic, insubstantial things, inevitably have negative and unintended consequences to the writer when expressed in malice and intolerance--especially so when misspelled.
they show the international space station in the intro. besides, who's to say that the space shuttle and early warp ship shown in the intro are american?
Slashdot Mirror
Make them psychedelic, please! Even more fun for stoned people watching TV!
I'm more or less a liberal, but there are a couple things I like about the current administration, and thinking strategically with an eye on advancing the state of the art of military technology is one of them.
............. kris
There may come a day where we wish we had ASAT lasers. China's military leadership knows the major US advantage over every other military nation is its superiority over space, and are intent on building their own satellite infrastructure for waging war. If we find ourselves fighting them over Taiwan, scarce oil resources, or bad noodles, I'd rather us play for keeps and blow their satellites out of the sky and retain the high ground.
So I support this research. I'd rather prepare now to fight and win future wars against a technologically adept adversary than waiting until tensions heat up to perform basic research into building new weapons that would help us keep our primary asset and destroy our enemy's. If this means kicking off a new so-called arms race, so be it. Just because we choose not to pursue researching laser technology doesn't mean China or others won't. I guess our elected leaders learned nothing from the history of development of the nuclear bomb.
you'd think that people on slashdot would be a little more enlightened than to engage in bigotry and prejudice. but here you are, proving me wrong.
........ kris
i don't know how else to put it. you're an asshole who is prejudiced against people with mental illnesses. if spindler was a paraplegic or had cerebral palsy, would you be criticizing his job performance because of that? mental illness is just another disability. lots of people with mental illnesses function just fine when treated with medication and therapy. your comment shows off how little you care about other human beings. so stick your prejudice up your ass.
You're spot on. We have a fancy collaboration system at my work (famous ISP). It does a lot of things to facilitate colleagues working together. But it's not self-contained; it sends emails to employees' Exchange mailboxes when some event gets triggered inside the system.
It's not an either/or proposition. The right approach to building collaboration systems is to integrate notifications/alerts/etc. into existing email systems, not to assume that users will use the inboxes inside the collaboration systems.
one killer feature that ajaxwrite must have is styles and formatting. it's simply not useable for anything but writing notes without it. .......... kris
I'm not a Microsoft fanboy, but their InfoCard system is clearly the right answer for Firefox. InfoCard built into Firefox would not only put it on equal ground with Vista/IE 7, it would provide a consistent user experience and user control over identity when visiting web sites, and most importantly would offer bulletproof protection against phishing.
........ kris
InfoCard would accomplish this by using the OASIS-ratified WS-Trust protocol to pass tokens generated from InfoCard meta-data through an identity selector that positively identifies web sites running instances of a security token service that signs the tokens using a public/private key pair. If the InfoCard-enabled user visits a web site that is masquerading as a valid web site, the identity selector on the local machine pops up a dialog box informing the user that the keys don't match and gives the user a choice whether to divulge his/her identity.
This is strong-ass protection against phishing, and InfoCard/STS/WS-Trust/IE7 will ship with every copy of Vista, quickly becoming a de facto standard as Vista takes hold. If Firefox wants to play with the next generation of Internet identity and security, it needs InfoCard support, period. The only hangup is that InfoCard is proprietary to Microsoft, but I'm sure someone will get around to building an open source reference implementation for Firefox . . . I can think of a group who is up to the task.
I concur with the parent poster. Given that home theatre setups are just as cheap and sound a lot better, the Hi-Fi is a product that is overpriced and that does too little. You can spend a little more and get something REALLY nice. See below . . .
......... kris
I personally have no reason to buy a Hi-Fi, since I already have audiophile components in the living room that work just fine with my iPod, sans ultraintegration, as well as a PC in the den running iTunes with a buttkicking audio/speaker setup. Here's what I already have in my living room:
-- Yamaha DSP amp (160 watts @ 4 ohms) ($429)
-- Magneplanar MMGs ($549)
All in all, these components provide audiophile sound reproduction that the Hi-Fi can't touch at any price. For roughly the price of 1 1/2 more Hi-Fis you too can have a system that will absolutely kill the Hi-Fi in sound quality. There's nothing like hearing Sarah Maclachlan's voice veritably leap out of the Maggies' soundstage when playing from an iPod....
Here's my den setup:
-- iTunes running on my five-year-old P4 Intel box (amortized)
-- Sound Blaster Audigy ($35)
-- Klipsch speakers + sub ($120)
Warm and bright sound reproduction with kickin' bass, and everyone's got an old PC sitting around that can run iTunes. The Hi-Fi would cost double and it wouldn't sound any better.
The Hi-Fi is a product that is overpriced and that does too little in comparison to what you can build/buy separately.
The reviewer didn't mention InfoCards and the Identity Metasystem. No wonder, since they are still works in progress. Still, InfoCards and the Metasystem will be a compelling reason to upgrade to Vista.
............... kris
InfoCards are built into IE7 and run on top of the new Identity Metasystem. InfoCards are metadata representing identity data such as username, password, VISA card number, age, etc., that are converted into tokens protected by private keys. These tokens will be passed to Metasystem servers on the Internet running the Security Token Service via Web service protocols standardized by OASIS and supported by Sun and IBM. These Metasystem servers running STS will process the token, validate the key with a public key, and allow user access to their remote resources.
The Metasystem itself is a major advance in identity technology because it layers itself on top of existing identity infrastructure rather than replacing it. In other words, it doesn't require web site administrators to rip out their existing directories and databases; they just deploy a running instance of the Metasystem and an STS server that talks to their local identity store and they can talk to InfoCards.
The end result is no more passwords, no more phishing, and users get to control their own identity information. Enterprise users will love it, IT administrators will love it, and it's just one more reason why I want to upgrade to Vista. I for one am sick of remembering ten million passwords and being phished and if InfoCards and the Metasystem can save my butt I'll be first in line at Fry's.
some guy sends steve jobs an email, gets a canned response, sends another email, gets another canned response, and the ensuing result is that the four-email thread makes it to the front page of /.
....... kris
there have got to be more than enough bottles of champagne to go around in the world to drink than to be concerned about things like this . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/science/space/20 nasa.html
............. kris
(registration required)
the striking difference between this mission plan and apollo is the earth orbit rendezvous of the excursion module and the exploration module. i guess this is because the heavy-lift vehicle is not man-rated. doesn't matter--separate crew/cargo launches just mean more payload to orbit, and like someone else said, the extra bonus cargo capacity means nasa has greater in-orbit construction capacity.
"The sad truth is this is beginning of the end of apple as a computer hardware company. They are going to use use Intel motherboards in pretty Apple cases. Pretty much the same thing that Dell does now."
..... kris
pointless despair. intel inside != generic hardware. one of the reasons intel wooed apple for so long is that apple has a history of designing extraordinary hardware around a chip architecture.
if history is any guide (existing macs, next machines, etc.) there will be plenty of design tweaks apple's superior hardware design team will use to differentiate macs from pcs, despite using intel chips.
I have a nice laptop, but playing DVDs on it is the last thing I want to do. When I'm using my laptop I'm working or playing. When I'm watching a DVD, I'm in my home theater area (if you can call a 4 year old HDTV, cheap 5.1 setup, and 4 year old progressive scan DVD player a "home theater"). If I do want to run a DVD on my laptop, chances are I want to do other stuff as well.
speak for yourself. when my wife is in day-long MSNBC/Food Network mode using the home theater setup or when the power goes out, watching DVDs on the laptop with my Grado headphones are a great way to stay entertained.
"One, two." "Numbers," Kraftwerk.
this is really going to blow a hole in the marketing schemes of aol, earthlink, netzero, netscape, and others who depend on the accelerator feature. google has leveled those in one fell swoop. i expect the stocks of dialup-centric companies to drop significantly.
No plutonium economy. Signed, Jimmy Carter.
....... kris
In my humble opinion, this has been the biggest setback to nuclear power since Three-Mile Island.
do you even know how to read? i wasn't even talking about macos.
get a fugging clue, anonymous coward.
Apple is winning.
.......... kris
Four words: iPod, Apple Music Store.
you're right. don't tell my boss. he might get wise.
dyson sphere. it's the only viable solution in the long run. but unfortunately, in the long run, we're all dead.
on an intel box, just try installing them and see what i mean.
.
......... kris
0. on fedora core 2, firefox actually has an installer! great! things are looking up.
1. firefox installs to my trash. why?
2. i downloaded and unpacked thunderbird, which is just a bunch of executables that have to be placed somewhere in the file system to run. no installer to be seen.
3. in gnome you have to make a launcher icon for both programs for the panel. this is no better than kde in solaris or unixware as far as usability goes. to add insult to injury, neither of the apps have appropriate icons to represent them in the user interface.
4. when running thunderbird, it fails to pick up new messages in linux or in windows when using gmail's pop service. is this a real app or is it that NaDa app i keep hearing so much about?
don't tell me to pitch in and make these apps better. i'm a writer, not a programmer. i want things to JUST WORK on linux. i spent my years as a professional open source advocate, but i just want things to WORK now. but of course they don't, since this is linux we're talking about. that's why i don't even bother with these apps since my primary work machine is a powerbook! i have safari and mail that handle my needs perfectly.
if only computing life could be as effortless under linux or windows--if only i could use my mac all the time . .
In Heinlein's "Time for the Stars," Raytheon made killer ray guns.
........ kris
Where's my killer ray gun, Raytheon? I need to frag my opponent. Your name suggests such weapons.
you probably had heard in advance that AOL still sucked. why did you even bother trying it out again? nothing personal here, but wasted your time with AOL, and on top of it you let some phone droid waste 30 minutes of your life. now you're considering doing it all over again. what is up with that?
.......... kris
-- do you go to movies you know you won't like and sit through them until the bitter end?
-- do you listen to prerecorded telemarketing messages all the way through when they ring through on your telephone, then curse the company that placed the call in the first place?
-- do you let chatty clerks at gas stations keep you from getting in your car and driving off to go about your business, then fume afterward because they wasted your time?
timewasters will suck the life right out of you, and AOL is right up there at the top of the list. be careful of timewasters, and you'll have more time left for you and your family.
(this is not advice, this is a suggestion from someone who used to let these things happen to me. now i just walk off or hang up the phone because I DON'T BUY INTO OTHER PEOPLES' BULLSHIT AGENDAS.)
words, though ethereal, semiotic, insubstantial things, inevitably have negative and unintended consequences to the writer when expressed in malice and intolerance--especially so when misspelled.
........ kris
they show the international space station in the intro. besides, who's to say that the space shuttle and early warp ship shown in the intro are american?
..... kris
suggesting that i would point a gun at my local representative to protect p2p crosses the line of decency. you, sir, are a serious dickhead.
....... kris