I RARELY listen to the radio any more, and when I do, it's more often than not a donation-supported station. Of course, there are hordes of unenlightened 'revnodes' out there, able, willing, and ready to lap up whatever major interests like Clear Channel throw their way - kind of like dogs that have been trained to wait for table scraps while their human owners feast on an expensive dinner.
This is very interesting...I was in a discussion last night with some friends, which touched on why it was taking so long to lessen our dependence on fossil fuels, and to come up with alternative methods of powering automobiles. Aside from the obvious commercial interests, the notion that the government itself has a great deal to lose from the increased efficiency of automobiles is something I hadn't considered. Because the government has revenue at stake, it would seem makes any effort to "mandate" increased fuel economy in newer cars somewhat suspect. Even if we set this aside, we certainly couldn't have anything that would adversely impact Bush Oil. No, no...definitely not.
What amuses me the most I think, is what while science has been marching forward with newer technologies to increase fuel efficiency (albeit at a snail's pace), the technology to create a road surface that is less susceptible to the wear and tear imposed by day-to-day traffic is something that appears to be somewhat elusive. Another entrenched interest, perhaps?
I don't think to you get it. People flocked to these positions not because they had any special talent, skill, or passion, but because it was a way to make a lot of money fast. It was an end-run around the sometimes tedious and time-intensive process that many self-taught computer professionals endure - not because they can make money, but because it's what they love doing. We're talking about two entirely different classes of people here.
Isn't this interesting though? The government's totalitarian (and completely unnecessary) spying regime is going to drive otherwise completely legal behavior underground. Consider the issue of gun ownership...anyone who thinks that someone *has* to register a firearm in order to purchase it (and be subject to a background check), is smoking something. There are many, many guns available on the street - all it takes is a connection with the right person and a little bit of cash. It's this very kind of dynamic that makes all the surveillance such nonsense. Where ever there's a digital fence erected by the spy regime, there will be a way to get around it. The only people it will affect are those that are already law-abiding citizens.
When medicine becomes a commodity
on
Complications
·
· Score: 2
this is what happens. People have high expectations because they pay a good deal of money to doctors to provide them with health care. Doctors feel they're entitled to exorbitant fees because of the years of training they've had to endure, and the extremely high cost of medical school.
The healthcare system in general, is out of control. We've got managed care facilities who attempt to minimize costs, rushing patients through the process whether or not they've accurately diagnosed or treated the patient's illness. We've got hospitals that charge whatever they can get away with for a given treatment regimen. We've got a growing population that thinks it's everyone else's responsibility to look after their medical needs after years of abusing their health. What does this have to do with doctors and their ability to practice medicine? One might reason that it's just one more facet of the same problem- a large disconnect between the medical community, the people they serve, and the individuals that ignore the responsibility they have toward their own physical well-being. In short, if we took better care of ourselves, it's likely that we'd spend less time in the doctor's office, thereby lessening the potential for any of the anomalies cited by the author.
"Unique" isn't going to get linux where it needs to go - at least as a selling point. Linux needs to be able to "slip right in" so that users aren't forced to learn the idiosynchrasies associated with a different OS. The good thing about the way things are currently evolving is that Linux might be able to look and feel like 'doze as an out-of-the-box experience, but there's no reason that the unique stuff can't be available for those that dare (or even want) do stray from the beaten path. Forcing users into something "unique" as part of the overall Linux experience will probably drive more people away than it will help to convert.
There have been several 3D apps that have come and gone, and right now there are three or so real solid apps that can probably use some help to continue their development:
Blender is a mature, relatively stable app, albeit with a rather funky inplementation of its UI. Implementation notwithstanding, the UI is based entirely on OpenGL. Blender not only supports the modeling, but has a game creation and runtime facilities built right in.
K3D is a very innovative modeling app that has just experienced a resurgence of interest on the part of its original developer, and others. I can't remember if the engine and UI have already been separated to a degree that will allow you to develop your own UI with a K3D engine, but you might want to check that out.
Wingz3d, a modeling app based on Nendo, is very capable, and its current UI is very clean. It's based on erlang, a runtime environment (like java), that seems well-suited to handle a 3D app.
No matter what the RIAA does to shamelessly promote the piracy issue, people who illegally download songs are no better. As I've said several times before, a very efficient way to ellicit a change in behavior is to change your own. Stop playing the game. Walk away. Forget the music produced by the RIAA members. Don't buy it, don't steal it...just forget it. What can the RIAA do? Can it pass laws forcing consumers to purchase a certain number of CD's per year? No...the fact is that it can't do anything but change its business model. Rest assured, the current m.o. of stealing and justifying it with a heavy dose of rationalization will accomplish nothing.
I think I could reasonably argue that surveilance without just cause constitutes not only a violation of a key point of our system of justice (a presumption of innocence), but a complete reversal of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. Because the government has no business surveying any citizen unless there's sufficient reason to suspect that a crime either has been or will be committed, one could reasonably conclude that these measures, based largely intidimation (so far), are repressive.
Let's bear in mind that many of the proposed 'solutions' have nothing to do with the problem of terrorism - the failures that resulted in 09/11 were human in nature, and not technological. But yet, we're expected to believe that this massive new technological infrastructure based on surveilance and intimidation will some how magically produce the names of people planning acts of terrorism - and all for the low cost of our freedom, our dignity, and our privacy.
Also, the day that little Johnny can do his homework on a console, read the e-mail sent to him by his Aunt Phoebe, surf the net to gather information for school research projects, create cute but meaningless doodles using his favorite paint program, or produce a reasonably good-looking flyer to advertise his lemonade stand, then I'll be sold on consoles. The funny thing about this is that if one opts to buy a console, they'll probably have to buy a PC as well, whereas if they just go for the PC, they've got all that they need.
After testing PVRs in 2000, Comcast found that downloading programming to a hard drive in a consumer's home via a PVR such as TiVo, which satellite leader DirecTV uses, threatens the lifeblood of TV entertainment, Roberts said.
After reading this, one might walk away thinking that that Comcast invented TV entertainment. While nothing could be further from the truth, it's precisely this kind of arrogance that will lead to the demise of companies who, rather than seeking to understand what consumers value, work to shackle them with tight controls over how, when, and for how much various shows can be viewed.
Is it any mystery that consumers will attempt to minimize the level of harrassment by commercial entities attempting to sell them the latest and greatest of everything from the latest super-steam-powered convection oven to tampons? The reason that cable owners are concerned is that they assumed that they would be able burn the candle at both ends, charging for both content and ads, ad infinitum. PVRs enter the market, and now PVR owners, who maximize their enjoyment by skipping the cruft, are being branded criminals.
What can be learned here? For starters, there is no comparison between Napster users and PVR owners. Perhaps most important, though, is that there's a real honest-to-goodness clue here with respect to consumer interests. The issue is not that people are using PVRs, but whether or not the cable industry will have the foresight to adapt their business model, rather than force feed its 'content' - replete with all of the ad-gak - to its customers.
Re:This is why I don't understand AMD's lament...
on
AMD's 64-bit Plot
·
· Score: 2
Why does AMD have to compete with Intel on raw speed? Why does AMD need to have the absolute fastest chip available? Why not concentrate on providing customers with a low price and high performance instead- in other words, chips that may not be the absolute fastest, but are fast enough?
The reason my last two PCs have been AMD-based boxes is precisely because they didn't have Intel processors. I'd like to think I'll still have a choice a couple of years from now.
Presumably this exec had to negotiate this deal. Did he start *higher* than this? I can't imagine actually saying "oh I think I'm worth £10 million" or whatever and keeping a straight face!
A more realistic test would have been 1000000 rows in 15-20 tables. That's more on the line of the kind of system I've seen. Maybe on the small side.
We tried to arrange for some time on a massive beowulf cluster equipped with a 3 TB RAID and several GB of memory installed so that we could test against 1000000000 records and 52.7 tables, but they were booked solid.
Needless to say, I can assure you that based on the client's needs, the test I outlined (as inconsequential as it may seem), was quite appropriate.
If unions can improve the quality of life and make it easier for us (in the US) to get training (for example) then what is wrong with that?
I personally don't see anything wrong with this, except that unions have traditionally upheld standards that are tantamount to the lowest common denominator. In other words, unionized workforces tend to amass a significant amount of dead weight - people who are incompetent enough that they wouldn't be able to find, much less maintain jobs in a non-unionized sector. Because of this, unionized labor tends to add a large chunk of overhead to any industry that is graced with their presence. I also tend to think that the problem is exacerbated by a tendency on the part of both union leaders and workers to look the other way when incompetent workers abuse the system.
On the other hand, I can why the idea to unionize might be an attractive one, as non-union management often bring its own brand of incompetence, indifference, and self-interest into the workplace.
If mysql is 'borking' at anything over 8000 rows, I'd take a real hard look at my design if I were you. I did a conceptual demo for a client once, where we sucked up a raw data file from their mainframe - 65000 rows, five tables, and the largest table had about 18 columns. The import took all of 45 seconds, and there was absolutely no performance problems of any kind. This was being assessed to determine how much faster this would have been compared to a RAD-based solution they were currently using. But 65,000 rows is small potatoes.
And I would go so far as to say that Media Player is only the tip of the DRM iceberg. Hmmmm...have I heard this story before? Uh yeah...it's called The Sinking of the Titanic. If I'm not mistaken, it stars the American consumers as the ship's captain.
When open source becomes prevalent ("when" not "if"), let them try sucking an entire distro upgrade through a 56K connection. Then they'll care about the speed...I know, I've done it.
The preview function is not a solution, it's a hack designed to work around fact that for whatever reason, people aren't allowed to edit their posts after submission. Being able to edit my post after it has been submitted is easier, more effective, and affords me greater flexibility. Remember...I'm speaking as a user.
The problem is not nessesarily that people aren't seeing what they need to protest, it's that they aren't willing to give up what they have.
This has been my point all along - you've just stated it more succinctly. This is also exactly what I find so mind-boggling, because when people fail to act, they're only delaying the inevitable.
Good point, but how about a compromise...don't allow modifications after a comment has been moderated. I'd like to think what I write is perfect, but sometimes, despite my best intentions, I still end up missing something. I usually discover what I've missed within the first few seconds or so after the comment has been submitted, so the chances of being moderated within that time frame are fairly low.
I want to listen to lots of music but I can't afford to with a big mortgage and kids. I have several music mad friends who buy 100's of CD's a year
Maybe you could suggest a good 12-step program.
Seriousness aside, this weird, almost pathological dependence on music is exhibited by an alarming number of people, and is, I suspect, the primary reason that the music industry has been able to get away with the price fixing/payola/pure junk for so long. Nothing will change until we change our behavior as consumers.
Slashdot Mirror
I RARELY listen to the radio any more, and when I do, it's more often than not a donation-supported station. Of course, there are hordes of unenlightened 'revnodes' out there, able, willing, and ready to lap up whatever major interests like Clear Channel throw their way - kind of like dogs that have been trained to wait for table scraps while their human owners feast on an expensive dinner.
This is very interesting...I was in a discussion last night with some friends, which touched on why it was taking so long to lessen our dependence on fossil fuels, and to come up with alternative methods of powering automobiles. Aside from the obvious commercial interests, the notion that the government itself has a great deal to lose from the increased efficiency of automobiles is something I hadn't considered. Because the government has revenue at stake, it would seem makes any effort to "mandate" increased fuel economy in newer cars somewhat suspect. Even if we set this aside, we certainly couldn't have anything that would adversely impact Bush Oil. No, no...definitely not.
What amuses me the most I think, is what while science has been marching forward with newer technologies to increase fuel efficiency (albeit at a snail's pace), the technology to create a road surface that is less susceptible to the wear and tear imposed by day-to-day traffic is something that appears to be somewhat elusive. Another entrenched interest, perhaps?
but manufacturers hope to drop this to under $80 and well as double the capacity by next quarter."
Will the under-$80 price be before or after the mail-in rebate?
I don't think to you get it. People flocked to these positions not because they had any special talent, skill, or passion, but because it was a way to make a lot of money fast. It was an end-run around the sometimes tedious and time-intensive process that many self-taught computer professionals endure - not because they can make money, but because it's what they love doing. We're talking about two entirely different classes of people here.
Isn't this interesting though? The government's totalitarian (and completely unnecessary) spying regime is going to drive otherwise completely legal behavior underground. Consider the issue of gun ownership...anyone who thinks that someone *has* to register a firearm in order to purchase it (and be subject to a background check), is smoking something. There are many, many guns available on the street - all it takes is a connection with the right person and a little bit of cash. It's this very kind of dynamic that makes all the surveillance such nonsense. Where ever there's a digital fence erected by the spy regime, there will be a way to get around it. The only people it will affect are those that are already law-abiding citizens.
this is what happens. People have high expectations because they pay a good deal of money to doctors to provide them with health care. Doctors feel they're entitled to exorbitant fees because of the years of training they've had to endure, and the extremely high cost of medical school.
The healthcare system in general, is out of control. We've got managed care facilities who attempt to minimize costs, rushing patients through the process whether or not they've accurately diagnosed or treated the patient's illness. We've got hospitals that charge whatever they can get away with for a given treatment regimen. We've got a growing population that thinks it's everyone else's responsibility to look after their medical needs after years of abusing their health. What does this have to do with doctors and their ability to practice medicine? One might reason that it's just one more facet of the same problem- a large disconnect between the medical community, the people they serve, and the individuals that ignore the responsibility they have toward their own physical well-being. In short, if we took better care of ourselves, it's likely that we'd spend less time in the doctor's office, thereby lessening the potential for any of the anomalies cited by the author.
"Unique" isn't going to get linux where it needs to go - at least as a selling point. Linux needs to be able to "slip right in" so that users aren't forced to learn the idiosynchrasies associated with a different OS. The good thing about the way things are currently evolving is that Linux might be able to look and feel like 'doze as an out-of-the-box experience, but there's no reason that the unique stuff can't be available for those that dare (or even want) do stray from the beaten path. Forcing users into something "unique" as part of the overall Linux experience will probably drive more people away than it will help to convert.
There have been several 3D apps that have come and gone, and right now there are three or so real solid apps that can probably use some help to continue their development:
Blender is a mature, relatively stable app, albeit with a rather funky inplementation of its UI. Implementation notwithstanding, the UI is based entirely on OpenGL. Blender not only supports the modeling, but has a game creation and runtime facilities built right in.
K3D is a very innovative modeling app that has just experienced a resurgence of interest on the part of its original developer, and others. I can't remember if the engine and UI have already been separated to a degree that will allow you to develop your own UI with a K3D engine, but you might want to check that out.
Wingz3d, a modeling app based on Nendo, is very capable, and its current UI is very clean. It's based on erlang, a runtime environment (like java), that seems well-suited to handle a 3D app.
No matter what the RIAA does to shamelessly promote the piracy issue, people who illegally download songs are no better. As I've said several times before, a very efficient way to ellicit a change in behavior is to change your own. Stop playing the game. Walk away. Forget the music produced by the RIAA members. Don't buy it, don't steal it...just forget it. What can the RIAA do? Can it pass laws forcing consumers to purchase a certain number of CD's per year? No...the fact is that it can't do anything but change its business model. Rest assured, the current m.o. of stealing and justifying it with a heavy dose of rationalization will accomplish nothing.
I think I could reasonably argue that surveilance without just cause constitutes not only a violation of a key point of our system of justice (a presumption of innocence), but a complete reversal of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. Because the government has no business surveying any citizen unless there's sufficient reason to suspect that a crime either has been or will be committed, one could reasonably conclude that these measures, based largely intidimation (so far), are repressive.
Let's bear in mind that many of the proposed 'solutions' have nothing to do with the problem of terrorism - the failures that resulted in 09/11 were human in nature, and not technological. But yet, we're expected to believe that this massive new technological infrastructure based on surveilance and intimidation will some how magically produce the names of people planning acts of terrorism - and all for the low cost of our freedom, our dignity, and our privacy.
Also, the day that little Johnny can do his homework on a console, read the e-mail sent to him by his Aunt Phoebe, surf the net to gather information for school research projects, create cute but meaningless doodles using his favorite paint program, or produce a reasonably good-looking flyer to advertise his lemonade stand, then I'll be sold on consoles. The funny thing about this is that if one opts to buy a console, they'll probably have to buy a PC as well, whereas if they just go for the PC, they've got all that they need.
Let's count on Amazon to patent the 'one-click' method.
After testing PVRs in 2000, Comcast found that downloading programming to a hard drive in a consumer's home via a PVR such as TiVo, which satellite leader DirecTV uses, threatens the lifeblood of TV entertainment, Roberts said.
After reading this, one might walk away thinking that that Comcast invented TV entertainment. While nothing could be further from the truth, it's precisely this kind of arrogance that will lead to the demise of companies who, rather than seeking to understand what consumers value, work to shackle them with tight controls over how, when, and for how much various shows can be viewed.
Is it any mystery that consumers will attempt to minimize the level of harrassment by commercial entities attempting to sell them the latest and greatest of everything from the latest super-steam-powered convection oven to tampons? The reason that cable owners are concerned is that they assumed that they would be able burn the candle at both ends, charging for both content and ads, ad infinitum. PVRs enter the market, and now PVR owners, who maximize their enjoyment by skipping the cruft, are being branded criminals.
What can be learned here? For starters, there is no comparison between Napster users and PVR owners. Perhaps most important, though, is that there's a real honest-to-goodness clue here with respect to consumer interests. The issue is not that people are using PVRs, but whether or not the cable industry will have the foresight to adapt their business model, rather than force feed its 'content' - replete with all of the ad-gak - to its customers.
Why does AMD have to compete with Intel on raw speed? Why does AMD need to have the absolute fastest chip available? Why not concentrate on providing customers with a low price and high performance instead- in other words, chips that may not be the absolute fastest, but are fast enough?
The reason my last two PCs have been AMD-based boxes is precisely because they didn't have Intel processors. I'd like to think I'll still have a choice a couple of years from now.
Presumably this exec had to negotiate this deal. Did he start *higher* than this? I can't imagine actually saying "oh I think I'm worth £10 million" or whatever and keeping a straight face!
That's what lawyers are for.
A more realistic test would have been 1000000 rows in 15-20 tables. That's more on the line of the kind of system I've seen. Maybe on the small side.
We tried to arrange for some time on a massive beowulf cluster equipped with a 3 TB RAID and several GB of memory installed so that we could test against 1000000000 records and 52.7 tables, but they were booked solid.
Needless to say, I can assure you that based on the client's needs, the test I outlined (as inconsequential as it may seem), was quite appropriate.
If unions can improve the quality of life and make it easier for us (in the US) to get training (for example) then what is wrong with that?
I personally don't see anything wrong with this, except that unions have traditionally upheld standards that are tantamount to the lowest common denominator. In other words, unionized workforces tend to amass a significant amount of dead weight - people who are incompetent enough that they wouldn't be able to find, much less maintain jobs in a non-unionized sector. Because of this, unionized labor tends to add a large chunk of overhead to any industry that is graced with their presence. I also tend to think that the problem is exacerbated by a tendency on the part of both union leaders and workers to look the other way when incompetent workers abuse the system.
On the other hand, I can why the idea to unionize might be an attractive one, as non-union management often bring its own brand of incompetence, indifference, and self-interest into the workplace.
If mysql is 'borking' at anything over 8000 rows, I'd take a real hard look at my design if I were you. I did a conceptual demo for a client once, where we sucked up a raw data file from their mainframe - 65000 rows, five tables, and the largest table had about 18 columns. The import took all of 45 seconds, and there was absolutely no performance problems of any kind. This was being assessed to determine how much faster this would have been compared to a RAD-based solution they were currently using. But 65,000 rows is small potatoes.
AND it doesn't have the nasty side-effect of being owned, controlled, and licensed by Microsoft.
And I would go so far as to say that Media Player is only the tip of the DRM iceberg. Hmmmm...have I heard this story before? Uh yeah...it's called The Sinking of the Titanic. If I'm not mistaken, it stars the American consumers as the ship's captain.
When open source becomes prevalent ("when" not "if"), let them try sucking an entire distro upgrade through a 56K connection. Then they'll care about the speed...I know, I've done it.
The preview function is not a solution, it's a hack designed to work around fact that for whatever reason, people aren't allowed to edit their posts after submission. Being able to edit my post after it has been submitted is easier, more effective, and affords me greater flexibility. Remember...I'm speaking as a user.
The problem is not nessesarily that people aren't seeing what they need to protest, it's that they aren't willing to give up what they have.
This has been my point all along - you've just stated it more succinctly. This is also exactly what I find so mind-boggling, because when people fail to act, they're only delaying the inevitable.
Good point, but how about a compromise...don't allow modifications after a comment has been moderated. I'd like to think what I write is perfect, but sometimes, despite my best intentions, I still end up missing something. I usually discover what I've missed within the first few seconds or so after the comment has been submitted, so the chances of being moderated within that time frame are fairly low.
I want to listen to lots of music but I can't afford to with a big mortgage and kids. I have several music mad friends who buy 100's of CD's a year
Maybe you could suggest a good 12-step program.
Seriousness aside, this weird, almost pathological dependence on music is exhibited by an alarming number of people, and is, I suspect, the primary reason that the music industry has been able to get away with the price fixing/payola/pure junk for so long. Nothing will change until we change our behavior as consumers.