'The discovery that a type of genetic data that is widely shared and often posted online can be traced back to individuals has prompted the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Wellcome Trust to strip some genetic data
Jebus tapdancing, theres so much to work with that I don't know where to begin.
First off, you're exactly right that compared to many many countries, America is not THAT bad. Also, you're exactly right that the reason the US receives so much focus is the fact that America has been a huge influence on the world at large this past century or so.
What saddens me is America used to be a place that believed in certain values as being sacrosanct and would fight to the death to defend those values. The americans at those times would follow their values regardless of what was thought of them or how it compared to other countries. It's sad to see that giving way to the apathy of "at least better than the worst".
Comparing your achievements to your goals is the only metric worth having. Comparing your achievements to the achievements of others is the beginning of the path to obscurity.
Basically, ever since vietnam america has backpedaled from the original ideals to a state of doing just enough to still be considered good while doing anything possible to reach the desired goals. Many people like to blame Bush for the current state of american foreign policy and corporate/environmental policies but the seeds of this began way back spanning both sides. The democrats slowly degenerated into nanny-statists and the republicans seems to have shifted to a complete opposite of the original states-rights conservatives where they want a monolithic powerful executive branch.
On the plus side though, the way america is arranged this can always change again. This is exactly because certain atrocities are still impossible within america and certain liberties are available that are not available in all other countries.
I'm glad the founding fathers had ink though, at least that can keep people fighting against the more ridiculous of interpretations or even downright ignoring of the constitution. Obviously i'm not american myself, although i have lived there about as long as i've lived here in canada overall so i think i have a pretty good picture of the kinds of mindsets exist in new england, maryland, and colorado at least.
Please note that with the generalizations concerning political parties, I'm only meaning that they seem that way >51%. There are always exceptions.
Re:Hey everyone they're GREEN!
on
The Google Navy
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Ohhhh the year was 1778
How i wish i was in sherbrooke nowwww.
A letter of marque came from the king for the scummiest vessel i'd ever seen!
wait... Topic....
True but government sanction piracy would have to consist of smaller forces to maintain plausible deniability. The kind of piracy you're describing is the kind i can see getting it's ass kicked if google hired a security force with the kind of revenue they'd have to be making to justify these kinds of ships to begin with.
The only question after that would be when it becomes profitable to do so despite considering those costs.
Re:Hey everyone they're GREEN!
on
The Google Navy
·
· Score: 1
Could always work out a series of GoogleBuoys with permanent landlines as underwater cable that they alternate between
I hear ya.... well.. read ya.
Re:Hey everyone they're GREEN!
on
The Google Navy
·
· Score: 1
Depends on the distance and the location. Could always work out a series of GoogleBuoys with permanent landlines as underwater cable that they alternate between. or perhaps a high power microwave bridge in a region where theres little issue with native fauna.
Just because the direct land->ship link is what they're describing doesn't mean it's the only option.
Re:Hey everyone they're GREEN!
on
The Google Navy
·
· Score: 1
Yes, but they can still up-anchor and leave the current port of call when it becomes obvious that the current locations laws are not as amenable as somewhere else (taking into account cost of moving the ship of course). For international waters, i dont see them thumbing their noses at any super powers but they can avoid quite a bit of red-tape (sometimes justified red-tape) by stationing in international waters.
As long as they dont step on big toes, then the worst they have to worry about would be actual piracy. Course, I doubt they'd be positioning these near the phillipines or anything like that. For fun with forward thinking, keep in mind that "We employ N% of your population and provide M% of your GDP" is a powerful leveraging point that google could theoretically use if they got massive enough.
Heres hoping Google isn't to be zOrg of the future.
Hey everyone they're GREEN!
on
The Google Navy
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Now focus on that apart from the fact that it would also allow them to shift the jurisdiction of their operations when laws change in specific regions.
Hell, fill them with enough guns and they could just put them in international waters. If any of these are launched, shall we start the pool on how long until the "Google fighting Piracy" joke headlines?
Actually, I think thats more of a problem of scale. The larger user base you have, the less consumers think of contributing in the name of good will as "ahh they're doing alright" (and in some cases, that'd be valid to say).
I'm not saying that such a business model would not be profitable, i'm just saying most businesses see it as a diminishing returns kind of model. It will get them to a certain point of profitability but then probably stay there, which is not the kind of thing shareholders want to hear. For someone making a living while producing what they like, this is great. Hell, you could even run a nice private business that way and people would love it so long as you juggled properly. When the words "publicly traded" get into the picture though...well...you wont be hearing the words "eh, we're comfortable with this level of profit. Lets stick with this".
Of course this is not an excuse; It's simply a reason, but I do think it is why we do not see this kind of model being used in more large scale groups.
Its called basing it off GDP versus Pollution versus COST OF LIVING.
Everyone likes to tout GDP's but they never mention the fact that GDP is a useless metric without also listing a) population (which we DO have) and b) the amount of incomey it takes within that nation to live (which sadly, i do not have, let me know if you do).
Also, where the hell do you pull the idea that the billion are dirt poor chinese. China has a middle class larger than the entire american population.
What everyone seems to forget is that consoles are the ultimate in DRM. In fact, controlling both the hardware AND the software is the only time that one can actually consider it to be doing the job DRM is claimed to do.
Sell the hardware for the games, sometimes at a loss,instead of selling the games for the hardware. Getting a console may not be a bad thing in and of itself, but keep in mind that thats where the games publishers want you. Less possible spec differences, less piracy, less risk of some draconian control feature screwing up something third party (IE: the OS or some other applications you're running).
Sure that can be a solution, but in the end who is that a solution for? Granted this isn't saying owning a console is horrible and evil, it's just a good point to keep in mind if you're purchasing a console to play a game that is already available for a platform you have.
And if we amortize the environmental impact of raw materials and basic manufacturing components that are produced in china then used in american manufacturing...
I dunno about you but when i worked manufacturing and went into the warehouse, i'd say at least three quarters of our materials were shipped over on chinese plastic pallets with chinese makers for the components. I don't mean finished products here, I'm talking about the gaskets, bearings, seals, pressed components, etc. The only thing we would use locally would be worked aluminum as we were in a region with low cost hydro-electricity.
I'm not saying this is an issue with sides with the US being bad and china being good, I'm just saying this whole issue is being mis-represented on all sides. If you look at it based on GDP, American industry might be considered more efficient but that is a useless metric without comparing pollution output versus gdp versus cost of living. If you look at it based on per-capita pollution....well a billion and a bit is a bit more of a divisor than 300-400 million.
Tough calls, too bad we can't just get EVERYONE to be less of a douche.
I can believe it being simply time constraints for their first launch, but i definitely hope they intend to implement the full bluetooth api eventually. I'd hate to see google fall into the "Hey we can fail to implement bluetooth file transfers and force subscribers to send data only over our network with our happy fun usage fees (Subcribe for one of our BndOVR Packages to avoid RedEye)!" camp.
What does any of that have to do with what i'm describing?
Visibility or market share have nothing to do with my point here; They made it compatible with Firefox 2.0. Sure there is silverlight in use on the site from what i read of other comments, but there is still moonlight. And even there, theres no reason to block other operating systems from trying to render the remainder.
Granted, a COMPANY might say that improper execution of their web applications could damage their image. This is the DNC however, and anyone who might view their site with non-standard set ups would already be savvy enough to realize the difference between a "broken website" and "ah, they're using ".
Just seems pointless of them to go to so much effort when they could have just as easily left it as it was (or even better, go with the W3C spec and forget the whole issue as an AC replied to one of my earlier posts).
I do not want the Democratic party wasting its money on a partisan Operating System war by supporting a fringe OS that has less than 1% share of the desktop.
Odd.
If it is compatible with the firefox 2 browser, then they have already spent the money on supporting a fringe OS. In fact, it would have taken them MORE effort to give error messages based on OS type as well as browser type like they have than to leave well enough alone.
So in effect, they wasted your money on a partisan operating system war by thinking theres even a difference between the two once its browser compatible. Malice or stupidity, it's still a waste of manpower as that stands right now.
Not exactly a platform (heh) breaking issue, but still rather ignorant of them.
I would say the effect would be similar but not equivalent myself. Keep in mind that many people would not invest money to ensure something that is free runs at its best where they might do so to ensure something they PAID for runs at its best.
Only a slight difference there but i would think it would make a difference in the heads of the average consumer. Sometimes people settle for "Good enough" if its a difference between no pricetag whatsoever and some non-zero pricetag.
Yes there are fantastic games that run under linux as well, but it's not even the same sport let alone league when comparing games available under linux and games available for Windows or even OSX. Most of the comparisons would be between similar games instead of ports of the same game. Transgaming wouldn't be doing what they do otherwise.
True, that does seem to be almost a given. PC Hardware manufacturers sales are usually betting on people needing their current line to run the latest and greatest of games. A wider base of PC owners who can access these games at 0 cost adds a nice incentive for these owners to then legitimately upgrade their PC's. That is entirely aside from the fact that being ABLE to pirate is seen by many consumers as a primary function of PCs to begin with.
Heck, this isn't even new. I know more than one person who had purchased their first 300 baud vicmodem simply because they saw they could get to bbs's with unauthorized copies of games (Storm across Europe, M.U.L.E., Elite, etc) so long as there was a local number.
We really ought to teach calculus as part of the standard curriculum. It'll help demystify science and help everyone
I entirely agree; It has gone on too long now where people hear the word calculus and instantly freeze up thinking "oh i wont be able to do it!". Granted some people might not be geared towards thinking the way you need to think for calculus, but I'm pretty sure its a much smaller segment of the population that fits that description than society thinks. Many people hear of integrals or transforms and simply sieze up without actually finding out if they CAN do such things when they apply themselves.
I'll never really understand that defeatist kind of mentality either. It seems to be the same pattern in peoples heads that causes issues with tech support. How many times have you had to explain to someone something that was written out exactly in the error message they received as they didn't read it at all because "I'm not good with computers!"?
Sucks. Personally, i would love to see a world where education starts off with Critical Thinking, Basic Statistics and Probability, and THEN moving on to the factual details for all other subjects. Starting with critical thinking and ingraining scientific views of statistics and probability at an early age would probably go a long way towards demystifying all branches of science.
Too bad that would make masses harder to predict though as people might start thinking for themselves on a regular basis. Apparently we can't have that =(
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, I work weekends you insensitive clod.
28.5%.
Well, if that might be avoided if Jeff was right that all cable repairmen can do that.
Waterfall Sr.: Our peace ring has 'em trapped like a tiger in a washing machine!
[The engine of the Planet Express ship flares up.]
Leela: Get ready!
Protestor #1: Look out!
Protestor #2: Hold on!
Waterfall Sr.: Here they come!
[The ship rises up from the middle of the peace ring and tows the tanker over the top of the protestors. It flies away.]
Leela: When you were planning this peace ring, didn't you realise spaceships can move in three dimensions?
Waterfall Sr.: No, I did not.
Pfft. Screw superman, i hear Jeff Goldblum can do that with only one passive sensing point AND call it triangulation at the same time!
Now thats power.
'The discovery that a type of genetic data that is widely shared and often posted online can be traced back to individuals has prompted the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Wellcome Trust to strip some genetic data
Jebus tapdancing, theres so much to work with that I don't know where to begin.
First off, you're exactly right that compared to many many countries, America is not THAT bad. Also, you're exactly right that the reason the US receives so much focus is the fact that America has been a huge influence on the world at large this past century or so.
What saddens me is America used to be a place that believed in certain values as being sacrosanct and would fight to the death to defend those values. The americans at those times would follow their values regardless of what was thought of them or how it compared to other countries. It's sad to see that giving way to the apathy of "at least better than the worst".
Comparing your achievements to your goals is the only metric worth having. Comparing your achievements to the achievements of others is the beginning of the path to obscurity.
Basically, ever since vietnam america has backpedaled from the original ideals to a state of doing just enough to still be considered good while doing anything possible to reach the desired goals. Many people like to blame Bush for the current state of american foreign policy and corporate/environmental policies but the seeds of this began way back spanning both sides. The democrats slowly degenerated into nanny-statists and the republicans seems to have shifted to a complete opposite of the original states-rights conservatives where they want a monolithic powerful executive branch.
On the plus side though, the way america is arranged this can always change again. This is exactly because certain atrocities are still impossible within america and certain liberties are available that are not available in all other countries.
I'm glad the founding fathers had ink though, at least that can keep people fighting against the more ridiculous of interpretations or even downright ignoring of the constitution. Obviously i'm not american myself, although i have lived there about as long as i've lived here in canada overall so i think i have a pretty good picture of the kinds of mindsets exist in new england, maryland, and colorado at least.
Please note that with the generalizations concerning political parties, I'm only meaning that they seem that way >51%. There are always exceptions.
Ohhhh the year was 1778
How i wish i was in sherbrooke nowwww.
A letter of marque came from the king for the scummiest vessel i'd ever seen!
wait ... Topic....
True but government sanction piracy would have to consist of smaller forces to maintain plausible deniability. The kind of piracy you're describing is the kind i can see getting it's ass kicked if google hired a security force with the kind of revenue they'd have to be making to justify these kinds of ships to begin with.
The only question after that would be when it becomes profitable to do so despite considering those costs.
So:
Hell, fill them with enough guns and they could just put them in international waters.
That and..
Could always work out a series of GoogleBuoys with permanent landlines as underwater cable that they alternate between
I hear ya. ... well.. read ya.
Depends on the distance and the location. Could always work out a series of GoogleBuoys with permanent landlines as underwater cable that they alternate between. or perhaps a high power microwave bridge in a region where theres little issue with native fauna.
Just because the direct land->ship link is what they're describing doesn't mean it's the only option.
Yes, but they can still up-anchor and leave the current port of call when it becomes obvious that the current locations laws are not as amenable as somewhere else (taking into account cost of moving the ship of course). For international waters, i dont see them thumbing their noses at any super powers but they can avoid quite a bit of red-tape (sometimes justified red-tape) by stationing in international waters.
As long as they dont step on big toes, then the worst they have to worry about would be actual piracy. Course, I doubt they'd be positioning these near the phillipines or anything like that. For fun with forward thinking, keep in mind that "We employ N% of your population and provide M% of your GDP" is a powerful leveraging point that google could theoretically use if they got massive enough.
Heres hoping Google isn't to be zOrg of the future.
Now focus on that apart from the fact that it would also allow them to shift the jurisdiction of their operations when laws change in specific regions.
Hell, fill them with enough guns and they could just put them in international waters. If any of these are launched, shall we start the pool on how long until the "Google fighting Piracy" joke headlines?
Actually, I think thats more of a problem of scale. The larger user base you have, the less consumers think of contributing in the name of good will as "ahh they're doing alright" (and in some cases, that'd be valid to say).
I'm not saying that such a business model would not be profitable, i'm just saying most businesses see it as a diminishing returns kind of model. It will get them to a certain point of profitability but then probably stay there, which is not the kind of thing shareholders want to hear. For someone making a living while producing what they like, this is great. Hell, you could even run a nice private business that way and people would love it so long as you juggled properly. When the words "publicly traded" get into the picture though...well...you wont be hearing the words "eh, we're comfortable with this level of profit. Lets stick with this".
Of course this is not an excuse; It's simply a reason, but I do think it is why we do not see this kind of model being used in more large scale groups.
Users read the stories here?
Jebus, i've been way off in my understanding of the place.
Yes, i already mentioned it too.
Its called basing it off GDP versus Pollution versus COST OF LIVING.
Everyone likes to tout GDP's but they never mention the fact that GDP is a useless metric without also listing a) population (which we DO have) and b) the amount of incomey it takes within that nation to live (which sadly, i do not have, let me know if you do).
Also, where the hell do you pull the idea that the billion are dirt poor chinese. China has a middle class larger than the entire american population.
What everyone seems to forget is that consoles are the ultimate in DRM. In fact, controlling both the hardware AND the software is the only time that one can actually consider it to be doing the job DRM is claimed to do.
Sell the hardware for the games, sometimes at a loss,instead of selling the games for the hardware. Getting a console may not be a bad thing in and of itself, but keep in mind that thats where the games publishers want you. Less possible spec differences, less piracy, less risk of some draconian control feature screwing up something third party (IE: the OS or some other applications you're running).
Sure that can be a solution, but in the end who is that a solution for? Granted this isn't saying owning a console is horrible and evil, it's just a good point to keep in mind if you're purchasing a console to play a game that is already available for a platform you have.
The US is still #1 in manufacturing BY FAR
And if we amortize the environmental impact of raw materials and basic manufacturing components that are produced in china then used in american manufacturing...
I dunno about you but when i worked manufacturing and went into the warehouse, i'd say at least three quarters of our materials were shipped over on chinese plastic pallets with chinese makers for the components. I don't mean finished products here, I'm talking about the gaskets, bearings, seals, pressed components, etc. The only thing we would use locally would be worked aluminum as we were in a region with low cost hydro-electricity.
I'm not saying this is an issue with sides with the US being bad and china being good, I'm just saying this whole issue is being mis-represented on all sides. If you look at it based on GDP, American industry might be considered more efficient but that is a useless metric without comparing pollution output versus gdp versus cost of living. If you look at it based on per-capita pollution....well a billion and a bit is a bit more of a divisor than 300-400 million.
Tough calls, too bad we can't just get EVERYONE to be less of a douche.
or CRAZY CONSPIRACY THEORY!?!
I can believe it being simply time constraints for their first launch, but i definitely hope they intend to implement the full bluetooth api eventually. I'd hate to see google fall into the "Hey we can fail to implement bluetooth file transfers and force subscribers to send data only over our network with our happy fun usage fees (Subcribe for one of our BndOVR Packages to avoid RedEye)!" camp.
Quick question.
What does any of that have to do with what i'm describing?
Visibility or market share have nothing to do with my point here; They made it compatible with Firefox 2.0. Sure there is silverlight in use on the site from what i read of other comments, but there is still moonlight. And even there, theres no reason to block other operating systems from trying to render the remainder.
Granted, a COMPANY might say that improper execution of their web applications could damage their image. This is the DNC however, and anyone who might view their site with non-standard set ups would already be savvy enough to realize the difference between a "broken website" and "ah, they're using ".
Just seems pointless of them to go to so much effort when they could have just as easily left it as it was (or even better, go with the W3C spec and forget the whole issue as an AC replied to one of my earlier posts).
I do not want the Democratic party wasting its money on a partisan Operating System war by supporting a fringe OS that has less than 1% share of the desktop.
Odd.
If it is compatible with the firefox 2 browser, then they have already spent the money on supporting a fringe OS. In fact, it would have taken them MORE effort to give error messages based on OS type as well as browser type like they have than to leave well enough alone.
So in effect, they wasted your money on a partisan operating system war by thinking theres even a difference between the two once its browser compatible. Malice or stupidity, it's still a waste of manpower as that stands right now.
Not exactly a platform (heh) breaking issue, but still rather ignorant of them.
I would say the effect would be similar but not equivalent myself. Keep in mind that many people would not invest money to ensure something that is free runs at its best where they might do so to ensure something they PAID for runs at its best.
Only a slight difference there but i would think it would make a difference in the heads of the average consumer. Sometimes people settle for "Good enough" if its a difference between no pricetag whatsoever and some non-zero pricetag.
Yes there are fantastic games that run under linux as well, but it's not even the same sport let alone league when comparing games available under linux and games available for Windows or even OSX. Most of the comparisons would be between similar games instead of ports of the same game. Transgaming wouldn't be doing what they do otherwise.
True, that does seem to be almost a given. PC Hardware manufacturers sales are usually betting on people needing their current line to run the latest and greatest of games. A wider base of PC owners who can access these games at 0 cost adds a nice incentive for these owners to then legitimately upgrade their PC's. That is entirely aside from the fact that being ABLE to pirate is seen by many consumers as a primary function of PCs to begin with.
Heck, this isn't even new. I know more than one person who had purchased their first 300 baud vicmodem simply because they saw they could get to bbs's with unauthorized copies of games (Storm across Europe, M.U.L.E., Elite, etc) so long as there was a local number.
We really ought to teach calculus as part of the standard curriculum. It'll help demystify science and help everyone
I entirely agree; It has gone on too long now where people hear the word calculus and instantly freeze up thinking "oh i wont be able to do it!". Granted some people might not be geared towards thinking the way you need to think for calculus, but I'm pretty sure its a much smaller segment of the population that fits that description than society thinks. Many people hear of integrals or transforms and simply sieze up without actually finding out if they CAN do such things when they apply themselves.
I'll never really understand that defeatist kind of mentality either. It seems to be the same pattern in peoples heads that causes issues with tech support. How many times have you had to explain to someone something that was written out exactly in the error message they received as they didn't read it at all because "I'm not good with computers!"?
Sucks. Personally, i would love to see a world where education starts off with Critical Thinking, Basic Statistics and Probability, and THEN moving on to the factual details for all other subjects. Starting with critical thinking and ingraining scientific views of statistics and probability at an early age would probably go a long way towards demystifying all branches of science.
Too bad that would make masses harder to predict though as people might start thinking for themselves on a regular basis. Apparently we can't have that =(
it doesn't have any organic matter in there anyway
Excrement is still organic matter. Things like Cyanide naturally occur in plant seeds and such as well.
Give them a break, there might be SOME organic matter in there somewhere.
oh...right.. =)
I entirely agree, but there may have been a few briefcases full of hookers who are full of money involved to tip the balance.
I do prefer that interpretation myself, which i guess is why it stuck in my head that way heh.
However if quantum mechanics is suspended within the forebrain, please point me to the nearest frontal lobotomy clinic.