One of the things that makes a museum interesting is the presentation of the pieces they have on display. On the other hand, if the pictures on this museum's site are any indicator, presentation is something they've missed completely. If you want people to come see a museum, you need to teach them something while they're there. I'd be interested in going to see a whole bunch of old computers sitting in a warehouse, but I don't think there are many people like me.
I'm kept off of Windows for the same reason a lot of other people are kept on. Windows just doesn't support my needs. Sure, it'll do posix, and X, and other standards, but everything else just does them _better_. The only thing Windows does better than everyone else is Windows, and I just don't need what it offers. I can get plenty of games for my Mac (not as many, but I'm far from a hardcore gamer), and run all of my OSS programs in a much more comfortable environment. I can even run Word, on those rare occasions when I have use for it.
Windows will _do_ everything I want it to do, but frankly, I just don't enjoy myself as much when I use Windows.
Due to the licensing incompatibilities, I wouldn't be surprised to see little or no XFree86 development make it into X.org. Given that there's little to no XFree86 development to start with, that means that in the grand scheme of things XFree86 is dead. On the other hand, since X.org is a fork of XFree86, and most of the good XFree86 devs have moved over to it, you could make the argument that XFree86 just changed its name to X.org.
I am a capitalist, and happen to believe socialism won't work, but it's nice to see someone who can disagree politely.
I also happen to be a compassionate person who sees noble value in doing things which are for the good of society, regardless of personal profit. I just happen to think that the decision to do that should be voluntary, not mandated.
Bottom line: Install a decent filter and forget about spam
Hmm... that's not a very good solution when you run your own mail server (which is very reasonable for a small company), and have to invest in more server hardware, and more bandwidth just to accommodate the spam. Secondly, not all spam is "easily recognizable by the subject line". Spammers are starting to get clever, and there are a lot of messages where I suspect the message is spam, based on the subject line, but the possibility that it's not necessitates me opening it up just to make sure.
I certainly hope your database makes use of this modern thing we call a computer to automatically enforce the all-caps rule, rather than forcing all of your data entry people to remember to hit the caps-lock key before they type in any data.
Well, actually leasing a car is often the cheaper way to go, if you're only going to keep the car for 3 years. Cars depreciate in value drastically (not as much as computers, though). This means that at the end of three years, if you've paid less in leasing costs than the value the car has lost over three years, you've saved money. On the other hand, if you plan on keeping the car for 10 years, it becomes cheaper to buy, since you'd pay way more than the value of the car over 10 years to lease it for that long.
The same principle could be applied to computers. If you assume a $2,000 computer will be worth $0 in three years (not a particularly bad assumption, since there's very little market for used 3 year old computers), then you save money if you lease for less than $55 / month. The trick, though, is that I don't think that's what MS and Sun are going to try to do. If they're pushing for a subscription model, they want to make _more_ money, not less. Therefore, I think you'll see them try to license you the software for say $50 / month, but you'll only get an $800 computer, which is far from a good deal. There will be a few people that will fall for it (just as there are people who lease cars for 10 years), but overall even if it's a minor success it won't kill the hardware sales business, and even as big as MS is, they won't be able to stop selling licenses for software to run on generic hardware, just like they do now.
The judge still has to specifically grant the warrant. The policeman may not have said the word warrant, but "homeland security"* would have had to get one when they came back to toss the apartment. On the other hand, because of the Patriot Act, there is a chance that they wouldn't have shown you that warrant, and instead would have just searched your house when you weren't there.
Except capital punishment is not used in every state in the U.S. Some (not sure of the exact ones off the top of my head) states have, in fact, abandoned capital punishment, or at least made it much harder to prosecute.
When I moved into my house, the DSL wouldn't work, using the modem that I'd brought with me from my apartment. So, I took the modem out to the point where the phone line comes into the house and tested it there. Still didn't work. Neither did the other modem I had from a previous apartment. So, it seemed pretty obvious that the problem was outside my house.
Armed with this information, I called Verizon.
Call #1 I made the mistake of telling the guy that I had a Mac. So, I get transferred to their Macintosh help department, and get some guy in India who can barely speak English and assumes I have a bad modem. Of course, he can't solve the problem and has to give me a different number to call the next day (not that I'm going to, because I know it's not the modem -- I've tried it at my office and it worked fine).
Call #2 The first call didn't work, so I call back again. This time, though, I'm smart enough to forget to mention that I have a Mac. After a suitable period spent listening to soothing jazz (and the occasional assurance that my call is important), I get a nice enough women on the phone. I patiently explain to her what the problem is and what steps I've gone through to track the cause. After listening to me, she responds by asking which modem I have. I describe it, and she immediately tells me that I have the wrong modem. I need the other model of modem. Unlikely, but I'm no expert in DSL technologies, so I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt... which means waiting half a week for a new modem to show up.
Call #3 The new modem shows up, and I try it. Much to my lack of surprise, it also fails to work. Back to the phones, I call Verizon for a third time. Finally, I get someone sounds like he has a clue. Still wary, though, I decide not to mention that I have a Mac. Only problem is that he wants me to run through some diagnostic steps, which means I have to pretend to follow what he's telling me, and then do the equivalent under OS X. Simple enough, until he asks me to read him some number with a weird title. I think he's talking about the MAC address, but I'm not positive. Busted? Thinking quickly, I acted like I'd been interrupted, and asked him to hold on for a second. Then, I sat there for a few seconds, and when I came back said something to the effect of, "ok, so you wanted the MAC address, right?" Bingo, got it right. I gave that to him, and within' a minute or two, he'd run his diagnostics and determined that the problem must in fact be outside my house (just as I'd suspected at first). He told me he'd send someone out to fix it, and bid me good day.
Epilogue Within a few days, someone apparently fixed the problem, and I got a call saying everything was good to go. I plugged the modem in, and SUCCESS it worked! Only took 2 1/2 weeks, and three phone calls to reach the solution that I'd already determined when I made the first call.
I used to live in the same apartment complex as the ISU prof that the fake escrow service was registered to. Just a building over, even.
I still live in Terre Haute, and just checked the phone book. Mr. Surakul does in fact live at that address. It's tempting to post his phone number, but I'll be the better man and refrain.
Step #1 - Make sure any of those pesky "militias" authorized by the constitution won't get in the way... check. (They've been sent over seas.)
So has the standing army. You don't think anyone would notice if the army was being brought back from Iraq and the reservists weren't? Also, the military is sworn to defend the Constitution, not the president. If he made such a bold move, there would be soldiers who would support him, but at least as many wouldn't.
Step #2 - Control information channels... check. (New law allows for more ownership of media outlets in major metropolitan areas.)
Hell, I don't even think Fox News would support him on that one.
Step #3 - Make people feel "lucky" to have a job and be able to support their family. This keeps them too damn busy to pay attention to you... check. (Unemployment rates drop because people don't even apply any more, or have been unemployeed so long they drop off the rolls.)
That's a myth. The unemployment rate counts unemployed persons however long they're unemployed, and is based on a monthly survey, not the number of people seeking unemployment benefits. It is true that people who have given up looking for work are no longer counted, but as you can see that is in fact a very small number of people, compared to the total number of unemployed.
Step #4 - Have your "friends" count the votes... check. (Less than one percent change can throw the election. Get electronic voting put in place and make sure there is not a paper trail.)
Even if Mr. Diebold (who I personally think is a pretty scummy character) were to try to create voting machines that skewed intentionally for a particular candidate, there is no practical way he could possibly find enough likeminded people to work for him and keep such a conspiracy quiet.
Step #5 - Remember that after the election you are still commander in chief for a few months and that "anything" could happen requiring you to call for martial law. Especially if the really bad thing kills the president elect and vice-president elect.
There is no provision in the Constitution that allows an outgoing president to delay his exit from office by declaring martial law. As for killing the pres elect and veep elect, that would quite clearly, according to the law, put the president pro temp (elect) of the Senate in as president when the changeover occurred.
There are many valid critisisms of Bush's performance as president, but there is little question that he will be out of office in a little over four years at the outside maximum.
Why am I supposed to enter my maximum bid? It may guarantee that I can't be sniped, but it also guarantees I'll pay the maximum amount I'm willing to pay. If I start low and work up, then I stand the chance to pay less.
Ugh. That would be a horrible idea, and it would accomplish nothing. For one, the Win32 API is already pretty stable in the sense that the parts of the API that currently exist are unlikely to change in the next version. If the current version were made a standard, Microsoft would happily maintain compliance with it, while continuing right along their path of adding new undocumented features with every version. At the same time, every other operating system would be devestated by the sudden need to start supporting the Win32 API in order to remain in use by government agencies. All in all, this would be the best possible thing that could happen to Microsoft, and one of the worst things that could happen to everyone else.
There's a difference between paying for quality, and wasting money.
$1,000 for a $10.50 toilet seat is wasteful (if that really was the case, I've heard there's a lot more to that particular story)
It's not wasteful, though, to choose a supplier who will provide quality at a slightly higher price than a supplier who will provide crap.
Say, for instance, that the government could choose between Diebold (who have proven themselves incompetent) building a system at $1 million, and IBM (who have proven themselves competent) building a system at $1.75 million. The government would in most cases choose Diebold, even though in the long run IBM would be the much better value all around.
Efficiency, quality, and reliability DOES NOT automatically follow when profit is the motivation
I didn't say that (or at least I didn't mean it). What I meant to say was that you can get quality out of the private sector, you just have to demand it. "Demanding" quality doesn't mean just saying, "Hey, give me quality!" The only way to demand it (and get it) is to use both the carrot and the stick. If they give you quality, compensate them fairly. If they don't give you quality, don't buy the product. The problem with Diebold isn't Diebold per se (which doesn't mean they aren't a corrupt company who cut corners to squeeze out every dollar they could), but rather the fact that the government didn't require them to properly prove that they had met the design requirements (which I'm sure specified that the damn thing should work).
Was it Diebold's fault that they delivered crap? Hell yes! However, it was the government's fault that they used that crap.
As for whether or not the government would produce a better product itself. Maybe, but maybe not. In house government development projects suffer from a lot of problems, too. Yeah, there have been a lot that have had wonderful successes (NASA), but there have also been a lot that have suffered miserable failures (NASA), just like in the private sector. Just like the efficiency, quality and reliability don't automatically follow when profit is the motivation, neither do they automatically follow when profit is not a motivator.
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One of the things that makes a museum interesting is the presentation of the pieces they have on display. On the other hand, if the pictures on this museum's site are any indicator, presentation is something they've missed completely. If you want people to come see a museum, you need to teach them something while they're there. I'd be interested in going to see a whole bunch of old computers sitting in a warehouse, but I don't think there are many people like me.
Just think what we could do with a Beowulf cluster of these things. ;-)
They back out of the treaty, and hope the other countries that were party to it don't get pissed off and stop trading with them.
I'm kept off of Windows for the same reason a lot of other people are kept on. Windows just doesn't support my needs. Sure, it'll do posix, and X, and other standards, but everything else just does them _better_. The only thing Windows does better than everyone else is Windows, and I just don't need what it offers. I can get plenty of games for my Mac (not as many, but I'm far from a hardcore gamer), and run all of my OSS programs in a much more comfortable environment. I can even run Word, on those rare occasions when I have use for it.
Windows will _do_ everything I want it to do, but frankly, I just don't enjoy myself as much when I use Windows.
I beg to differ. There are scores of anecdotes about companies losing billions of dollars because they forgot to do something.
Due to the licensing incompatibilities, I wouldn't be surprised to see little or no XFree86 development make it into X.org. Given that there's little to no XFree86 development to start with, that means that in the grand scheme of things XFree86 is dead. On the other hand, since X.org is a fork of XFree86, and most of the good XFree86 devs have moved over to it, you could make the argument that XFree86 just changed its name to X.org.
Well said!
I am a capitalist, and happen to believe socialism won't work, but it's nice to see someone who can disagree politely.
I also happen to be a compassionate person who sees noble value in doing things which are for the good of society, regardless of personal profit. I just happen to think that the decision to do that should be voluntary, not mandated.
Hmm... that's not a very good solution when you run your own mail server (which is very reasonable for a small company), and have to invest in more server hardware, and more bandwidth just to accommodate the spam. Secondly, not all spam is "easily recognizable by the subject line". Spammers are starting to get clever, and there are a lot of messages where I suspect the message is spam, based on the subject line, but the possibility that it's not necessitates me opening it up just to make sure.
I certainly hope your database makes use of this modern thing we call a computer to automatically enforce the all-caps rule, rather than forcing all of your data entry people to remember to hit the caps-lock key before they type in any data.
Well, actually leasing a car is often the cheaper way to go, if you're only going to keep the car for 3 years. Cars depreciate in value drastically (not as much as computers, though). This means that at the end of three years, if you've paid less in leasing costs than the value the car has lost over three years, you've saved money. On the other hand, if you plan on keeping the car for 10 years, it becomes cheaper to buy, since you'd pay way more than the value of the car over 10 years to lease it for that long.
The same principle could be applied to computers. If you assume a $2,000 computer will be worth $0 in three years (not a particularly bad assumption, since there's very little market for used 3 year old computers), then you save money if you lease for less than $55 / month. The trick, though, is that I don't think that's what MS and Sun are going to try to do. If they're pushing for a subscription model, they want to make _more_ money, not less. Therefore, I think you'll see them try to license you the software for say $50 / month, but you'll only get an $800 computer, which is far from a good deal. There will be a few people that will fall for it (just as there are people who lease cars for 10 years), but overall even if it's a minor success it won't kill the hardware sales business, and even as big as MS is, they won't be able to stop selling licenses for software to run on generic hardware, just like they do now.
The judge still has to specifically grant the warrant. The policeman may not have said the word warrant, but "homeland security"* would have had to get one when they came back to toss the apartment. On the other hand, because of the Patriot Act, there is a chance that they wouldn't have shown you that warrant, and instead would have just searched your house when you weren't there.
* I hate that term
The justification for all possible invasions of freedom.
I challenge you to find me a single law that strips people of freedom, which can't be justified by a similar argument to the one you just made.
Nothing is impossible when morons are involved, and the world (military included) is overflowing with morons.
Except capital punishment is not used in every state in the U.S. Some (not sure of the exact ones off the top of my head) states have, in fact, abandoned capital punishment, or at least made it much harder to prosecute.
Less than ten comments, and already slashdotted.
When I moved into my house, the DSL wouldn't work, using the modem that I'd brought with me from my apartment. So, I took the modem out to the point where the phone line comes into the house and tested it there. Still didn't work. Neither did the other modem I had from a previous apartment. So, it seemed pretty obvious that the problem was outside my house.
Armed with this information, I called Verizon.
Call #1 I made the mistake of telling the guy that I had a Mac. So, I get transferred to their Macintosh help department, and get some guy in India who can barely speak English and assumes I have a bad modem. Of course, he can't solve the problem and has to give me a different number to call the next day (not that I'm going to, because I know it's not the modem -- I've tried it at my office and it worked fine).
Call #2 The first call didn't work, so I call back again. This time, though, I'm smart enough to forget to mention that I have a Mac. After a suitable period spent listening to soothing jazz (and the occasional assurance that my call is important), I get a nice enough women on the phone. I patiently explain to her what the problem is and what steps I've gone through to track the cause. After listening to me, she responds by asking which modem I have. I describe it, and she immediately tells me that I have the wrong modem. I need the other model of modem. Unlikely, but I'm no expert in DSL technologies, so I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt ... which means waiting half a week for a new modem to show up.
Call #3 The new modem shows up, and I try it. Much to my lack of surprise, it also fails to work. Back to the phones, I call Verizon for a third time. Finally, I get someone sounds like he has a clue. Still wary, though, I decide not to mention that I have a Mac. Only problem is that he wants me to run through some diagnostic steps, which means I have to pretend to follow what he's telling me, and then do the equivalent under OS X. Simple enough, until he asks me to read him some number with a weird title. I think he's talking about the MAC address, but I'm not positive. Busted? Thinking quickly, I acted like I'd been interrupted, and asked him to hold on for a second. Then, I sat there for a few seconds, and when I came back said something to the effect of, "ok, so you wanted the MAC address, right?" Bingo, got it right. I gave that to him, and within' a minute or two, he'd run his diagnostics and determined that the problem must in fact be outside my house (just as I'd suspected at first). He told me he'd send someone out to fix it, and bid me good day.
Epilogue Within a few days, someone apparently fixed the problem, and I got a call saying everything was good to go. I plugged the modem in, and SUCCESS it worked! Only took 2 1/2 weeks, and three phone calls to reach the solution that I'd already determined when I made the first call.
... but how long will it take until someone tries to run this from a browser running in OS X on a PearPC, inside Virtual PC on a G5.
I used to live in the same apartment complex as the ISU prof that the fake escrow service was registered to. Just a building over, even.
I still live in Terre Haute, and just checked the phone book. Mr. Surakul does in fact live at that address. It's tempting to post his phone number, but I'll be the better man and refrain.
So has the standing army. You don't think anyone would notice if the army was being brought back from Iraq and the reservists weren't? Also, the military is sworn to defend the Constitution, not the president. If he made such a bold move, there would be soldiers who would support him, but at least as many wouldn't.
Hell, I don't even think Fox News would support him on that one.
That's a myth. The unemployment rate counts unemployed persons however long they're unemployed, and is based on a monthly survey, not the number of people seeking unemployment benefits. It is true that people who have given up looking for work are no longer counted, but as you can see that is in fact a very small number of people, compared to the total number of unemployed.
Even if Mr. Diebold (who I personally think is a pretty scummy character) were to try to create voting machines that skewed intentionally for a particular candidate, there is no practical way he could possibly find enough likeminded people to work for him and keep such a conspiracy quiet.
There is no provision in the Constitution that allows an outgoing president to delay his exit from office by declaring martial law. As for killing the pres elect and veep elect, that would quite clearly, according to the law, put the president pro temp (elect) of the Senate in as president when the changeover occurred.
There are many valid critisisms of Bush's performance as president, but there is little question that he will be out of office in a little over four years at the outside maximum.
Why am I supposed to enter my maximum bid? It may guarantee that I can't be sniped, but it also guarantees I'll pay the maximum amount I'm willing to pay. If I start low and work up, then I stand the chance to pay less.
Only if He exists as an entity bounded inside the Universe. If he's outside the Universe, then all bets are off.
Ugh. That would be a horrible idea, and it would accomplish nothing. For one, the Win32 API is already pretty stable in the sense that the parts of the API that currently exist are unlikely to change in the next version. If the current version were made a standard, Microsoft would happily maintain compliance with it, while continuing right along their path of adding new undocumented features with every version. At the same time, every other operating system would be devestated by the sudden need to start supporting the Win32 API in order to remain in use by government agencies. All in all, this would be the best possible thing that could happen to Microsoft, and one of the worst things that could happen to everyone else.
There's a difference between paying for quality, and wasting money.
$1,000 for a $10.50 toilet seat is wasteful (if that really was the case, I've heard there's a lot more to that particular story)
It's not wasteful, though, to choose a supplier who will provide quality at a slightly higher price than a supplier who will provide crap.
Say, for instance, that the government could choose between Diebold (who have proven themselves incompetent) building a system at $1 million, and IBM (who have proven themselves competent) building a system at $1.75 million. The government would in most cases choose Diebold, even though in the long run IBM would be the much better value all around.
Maybe he implied it by the fact that your statement seemed obviously meant as a counter to my argument that profit motivation can create quality.
Efficiency, quality, and reliability DOES NOT automatically follow when profit is the motivation
I didn't say that (or at least I didn't mean it). What I meant to say was that you can get quality out of the private sector, you just have to demand it. "Demanding" quality doesn't mean just saying, "Hey, give me quality!" The only way to demand it (and get it) is to use both the carrot and the stick. If they give you quality, compensate them fairly. If they don't give you quality, don't buy the product. The problem with Diebold isn't Diebold per se (which doesn't mean they aren't a corrupt company who cut corners to squeeze out every dollar they could), but rather the fact that the government didn't require them to properly prove that they had met the design requirements (which I'm sure specified that the damn thing should work).
Was it Diebold's fault that they delivered crap? Hell yes!
However, it was the government's fault that they used that crap.
As for whether or not the government would produce a better product itself. Maybe, but maybe not. In house government development projects suffer from a lot of problems, too. Yeah, there have been a lot that have had wonderful successes (NASA), but there have also been a lot that have suffered miserable failures (NASA), just like in the private sector. Just like the efficiency, quality and reliability don't automatically follow when profit is the motivation, neither do they automatically follow when profit is not a motivator.