Ground troops are still required
on
The Drone War
·
· Score: 1
It is disengenuous to say that the Afghanistan conflict was won without the use of ground troops, as the Northern Alliance did, in fact, fight on the ground and take territory and casualties.
The October 1999 model (I bought one in March 2000) have the access door as well. I upgraded my iMac to a gig o'ram, for $120, including shipping and handling.
I'm disappointed that the desk-lamp iMacs have one DIMM slot "sealed" at the factory, and that Apple is charging so much to put a half-gig DIMM into that slot ($250 ouch!).
What does the rocket engine use for fuel? Reaction mass?
I think the idea is to set off a thermonuclear device at or near the surface of the asteroid. The nuke creates a car-sized chunk of matter at millions of degrees, which then radiates heat in all directions. There is no atmosphere, so the only shock wave will be from the matter that made up your nuke in the first place -- no more than a ton or two. I'm assuming a customized device designed for maximum effect; actual weapons are much smaller (basketball-sized and a fraction of a ton in mass).
The asteroid absorbs a fraction of the radiated energy, which is enough to vaporize material from the asteroid. This hot vaporized chunk of matter exerts pressure in all directions; some presses against the asteroid, changing its course, and others shoot off into space, conserving momentum and making Mr. Newton happy.
I still own no DVD player. I am likely to replace my VCR before buying a DVD player.
But I have a little girl, and she loves her movies, and there are times when a parent needs a break. Video tapes wear out. So a DVD player may be in my future.
But I own a LaserDisc player (that may or may not still work; sound problems:-(), and I found that I never played most of the movies in my collection. Too much else to do.
Your not wanting to pay for another copy of the CD doesn't mean it's okay for you to deprive the artist of the money they would have made from it.
Not at all. Look up the "fair use" provisions of US Copyright law. Some copying of a work is legal, and a "personal use" copy, especially if done so the original isn't used (i.e. having a copy for home, a copy for the car, and a copy for the office, with only the purchaser having access to all three copies) is 100% legit. Or was, up until DMCA made it illegal to exercise ones fair use rights.
Why should microsoft have to make it easier for others to interoperate with their systems?
Because they have been convicted of using their illegally gained monopoly power in the Operating Systems market to crush illegally competition in the web browser market.
I understand the idea that because they are a monopoly
Not just a monopoly, a monopoly that was (a) gained by breaking the law (see 1994 consent decree), and (b) has been misused to thwart competitors.
that they aren't on the same playing field, but microsoft is a natural monopoly
Most "natural monopolies" are regulated by the government to protect consumers.
(inherited from IBM who was restricted by anti-trust laws in the 80s) not a state enforced one like the phone company or to a lesser extent cable company
So do you want Microsoft regulated by the FCC or PUCs or some other government organization? Or do you want consumers to have no recourse in the face of Microsoft's actions?
If this is the principle they're supposed to be acting upon, I'd really hope none of them are acting to principle. Anti-trust legislation is about protecting consumers, not competitors.
The only way to protect consumers is to assure that they have choices. That they can choose to buy a product from competing vendors.
Without competitors, consumers have no choice, no protection.
My translation is: Open Sources is an intellectual-property destroyer. I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software BUSINESS and the intellectual-property BUSINESS.
s/the software BUSINESS/Microsoft's software Business/, and I agree totally.
OroborOSX is an X Windows server implementation for MacOS X/Darwin, that presents applications for the X Windows System in a way that fans of Apple's Aqua user interface would find appealing.
The original MacOS X interface doesn't work for X Windows applications "out of the box".
As we all know, the PC market is quite saturated.
Most people who are going to buy a PC have bought one and PC manufacturers are now almostly completely reliant on upgrades to existing computers to drive sales.
And most people that are going to buy a car have already bought those too,
That is exactly the definition of a saturated market; everyone's already got one. This is a new phenomenon for the computer market. In the 1970s, only the dedicated hobbyists had home PCs (and there wasn't even an IBM to be compatible with). Through the 1980s, home PC market penetration grew to (pulls a guess out of thin air) 20%. Around 1995, 50%. Some company had a multi-hundred-million product introduction; something about the Stones lyric "You Make a Grown Man Cry!".
Now, PC market is saturated. There aren't any first-time buyers any more. Or many homes that are installing PCs for the first time. Three-year-olds start out with hand-me-down PCs, and upgrade from there.
This is new and different. The industry isn't used to it, they still want to grow, grow, grow. Hint: GM isn't growing.
Sigh. "Cairo" was Windows NT 4.0. "Chicago" was Windows 4.0 errr, Win93, errr, Win94, errr, no, make that Windows 95.
And while "Blue" became MacOS 7 (actually, just "System 7" in those days), "Pink" was spun to turn into "Copeland" (as in Aaron, the composer). Once hailed as MacOS 8. Killed by developer neglect.
The U.S. Constitution accords treaties with other nations the same status as the constitution itself. While Congress passes (and the President signs) unconstitutional laws, they may be challenged in court. If the contest is between a congressional action (repealing the DMCA) and a treaty (FTAA treaty mandating penalties for "circumvention" etc.), the treaty wins.
Economists like free markets because, under some conditions, free markets provide optimal allocation of resources.
Others ignore the conditions when free markets provide sub-optimal results, and push free markets as an ideology, rather than a practical matter.
"Free Markets! No regulation!" leave business free to dump their garbage into the air or the water or the ground, where it will poison others. "Free Markets" provided inter-city shippers with cheap rail rates, but those in small towns served by only one line faced exhorbitant prices. "Free Markets" left towns with competing disconnected telephone services.
The pragmatic approach is to favor free markets when they provide optimal results, and to favor other structures (such as regulation) for conditions when free markets would fail.
Patent law is there to make ideas into property. And then explain how the rules about real property apply to the ideas-made-into-property covered by patents.
Bullhonkies. Copying is never theft, and is frequently not even copyright infringement.
And I have paid for the music. And now the provider wants to destroy my equipment. Lawsuits and boycotts are in order.
I like to play classical music at the office. But I'm worried about the CDs growing legs and walking off. So I've been burning copies of my own classical CDs; keep the originals safe at home, keep the copies in the office.
You've got the right idea. You used to be able to perfect the technique by keeping the patent "in process" until some sucker does the work to make your invention actually be useful. At that point in time you let the patent be granted. With a good attorney, you become very, very, very wealthy. cf. Jerome Lemelson
Companys like to make money. A good way to make money is lock-in. So if i make a laptop that uses non-standard DIMM pinouts, you have to order memory from me when you want to upgrade.
A better way to make money is to give customers what they want. Apple used to use the best engineered technologies, and invent one when what was out there wasn't good enough. 3.5" floppy in 1984, SIMMs, DIN connectors, and SCSI in 1986, NuBus in 1987. PCMCIA cards in their laptops. But they were alone, and not compatible. Now they go with what the market crowns as "the standard" even when it's someone else's proprietary technology. EIDE hard drives. PCI busses and AGP ports. Standard RAM. USB and FireWire ports (oops... FireWire is an Apple invention).
Do you need a new modem? You have to buy FOOBAR's amazing new modem daughtercard to get it.
Nope. 56K Modem built in. Cheaper than putting in a slot.
I don't think WinHardware is gonna grow. It'll cost the hardware vendors too much if they tie their carts to Microsoft's horses. As the price of a transistor goes down, the question is, as always, 'what to do with them all?'
It's getting to the point where the answer is no longer 'make the computer more powerful'. Jet Liners all of a sudden stopped getting faster in the late 1950s/early 1960s (when was the Boeing 707 introduced? Is a 757 or 777 any faster?). We may see something similar but for different reasons; the market may no longer push for faster machines.
By integrating more functions onto fewer chips, PCs get less expensive. Things that used to cost $150 and be on their own board are now a fraction of the functionality of a chip on the motherboard. Useful computers are getting cheaper. The market is saturating; retail computer sales will become more like TVs, selling into a replacement market.
Spending $120 for the operating system on a $2,000 computer seems OK. Spending $120 for the operating system for a $400 computer is ridiculous -- when there's a compelling alternative. This is what caused Microsoft so much agita with Netscape, and now with Linux and other Free Software.
If the box does the office tasks (which now include websurfing), plays CDs, DVDs, and 3D Games, burns CD-Rs or -RWs, leaves some storage for the user's pictures, videos, and music, balances the checkbook and does the taxes, and costs $600, and the Microsoft-approved version costs $1100 (remember DOS, Windows and Office), guess who wins public mindshare?
Furthermore, Sun is very anti-Intel: I've heard the only place in Sun that they're allowed to have Intel boxes is is the Solaris x86 development group, so Sun will likely be the last major workstation/server vendor to make the switch to hop on the Intel bandwagon.
Apple isn't likely to put an x86 into a PowerMac for a long time. Interesting race to see who lasts against Intel: Apple or Sun.
Apple wasn't just re-branding other's monitors. The tubes were coming from OEMs (was the Apple 17" Studio Display (CRT) a trinitron?), but the electronics were Apple's.
Calibration was one of the things you paid for. The monitor knows how long its been on, and what hues have been displayed for how long. Cross that with colorsync and the decay curve of the phosphors in the tube, and the monitor kept itself calibrated for life.
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It is disengenuous to say that the Afghanistan conflict was won without the use of ground troops, as the Northern Alliance did, in fact, fight on the ground and take territory and casualties.
The October 1999 model (I bought one in March 2000) have the access door as well. I upgraded my iMac to a gig o'ram, for $120, including shipping and handling.
I'm disappointed that the desk-lamp iMacs have one DIMM slot "sealed" at the factory, and that Apple is charging so much to put a half-gig DIMM into that slot ($250 ouch!).
What does the rocket engine use for fuel? Reaction mass?
I think the idea is to set off a thermonuclear device at or near the surface of the asteroid. The nuke creates a car-sized chunk of matter at millions of degrees, which then radiates heat in all directions. There is no atmosphere, so the only shock wave will be from the matter that made up your nuke in the first place -- no more than a ton or two. I'm assuming a customized device designed for maximum effect; actual weapons are much smaller (basketball-sized and a fraction of a ton in mass).
The asteroid absorbs a fraction of the radiated energy, which is enough to vaporize material from the asteroid. This hot vaporized chunk of matter exerts pressure in all directions; some presses against the asteroid, changing its course, and others shoot off into space, conserving momentum and making Mr. Newton happy.
But I have a little girl, and she loves her movies, and there are times when a parent needs a break. Video tapes wear out. So a DVD player may be in my future.
But I own a LaserDisc player (that may or may not still work; sound problems :-(), and I found that I never played most of the movies in my collection. Too much else to do.
Your not wanting to pay for another copy of the CD doesn't mean it's okay for you to deprive the artist of the money they would have made from it.
Not at all. Look up the "fair use" provisions of US Copyright law. Some copying of a work is legal, and a "personal use" copy, especially if done so the original isn't used (i.e. having a copy for home, a copy for the car, and a copy for the office, with only the purchaser having access to all three copies) is 100% legit. Or was, up until DMCA made it illegal to exercise ones fair use rights.
Why should microsoft have to make it easier for others to interoperate with their systems?
Because they have been convicted of using their illegally gained monopoly power in the Operating Systems market to crush illegally competition in the web browser market.
I understand the idea that because they are a monopoly
Not just a monopoly, a monopoly that was (a) gained by breaking the law (see 1994 consent decree), and (b) has been misused to thwart competitors.
that they aren't on the same playing field, but microsoft is a natural monopoly
Most "natural monopolies" are regulated by the government to protect consumers.
(inherited from IBM who was restricted by anti-trust laws in the 80s) not a state enforced one like the phone company or to a lesser extent cable company
So do you want Microsoft regulated by the FCC or PUCs or some other government organization? Or do you want consumers to have no recourse in the face of Microsoft's actions?
If this is the principle they're supposed to be acting upon, I'd really hope none of them are acting to principle. Anti-trust legislation is about protecting consumers, not competitors.
The only way to protect consumers is to assure that they have choices. That they can choose to buy a product from competing vendors.
Without competitors, consumers have no choice, no protection.
You mean, like Mach? Or MacOS X?
My translation is: Open Sources is an intellectual-property destroyer. I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software BUSINESS and the intellectual-property BUSINESS.
s/the software BUSINESS/Microsoft's software Business/, and I agree totally.
The original MacOS X interface doesn't work for X Windows applications "out of the box".
That is exactly the definition of a saturated market; everyone's already got one. This is a new phenomenon for the computer market. In the 1970s, only the dedicated hobbyists had home PCs (and there wasn't even an IBM to be compatible with). Through the 1980s, home PC market penetration grew to (pulls a guess out of thin air) 20%. Around 1995, 50%. Some company had a multi-hundred-million product introduction; something about the Stones lyric "You Make a Grown Man Cry!".
Now, PC market is saturated. There aren't any first-time buyers any more. Or many homes that are installing PCs for the first time. Three-year-olds start out with hand-me-down PCs, and upgrade from there.
This is new and different. The industry isn't used to it, they still want to grow, grow, grow. Hint: GM isn't growing.
You were right the first time.
But what's a solution that will, first, protect the rights of the copyright holders, and secondly, protect the rights of the users.
I think you have that backward.
And while "Blue" became MacOS 7 (actually, just "System 7" in those days), "Pink" was spun to turn into "Copeland" (as in Aaron, the composer). Once hailed as MacOS 8. Killed by developer neglect.
The incumbant local exchange carrier owns the phone wire, and services it.
The U.S. Constitution accords treaties with other nations the same status as the constitution itself. While Congress passes (and the President signs) unconstitutional laws, they may be challenged in court. If the contest is between a congressional action (repealing the DMCA) and a treaty (FTAA treaty mandating penalties for "circumvention" etc.), the treaty wins.
Others ignore the conditions when free markets provide sub-optimal results, and push free markets as an ideology, rather than a practical matter.
"Free Markets! No regulation!" leave business free to dump their garbage into the air or the water or the ground, where it will poison others. "Free Markets" provided inter-city shippers with cheap rail rates, but those in small towns served by only one line faced exhorbitant prices. "Free Markets" left towns with competing disconnected telephone services.
The pragmatic approach is to favor free markets when they provide optimal results, and to favor other structures (such as regulation) for conditions when free markets would fail.
Patent law is there to make ideas into property. And then explain how the rules about real property apply to the ideas-made-into-property covered by patents.
And I have paid for the music. And now the provider wants to destroy my equipment. Lawsuits and boycotts are in order.
I like to play classical music at the office. But I'm worried about the CDs growing legs and walking off. So I've been burning copies of my own classical CDs; keep the originals safe at home, keep the copies in the office.
You've got the right idea. You used to be able to perfect the technique by keeping the patent "in process" until some sucker does the work to make your invention actually be useful. At that point in time you let the patent be granted. With a good attorney, you become very, very, very wealthy. cf. Jerome Lemelson
A better way to make money is to give customers what they want. Apple used to use the best engineered technologies, and invent one when what was out there wasn't good enough. 3.5" floppy in 1984, SIMMs, DIN connectors, and SCSI in 1986, NuBus in 1987. PCMCIA cards in their laptops. But they were alone, and not compatible. Now they go with what the market crowns as "the standard" even when it's someone else's proprietary technology. EIDE hard drives. PCI busses and AGP ports. Standard RAM. USB and FireWire ports (oops... FireWire is an Apple invention).
Do you need a new modem? You have to buy FOOBAR's amazing new modem daughtercard to get it.
Nope. 56K Modem built in. Cheaper than putting in a slot.
Ummm, that would be Compaq's effort to legally clone the IBM BIOS. IBM did their best to stop it, but lost.
It's getting to the point where the answer is no longer 'make the computer more powerful'. Jet Liners all of a sudden stopped getting faster in the late 1950s/early 1960s (when was the Boeing 707 introduced? Is a 757 or 777 any faster?). We may see something similar but for different reasons; the market may no longer push for faster machines.
By integrating more functions onto fewer chips, PCs get less expensive. Things that used to cost $150 and be on their own board are now a fraction of the functionality of a chip on the motherboard. Useful computers are getting cheaper. The market is saturating; retail computer sales will become more like TVs, selling into a replacement market.
Spending $120 for the operating system on a $2,000 computer seems OK. Spending $120 for the operating system for a $400 computer is ridiculous -- when there's a compelling alternative. This is what caused Microsoft so much agita with Netscape, and now with Linux and other Free Software.
If the box does the office tasks (which now include websurfing), plays CDs, DVDs, and 3D Games, burns CD-Rs or -RWs, leaves some storage for the user's pictures, videos, and music, balances the checkbook and does the taxes, and costs $600, and the Microsoft-approved version costs $1100 (remember DOS, Windows and Office), guess who wins public mindshare?
Apple isn't likely to put an x86 into a PowerMac for a long time. Interesting race to see who lasts against Intel: Apple or Sun.
Calibration was one of the things you paid for. The monitor knows how long its been on, and what hues have been displayed for how long. Cross that with colorsync and the decay curve of the phosphors in the tube, and the monitor kept itself calibrated for life.
Which statement in the licencing agreement do you find discriminatory?