there were balloon bombs that landed and killed people, as well as the afore mentioned war of 1812.
I believe I mentioned the balloon thing.
Don't let the rhetoric cloud your judgment. There's a lot of stuff predicated on 9/11 that is false, especially the "never had American soil attacked" part.
Heh, I hear all the time that England has never been invaded in the lst thousand years too, I'm of Nordic descent, and my family have lived in the UK for hundreds of years. I hear tell we arrived on these boats....
You own the rights to anything you create. What medium its in is unimportant.
The whole argument of the company who creates the format controlling your work is nonsense. Does Kodak control every colour picture ever taken with their film? Do Microsoft control every document written using their software, or every program written with C#?
Nope, and they never can. To say otherwise is paranoid blathering, seriously.
Format obsolescence is a problem, to be sure, but t'was ever thus. The best defence with digital media is to get your monies worth from the content, then archive it along with an application capable of opening it. Anyone who doesn't do this already is a fool.
I don't even trust these 'open formats' just yet. Lets see what they're like in ten years, shall we?
The web without all this proprietary stuff would be so boring it would be unreal.
I really don't care who owns flash. All I care about is, can I watch it online and can I make my own content with it and own it. Thats yes and yes.
Problem solved.
As for W3C? They're out of date. They mutter about major players not using their standards, but the simple fact is, their version moves too slow. If we did things their way we'd have perfectly rendering web pages all the time, but the content they hosted would be so dull most consumers wouldn't be interested.
That's evident by the fact that not one of the major websites out there that I can think of (facebook, google, microsoft, and even the bbc to name a few) are fully W3C compliant. Add to this that barely anyone who clicks in gives a damn about this, and you have your answer.
I suspect that an attack by the British in 1812 doesn't really count as making people able to cope with risks in the modern world on a day to day basis.
Anyway, if you guys had just knuckled under and bought the damn Tea, I'm sure none of this would be happening...
I'm not completely sure why the fear level is so high in American culture, but I'd hazard to guess that it's the result of a combination of being too used to being too comfortable and too safe too much of the time
I believe it has more to do with centuries of knowing with absolute certainty that there were two stonking great oceans between you and the rest of the world. That has tended to make you feel that the rest of the world can screw itself up and you'll be fine. For quite some time that was true too.
Until 9/11 no-one had attacked American soil (as in the continent, not counting Hawaii here), aside from that poor woman who got killed by those Japanese balloon bombs in WW2. You were, not to put to fine a point on it, as shocked about that as you were freaked by Sputnik. Sputnik had a huge affect on your culture at the time too.
Add that to the fact that generations of many families have lived and died in the same areas, seeing no-one but other Americans, and you end up with millions of people who simply don't have the experience or mental framework to deal with the problem. At least not yet.
Your politicians come from the same stock, they're no mystically different breed they're just as vulnerable to hysteria over the issue as anyone else.
I'm actually pro American, if that statement makes any sense, but to my mind this shift to extreme paranoia is troublesome. It hasn't dimmed my liking of the American people (you're mostly all just folk, like me), but the state? Oooh, not keen on those guys.
I mean, I'm a scientist, English, and I've never broken a law in my life (ok, one time I poured perfume talc over a cop, but I was eight, and he had told my mum that I'd been naughty when I hadn't been..). In spite of my law abiding nature, I can only get into the US if I allow myself to be treated like a potential criminal/mass murderer.
The result is I won't be coming back to the US for a long while. If a conference is being held there I just won't submit papers, or I'll get a colleague to present them for me. I much prefer a trip to Rome, or some other nice Conference venue.
This really is a poor argument, Lets keep the current monopoly because there could be another monopoly?
Nope, reduce Microsoft importance until it no longer holds a monopoly. Removing Microsoft entirely would spark a series of events in which all the competing companies would rush to fill the void, and yes, that would result in a new monopoly.
Progress has slowed a little, but only because of the patents thing.
Its just so hard at the moment to push new technology without people popping out of the woodwork and asking for their cut, even though they've done shit all except hoard bits of paper.
Also, some of what is touted as new technology is really just something built to avoid some other buggers IP/patent trap.
I'm sure it'll blow over. If it doesn't then dust will blow over the bleached carcass of the present IT world as the new guys (read India and China) take over the market.
Aside from that depressing thought, progress is still being made, it's just hard to spot some days.
if MS collapsed today, we would NOT suffer - at all! Proof? Proof? People try to keep clear of Vista, they try to hold on to Windows XP IN SPITE of Microsoft's attempts!
Um, you just used a Microsoft product as proof that we don't need Microsoft...
Really? And what would you replace them with? An Apple Monopoly? an IBM one? Linux?
Notice how many Linux distro's are being sponsored by big companies these days? Ok, this is a good thing as part of an active OS ecosystem, but name one you'd happily hand a majority share of the OS market to.
Microsoft can't be excised from the IT world. If they, for the sake of argument, collapsed next week, there would be a worldwide IT company crash of epic proportions. We would all suffer.
Like it or not, we need them to stick around. In order to survive they will have to evolve as a company, just like IBM did. I hope they do, as much as I like Linux (and I do, a lot), I wouldn't like it if that was all there was aside from Apple's OS.
I went last year and the Collossus was on its own, switched off, with only a small panel of text. Perhaps they've improved that part, or perhaps its not on every day.
What I did see was a lot of bored kids faces, and my son had no interest whatsoever, even though I tried to engage him.
The stuff I found interesting took less than an hour to see, after which it was try and get interested in what remained on the site to get my money's worth.
It's not that they aren't trying, its just that its not that interesting unless you already know something of the history. It most certainly isn't managing to compete as a venue for visitors, or it wouldn't have got into fiscal trouble to start with.
This won't solve the one big issue facing Bletchley, that of the site having very low appeal to visitors.
As much as they might wish it to be otherwise, a collection of huts (one of which is now a tea room, ah yes, nice treatment of history there guys...), a house, some vintage cars and a few cluttered rooms of junk that pass for 'exhibits' just doesn't appeal to people these days.
And yes, they really do look like rooms full of junk for the most part, sad to say, the presentation of their exhibits is not good at all.
Oh, and the reconstructed Collossus? It's just there, in the middle of a room, with barely any information top help kids or the otherwise uninformed relate to it.
Not that the site isn't ok to visit. If you're into WW2 stuff then its probably worth a look, but if you've got kids they will be bored out of their tiny minds all day.
Dictators usually use the technique of identifying a terrible enemy that only their regime can save country x from.
Not only dictatorships actually, but generally its what dictators do.
The fact is that if Iran stopped saying things like they want Israel to be wiped off the earth, and threatening the west, the problem almost certainly would go away. That's not going to help the regime stay in power though, so they won't want that.
Note that if they really wanted a way to end the tension, Ahmadinejad could have gone another way then declaring that the holocaust was a lie in a worldwide broadcast speech. They want this tension, it serves them well.
They almost certainly realise that the US is extremely wary of invading them, so they know that this technique may serve them for generations to come. The exact same method worked in North Korea. Sure the country's fucked, but the ruling faction are seriously rich, and quite powerful locally.
Unless of course some trigger happy nation or president decides its time to end the argument with a few large nukes. I *really* hope that doesn't happen, because the result may well be bad for the entire worlds population, but sooner or later some jerks going to think its the only way out. Then the question will be who is able to hold said jerk in check.
What worries me is that if the Islamic states continue down this fundamentalist route, they are going to cripple their countries economically as well as scientifically. Given that they were the originators of most of our mathematics and astronomy, that's a tragedy of epic proportions.
As it stands there hasn't been any meaningful scientific research from a middle east nation for decades. Thats bad news for them in so many ways.
Mankind will never advance to the stars if we have two civilisations on the planet. One technologically advanced, and the other technologically illiterate, with each hating the other. That is an untenable situation.
Slashdot Mirror
People stopped listening to him a long time ago.
Ah no, there you're wrong. Never underestimate the entertainment value of a nutbar in vocal mode.
What they've done is stop taking him seriously. I'm a long way from being tired hearing about him.
In my opinion, one of the best treatments of his obviously deranged state is that done by de-rez http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/de-rez/55-Jack-Thompson-The-Movie
Serious coffee on keyboard time.
[head explodes]
You 'use' a hammer, you 'utilize' software. It is said that way because it sounds cooler.
Anyway, you think that's bad? How do you feel about scientists using the term 'in silico' when they mean 'run on a computer'.
It fucks me right off.
Umm no. At least not when it comes to Word.
I am no fan of flash but grand sweeping false statements make my feet itch.
Dude, I'm pretty sure that isn't sweeping statements. There are these powders you can buy....
I know, I are have a smarts, I are
there were balloon bombs that landed and killed people, as well as the afore mentioned war of 1812.
I believe I mentioned the balloon thing.
Don't let the rhetoric cloud your judgment. There's a lot of stuff predicated on 9/11 that is false, especially the "never had American soil attacked" part.
Heh, I hear all the time that England has never been invaded in the lst thousand years too, I'm of Nordic descent, and my family have lived in the UK for hundreds of years. I hear tell we arrived on these boats....
You own the rights to anything you create. What medium its in is unimportant.
The whole argument of the company who creates the format controlling your work is nonsense. Does Kodak control every colour picture ever taken with their film? Do Microsoft control every document written using their software, or every program written with C#?
Nope, and they never can. To say otherwise is paranoid blathering, seriously.
Format obsolescence is a problem, to be sure, but t'was ever thus. The best defence with digital media is to get your monies worth from the content, then archive it along with an application capable of opening it. Anyone who doesn't do this already is a fool.
I don't even trust these 'open formats' just yet. Lets see what they're like in ten years, shall we?
Yes indeed, but that was Americans fighting among themselves, no-one invaded.
If Roosevelt thought that was what Europe was up to, then he was being quite sensible in staying the hell out of it.
The web without all this proprietary stuff would be so boring it would be unreal.
I really don't care who owns flash. All I care about is, can I watch it online and can I make my own content with it and own it. Thats yes and yes.
Problem solved.
As for W3C? They're out of date. They mutter about major players not using their standards, but the simple fact is, their version moves too slow. If we did things their way we'd have perfectly rendering web pages all the time, but the content they hosted would be so dull most consumers wouldn't be interested.
That's evident by the fact that not one of the major websites out there that I can think of (facebook, google, microsoft, and even the bbc to name a few) are fully W3C compliant. Add to this that barely anyone who clicks in gives a damn about this, and you have your answer.
I suspect that an attack by the British in 1812 doesn't really count as making people able to cope with risks in the modern world on a day to day basis.
Anyway, if you guys had just knuckled under and bought the damn Tea, I'm sure none of this would be happening...
I'm not completely sure why the fear level is so high in American culture, but I'd hazard to guess that it's the result of a combination of being too used to being too comfortable and too safe too much of the time
I believe it has more to do with centuries of knowing with absolute certainty that there were two stonking great oceans between you and the rest of the world. That has tended to make you feel that the rest of the world can screw itself up and you'll be fine. For quite some time that was true too.
Until 9/11 no-one had attacked American soil (as in the continent, not counting Hawaii here), aside from that poor woman who got killed by those Japanese balloon bombs in WW2.
You were, not to put to fine a point on it, as shocked about that as you were freaked by Sputnik. Sputnik had a huge affect on your culture at the time too.
Add that to the fact that generations of many families have lived and died in the same areas, seeing no-one but other Americans, and you end up with millions of people who simply don't have the experience or mental framework to deal with the problem. At least not yet.
Your politicians come from the same stock, they're no mystically different breed they're just as vulnerable to hysteria over the issue as anyone else.
I'm actually pro American, if that statement makes any sense, but to my mind this shift to extreme paranoia is troublesome. It hasn't dimmed my liking of the American people (you're mostly all just folk, like me), but the state? Oooh, not keen on those guys.
I mean, I'm a scientist, English, and I've never broken a law in my life (ok, one time I poured perfume talc over a cop, but I was eight, and he had told my mum that I'd been naughty when I hadn't been..). In spite of my law abiding nature, I can only get into the US if I allow myself to be treated like a potential criminal/mass murderer.
The result is I won't be coming back to the US for a long while. If a conference is being held there I just won't submit papers, or I'll get a colleague to present them for me. I much prefer a trip to Rome, or some other nice Conference venue.
This really is a poor argument, Lets keep the current monopoly because there could be another monopoly?
Nope, reduce Microsoft importance until it no longer holds a monopoly. Removing Microsoft entirely would spark a series of events in which all the competing companies would rush to fill the void, and yes, that would result in a new monopoly.
Hmm, and argument that neither requires nor accepts any proof, and it has CAPS LOCK words!
You win, sir.
As to what you win, well....
Progress has slowed a little, but only because of the patents thing.
Its just so hard at the moment to push new technology without people popping out of the woodwork and asking for their cut, even though they've done shit all except hoard bits of paper.
Also, some of what is touted as new technology is really just something built to avoid some other buggers IP/patent trap.
I'm sure it'll blow over. If it doesn't then dust will blow over the bleached carcass of the present IT world as the new guys (read India and China) take over the market.
Aside from that depressing thought, progress is still being made, it's just hard to spot some days.
You mean my preferred language has just become cool?
Ok, this is either great news or the world is about to end.
I think I'll go stand in a doorway for an hour or two, just to be on the safe side.
if MS collapsed today, we would NOT suffer - at all! Proof? Proof? People try to keep clear of Vista, they try to hold on to Windows XP IN SPITE of Microsoft's attempts!
Um, you just used a Microsoft product as proof that we don't need Microsoft...
Would be for microsoft to simply go away.
Really? And what would you replace them with? An Apple Monopoly? an IBM one? Linux?
Notice how many Linux distro's are being sponsored by big companies these days? Ok, this is a good thing as part of an active OS ecosystem, but name one you'd happily hand a majority share of the OS market to.
Microsoft can't be excised from the IT world. If they, for the sake of argument, collapsed next week, there would be a worldwide IT company crash of epic proportions. We would all suffer.
Like it or not, we need them to stick around. In order to survive they will have to evolve as a company, just like IBM did. I hope they do, as much as I like Linux (and I do, a lot), I wouldn't like it if that was all there was aside from Apple's OS.
Its organic!. Therefore it's obviously better for you in every possible way!
Or does that mean its steeped in unprocessed manure?
I always get those two mixed up....
that has to be one of the dumbest links in slashdot history :)
I hope your happy with yourself, you just melted their web server...
I went last year and the Collossus was on its own, switched off, with only a small panel of text. Perhaps they've improved that part, or perhaps its not on every day.
What I did see was a lot of bored kids faces, and my son had no interest whatsoever, even though I tried to engage him.
The stuff I found interesting took less than an hour to see, after which it was try and get interested in what remained on the site to get my money's worth.
It's not that they aren't trying, its just that its not that interesting unless you already know something of the history. It most certainly isn't managing to compete as a venue for visitors, or it wouldn't have got into fiscal trouble to start with.
What, the huts were persecuted for being gay by the police until they hanged themselves?
I don't recall them saying that on the tour
This won't solve the one big issue facing Bletchley, that of the site having very low appeal to visitors.
As much as they might wish it to be otherwise, a collection of huts (one of which is now a tea room, ah yes, nice treatment of history there guys...), a house, some vintage cars and a few cluttered rooms of junk that pass for 'exhibits' just doesn't appeal to people these days.
And yes, they really do look like rooms full of junk for the most part, sad to say, the presentation of their exhibits is not good at all.
Oh, and the reconstructed Collossus? It's just there, in the middle of a room, with barely any information top help kids or the otherwise uninformed relate to it.
Not that the site isn't ok to visit. If you're into WW2 stuff then its probably worth a look, but if you've got kids they will be bored out of their tiny minds all day.
Shariah is the only laws that hasn't changed since the time of Prophet Adam (peace and blessings be upon him and his family).
Unfortunately, the world those laws are applied in has changed. They are in desperate need of an update.
Dictators usually use the technique of identifying a terrible enemy that only their regime can save country x from.
Not only dictatorships actually, but generally its what dictators do.
The fact is that if Iran stopped saying things like they want Israel to be wiped off the earth, and threatening the west, the problem almost certainly would go away. That's not going to help the regime stay in power though, so they won't want that.
Note that if they really wanted a way to end the tension, Ahmadinejad could have gone another way then declaring that the holocaust was a lie in a worldwide broadcast speech. They want this tension, it serves them well.
They almost certainly realise that the US is extremely wary of invading them, so they know that this technique may serve them for generations to come. The exact same method worked in North Korea. Sure the country's fucked, but the ruling faction are seriously rich, and quite powerful locally.
Unless of course some trigger happy nation or president decides its time to end the argument with a few large nukes. I *really* hope that doesn't happen, because the result may well be bad for the entire worlds population, but sooner or later some jerks going to think its the only way out. Then the question will be who is able to hold said jerk in check.
What worries me is that if the Islamic states continue down this fundamentalist route, they are going to cripple their countries economically as well as scientifically. Given that they were the originators of most of our mathematics and astronomy, that's a tragedy of epic proportions.
As it stands there hasn't been any meaningful scientific research from a middle east nation for decades. Thats bad news for them in so many ways.
Mankind will never advance to the stars if we have two civilisations on the planet. One technologically advanced, and the other technologically illiterate, with each hating the other. That is an untenable situation.
Anyone who describes cars with video camera's on top of them as 'awesome technology' can hardly be expected to understand privacy issues, can they...