Just a quick note on firearms in Japan: they did eventually start building their own, copying the pattern from the Portugese, although they tended to use their own mettalurgy; I dimly remember that the Shogunate had used a fairly large firearms- armed army to unify the country, and then when they no longer needed it, having wrecked the opposition, got rid of the firearms, discharged most of the army, and pretty much removed most of the priveliges of the Samurai class (judging them to be as obsolete as the army and the guns). Of course, I think these are only the general details; someone please correct me about the wrong bits.
Based on what the only biologist posting to this thread said, they aren't trying to patent the genome itself, but rather genetic engineering applications of what they've sequenced. This is very different from the straw man argument being thrown around here that "they want to patent the human body and we'll all have to pay fees." If you're going to use that little piece of misinformation to burn someone to death with, you might as well charge them with witchcraft while you're at it.
However, I'm sure the pharmaceuticals companies who'd have to pay fees will be running the propaganda distortion machine overtime on this one.
Bujold and hard sciences...
on
Snow Crash
·
· Score: 1
Actually, the biological sciences in Bujold does seem pretty hard to me, much harder than most SF writers' computer science. But then again, with the exception of a lucky few, that's not saying much.
What about Motorola? They were only having problems producing the 500 Mhz machines. Is this reason for Apple to raise prices or downgrade speeds on the 450 and 400 Mhz models? Persoanlly, I think they are using the 500 Mhz problems as smokescreens for their own problems.
Actually, wouldn't the spread of the terminator gene be self-limiting? Also, if such cross-genetics accidentally happened, the farm wouldn't suddenly see all its crops stop producing seeds, but a fraction of them. (stop and think). Finally, they may not buy from Monsanto to replace what shortfall they have.
Does anyone here really know whether the problem they're reacting to is with the chip or the motherboard? I can't see how problems with the 500 mhz chips would naturally lead to dropping the speed of the 400 mhz chips to 350... and the Sawtooth motherboards were already delayed compared to the "Yikes!" ones.
"As far as I know, Apple controls firewire..." hmm, don't know much, do you? Multiple companies have patents on the firewire technologies, and they have formed a patent pool to encourage development of the technology. Licensing costs are per computer. I can bash Apple with the best of them, but I try to stick to when they deserve it, rather than jumping on every little bit of Intel fud.
Please kindly note that the fuel is currently the least expensive part of a rocket launch; the infrastructure costs and labor costs are a whole lot more.
I was ready to pay before coding began, but I just about begged them to consider using the gtk/gnome libraries for the browser. A couple years passed, and then they said they were using qt.
I now have qt on my system, but still would have liked having a gtk version.
Yet another reason why people should not be pushing Linux on the desktop until it really is ready.
If we continue to encourage blockheaded ISP's to use proprietary connection software and to not share configuration information when open standards like PPP have been available and usable with Desktop Linux for years, well, Linux never will be ready for the desktop.
If "Ready for the desktop" means having to connect via "Point-to-Microsoft Protocol" that was invented last week, well, Linux always will be "behind," at least as far as MS-sponsored AC trolls are concerned.
I mean, come on, PPP was invented on Unix, M$ propaganda (i.e. the way they labeled PPP a modern protocol but SLIP an "old Unix" protocol in their net setup control panel) to the contrary.
Actually this weapon is quite usefull in that it can totally disrupt communications to an errant satellite until the owner falls back into treaty compliance.
How would it do that? Lasers aren't used for satellite communications very often. Just a couple experimental things.
Recently I received a mailing from BellSouth advertising their new ADSL service in my area. It looked like a good deal, but when I called to find out if it was linux-compatible, I found out that it was Windows only, allegedly because they have a "special version" of Netscape optimized to use their service. (As if a normal version of Netscape couldn't handle higher-than-modem bandwidth?)
I also found out that the program isn't even run from around here, but by a company out in California. Maybe it's the same company Qwest is using?
What's the deal with all these "special" versions of Netscape? It doesn't seem to make business sense to exclude various customers arbitrarily, and this bit about a "special" netscape doesn't seem to make technical sense at all. What's it for?
Actually, that 300 billion or so we spend on defense is somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of the federal budget, which is up there between 1.7 and 2 trillion dollars.
The military budget, corrected for inflation, has gone down a lot, but deployments have gone up. We've engaged in two more-or-less war-scale conflicts and a dozen or so band-aid operations.
The Clinton liberals don't like giving money to the military, or developing useful technology, but when it comes to showing how allegedly macho he is, he's always ready to send in the troops. It's as if he thinks the more he does this, the more he thinks people will forget he was a draft dodger.
Maybe a combat veteran would feel less need to prove his manhood by bombing Yugoslavia than the current bunch.
Although I'm for strategic defense, I believe the airborne laser is virtually useless. It needs to be within laser range (which is fairly short) of the launch site to do any good. Naturally, the current administration spends money on it, because it helps them look like they're doing something about strategic defense when they're not.
I'll bet this one has a huge failure rate. The point man for this project at the Clinton Administration was John Hamsre, who spent the time immediately before being appointed to the DoD running an anti-SDI student group at the University of Utah. The Democratic Senate confirmed him, barely, after he claimed he now believes in it, and the whole setup's been slowly producing non-results ever since (something like eight failed tests for Lockheed's THAAD system... note that no matter how much Lockheed screws up, they'll never lose their contract to Ratheon, who had a competing system).
What was that comment from "Yes, Minister"? "In order to stab something in the back, one must be 100% behind it." Well, the current Administration has been 100% behind missile defense...
Crushing LinuxPPC to fend off potential loss in software sales (Forget the gains in higher-margin hardware sales!) would cut off another revenue stream and do them more harm in the long run.
It didn't stop them from doing it with Be, and pushing them over to the Intel chip platform.
Sometimes Apple is its own worst enemy. It should stop being so petty. It's what gives me the most pause about buying Apple hardwre.
Slashdot Mirror
Also check out "Pinky and the Brain" for at least one Bill Gates sendup that I know of.
OK, so it's not anime... it's still good.
Just a quick note on firearms in Japan: they did eventually start building their own, copying the pattern from the Portugese, although they tended to use their own mettalurgy; I dimly remember that the Shogunate had used a fairly large firearms- armed army to unify the country, and then when they no longer needed it, having wrecked the opposition, got rid of the firearms, discharged most of the army, and pretty much removed most of the priveliges of the Samurai class (judging them to be as obsolete as the army and the guns). Of course, I think these are only the general details; someone please correct me about the wrong bits.
Um, shouldn't that "n3th1ng" be "4n3th1ng" instead?
However, I'm sure the pharmaceuticals companies who'd have to pay fees will be running the propaganda distortion machine overtime on this one.
Actually, the biological sciences in Bujold does
seem pretty hard to me, much harder than most
SF writers' computer science. But then again,
with the exception of a lucky few, that's not
saying much.
What about Motorola? They were only having problems producing the 500 Mhz machines. Is this reason for Apple to raise prices or downgrade speeds on the 450 and 400 Mhz models? Persoanlly, I think they are using the 500 Mhz problems as smokescreens for their own problems.
Actually, wouldn't the spread of the terminator gene be self-limiting? Also, if such cross-genetics accidentally happened, the farm wouldn't suddenly see all its crops stop producing seeds, but a fraction of them. (stop and think). Finally, they may not buy from Monsanto to replace what shortfall they have.
Does anyone here really know whether the problem they're reacting to is with the chip or the motherboard? I can't see how problems with the 500 mhz chips would naturally lead to dropping the speed of the 400 mhz chips to 350... and the Sawtooth motherboards were already delayed compared to the "Yikes!" ones.
"As far as I know, Apple controls firewire..." hmm, don't know much, do you? Multiple companies have patents on the firewire technologies, and they have formed a patent pool to encourage development of the technology. Licensing costs are per computer. I can bash Apple with the best of them, but I try to stick to when they deserve it, rather than jumping on every little bit of Intel fud.
For more information, try www.ieee1394.org.
I can see one good thing about the terminator gene: it would have been one further limit to gene- modified crops establishing themselves in the wild.
Please kindly note that the fuel is currently
the least expensive part of a rocket launch;
the infrastructure costs and labor costs are
a whole lot more.
I hope this "boxed distribution" isn't going to reinforce the trend of intel only distributions.
I was ready to pay before coding began, but I just about begged them to consider using the gtk/gnome libraries for the browser. A couple years passed, and then they said they were using qt.
I now have qt on my system, but still would have liked having a gtk version.
What makes you think Hyundai is made in N. Korea? I think it's time for a nice basic geography lesson.
If we continue to encourage blockheaded ISP's to use proprietary connection software and to not share configuration information when open standards like PPP have been available and usable with Desktop Linux for years, well, Linux never will be ready for the desktop.
If "Ready for the desktop" means having to connect via "Point-to-Microsoft Protocol" that was invented last week, well, Linux always will be "behind," at least as far as MS-sponsored AC trolls are concerned.
I mean, come on, PPP was invented on Unix, M$ propaganda (i.e. the way they labeled PPP a modern protocol but SLIP an "old Unix" protocol in their net setup control panel) to the contrary.
How would it do that? Lasers aren't used for satellite communications very often. Just a couple experimental things.
Recently I received a mailing from BellSouth advertising their new ADSL service in my area. It looked like a good deal, but when I called to find out if it was linux-compatible, I found out that it was Windows only, allegedly because they have a "special version" of Netscape optimized to use their service. (As if a normal version of Netscape couldn't handle higher-than-modem bandwidth?)
I also found out that the program isn't even run from around here, but by a company out in California. Maybe it's the same company Qwest is using?
What's the deal with all these "special" versions of Netscape? It doesn't seem to make business sense to exclude various customers arbitrarily, and this bit about a "special" netscape doesn't seem to make technical sense at all. What's it for?
It's a mystery to me.
Actually, that 300 billion or so we spend on defense is somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of the federal budget, which is up there between 1.7 and 2 trillion dollars.
The military budget, corrected for inflation, has gone down a lot, but deployments have gone up. We've engaged in two more-or-less war-scale conflicts and a dozen or so band-aid operations.
The Clinton liberals don't like giving money to the military, or developing useful technology, but when it comes to showing how allegedly macho he is, he's always ready to send in the troops. It's as if he thinks the more he does this, the more he thinks people will forget he was a draft dodger.
Maybe a combat veteran would feel less need to prove his manhood by bombing Yugoslavia than the current bunch.
Although I'm for strategic defense, I believe the airborne laser is virtually useless. It needs to be within laser range (which is fairly short) of the launch site to do any good. Naturally, the current administration spends money on it, because it helps them look like they're doing something about strategic defense when they're not.
I'll bet this one has a huge failure rate. The point man for this project at the Clinton Administration was John Hamsre, who spent the time immediately before being appointed to the DoD running an anti-SDI student group at the University of Utah. The Democratic Senate confirmed him, barely, after he claimed he now believes in it, and the whole setup's been slowly producing non-results ever since (something like eight failed tests for Lockheed's THAAD system... note that no matter how much Lockheed screws up, they'll never lose their contract to Ratheon, who had a competing system).
What was that comment from "Yes, Minister"? "In order to stab something in the back, one must be 100% behind it." Well, the current Administration has been 100% behind missile defense...
I guess this silent "anti-linux-majority" must be all the people whose windows boxes I have to fix? You know, I'm getting tired of them.
badges? we don't need no stinkin' badges!
If Apple makes most of its money on HW, why are they so hostile to third party OS's on their hardware?
It didn't stop them from doing it with Be, and pushing them over to the Intel chip platform.
Sometimes Apple is its own worst enemy. It should stop being so petty. It's what gives me the most pause about buying Apple hardwre.
The author also didn't mention that the DoD and DARPA funded the "robust North California economy" and not the other way around.
And I'm suprised at the ignorance of history here; noone has yet mentioned the real-life inspiration of Dr. Strangelove: Robert McNamara.