Governments are thought of as slow changing, generally conservative, bureaucratic, monolothic and corrupt bodies that hardly ever do anything useful. They bow down easily tothe whims and fancies of special interest groups. After all, governments are run by politicians and civil servants. There trusted and liked by the people only a little less than lawyers.
The British prime minister openly adimitted just before the last general election (Jun 2001) that he was totally computer illiterate. I would not be at all surprised if most of the cabinet are in the same boat. I do not expect the situation to be any different any other government in the world.
Yet the government is a monstrous institution. It was government efforts that saw the rise of the modern computer, the internet and so on. A rich and powerful government like the US government can make or break an industry.
Tender procedures
Most governments use tender procedures for all forms of procurment. This concidered to be transparent, and is meant to keep the governments corruption free. Under these schemes, the cheapest bid that meets the minimum requirements always wins the contract. In theory this should help the open source community. In practice, though, few governments follow tender procedures to the letter. Most often, it is not the lowest bidder that wins, but the one who makes the highest bid to buy the relevant officials.
I really don't see the point of having.biz. All the companies that own the thiscompany.com domain will naturally inherit the.biz domain because of the various domain name registration laws.
The.biz is good for those making money out of domain registration. As for the companies, they would get two domains for the price of two. I expect most companies to simply forward all requests to their.biz to.com.
At any rate this whole top level domain scheme is fraught with inconstancies. Why is it that everyone except the Americans are happy to use there national TLD ? And most of the.net websites do not belong to service providers or other network related companies. There are very.org sites that can actually be called organisations. We all know about.com.
As one poster suggested earlier,.sex would probably have been a grand idea. It would have made life a lot easier for the net nannies. Also, they should've made it illegal for any p0rn site to register under any other TLD.
.info names are going to appear soon. I wonder who is going to use the.info TLD. I would hardly expect it to be by companies in the domain (pardon my pun) of information provision.
This is just another way for somepeople to make money.
Then again if you want to use really wicked TLDs you can always use an alternative DNS heirarchy like ORSC
There are loads of places outthere in the world where hydroelectricty is the prime source of energy. For a long time, it has been touted as the most green method of producing electricity.
This is, indeed, a vile lie. Hydroelectricity, which involves building huge dams to collect water in reservoirs, has a huge detrimental impact on the environment. Thousands of river based eco-systems have been devastated because of hydroelectricity plants.
Everytime time a huge dam is built, millions of local people are displaced. Unfortunately, many of the so-called developing nations have embraced hydroelectricity, and often in these countries, these displaced people are left destitute. While the rich folk in rural areas get all the energy they need, the poorer displaced people lose their lively hoods.
I totally agree that it is high time that we moved away from burning fossil fuels to harness energy, but there is no point in finding alternatives that are equally, or as in this case even more, environmentally hazardous.
Re:Base 3 is best for dealing with Pi...
on
Ternary Computing
·
· Score: 1
Pi is not a rational number. Irrespective of what base you work on, you can't find values for p and q where
p/q = Pi
if p and q were integers.
Of course one could always use the base Pi where 10 would be the value of pi. The problem with base Pi is there are Pi number of different symbols.
Even if you found a way of introducing Pi number of symbols, the next problem is that Pi is NOT a constant, as it is only constant on Euclidean surfaces.
Beer that is. Or any other liquid for that matter. Say I was bearded, and I drank, say 3 litres of liquid a day. Say I did this for a year. That's 3x365 = 1095l. Say half of it was lost due to evaporation. That gives me 547.5l of liquid. Say most of this liquid had a density similar to that of water. This would meen 547.5 Kg. So my beard would way 547.5Kg.
That ladies and gentlemen, is why the beard sucks.
This kind of specification could lead to Linux being used in embedded systems. Soon, the Cell-phones, microwaves, fuel injection systems, and all other systems will run on embedded Linux systems.
I am looking forward to the day when I can kernel hack my electric shaver.
No mention of the Intel Itanium. I wonder whether this will ever see its light of day.
With AMD hitting at its low end range of processors, and Crusoe bound to fight for its higher end range, Intel has to do much more than it is doing now to stay in contention in the chip market.
#2Hype Major customers, such as Quote.com, are switching from Sun to the Microsoft® Windows® platform because it offers better reliability.
The Reality We ourselves do not have any faith in Microsoft® Windows® platform.
The Proof Hotmail runs on FreeBSD Microsoft owns Hotmail Therefore FreeBSD 0wnz Microsoft®
#1The Hype Sun claims to be the leading provider of Internet technology-"the dot in.comTM.
The Truth 10 out of 10 security holes are found on the Microsoft® Windows® platform Proof
We provide the most number of bugs to the Internet community, a whole 63,000 of them.
Our servers are the easiest to exploit. Actually, servers with frontpage had an actual URL with the passwords, accessible to everybody;-). Now beat that SUN !
Our servers have a record down time, 99% of the time, compared to SUN's 1% percent. We do our job 99 times better.
Our servers generate pages not viewable in our own web browser.
Millions of Microsoft® Windows® platform Machines go down with viruses each year.
Anyway, that's besides the point. The point being, that even "Happy Birthday to you", is under copyright.
It is not a bad thing per se. Artists have the right to profit from the fruits of their intellectual labour. What is wrong is this over-zealous greed to hold on it for ever.
A good book, they say is a treasure. That term should not be taken too literally. It is a treasure for what it contains. Everybody should be allowed to share the thoughts contained between the two covers, without undue hinderance.
Copyright it, because what you create belongs to you. But please do make it available to the world. If you do not, your efforts are in vain.
Yep. RealNetworks were stealing our privacy, so they were no better than M$.
And I don't quite agree with the C4A troller, because, we are going to get as bad a reputation as them. I would rather keep it ethical and above board, even if it made a life bit tougher.
And as you said, I would rather download a mp3 than listen to screaching sounds on ra. For movies, I would download the mp* first, and then watch it, 'cause whatever they say, we don't have enough bandwidth to watch streaming movies.
1. The Zipper Yes, the zipper. Find how many items of clothing and baggage, you have, and find how many of them have the zipper. Dr. Gideon Sundback was the inventor. 2. Animated Cartoons - Never ceases to amuse us, don't they ? Inventor - Windsor McKay 3. Stapler 4. Birth Control Pill 5. Contact Lense
I can't believe that AOL is (or are, depending on what you think AOL should stand for), trying to do exactly what Microsoft tried to do, to take over the world.
Global Domination(TM), runs in the family when it comes to all big businesses. However, I don't think it is their fault altogether.
There was a time when only people who loved and lived with computers had access to them. Now, every Tom, specially Dick, and Harry has access to one. It has now become a consumeristic item. As long as there are people who think that MS Windoze is the only OS and Web==Internet, the exploiting of human gullibility by unethical corporations that bulldoze all forms of competition will continue.
Intel won't do anything to Transmeta. Because still Linus is more popular that Crusoe. Doing something bad to Transmeta is like doing something bad to Linus. And, doing something bad to Linus will earn the wrath of the Linux community. A Linux-user boycott won't be the best thing for Intel. After-all, the Crusoe isn't for desktops.
I was disgusted to here about the trade in T-Rex bones. Because of poaching, the T-Rex species is nearing extinction. There are only a handful of animals in the wild, and captive breeding programmes have thus far been highly unsuccessful.
How dare the millionaires blatantly violate the CITES - Convention on the Trade of Endangered Species. Just because they have lots of dough, they think they have the right to drive all the wild animals to extinction.
I think we have to take a stand on issues like this. The US government should ban the import/export of T-Rex bones, and those break the law should punished severely.
If we don't act now, the T-Rex might just disappear from the face of the earth.
Using Credit Cards to make on-line payments is essentially a trust based method. Although we won't trust J Random Merchant with our cash, we will trust him with our credit card.
Trust, unfortunately, is one of the easiest things to abuse. After all, most of the merchants have not earned our trust. We just take their word for it, i.e., the only reason we trust them is because they us to trust them.
Old though I am a sentimental old fool who believes in trust, I think it is about time that we moved out of this trust based method of transaction and entered a much more secure form of on-line funds transfers.
E-cash, and e-cheques sound promising. For example, a if someone mugs you and gets 10 quid ( sterling pounds ) off you, your damage is only that 10 quid. However if someone steals a credit card from you, the damage can be quite considerable. Of course, you, the user, may not bear the brunt of the damage - the merchant and the bank most probably will - but the muggers earning potential is only limited by your credit ceiling.
Same way, if someone steals a 100 dollars of e-cash or e-cheques, the potential loss is only that amount.
I hope some of the e-commerce companies and banks give this a serious thought.
Flash, Shockwave, Avi, Midi plugins are not part of the standard. I shun most sites that use these non-standard features. Let's face it. What most plug-ins do is to make you see more Buy your favourite spaghetti online from weselleverythingunderthesun.com
Furthermore, if not for my T1 connection I would have time to go and get myself a cup-of-coffee before my the plug-in loads.
Plug-ins are the main force behind web slowing because valuable bandwidth is wasted on seeing cartoon characters jump up and down on your screen, and playing yankee doodle midi file.
As, on average, the text content to graphic content on a webpage is 1:30, and considering that most of what slashdot is about is text, and that most of us use Linux or some form of Unix or other, and given that Lynx is freely available to be used on such systems, and because Lynx is a text-only browser, I believe that, if all of us used Lynx in our day-to-day slashdotting, we could minimise the slashdot effect.
My exams start on Monday the 17th. Yep, 3 days from now. I am slashdotting.
Of course having a T1 connection in my room does not make a big difference when it comes to slashdotting, but it makes a HUGE difference when it comes to watching BBC news 24h videostream.
By the way, I am in UK, and, because of JANET business, p0rn of any form is illegal. However, most of the l33t people have found a way around it. Warez is illegal too. But half the guys have put up leech FTPs, with ratios running from 1:3 to 1:1
My exam is on 17th, and here I am slashdotting. I blame the university for my (probable) bad grades.
Slashdot Mirror
Governments are thought of as slow changing, generally conservative, bureaucratic, monolothic and corrupt bodies that hardly ever do anything useful. They bow down easily tothe whims and fancies of special interest groups. After all, governments are run by politicians and civil servants. There trusted and liked by the people only a little less than lawyers.
The British prime minister openly adimitted just before the last general election (Jun 2001) that he was totally computer illiterate. I would not be at all surprised if most of the cabinet are in the same boat. I do not expect the situation to be any different any other government in the world.
Yet the government is a monstrous institution. It was government efforts that saw the rise of the modern computer, the internet and so on. A rich and powerful government like the US government can make or break an industry.
Tender procedures
Most governments use tender procedures for all forms of procurment. This concidered to be transparent, and is meant to keep the governments corruption free. Under these schemes, the cheapest bid that meets the minimum requirements always wins the contract. In theory this should help the open source community. In practice, though, few governments follow tender procedures to the letter. Most often, it is not the lowest bidder that wins, but the one who makes the highest bid to buy the relevant officials.
The .biz is good for those making money out of domain registration. As for the companies, they would get two domains for the price of two. I expect most companies to simply forward all requests to their .biz to .com.
At any rate this whole top level domain scheme is fraught with inconstancies. Why is it that everyone except the Americans are happy to use there national TLD ? And most of the .net websites do not belong to service providers or other network related companies. There are very .org sites that can actually be called organisations. We all know about .com.
As one poster suggested earlier, .sex would probably have been a grand idea. It would have made life a lot easier for the net nannies. Also, they should've made it illegal for any p0rn site to register under any other TLD.
.info names are going to appear soon. I wonder who is going to use the .info TLD. I would hardly expect it to be by companies in the domain (pardon my pun) of information provision.
This is just another way for somepeople to make money.
Then again if you want to use really wicked TLDs you can always use an alternative DNS heirarchy like ORSC
This is, indeed, a vile lie. Hydroelectricity, which involves building huge dams to collect water in reservoirs, has a huge detrimental impact on the environment. Thousands of river based eco-systems have been devastated because of hydroelectricity plants.
Everytime time a huge dam is built, millions of local people are displaced. Unfortunately, many of the so-called developing nations have embraced hydroelectricity, and often in these countries, these displaced people are left destitute. While the rich folk in rural areas get all the energy they need, the poorer displaced people lose their lively hoods.
I totally agree that it is high time that we moved away from burning fossil fuels to harness energy, but there is no point in finding alternatives that are equally, or as in this case even more, environmentally hazardous.
p/q = Pi
if p and q were integers.
Of course one could always use the base Pi where 10 would be the value of pi. The problem with base Pi is there are Pi number of different symbols.
Even if you found a way of introducing Pi number of symbols, the next problem is that Pi is NOT a constant, as it is only constant on Euclidean surfaces.
That ladies and gentlemen, is why the beard sucks.
C program using cout You don't know what the hell you are talking about, do you ?
This kind of specification could lead to Linux being used in embedded systems. Soon, the Cell-phones, microwaves, fuel injection systems, and all other systems will run on embedded Linux systems.
I am looking forward to the day when I can kernel hack my electric shaver.
With AMD hitting at its low end range of processors, and Crusoe bound to fight for its higher end range, Intel has to do much more than it is doing now to stay in contention in the chip market.
Major customers, such as Quote.com, are switching from Sun to the Microsoft® Windows® platform because it offers better reliability.
The Reality
We ourselves do not have any faith in Microsoft® Windows® platform.
The Proof
Hotmail runs on FreeBSD
Microsoft owns Hotmail
Therefore FreeBSD 0wnz Microsoft®
#1The Hype .comTM.
Sun claims to be the leading provider of Internet technology-"the dot in
The Truth
10 out of 10 security holes are found on the Microsoft® Windows® platform
Proof
The Rest © 1997-2000 Andover.Net.
A tad ironic, don't you think ?
Anyway, that's besides the point. The point being, that even "Happy Birthday to you", is under copyright.
It is not a bad thing per se. Artists have the right to profit from the fruits of their intellectual labour. What is wrong is this over-zealous greed to hold on it for ever.
A good book, they say is a treasure. That term should not be taken too literally. It is a treasure for what it contains. Everybody should be allowed to share the thoughts contained between the two covers, without undue hinderance.
Copyright it, because what you create belongs to you. But please do make it available to the world. If you do not, your efforts are in vain.
And I don't quite agree with the C4A troller, because, we are going to get as bad a reputation as them. I would rather keep it ethical and above board, even if it made a life bit tougher.
And as you said, I would rather download a mp3 than listen to screaching sounds on ra. For movies, I would download the mp* first, and then watch it, 'cause whatever they say, we don't have enough bandwidth to watch streaming movies.
1. The Zipper Yes, the zipper. Find how many items of clothing and baggage, you have, and find how many of them have the zipper. Dr. Gideon Sundback was the inventor. 2. Animated Cartoons - Never ceases to amuse us, don't they ? Inventor - Windsor McKay 3. Stapler 4. Birth Control Pill 5. Contact Lense
If you don't understand what we are talking about, you are missing a lot in life. Click here to get a life
Global Domination(TM), runs in the family when it comes to all big businesses. However, I don't think it is their fault altogether.
There was a time when only people who loved and lived with computers had access to them. Now, every Tom, specially Dick, and Harry has access to one. It has now become a consumeristic item. As long as there are people who think that MS Windoze is the only OS and Web==Internet, the exploiting of human gullibility by unethical corporations that bulldoze all forms of competition will continue.
The most potent reason for SETI is the lack of terrestial variety :o) sorry, had to say that
Ummm, this is supposed to be part of the thread beginning with comment #2. sorry about that, folks.
Intel won't do anything to Transmeta. Because still Linus is more popular that Crusoe. Doing something bad to Transmeta is like doing something bad to Linus. And, doing something bad to Linus will earn the wrath of the Linux community. A Linux-user boycott won't be the best thing for Intel. After-all, the Crusoe isn't for desktops.
I can already see ads like 99.9 for sale only $1,000,000
Apart from that this is a great idea. Although I am not the US of A so it hardly applies to me.
How dare the millionaires blatantly violate the CITES - Convention on the Trade of Endangered Species. Just because they have lots of dough, they think they have the right to drive all the wild animals to extinction.
I think we have to take a stand on issues like this. The US government should ban the import/export of T-Rex bones, and those break the law should punished severely.
If we don't act now, the T-Rex might just disappear from the face of the earth.
Trust, unfortunately, is one of the easiest things to abuse. After all, most of the merchants have not earned our trust. We just take their word for it, i.e., the only reason we trust them is because they us to trust them.
Old though I am a sentimental old fool who believes in trust, I think it is about time that we moved out of this trust based method of transaction and entered a much more secure form of on-line funds transfers.
E-cash, and e-cheques sound promising. For example, a if someone mugs you and gets 10 quid ( sterling pounds ) off you, your damage is only that 10 quid. However if someone steals a credit card from you, the damage can be quite considerable. Of course, you, the user, may not bear the brunt of the damage - the merchant and the bank most probably will - but the muggers earning potential is only limited by your credit ceiling.
Same way, if someone steals a 100 dollars of e-cash or e-cheques, the potential loss is only that amount.
I hope some of the e-commerce companies and banks give this a serious thought.
Furthermore, if not for my T1 connection I would have time to go and get myself a cup-of-coffee before my the plug-in loads.
Plug-ins are the main force behind web slowing because valuable bandwidth is wasted on seeing cartoon characters jump up and down on your screen, and playing yankee doodle midi file.
with every ticket to Mir
All customers who buy their ticket's to Mir before the 31st of January will receive a space suit absolutely free !
Now is your chance to risk your life and limb to visit the hottest item on the space-junkyard, and get your own free Space Suit.
All this for just US$40 M return (inc spaceport tax) !!!
As, on average, the text content to graphic content on a webpage is 1:30, and considering that most of what slashdot is about is text, and that most of us use Linux or some form of Unix or other, and given that Lynx is freely available to be used on such systems, and because Lynx is a text-only browser, I believe that, if all of us used Lynx in our day-to-day slashdotting, we could minimise the slashdot effect.
Of course having a T1 connection in my room does not make a big difference when it comes to slashdotting, but it makes a HUGE difference when it comes to watching BBC news 24h videostream.
By the way, I am in UK, and, because of JANET business, p0rn of any form is illegal. However, most of the l33t people have found a way around it. Warez is illegal too. But half the guys have put up leech FTPs, with ratios running from 1:3 to 1:1
My exam is on 17th, and here I am slashdotting. I blame the university for my (probable) bad grades.