The last line of TFA mentions antitrust, also: >Isn't that why the Justice Department and the EU went after Redmond in the first place? But does anyone think there's any real danger of an antitrust suit, at least in the next 3 years? After all, antitrust is *punishing* a company for being *successful*.
It's not an issue of "sit and stagnate and rot," it's "who's on top." The corporates would probably rather not have society "sit and stagnate and rot," but the first priority is to be on top, and if that means that they sit on top of a stagnating, rotting society, so be it.
Actually there is a middle-ground, though neither side appears to want to acknowledge it.
Let me being by saying I am pro-choice. Then let me add that I think that abortion is a very bad thing, and I wish it never happened at all. Pro-choice is NOT pro-abortion. (There may be some exceptions, like Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, Godwin, etc, but let's let that lie.)
IMHO, if the real goal is to reduce abortions, you have 2 ways to go about it. The first is to understand the causes of abortion and try to eliminate them. The second is to forbid it. The benefit of making abortion illegal is that you can feel all smug and self-righteous about a job well done. You can probably also discount Steven Levitt's (look it up) arguments and the fact that some/many of those abortions still happen, illegally. (Abortion stops a beating heart... but a botched back-alley abortion stops two.) It's much harder to understand why abortion happens, and stop it at that level. It's also much harder to declare victory. (Perhaps both are impossible, but I still believe it's the better route.)
Incidentally, if you want to get really hot about abortion, take The Pill off the market. The old high-dosage Pill used to work by stopping ovulation. That dosage had too many side-effects. The new low-dosage Pill, basically the only kind in use now, works by preventing implantation. Essentially the low-dosage Pill is a very early (clearly pre-brain) abortion.
I'm currently reading "Moral Politics," an interesting if repetitive book. It has been sufficiently repetitive that I've take a break and am reading the New Testament to square it against the author's points. I'm currently only mid-Luke, so my picture isn't re-complete. But I can state a few preliminary conclusions: (things in quotes are paraphrased extractions from memory)
Christ spoke out against immorality a few times, and most of those were within the context of marriage and divorce. Christ was quite clearly against moral accounting by Man. "Vengence is mine, sayeth the Lord", "Forgive seventy times seven" Christ was against making rule for others' behavior. "point out the speck in his eye, ignoring the log in your own" But it seems to me that most of Christ's criticism was reserved for the Pharisees and Sadducees, in other words, "the establishment," the wealthy self-righteous who looked down on "those sinners."
One can take this however you want. I wish merely to point out the irony that those who wrap themselves in the flag and set themselves upon the Bible as a pedestal are acting as the Pharisees and Sadducees did. This is IMHO a clearly inconsistent position.
Someone please spend mod points on the parent. I was going to try and make the same point, but was reading first, and "foo fighter" has done a fine job of it.
Unless you live outside the US, or in Montana, that Carrera is wasted. Everywhere back East, the speed limit is 65 or less, where that beast isn't even trotting. Maybe in the West you get a 75 speed limit - a little better. But in Montana, if I've heard correctly, it's "Reasonable and Proper" again. Or maybe you live in Europe, and can open it up a bit on the Autobahn. But since you say "pub" I might presume you're in the UK? What are speed limits like, there?
Or is it carbon city for your engine's guts?
I just brought in a new flash drive, today. There's no policy against it. My plans for it? Primarily pdf's of various documents and manuals that I end up getting here and there on the net, in the course of doing my job. I also plan to put executable and data file for pwsafe (encrypted password storage/generation) on it. If I ever put sensitive data on, it will be in an encrypted container file, and the primary copy will be on backed-up media at work.
And oh yes, I have a job... and a wife... and kids... and a house... and 2 cars, though less exotic ones.
What bothers me more than the company turning down the screws to secure things is when they turn down the screws to secure things, without really accomplishing that end. I certainly won't disagree with a software maintenance policy, for Windows, Linux, and everything else. Nor will I disagree with firewalls and enforcing company policies across them.
But if I were to tell some of the more boneheaded things that are ALSO done, and the holes obliviously left open, you'd either know where I work, or how to crack the place.
While I like the idea of space mining, there's a far closer and easier to reach source - landfill mining. How many decades were we throwing junk out with no thoughts whatsoever to recycling? I submit that what we really need is a refinement process for landfill mining, some sort of automatic separator that we fill by the bucketload, and get stuff out that is separated at least to the extent that raw ore out of the ground is. Solve 2 problems at once.
The only problem for the Alberta sands will be finding enough natural gas to bake all of that oil out. I presume they could use some of the oil to fuel production, but that still leaves one guessing what the net output would be. I'm under the impression that it's very energy-intensive to get oil out of oil sands.
Boy, I'd like to agree with everything you've said, but I guess I'm feeling pessimistic, at the moment. Elsewhere on this thread I posted a brief rant trying to figure out what "conservatives" are conserving. It seems to me that up until now, doing things "the old way, the way that worked for my father and grandfather," has always been a safe, "conservative" way. But today's "conservatives" aren't really conservative, by that definition. (see my rant) Plus, IMHO, we're at a turning point where the old ways not only may not work, but may well be detrimental. And to my way of thinking, the new "conservative" ways are clearly the wrong way.
Fisheries: My pet idea would be to mark off 100-200 square miles of ocean, probably straddling the edge of the continental shelf, for diversity. NO FISHING inside, under threat of immediate sinking. But fish around the sides of the preserve, all you want. I realize this only works for certain species, but still...
As for grey matter, yes we have more than frogs, but I fear it doesn't get used often enough, and too often for personal gain above all else. Not that I'm a communist. I heartily endorse the fact that I can be incented to work harder and sharpen my skills in search of greater rewards. It's merely a matter of priorities, and the magnitude of the resulting inequities.
I've tried to dope out the United States meaning of the word "conservative" in recent years, and logically speaking, it just doesn't make sense. "Conservative" shares an obvious root with "conservation", yet "conservatives" are obviously not pro-"conservation". I used to think "conservative" had something to do with fiscal responsibility, but that one's out the door, too. Once upon a time, "conservative" also meant "mind your own business", but that's clearly not what a "social conservative" doest, these days.
But I think I finally understand what "conservative" really is, and what it "conserves". What is being "conserved" is the wealth, status, power, lifestyle, etc, of the "conservative". I'm not sure if the current "social conservatism", disapproving and legislating against others' behavior, is to salve their conscience or to redirect/misdirect the outrage of the ordinary.
As the oceans expand and the sea level rises, p...
on
Forecasting Doomsday
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· Score: 1
Oh, and I wonder how the people and nations that feel that they "own" that land further up the shore will react to this migration.
When the islands disappear and the unhappy people move to other countries to build new lives, I wonder where they'll find a willing host.
I'm sure many of these disruptions could be survivable - if we reacted well to them. I'm equally sure we won't. I also tend to believe that the human population is already above the sustainable level of the Earth, though I'm not certain on that, because many of our problems are due to inequity of distribution. But then again I seriously doubt those inequities will get any less, any time soon.
Rather than looking at massive doomsday scenarios, let's set our sights a little lower. I'd begin by looking at...
The lower-lying countries of the world, and see what happens to them when sea level rises a few feet. Add to that the stronger storms that seem to come along with global warming. This type of thing is what's happening now, and has been in the news. As sea level rises, look uphill and gauge the ability of both parties to make war over land.
The fisheries. Over the past week or so, I began hearing about deep-sea fish being threatened with extinction, because now they are being commercially fished, after the collapse of the Cod fisheries. The stunning thing there is that I'd never heard that the Cod fisheries had collapsed. Something that significant should have made more of a warning noise.
The insurance industries, as storms get stronger, and more marginal areas get settled because of land pressure.
It's not a "suddenly it's doomsday" scenario. Instead, we're all frogs in the pan of water, and the real question is how hot will the burner get turned up to.
I think the referenced sentence in the grandparent post should have had "accidentally" added on the end. You've just given us some fine code for a backdoor. Now imagine that they were trying to do something else that was useful, and arrived at this backdoor by mistake. I suspect that's a little harder.
It becomes even more ironic when you think that we're really talking about a *publishing* business, and their BIGGEST concern is to prevent "publication" of their work.
It's all about trying to slam the lid on Eric Raymond's Magic Cauldron.
For all of the "waiting for Gentoo to compile it" jokes, I have simply NEVER had as few functionality problems as on my Gentoo machines, where *everything* has been compiled on those machines. I believe I can honestly say that my only problems have been the usual 'learning how to configure' or *BINARY-SUPPLIED PROGRAMS* - that weren't compiled on my machine.
I moved to Gentoo for, quite honestly, the geek factor. But it has also been *easy* to maintain, even if it does involve waiting for some compile time.
Perhaps I should have said, "Windows (TM)" instead of just "Windows". I thought the capitalization would be enough to differentiate from windows, of which we have plenty.
Every time I see that name, XULRunner, I can't help but think about Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, Gozer, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man, and the rest of the gang. There's this little nagging fear that moving to XULRunner will open a dimensional portal on my computer, letting the Dark Powers in. But that shouldn't be, since the only Windows in the house is a dual-boot Gentoo/Win98SE. (for games and media (like wma, wmv, quicktime, etc))
You're confusing the layers, there. There are parts of Windows that Microsoft WANTS people to use, and those are reasonably clear. Then there are those part that Microsoft doesn't want people to use, and those parts ARE obfuscated. I only need name 2, ".doc" and "ntfs", both under vigorous attempts to reverse-engineer ***for the legally protected purpose of interoperation*** by third parties, for YEARS, with only marginal success.
Arguably, a clearly, concisely, well-defined data structure or format would also fall to reverse-engineering fairly readily. Many people have long suspected that Microsoft has deliberately complicated their formats, for the specific purpose of hindering interoperation. There have even been statements *from Microsoft* about "rich binary" data formats and protocols in order to protect their products. But the sword cuts 2 ways... Last I heard, there was no engineering or programming document describing ".doc", the documentation was the source code of the ".doc" reader. Maybe that's ok for a minority-share product, or a SOHO product. But about the time they're insisting that government institutions should use ".doc" as their archival data format, IMHO it just doesn't cut the mustard. Excess complexity also makes it difficult to get all the bugs out - just the thing you want in archival data storage - or a filesystem.
Microsoft may not be guilty of every sin that everyone would like to pin on them. But they DO have plenty of sins that do stick, and to not pin those is a disservice.
I've heard comments that those in the industry fear hdtv, for precisely the reasons you mention. There are currently shortcuts taken in set design and construction that don't show with current TV, but will become obvious with HDTV. When we think HDTV, we think top-tier movies. Think instead about soap operas, for instance. Shows that are done day-in, day-out, under a careful and continuous budget. Think infomercials - and that they can now get even worse in HDTV. (It's what the channel changer and off button are for.) I suspect that in the entertainment industry, nobody except the top-tier really wants HDTV. I suspect almost everyone would just as soon send 4 channels of digital SDTV over the same old 6MHz bandwidth, and leave HDTV to the premium channels.
But my MPAA Media Overlords really WANT me to buy a new HD-DVD. They also WANT me to replace all of my equipment and media library. After all, they need to keep their revenue stream flowing. After all, if digital bits last forever, forced obsolescence is a necessity! Plus this gives them the opportunity to institute the DRM that they messed up, first time. THEY NEED THIS!
Last I heard from a friend who recently had to be scanned, those machines ARE bolted down. Not only that, but every bit of ferromagnetic material anywhere nearby is bolted down, too.
Playing Devil's advocate for a moment, let's take your 10T MRI field. It's entirely possible that that machine IS losing half its weight. We just don't know it, because nobody's looking for the effect. For that matter, it would take special care to even find the effect, because the ordinary magnetic effects swamp the gravitation. Besides, it's kind of hard to find a non-ferromagnetic, non-diamagnetic bathroom scale hefty enough to hold an MRI.
Not that this does anything to confirm the theory, I'm just saying that MRI operation and practice doesn't disprove it.
Slashdot Mirror
The last line of TFA mentions antitrust, also:
>Isn't that why the Justice Department and the EU went after Redmond in the first place?
But does anyone think there's any real danger of an antitrust suit, at least in the next 3 years? After all, antitrust is *punishing* a company for being *successful*.
It's not an issue of "sit and stagnate and rot," it's "who's on top." The corporates would probably rather not have society "sit and stagnate and rot," but the first priority is to be on top, and if that means that they sit on top of a stagnating, rotting society, so be it.
First things first.
T'was ever thus.
Makes me wonder when they'll get their computers back...
Though it sounds as if without the warrants, 30 would have been seized, but only 3 with the warrants.
Still, I wonder if there will be some hidden "retribution" expressed in return time or condition.
Actually there is a middle-ground, though neither side appears to want to acknowledge it.
Let me being by saying I am pro-choice. Then let me add that I think that abortion is a very bad thing, and I wish it never happened at all. Pro-choice is NOT pro-abortion. (There may be some exceptions, like Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, Godwin, etc, but let's let that lie.)
IMHO, if the real goal is to reduce abortions, you have 2 ways to go about it. The first is to understand the causes of abortion and try to eliminate them. The second is to forbid it. The benefit of making abortion illegal is that you can feel all smug and self-righteous about a job well done. You can probably also discount Steven Levitt's (look it up) arguments and the fact that some/many of those abortions still happen, illegally. (Abortion stops a beating heart... but a botched back-alley abortion stops two.) It's much harder to understand why abortion happens, and stop it at that level. It's also much harder to declare victory. (Perhaps both are impossible, but I still believe it's the better route.)
Incidentally, if you want to get really hot about abortion, take The Pill off the market. The old high-dosage Pill used to work by stopping ovulation. That dosage had too many side-effects. The new low-dosage Pill, basically the only kind in use now, works by preventing implantation. Essentially the low-dosage Pill is a very early (clearly pre-brain) abortion.
I'm currently reading "Moral Politics," an interesting if repetitive book. It has been sufficiently repetitive that I've take a break and am reading the New Testament to square it against the author's points. I'm currently only mid-Luke, so my picture isn't re-complete. But I can state a few preliminary conclusions: (things in quotes are paraphrased extractions from memory)
Christ spoke out against immorality a few times, and most of those were within the context of marriage and divorce.
Christ was quite clearly against moral accounting by Man. "Vengence is mine, sayeth the Lord", "Forgive seventy times seven"
Christ was against making rule for others' behavior. "point out the speck in his eye, ignoring the log in your own"
But it seems to me that most of Christ's criticism was reserved for the Pharisees and Sadducees, in other words, "the establishment," the wealthy self-righteous who looked down on "those sinners."
One can take this however you want. I wish merely to point out the irony that those who wrap themselves in the flag and set themselves upon the Bible as a pedestal are acting as the Pharisees and Sadducees did. This is IMHO a clearly inconsistent position.
Someone please spend mod points on the parent. I was going to try and make the same point, but was reading first, and "foo fighter" has done a fine job of it.
More than that, for a moment...
Remember the old days, when companies earned the loyalty of their employees?
Unless you live outside the US, or in Montana, that Carrera is wasted. Everywhere back East, the speed limit is 65 or less, where that beast isn't even trotting. Maybe in the West you get a 75 speed limit - a little better. But in Montana, if I've heard correctly, it's "Reasonable and Proper" again. Or maybe you live in Europe, and can open it up a bit on the Autobahn. But since you say "pub" I might presume you're in the UK? What are speed limits like, there?
Or is it carbon city for your engine's guts?
I just brought in a new flash drive, today. There's no policy against it. My plans for it? Primarily pdf's of various documents and manuals that I end up getting here and there on the net, in the course of doing my job. I also plan to put executable and data file for pwsafe (encrypted password storage/generation) on it. If I ever put sensitive data on, it will be in an encrypted container file, and the primary copy will be on backed-up media at work.
And oh yes, I have a job... and a wife... and kids... and a house... and 2 cars, though less exotic ones.
(term coined by Bruce Schneier, AFAIK)
What bothers me more than the company turning down the screws to secure things is when they turn down the screws to secure things, without really accomplishing that end. I certainly won't disagree with a software maintenance policy, for Windows, Linux, and everything else. Nor will I disagree with firewalls and enforcing company policies across them.
But if I were to tell some of the more boneheaded things that are ALSO done, and the holes obliviously left open, you'd either know where I work, or how to crack the place.
Get a life!
Move out of your parents' basement.
Kiss a girl.
While I like the idea of space mining, there's a far closer and easier to reach source - landfill mining. How many decades were we throwing junk out with no thoughts whatsoever to recycling? I submit that what we really need is a refinement process for landfill mining, some sort of automatic separator that we fill by the bucketload, and get stuff out that is separated at least to the extent that raw ore out of the ground is. Solve 2 problems at once.
The only problem for the Alberta sands will be finding enough natural gas to bake all of that oil out. I presume they could use some of the oil to fuel production, but that still leaves one guessing what the net output would be. I'm under the impression that it's very energy-intensive to get oil out of oil sands.
Boy, I'd like to agree with everything you've said, but I guess I'm feeling pessimistic, at the moment. Elsewhere on this thread I posted a brief rant trying to figure out what "conservatives" are conserving. It seems to me that up until now, doing things "the old way, the way that worked for my father and grandfather," has always been a safe, "conservative" way. But today's "conservatives" aren't really conservative, by that definition. (see my rant) Plus, IMHO, we're at a turning point where the old ways not only may not work, but may well be detrimental. And to my way of thinking, the new "conservative" ways are clearly the wrong way.
Fisheries: My pet idea would be to mark off 100-200 square miles of ocean, probably straddling the edge of the continental shelf, for diversity. NO FISHING inside, under threat of immediate sinking. But fish around the sides of the preserve, all you want. I realize this only works for certain species, but still...
As for grey matter, yes we have more than frogs, but I fear it doesn't get used often enough, and too often for personal gain above all else. Not that I'm a communist. I heartily endorse the fact that I can be incented to work harder and sharpen my skills in search of greater rewards. It's merely a matter of priorities, and the magnitude of the resulting inequities.
I've tried to dope out the United States meaning of the word "conservative" in recent years, and logically speaking, it just doesn't make sense. "Conservative" shares an obvious root with "conservation", yet "conservatives" are obviously not pro-"conservation". I used to think "conservative" had something to do with fiscal responsibility, but that one's out the door, too. Once upon a time, "conservative" also meant "mind your own business", but that's clearly not what a "social conservative" doest, these days.
But I think I finally understand what "conservative" really is, and what it "conserves". What is being "conserved" is the wealth, status, power, lifestyle, etc, of the "conservative". I'm not sure if the current "social conservatism", disapproving and legislating against others' behavior, is to salve their conscience or to redirect/misdirect the outrage of the ordinary.
Oh, and I wonder how the people and nations that feel that they "own" that land further up the shore will react to this migration.
When the islands disappear and the unhappy people move to other countries to build new lives, I wonder where they'll find a willing host.
I'm sure many of these disruptions could be survivable - if we reacted well to them. I'm equally sure we won't. I also tend to believe that the human population is already above the sustainable level of the Earth, though I'm not certain on that, because many of our problems are due to inequity of distribution. But then again I seriously doubt those inequities will get any less, any time soon.
Rather than looking at massive doomsday scenarios, let's set our sights a little lower. I'd begin by looking at...
The lower-lying countries of the world, and see what happens to them when sea level rises a few feet. Add to that the stronger storms that seem to come along with global warming. This type of thing is what's happening now, and has been in the news. As sea level rises, look uphill and gauge the ability of both parties to make war over land.
The fisheries. Over the past week or so, I began hearing about deep-sea fish being threatened with extinction, because now they are being commercially fished, after the collapse of the Cod fisheries. The stunning thing there is that I'd never heard that the Cod fisheries had collapsed. Something that significant should have made more of a warning noise.
The insurance industries, as storms get stronger, and more marginal areas get settled because of land pressure.
It's not a "suddenly it's doomsday" scenario. Instead, we're all frogs in the pan of water, and the real question is how hot will the burner get turned up to.
I think the referenced sentence in the grandparent post should have had "accidentally" added on the end. You've just given us some fine code for a backdoor. Now imagine that they were trying to do something else that was useful, and arrived at this backdoor by mistake. I suspect that's a little harder.
It becomes even more ironic when you think that we're really talking about a *publishing* business, and their BIGGEST concern is to prevent "publication" of their work.
It's all about trying to slam the lid on Eric Raymond's Magic Cauldron.
For all of the "waiting for Gentoo to compile it" jokes, I have simply NEVER had as few functionality problems as on my Gentoo machines, where *everything* has been compiled on those machines. I believe I can honestly say that my only problems have been the usual 'learning how to configure' or *BINARY-SUPPLIED PROGRAMS* - that weren't compiled on my machine.
I moved to Gentoo for, quite honestly, the geek factor. But it has also been *easy* to maintain, even if it does involve waiting for some compile time.
Perhaps I should have said, "Windows (TM)" instead of just "Windows". I thought the capitalization would be enough to differentiate from windows, of which we have plenty.
Every time I see that name, XULRunner, I can't help but think about Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, Gozer, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man, and the rest of the gang. There's this little nagging fear that moving to XULRunner will open a dimensional portal on my computer, letting the Dark Powers in. But that shouldn't be, since the only Windows in the house is a dual-boot Gentoo/Win98SE. (for games and media (like wma, wmv, quicktime, etc))
You're confusing the layers, there. There are parts of Windows that Microsoft WANTS people to use, and those are reasonably clear. Then there are those part that Microsoft doesn't want people to use, and those parts ARE obfuscated. I only need name 2, ".doc" and "ntfs", both under vigorous attempts to reverse-engineer ***for the legally protected purpose of interoperation*** by third parties, for YEARS, with only marginal success.
Arguably, a clearly, concisely, well-defined data structure or format would also fall to reverse-engineering fairly readily. Many people have long suspected that Microsoft has deliberately complicated their formats, for the specific purpose of hindering interoperation. There have even been statements *from Microsoft* about "rich binary" data formats and protocols in order to protect their products. But the sword cuts 2 ways... Last I heard, there was no engineering or programming document describing ".doc", the documentation was the source code of the ".doc" reader. Maybe that's ok for a minority-share product, or a SOHO product. But about the time they're insisting that government institutions should use ".doc" as their archival data format, IMHO it just doesn't cut the mustard. Excess complexity also makes it difficult to get all the bugs out - just the thing you want in archival data storage - or a filesystem.
Microsoft may not be guilty of every sin that everyone would like to pin on them. But they DO have plenty of sins that do stick, and to not pin those is a disservice.
I've heard comments that those in the industry fear hdtv, for precisely the reasons you mention. There are currently shortcuts taken in set design and construction that don't show with current TV, but will become obvious with HDTV. When we think HDTV, we think top-tier movies. Think instead about soap operas, for instance. Shows that are done day-in, day-out, under a careful and continuous budget. Think infomercials - and that they can now get even worse in HDTV. (It's what the channel changer and off button are for.) I suspect that in the entertainment industry, nobody except the top-tier really wants HDTV. I suspect almost everyone would just as soon send 4 channels of digital SDTV over the same old 6MHz bandwidth, and leave HDTV to the premium channels.
But my MPAA Media Overlords really WANT me to buy a new HD-DVD. They also WANT me to replace all of my equipment and media library. After all, they need to keep their revenue stream flowing. After all, if digital bits last forever, forced obsolescence is a necessity! Plus this gives them the opportunity to institute the DRM that they messed up, first time. THEY NEED THIS!
Who are we to refuse?
Last I heard from a friend who recently had to be scanned, those machines ARE bolted down. Not only that, but every bit of ferromagnetic material anywhere nearby is bolted down, too.
Playing Devil's advocate for a moment, let's take your 10T MRI field. It's entirely possible that that machine IS losing half its weight. We just don't know it, because nobody's looking for the effect. For that matter, it would take special care to even find the effect, because the ordinary magnetic effects swamp the gravitation. Besides, it's kind of hard to find a non-ferromagnetic, non-diamagnetic bathroom scale hefty enough to hold an MRI.
Not that this does anything to confirm the theory, I'm just saying that MRI operation and practice doesn't disprove it.