I'll have you know that I'm looking forward to my holiday in Orlando this year.
And once I'm inside Disney World, I'll be able to visit
New York Los Angeles Vancouver Washington Little Rock, Arkansas McDonalds The Grand Canyon Niagara Falls
And all of those other wonderful places I've seen on TV.
And it's so cheap !!
And when I get back home to my sleepy village of Sellafield in Cumbria, I can tell all my friends about it. Over a pint of John Smith's, and a fish and chip supper. Call me a pretentious foodie if you must, but those two-headed cod from the Irish Sea are absolutely gorgeous in Tempura batter.
It isn't your imagination. Astrophysicists don't know - they are making a best guess on the limited information they have available. Just a matter of a few hundred years ago, we were prepared to throw a man in jail because he declared his belief that the Earth circled the Sun, and not vice versa. At that time it was also a matter of debate as to whether the planet was a sphere (or oblate spheroid even), or whether it was flat. And we were living on it at the time !
Given the fact that our technology will only allow us to venture a miniscule distance from our planet in universe terms, and achieving more will take centuries (if we survive that long), and at best we can observe but a miniscule fraction of it from our planet, and it is supposed to be growing, it follows that we know nothing of the universe, and this will not change in our lifetimes or our children's.
And yes, massive amounts of funding are tied up in this exploration. We need to explore the universe. But if the astrophysicists said "Well chaps, we have looked into the skies for centuries, spent trillions on manned and unmanned missions, and, to tell the truth, we still know jack s**t", I suspect the funding would dry up. It is better for them to present each new discovery as something which enhances and expands our comprehension, and challenges our hypotheses, rather than admitting that in real terms, we still know nothing about the Universe and how it works.
I write on behalf of my client, the Microsoft Corporation.
Firstly, you will be aware that the Microsoft Corporation only releases its source code to partners who have signed a non-disclosure agreement. Secondly, the code you have published on the satirical "Slashdot" web-site infringes US Patent number 666-666-666, where we protected the intellectual property (over 5000 man years) embodied in the following error trapping routine:
In the first instance, our client is concerned about a possible breach of a non-disclosure agreement. In the second instance, we must insist on behalf of the Microsoft Corporation that you cease and desist from using their patened programming constructs in your software, now and in the future, and that you should remove all such error trapping from any code you have already written.
With all of these things, we should remember that the great visionaries have forseen the dangers already.In the seminal and prophetic work "The Wrong Trousers" starring Wallace and Gromit, we saw a graphic demonstration of what happens if the security of exoskeleton trousers is suborned by a 'black hat' (or in this case a red glove).
Hope the code for driving these exoskeletons is open source. I want to be able to see what it does !!
I fear that M$ may choose to implement raw sockets (eye sockets, mainly) in Skeleton XP. Crackers will take over my suit, and use it to kick random passers-by and dogs to death. Or alternately, a trapdoor in closed source suits will allow the CIA to orchestrate massed ranks of publicly owned trousers to invade Cuba or something. A new angle on conscription, clearly.....
On a positive note, clearly of interest would be a Beowulf cluster of exoskeletons, which could be used for formation dancing and even synchronised swimming and minefield clearance.
They are obviously tailor's dummies for these giant construction kites !
It also explains the origins of paragliding, as it must have been a white knuckle ride driving those obelisk bearing kites in a gale, and no sensible person would have invented it otherwise !
The other view I have heard expressed is that they used ramps.
The ramps were made of mud bricks, and the obelisks were dragged up them. There were holes on the ramps filled with sand where the obelisks were to go. On getting the obelisk in place, the sand was removed from the bottom. Ther obelisks eventually sank onto place. The sand and brick ramps were then removed, leaving no visible signs of how the obelisks got there.
Personally, I would prefer the kite theory to be true, purely on grounds of elegance.
In recent weeks, our friends at the place called 'One Microsoft Way' have done the following:
Released the Whistler beta with code in it to prevent you installing an app on more than one PC. I am against software piracy. I am also against anything that makes my life significantly harder in maintaining the banks of otherwise identical M$ boxes I manage in an educational institution
There are noises that M$ are looking to kill off or restructure the volume discounts to corporates
They have announced plans to kill off the 95/98/Me line, to try to move the world ultimately towards Whistler. Thing is, many PCs have been sold with Windoze on board in the last three years almost as home appliances. How will these users react to being told that the PC which (sorta) functions as they expect, will need an OS upgrade, and they will have to pay for it ? This is not corporate world folks, and I bet many don't !
It seems that M$ (or at least, its putative OS corporation) are in the process of trying to rationalise its product line, and maximise profits. In doing so, and being too gung-ho about it, they risk killing the goose that lays the golden egg. For corporates, the cost of ownership of M$ will skyrocket. This opens the door for a machine which consumers (and corporates) can buy off the shelf which is easy(ish) to use. Like an iMac or a G4, for instance.......
Re:US leads and the world follows
on
Lawsuits Suck
·
· Score: 2
US Leads, and its European lapdog and aircraft carrier,the UK, certainly follows
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, now on the UK statute books, which has been well documented in/. is draconian, damaging to personal freedoms, ill-conceived, and illogical in equal parts. It will kill e-commerce in the UK, drive ISPs off-shore, and boost use of foreign ISPs and GPG by UK netizens with something to hide.
The UK government has now announced that it is doing nothing about spam, and that ISPs will self-regulate on this issue.
Americans should not believe that they have the monopoly on such legislation. While we may not be the 'best' in the world at much these days, the UK still possesses a powerful blend of stupidity, arrogance and incompetence in its politicians, civil servants and their advisors that will guarantee its place in the top ten for a few decades yet.
I can strongly recommend UKLinux for those in the UK. Performance is good, and they offer 20Mb free web space with PHP, Perl and MySQL freely available on it.
It is a function of journalism that the 'privacy' of individuals is overlooked or ignored, in favour of exposing a story which is in the public interest.
It is very touching, therefore, that, as a journalist, Mr Katz is concerned about privacy.
ISPs, do not as a rule, monitor their own users. Section 12. (1) will oblige them to invent the technology to do so, and build it into their equipment, just in case Mr Straw or one of his successors asks.
For the act of creating this trap-door, the Home Secretary has gracefully agreed to reimburse them via a government grant. The current Bill makes no specification as to the what this equipment will consist of.
The trap-door is not specified yet (as far as we know), but like all trap-doors into any system, its mere existence should raise hairs on the backs of necks of any right minded system manager. After all, we expect ONLY the following people to potentially use it:
(a) the Director-General of the Security Service; (b) the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service; (c) the Director of GCHQ; (d) the Director General of the National Criminal Intelligence Service; (e) the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis; (f) the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary; (g) the chief constable of any police force maintained under or by virtue of section 1 of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967; (h) the Commissioners of Customs and Excise; (i) a Permanent Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Defence; (j) a person who, for the purposes of any international mutual assistance agreement, is the competent authority of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom;
Given that 'tipping off' that a surveillance is happening is also an imprisonable offence under the RIP Bill, who do you talk to if you suspect that Mr Hacker has come through the trap-door ?
What we also know is that MI.5 are building a purpose built office block to plumb all of these taps into. We also know that this building was demolished and had to be started again, because an employee of the original building contractor had links with the IRA. Gives you a warm comforting glow that does - the government department in charge of vetting key staff can't even vet their own contractors !
The fact is this - UK ISPs will have some back-door foisted on them by legislation. Other nations ISPs will not. The effect will be to drive e-commerce out of the UK to more sensibly regulated places. This bill is flawed, and will damage both the economy and the privacy rights of individuals in the UK.
The UK government's Regulation of Investigatory powers (see notes on it here) has got it exactly right. It going to insist that every UK ISP fits hooks to their infrastructure to allow them to tap e-mails and web traffic, at the ISPs expense. Not only that, but they are enshrining it in law, and talking about it publicly !
Now that's open government for you....... It dosen't solve the problem of your diminishing privacy, but, being British, they are nice enough and fair enough to tell you about it first.
(.....Sh*t - where is the HTML irony tag when you need it....)
"SCO is in a unique position to dominate this [Linux] market," says Tony Iams, an analyst with D.H. Brown Associates, a Port Chester, N.Y., consulting firm. "They own the low-end Intel/ Unix market. They know this space like no one. They have a tremendous set of relationships with resellers and OEMs."
I must have missed something here. Has the science of cryogenics moved on so much that we can freeze an analyst for ten years, thaw him out and get an opinion ?
They're strong enough by themselves. Note that eg. IBM officially supports RedHat Linux and certifies hardware for RedHat compliance
Given the history of IBM in the PC market during the last two decades, why doesn't Red Hat swallow up the OS owning runt Microsoft division ? (MICROS~1 or MICROS~2 ?). It will serve to tie up a lot of loose ends, and give IBM some ersatz revenge into the bargain. they can make Windoze Open Source, and publish it in paper form so we can all burn a copy each.
The golden rule is this : The man with the gold makes the rules.
It is a matter of principle. Intel sprend this cash to improve their image and market profile. They will not do this if there are wall to wall Macs in the place where they are doing it ! Harvard accept the money on this basis. And let's face it, this is Harvard, home of Harvard Business School ! If they don't understand this, then they are more out of touch than future MBA students and their employers might wish them to be.
Intel's position appears clear, unequivocal, consistent and principled. And despite any display of righteous indignation, something for which academics have notable talent, Harvard should have known the rules when they accepted the money. If they didn't understand this, and they truly believe in 'free lunches', then their MBAs aren't worth jack s**t.
An income of $50,000 with a family of four qualifies for government assisted housing. Ties somewhat into the earlier Slashdot thread 'Too Old To Code?': What interesting times we live in. "
It ties in very neatly with 'Too Old to Code'. There was a documentary on TV in the UK about 'down and outs' in the Valley. At one point, it showed the soup kitchen where they were fed. Most of these people were coders who had burnt out or got 'too old', or people who had lost their shirts in start-ups. These were the casualties of the 'dot com' gold rush. The scary bit was that there was a hell of a lot of intelligence and talent sat in that kitchen.
Surprisingly, this was screened about four months ago in the UK. Obviously the 'body-count meter' must have triggered in someone's office somewhere to make this a newsworthy item once again.
"bloat laden"? Which OSes are bloated, please list them all. Thanks
Errr.... let me think....
I can think of several. The real give-away is that they usually have the words "Microsoft Windows" somewhere in their name.
Corporations get it - but what do they get ?
on
Universal Access
·
· Score: 2
Hardware aside, there?s an enormous political idea here. Computers are increasingly becoming seen as a right, not just an expensive commercial, social or recreational appliance.
Jon Katz would presumably like to see some 'bread and circuses' trip granting free internet access to all. Nice idea in the tree-hugging sense, but the economics don't work. Firstly, on a sociopolitical note. There are no such things as 'rights', and anyone who believes so is naive. There are privileges, which have to be fought for to establish in the first place, and to maintain thereafter. Many reading this site will consider education to be a right. In truth, our forefathers fought for this privilege, which has to be paid for somewhere along the line. Even you lucky people in the US of A, who have a constitution giving you rights, (unlike us poor sods in the UK), will only have those rights as long as there is someone strong enough and willing enough to defend them.
Which brings me onto Internet access. This can never be a 'right', because there is the cost of PCs and infrastructure. Somewhere along the line, someone pays. I will resist stating truisms about free lunches.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, since you have no real open land in the entire country, it all looks like one large, connected city.
Yes.
America would be the same. Except it gets tornadoes.
I'll have you know that I'm looking forward to my holiday in Orlando this year.
And once I'm inside Disney World, I'll be able to visit
New York
Los Angeles
Vancouver
Washington
Little Rock, Arkansas
McDonalds
The Grand Canyon
Niagara Falls
And all of those other wonderful places I've seen on TV.
And it's so cheap !!
And when I get back home to my sleepy village of Sellafield in Cumbria, I can tell all my friends about it. Over a pint of John Smith's, and a fish and chip supper. Call me a pretentious foodie if you must, but those two-headed cod from the Irish Sea are absolutely gorgeous in Tempura batter.
It isn't your imagination. Astrophysicists don't know - they are making a best guess on the limited information they have available. Just a matter of a few hundred years ago, we were prepared to throw a man in jail because he declared his belief that the Earth circled the Sun, and not vice versa. At that time it was also a matter of debate as to whether the planet was a sphere (or oblate spheroid even), or whether it was flat. And we were living on it at the time !
Given the fact that our technology will only allow us to venture a miniscule distance from our planet in universe terms, and achieving more will take centuries (if we survive that long), and at best we can observe but a miniscule fraction of it from our planet, and it is supposed to be growing, it follows that we know nothing of the universe, and this will not change in our lifetimes or our children's.
And yes, massive amounts of funding are tied up in this exploration. We need to explore the universe. But if the astrophysicists said "Well chaps, we have looked into the skies for centuries, spent trillions on manned and unmanned missions, and, to tell the truth, we still know jack s**t", I suspect the funding would dry up. It is better for them to present each new discovery as something which enhances and expands our comprehension, and challenges our hypotheses, rather than admitting that in real terms, we still know nothing about the Universe and how it works.
Sir,
I write on behalf of my client, the Microsoft Corporation.
Firstly, you will be aware that the Microsoft Corporation only releases its source code to partners who have signed a non-disclosure agreement. Secondly, the code you have published on the satirical "Slashdot" web-site infringes US Patent number 666-666-666, where we protected the intellectual property (over 5000 man years) embodied in the following error trapping routine:
main( arguments ){
try{
--code goes here--
}catch( exception ){
exec(blue_screen_of_death)
}}
In the first instance, our client is concerned about a possible breach of a non-disclosure agreement. In the second instance, we must insist on behalf of the Microsoft Corporation that you cease and desist from using their patened programming constructs in your software, now and in the future, and that you should remove all such error trapping from any code you have already written.
With all of these things, we should remember that the great visionaries have forseen the dangers already.In the seminal and prophetic work "The Wrong Trousers" starring Wallace and Gromit, we saw a graphic demonstration of what happens if the security of exoskeleton trousers is suborned by a 'black hat' (or in this case a red glove).
Hope the code for driving these exoskeletons is open source. I want to be able to see what it does !!
I fear that M$ may choose to implement raw sockets (eye sockets, mainly) in Skeleton XP. Crackers will take over my suit, and use it to kick random passers-by and dogs to death. Or alternately, a trapdoor in closed source suits will allow the CIA to orchestrate massed ranks of publicly owned trousers to invade Cuba or something. A new angle on conscription, clearly.....
On a positive note, clearly of interest would be a Beowulf cluster of exoskeletons, which could be used for formation dancing and even synchronised swimming and minefield clearance.
How do you explain those pyramid things at Giza !
They are obviously tailor's dummies for these giant construction kites !
It also explains the origins of paragliding, as it must have been a white knuckle ride driving those obelisk bearing kites in a gale, and no sensible person would have invented it otherwise !
The other view I have heard expressed is that they used ramps.
The ramps were made of mud bricks, and the obelisks were dragged up them. There were holes on the ramps filled with sand where the obelisks were to go. On getting the obelisk in place, the sand was removed from the bottom. Ther obelisks eventually sank onto place. The sand and brick ramps were then removed, leaving no visible signs of how the obelisks got there.
Personally, I would prefer the kite theory to be true, purely on grounds of elegance.
Released the Whistler beta with code in it to prevent you installing an app on more than one PC. I am against software piracy. I am also against anything that makes my life significantly harder in maintaining the banks of otherwise identical M$ boxes I manage in an educational institution
There are noises that M$ are looking to kill off or restructure the volume discounts to corporates
They have announced plans to kill off the 95/98/Me line, to try to move the world ultimately towards Whistler. Thing is, many PCs have been sold with Windoze on board in the last three years almost as home appliances. How will these users react to being told that the PC which (sorta) functions as they expect, will need an OS upgrade, and they will have to pay for it ? This is not corporate world folks, and I bet many don't !
It seems that M$ (or at least, its putative OS corporation) are in the process of trying to rationalise its product line, and maximise profits. In doing so, and being too gung-ho about it, they risk killing the goose that lays the golden egg. For corporates, the cost of ownership of M$ will skyrocket. This opens the door for a machine which consumers (and corporates) can buy off the shelf which is easy(ish) to use. Like an iMac or a G4, for instance.......
US Leads, and its European lapdog and aircraft carrier,the UK, certainly follows
/. is draconian, damaging to personal freedoms, ill-conceived, and illogical in equal parts. It will kill e-commerce in the UK, drive ISPs off-shore, and boost use of foreign ISPs and GPG by UK netizens with something to hide.
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, now on the UK statute books, which has been well documented in
The UK government has now announced that it is doing nothing about spam, and that ISPs will self-regulate on this issue.
Americans should not believe that they have the monopoly on such legislation. While we may not be the 'best' in the world at much these days, the UK still possesses a powerful blend of stupidity, arrogance and incompetence in its politicians, civil servants and their advisors that will guarantee its place in the top ten for a few decades yet.
Two comments on this one:
......
....
Q. What is the difference between a drummer and a drum machine ?
A. You only need to punch the information into a drum machine the once
Q. Why does every band have a bassist ?
A. Cos some f***er has to drive the van
How about:
"Thomas Jefferson" DING ! DING ! DING ! DING ! DING ! DING !
It isn't a Katz article without Thomas Jefferson in it somewhere !
I can strongly recommend UKLinux for those in the UK. Performance is good, and they offer 20Mb free web space with PHP, Perl and MySQL freely available on it.
(*IRONY ON*)
Mr Katz is a journalist.
It is a function of journalism that the 'privacy' of individuals is overlooked or ignored, in favour of exposing a story which is in the public interest.
It is very touching, therefore, that, as a journalist, Mr Katz is concerned about privacy.
(*now how do I switch off the irony tags ?*)
They don't want us to be able to look down on Area 51 and intercept the MIND BEAMS they use to control earth's population!
Would this "Area 51" be on Microsoft Way, Redmond by any chsnce ?
What chance have we of escaping the gravitational pull of the Earth ?
......
We are incapable of training our kids to resist the gravitational pull of a McDonalds.
We are also incapable of producing policemen who can resist the gravitational pull of a doughnut.
By the time we colonise another planet, if ever, KFC will have already sold franchises there. Mark my words
ISPs, do not as a rule, monitor their own users. Section 12. (1) will oblige them to invent the technology to do so, and build it into their equipment, just in case Mr Straw or one of his successors asks.
For the act of creating this trap-door, the Home Secretary has gracefully agreed to reimburse them via a government grant. The current Bill makes no specification as to the what this equipment will consist of.
The trap-door is not specified yet (as far as we know), but like all trap-doors into any system, its mere existence should raise hairs on the backs of necks of any right minded system manager. After all, we expect ONLY the following people to potentially use it:
(a) the Director-General of the Security Service;
(b) the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service;
(c) the Director of GCHQ;
(d) the Director General of the National Criminal Intelligence Service;
(e) the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis;
(f) the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary;
(g) the chief constable of any police force maintained under or by virtue of section 1 of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967;
(h) the Commissioners of Customs and Excise;
(i) a Permanent Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Defence;
(j) a person who, for the purposes of any international mutual assistance agreement, is the competent authority of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom;
Given that 'tipping off' that a surveillance is happening is also an imprisonable offence under the RIP Bill, who do you talk to if you suspect that Mr Hacker has come through the trap-door ?
What we also know is that MI.5 are building a purpose built office block to plumb all of these taps into. We also know that this building was demolished and had to be started again, because an employee of the original building contractor had links with the IRA. Gives you a warm comforting glow that does - the government department in charge of vetting key staff can't even vet their own contractors !
The fact is this - UK ISPs will have some back-door foisted on them by legislation. Other nations ISPs will not. The effect will be to drive e-commerce out of the UK to more sensibly regulated places. This bill is flawed, and will damage both the economy and the privacy rights of individuals in the UK.
The UK government's Regulation of Investigatory powers (see notes on it here) has got it exactly right. It going to insist that every UK ISP fits hooks to their infrastructure to allow them to tap e-mails and web traffic, at the ISPs expense. Not only that, but they are enshrining it in law, and talking about it publicly !
....)
Now that's open government for you....... It dosen't solve the problem of your diminishing privacy, but, being British, they are nice enough and fair enough to tell you about it first.
(.....Sh*t - where is the HTML irony tag when you need it
Are they overclocked ? Or do they have four buttons instead of three ?
I think we should be told.
I am British. And I can imagine a few
UK under Margaret Thatcher - she would live on forever
Germany in the mid 30s - the Aryan dream ...
Ceaucescu's Rumania
Any culture who values children of one gender over the other
Mr Katz is being a little harsh on the US. Nowhere in this world is perfect.
"SCO is in a unique position to dominate this [Linux] market," says Tony Iams, an analyst with D.H. Brown Associates, a Port Chester, N.Y., consulting firm. "They own the low-end Intel/ Unix market. They know this space like no one. They have a tremendous set of relationships with resellers and OEMs."
I must have missed something here. Has the science of cryogenics moved on so much that we can freeze an analyst for ten years, thaw him out and get an opinion ?
They're strong enough by themselves. Note that eg. IBM officially supports RedHat Linux and certifies hardware for RedHat compliance
......
Given the history of IBM in the PC market during the last two decades, why doesn't Red Hat swallow up the OS owning runt Microsoft division ? (MICROS~1 or MICROS~2 ?). It will serve to tie up a lot of loose ends, and give IBM some ersatz revenge into the bargain. they can make Windoze Open Source, and publish it in paper form so we can all burn a copy each.
We can always dream
The golden rule is this : The man with the gold makes the rules.
It is a matter of principle. Intel sprend this cash to improve their image and market profile. They will not do this if there are wall to wall Macs in the place where they are doing it ! Harvard accept the money on this basis. And let's face it, this is Harvard, home of Harvard Business School ! If they don't understand this, then they are more out of touch than future MBA students and their employers might wish them to be.
Intel's position appears clear, unequivocal, consistent and principled. And despite any display of righteous indignation, something for which academics have notable talent, Harvard should have known the rules when they accepted the money. If they didn't understand this, and they truly believe in 'free lunches', then their MBAs aren't worth jack s**t.
An income of $50,000 with a family of four qualifies for government assisted housing. Ties somewhat into the earlier Slashdot thread 'Too Old To Code?': What interesting times we live in. "
It ties in very neatly with 'Too Old to Code'. There was a documentary on TV in the UK about 'down and outs' in the Valley. At one point, it showed the soup kitchen where they were fed. Most of these people were coders who had burnt out or got 'too old', or people who had lost their shirts in start-ups. These were the casualties of the 'dot com' gold rush. The scary bit was that there was a hell of a lot of intelligence and talent sat in that kitchen.
Surprisingly, this was screened about four months ago in the UK. Obviously the 'body-count meter' must have triggered in someone's office somewhere to make this a newsworthy item once again.
"bloat laden"? Which OSes are bloated, please list them all. Thanks
.... let me think ....
Errr
I can think of several. The real give-away is that they usually have the words "Microsoft Windows" somewhere in their name.
Hardware aside, there?s an enormous political idea here. Computers are increasingly becoming seen as a right, not just an expensive commercial, social or recreational appliance.
Jon Katz would presumably like to see some 'bread and circuses' trip granting free internet access to all. Nice idea in the tree-hugging sense, but the economics don't work. Firstly, on a sociopolitical note. There are no such things as 'rights', and anyone who believes so is naive. There are privileges, which have to be fought for to establish in the first place, and to maintain thereafter. Many reading this site will consider education to be a right. In truth, our forefathers fought for this privilege, which has to be paid for somewhere along the line. Even you lucky people in the US of A, who have a constitution giving you rights, (unlike us poor sods in the UK), will only have those rights as long as there is someone strong enough and willing enough to defend them.
Which brings me onto Internet access. This can never be a 'right', because there is the cost of PCs and infrastructure. Somewhere along the line, someone pays. I will resist stating truisms about free lunches.