Re:Good, but too derivative of Mars
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Antarctica
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· Score: 2
I didn't consider Red Mars *sad*, just sober. I don't believe you can focus on the "unhappiness and senseless destruction" without considering the heroism and selfless attempts of other characters to create the utopian Mars they believe in.
The only problem is that everyone believes in a different utopian Mars.
As I've said, the trilogy is a roman à clef for the ecological debates on Earth today. On Earth, you make a small change and it may take years to see an effect. On Mars, you make that change and almost immediately you can judge it. It's both laboratory and metaphor.
While Robinson is no dystopic sf writer, he's clearly telling us that we take ourselves with us when we travel to other places/planets, and taht our motivations for simple actions can be deep and complex, with wide-ranging unforeseen consequences. This is a truth about life, and a lesson in living with a coherent ecosystem like Mars... or Earth. It's the kind of thing that a highly evolved society tends to forget, being divorced from the real effects of their actions (e.g. the gradual lowering of the Ogalalla Water Table, or the hard choice between nasty DDT or widespread malaria). ---- Lake Effect, a weblog
Mr Piccolo asks: I know that there is a movie named Antarctica with a great soundtrack by Vangelis.
That sounds like Antarctica (1983), a (true?) story about two scientists returning to rescue their sled dogs in 1958. Since it came out about 15 years before Kim Stanley Robinson's novel, which is set in the near future, I don't think they're related! ---- Lake Effect, a weblog
Re:Almost a year to the day...
on
Antarctica
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· Score: 1
Since so many people complain about this, I was wondering where the web page was with the slashdot rule that there can only be one article per topic. I've been very concerned with this matter. I nominate that there should only be one article each year comparing Linux with Windows. This means that it's been approximately 36.732 hours since the last version of that article, for a posting rate of around 238.64 Linux/Windows articles annually. This is clearly 237.64 more articles than necessary. [wrings hands] What should be done? ---- Lake Effect, a weblog
The Mars trilogy has its fans and its anti-fans. Still, it was a downhill slope: If you didn't really like _Red Mars_, you were not likely to enjoy Green and Blue at all. I enjoyed the deep politics, but even I -- an admitted political junkie -- found it tedious by the end of the trilogy. Still, there was enough character development, travelogue, and hard-sf detail to keep me reading.
Antarctica is both tighter and lighter than the Mars books. KSR has clearly worked to insert more fun and tone down the political theory. The characters are less complex and more accessible, while not losing their personality or individual motivations. The storyline moves along at a much faster pace, clearly inspired by the recent trend of high-altitude/low-temperature adventure stories (Into Thin Air, Endurance, Across the Top of the World, et al.). I've read a lot of those, and so I was well-versed in the early history of Antarctica to which KSR frequently refers. It's good to read this book with a map and a couple of reference works close at hand, ideally with a photographic work to ground you to the experience. I looked up a LOT of Antarctic web pages in the process (start with The Ice), and I even looked at the _Lonely Planet_ guide to the continent -- yes, an Antarctic travel book.
Even if you didn't like Red Mars much, this book touches on many of the same themes in a much more immediate, action-oriented adventure context. In the same way that the Mars trilogy was really a roman à clef for the ecological arguments currently swirling about how to manage the Earth*, Antarctica contains thoughtful lessons to absorb for our very near future.
In short, this is basically _Red Mars_ aimed at a wider audience, successfully. It's not as deep as the trilogy, but that's a good thing. Whereas the trilogy is, in any practical sense, unfilmable (cf. LoTR), this would make a really fun 2-hour movie.
* and if you didn't read that into it, try thinking that one over and picking the books up again -- especially if you were bored!
[GETTING REALLY PISSED OFF as I hit "Preview" three times in a row and got "Error" three times in a row. Slashdot and proxy servers simply do not mix.] ---- Lake Effect, a weblog
fusiongyro sez: I don't have a problem with people learning to use Linux. I have a problem with everyone trying to make life simple for the users, because that's just going to invite them to come in and stomp all over what we've made so far. There is a difference between teaching users, and catering to them. We have to draw a line.
You are obviously not in the business of building computer systems for end-users, or you'd realize just how ridiculous you sound.
Are computers toys for hackers... or are computers just tools for end-users? As much as I enjoy the toy factor, I am painfully aware of how end-users are impacted by closed systems such as Windows, with all that implies (we need not retread those arguments here).
My objective in supporting Linux is to have an OS that can be used in a corporate environment, with a much smaller total-cost-of-ownership, and reasonable support requirements. Now, Windows ain't gonna go away, but Linux has a shot at occupying a big chunk of the corporate market.
In other words, I'm not supporting Linux because I think Torvalds is cool and open source is cool and I like being part of a subculture and, oh yeah, Microsoft is evil; I'm actually supporting Linux because it's better for people.
And I'm sorry, but in the real world, easy-to-use is a big part of that, too.
Your "let's keep Linux arcane and difficult so the masses don't find out about it" argument is juvenile. As far as I'm concerned, Linux advocacy does not need people like you. You don't "love Linux"; you love being part of the Linux subculture, and you want to keep it exclusionary and secretive. You're part of the problem. Please stop.
There is a new franchise in California, "Pac Hut", that has been silently buying up Pizza Huts off of Pepisico. What tipped me off was that one of the restaurants served Coke products.
It wasn't that silent. It's just that a holding company like Tricon Global doesn't have the name recognition that Pepsico does. You don't sell a $20B business without people noticing... at least, people who read the business section once in a while.:)
And Tricon, burdened by debt that Pepsico assigned to it during the spinoff (nice guys), has been selling corporate stores to franchisors right and left. All of them are struggling with outdated store concepts and menus. But being managed by restaurant people instead of sugar-water people has helped immensely, if what I've read is to be believed.
Just FYI, nobody is "prepared" for any disaster. The authorities conducted an evacuation and are evaluating the situation before taking rash action.
Contrary to widespread popular belief, a nuclear reaction is not in itself dangerous. Nuclear reactions are taking place all the time wherever there are radioactive minerals. The danger relates to the amount of radioactivity and the length of time of the reaction.
[There are dinner plates -- Fiestaware -- that were glazed back in the 30s with radioactive uranium. (Gave it a characteristic orange color.) They're decaying: a nuclear reaction, but it takes a very long time. You don't keep them in the house or eat off of them. But they're safe to own.]
In this case, a nuclear reaction was caused involving a certain amount of uranium with other amounts of water and nitric acid. The uranium in question would be decaying and emitting radiation as a matter of course; what happened here is that the material was concentrated enough that decaying particles from the uranium atoms strike other atoms and trigger a further reaction. This is simply a "self-sustaining" nuclear reaction.
This does not compare to Chernobyl. In Chernobyl, a reactor-sized pile of fuel was not only in a self-sustaining reaction, there was an explosion and fire. The damping system was permanently damaged. The roof was blown off the structure (this was one of the biggest errors made by the Russians: no containment structure). The fire was spewing radioactive ash high into the atmosphere. Without containment or control systems, stopping the fire was the only option. Even so, the way in which it was done (involving panic, local and army firemen with no training, and contradictory instructions from various levels of officials), and the criminal choice of not evacuating the town, were of greater importance.
This chain reaction in Japan, though, is simply exactly what Enrico Fermi caused to happen, for the first time, under the seat of the University of Chicago's football stadium.
What do you do when you have a critical mass that begins a self-sustaining nuclear reaction?
Well, two things, basically. You separate the material; or you insert dampers.
What they're doing here is a process of attempting to separate the material by draining radioactive water (not into the environment, of course, but into a holding tank). This way they can reduce the fuel beneath critical mass and the chain reaction will dissipate naturally.
No comparison with Chernobyl, really; more like other lesser accidents that have happened, such as Three Mile Island, or Windscale. In terms of human error and botched procedures, though, hopefully this will offer many lessons.
(not a personal slam at teraflop, you obviously understand the issues)
I just want to caution Slashdot readers (some of whom seem to be posting) that one scientist's hypothesis does not a solution make. Clearly there is room for debate on this issue, particularly since actually going out to Pioneer and taking measurements is... somewhat impractical.
So, Scientists A&B say, we have something odd here, and nothing we've investigated explains it (first article in physics journal, reported in NS). Scientists C&D say, it looks to us like the probe's excess heat, using these calculations (2nd NS article). That doesn't mean that A&B will automatically agree with C&D (they don't).
It's often said, not entirely tongue-in-cheek, that scientists (who have careers at stake) never admit they're wrong, and that the only way new theories become accepted is for all the old scientists to die off!
In any case, the Pioneer conundrum is a very interesting one. It's not, in itself, evidence of a new force, but it is dramatic example of how complex something as "simple" as a spaceship trajectory can be, and how we don't understand everything yet. (Which to that I say: Thank God, what a boring universe it would be if we understood everything.)
[As for the slashdot kiddies complaining "we heard about this already", maybe Slashdot should stop reporting on, say, Microsoft vs. the DOJ. After all, it was first reported on over a year ago, the fact that they're still arguing is irrelevant. It's old news!]
(not a personal slam at teraflop, you obviously understand the issues) I just want to caution Slashdot readers (some of whom seem to be posting a lot) that one scientist's hypothesis does not a solution make. Clearly there is room for debate on this issue, particularly since actually going out to Pioneer and taking measurements is... somewhat impractical. So, Scientists A&B say, we have something odd here, and nothing we've investigated explains it (first article in physics journal, reported in NS). Scientists C&D say, it looks to us like the probe's excess heat, using these calculations (2nd NS article). That doesn't mean that A&B will automatically agree with C&D (they don't). It's often said, not entirely tongue-in-cheek, that scientists (who have careers at stake) never admit they're wrong, and that the only way new theories become accepted is for all the old scientists to die off! In any case, the Pioneer conundrum is a very interesting one. It's not, in itself, evidence of a new force, but it is dramatic example of how complex something as "simple" as a spaceship trajectory can be, and how we don't understand everything yet. (Which to that I say: Thank God, what a boring universe it would be if we understood everything.) [As for the slashdot kiddies complaining "we heard about this already", maybe Slashdot should stop reporting on, say, Microsoft vs. the DOJ. After all, it was first reported on over a year ago, the fact that they're still arguing is irrelevant. We heard it all last year, we know what we think. It's old news!]
The IP reporting is not "unusual" as stated in the boston.com article (see my other post), nor is it given for "each participant". It is only shown when the originating ISP cannot be resolved.
ABC has been showing either the home ISP or the IP address (when it can't resolve ISP) for as long as I've been viewing their chats -- about a year. I have no idea how long before that.
CNN, ABC, and other "big news" outlets getting into the interactivity department have learned a few things along the way. For instance, CNN discovered that with open registration, people felt anonymous and would fill up their forums with obscenities and personal abuse (flamewars for the uninitiated). CNN began requiring a "real" e-mail address (though so far as I know mainly they reject hotmail). ABC began posting chat messages like this:
frank rizzo from proxy.aol.com at 10:02am ET Evas mom from splitrock.net at 10:04am ET Kisuh from [210.183.28.97] at 10:11am ET
This holds in all chat rooms, not just the political ones. So far as I know, all chats at ABC are moderated anyway, so only postings approved by the moderator are shown. This policy is also something found at MANY web-based chat systems, e.g. bianca.com, again instituted after abuse forced them to.
ABC is not in the business of providing an anonymous forum; they're in the business of entertaining people with news. There are plenty of other places on the internet where one can speak their mind privately.
The person posting this was obviously a first-time ABC chat user, otherwise they would have known this. I don't understand the shock; this sort of thing is common and I'm convinced this person is a newbie with an itchy privacy finger.
The tide had turned in the Pacific War, and the Japanese were demonstrating that they would fight to the last man to hold any island. The first Kamikaze units were deployed in 1944. The plans were being drawn up for an invasion of the Japanese mainland, and everyone expected massive Allied casualties in the process. The Atomic Bomb was a secret project whose outcome was uncertain (the first test would not be until April 1945).
World War II saw unprecedented technological innovation in the means of war; some of these ideas were crazy, some of them were impractical, some of them were unethical.
What is more important to remember is that this was never used. Although a future society may not be so prissy... certainly the "asteroid drop" will be a weapon of choice in any interplanetary wars!
First of all, not all the French nuke tests were underground; you may want to ask the residents of certain Polynesian islands about that one.
Second, France was hardly alone in conducting underground nuke tests. The US and USSR moved to underground testing in the sixties; the decision to end atmospheric tests was one of the first agreements between the two countries. France never signed (claiming they wanted a disarmament treaty).
As for testing on fault lines, no, the Kerguelen islands (where the drill-bore tests were conducted) aren't really on fault lines; they're actually well within the Indian plate.
demona sez: A "partnership" between the state and private industry usually (not necessarily in this case) spells facism.
Well, maybe it spells "fascism" to you, but you may wish to look the word up first. Generally, it involves government telling industry what to do, rather than asking industry what it can do for them.
NASA already acts as a "partner" for the aeronautics industry; what we need them to do is graduate to the same role for the space industry. Up until Challenger, the mission creep at NASA had turned them into the biggest competitor for the commercial satellite launch industry; since then, they've had to find other missions, such as the space station. Right now the entire commercial launch business *is* privatized. What Goldin is proposing is getting business to take over a vast array of government pork barrel projects that are not profitable.
TrevorB wrote: [many things that are so flattering of Goldin, he might as well have been paid for writing them]
Goldin has taken a decade to be humbled to the point that he'll accept even the slightest hint of returning NASA to its original purpose, the same one it serves in the aeronautics industry: fostering new technologies and assisting industry in achieving what it's actually best at.
The most important thing NASA does, period, is space exploration via planetary probes. The "better faster cheaper" program in that area is a response (a good one) toward brutal budget cuts he backed.
The program Goldin loves the best is astronautics, in the form of the Shuttle and International Space Station. These are program which cost many billions of dollars, yet will achieve negligible science results. The lower flight rate of the shuttle in the post-Challenger era has only led to higher per-launch costs. "Privatization" in the form of the United Space Alliance is a figleaf for the benefit of Congress; it hasn't changed shuttle management, goals, or procedures much at all, and hasn't lowered costs except at the expense of personnel. We've seen the outcome of that policy in the wiring problems aboard the shuttle fleet.
Private business has never been charged with planetary exploration, so your comparison is pointless. If you look at what the private sector HAS accomplished in space, you will find hundreds of communications, weather, and imaging satellites, none of them put there by government programs.
As long as Goldin is running the space agency, we will continue to see many billions of dollars poured down the hole of the ISS program, and more billions spent dithering with "future technologies" intended to build massive public-works corporate welfare like VentureStar to keep Lockheed Martin in business... all while the space science mission operates on a shoestring, and even what-if thinking about human exploration of Mars is all but banned.
Almost everything that you praise Goldin for accomplishing, has instead, been accomplished IN SPITE of his administration.
Effective exploitation of near-Earth space will never be accomplished by a government program more interested in providing pork-barrel projects for Congressman and standing in for foreign aid to Russia. That's what Dan Goldin stands for, and if you don't see it, I'm sorry for you.
For a more clear-headed approach to thinking about Goldin and NASA, visit NASA Watch. Though sometimes attitude gets the better of them, they offer a welcome antitode to the "company line" of pro-NASA boosterism. And if you still aren't convinced, read Dragonfly, and be enlightened.
Seriously, investing in the stock market is not that hard, and is an excellent long-term risk... emphasis on long-term.
People going for short-term profits, like the infamous day-traders, or who obtusely put all their life savings into penny stocks or something else inadviseable, are the people really taking risks. But as for the average person, it's really pretty easy to earn money in stocks.
The key is being willing to wait 20 or 30 years for your money to appreciate. Historically, stocks give an excellent rate of return -- upwards of 12 to 15%. (Try getting THAT from your bank.) The problem is that not every single stock appreciates like that, and frequently stocks do decline in price for a period of time.
For my money, and I mean that literally, the best place to learn is the Motley Fool. Start by browsing the Fool's School, and you'll hopefully have a better appreciation of how it all works... and how you can actually earn money in the market. Best of all, it's free! No, really!
As for investing in risky things like the high-tech market, well, first of all: invest only in companies that you understand. And even then, invest only money that you can lose -- because you just might. And meanwhile, invest money you CAN'T lose (like your retirement fund) in tax shelters like 401(k) plans, IRAs, and so on -- and with proven techniques, mostly involving buying stocks and holding onto them for a Very Long Time, as opposed to trying to outguess the highs and lows of the market.
As for you not knowing much, well, Po Bronson points out that there are clear lines between who gets to know stuff about IPOs; of course, it has to do with securities laws in the end, but the practical effect is to make certain things very secret, even from the people whose lives are materially affected by the outcome.
As to how it works, "Mcafee.com" can easily be a stock-issuing subsidiary to another corporation. It happens in the other direction all the time: one corporation investing in another by buying, say, 10% of its stock. In this case, the subsidiary is in a substantially-enough different business from the main corporation that they want to give investors the ability to "track" its success separately. This can be done by a special class of stock, or as a semi-public subsidiary. Since the prospectus isn't available yet (that I can find), it's hard to tell how much stock is being made public and how much NAI is still going to own.
Will this 'trademark infringement' idea hold up in court?
Probably not, as they found out in Virginia. But the Denver judge may be more sympathetic; we'll see.
Besides, isn't 'You've Got Mail' as generic nowadays as 'Kotex' or 'Xerox' or 'Kleenex'?
Careful. None of those trademarks is generic; to this day, they have all been successfully defended by their owners. You may ask, more accurately, "as generic as 'escalator' or aspirin'?" The owners of those trademarks did not have lawyers as good as AOL's, and they lost them. The fact that they lost, means that people like AOL realize they have to aggressively defend their marks.
It's difficult, but not impossible, to claim a trademark on a common word or phrase. In this case, AOL is trying hard, but I think in the long run they are going to lose.
brennanw writes: Didn't the courts already rule that AOL can't own the phrase "You've got mail"? [snip] then there's no way they can sue someone for using a phrase that is derived from something they don't have the right to enforce as a trademark.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. The Judge who issued that ruling, Claude M. Hilton, is in the Eastern District of the Fourth Circuit. At this point, his ruling is only enforceable within that court district. AOL is free to sue anyone in any other district court in the country and hope they get a more favorable judge (in practice, this is rare, as judges tend to respect each other's reasoning -- but it keeps lawyers employed, and if all judges agreed in the first place, there would be no reason for appeals courts to exist).
The Hilton ruling, according to this CNET article, has been appealed to the Fourth District U.S. Court of Appeals. If and when a ruling is issued from them, that legal precedent will then hold throughout the entire.... Fourth District.
Again, other judges are free to rule in concert with the Hilton precedent, or not if they feel strongly about it. Hilton's ruling is a legal ruling: it is not the law of the land.
Presumably, ideally, AOL will also lose at the Fourth District level, and appeal to the Supreme Court. At that time, an individual Supreme Court justice will consider the appeal and whether to take it up. If he does, good for AOL: they get the entire U.S. Supreme Court to consider their case.
At this point, the earlier paragraphs still hold: other judges are free to respect the Hilton decision, or not. It is not law, only a legal precedent that a judge may consider in making her decision.
After the U.S. Supreme Court considers the case, they will decide whether to affirm the original decision. They may do so without taking arguments, usually indicating that they feel there is no new point of law to be discussed. They generally then simply affirm it without comment.
If they take arguments, they will then (often after months of research and quiet haggling) issue their respective opinions. Generally there is a majority opinion and a minority opinion.
Only at this point will the Hilton ruling become effective across the entire United States.
But wait, there's more! Perhaps AOL's lawyers can creatively argue to another judge that the previous decision was flawed based on a different arcane point of law. Then, the entire process starts again at the Federal District court level.
Whee! Ain't a federal democracy judiciary fun?!
Re:ive always disagreed with stuff like this...
on
WinLinux 2000
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· Score: 4
discore sez: i think that if you are going to install linux, you've got to learn a few things.
No. If you are going to become a knowledgeable computer geek, you need to learn a few things. But why should Aunt Jane have to learn how to compile a filesystem just to have a cheap e-mail/word processing computer? Why should Linux force extra learning on people? Isn't the point of open source software to create something that's arguably better than closed-source stuff like Windows? How does making it easy violate that principle?
The last thing the Linux community needs is to turn into a bunch of arrogant helpdesk geeks laughing at the newbies who don't know that the disk label goes out. That's just adolescent egotism, and doesn't reflect well on anybody. That is, unless you only want arrogant helpdesk geeks using Linux. Well, then, that attitude's gonna help keep it that way.
Here's a clue from my many years supporting end users: end users don't care how the computer works, as long as it works. Hell, you can even be an advanced 32-bit environment C++ developer -- a good one -- and need help putting the RAM in the right way (actual example). Linux will always have the availability of the CLI to get under the hood, but please, I beg you, don't force people to use it.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't consider Red Mars *sad*, just sober. I don't believe you can focus on the "unhappiness and senseless destruction" without considering the heroism and selfless attempts of other characters to create the utopian Mars they believe in.
... or Earth. It's the kind of thing that a highly evolved society tends to forget, being divorced from the real effects of their actions (e.g. the gradual lowering of the Ogalalla Water Table, or the hard choice between nasty DDT or widespread malaria).
The only problem is that everyone believes in a different utopian Mars.
As I've said, the trilogy is a roman à clef for the ecological debates on Earth today. On Earth, you make a small change and it may take years to see an effect. On Mars, you make that change and almost immediately you can judge it. It's both laboratory and metaphor.
While Robinson is no dystopic sf writer, he's clearly telling us that we take ourselves with us when we travel to other places/planets, and taht our motivations for simple actions can be deep and complex, with wide-ranging unforeseen consequences. This is a truth about life, and a lesson in living with a coherent ecosystem like Mars
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Lake Effect, a weblog
Mr Piccolo asks:
I know that there is a movie named Antarctica with a great soundtrack by Vangelis.
That sounds like Antarctica (1983), a (true?) story about two scientists returning to rescue their sled dogs in 1958. Since it came out about 15 years before Kim Stanley Robinson's novel, which is set in the near future, I don't think they're related!
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Lake Effect, a weblog
Since so many people complain about this, I was wondering where the web page was with the slashdot rule that there can only be one article per topic. I've been very concerned with this matter. I nominate that there should only be one article each year comparing Linux with Windows. This means that it's been approximately 36.732 hours since the last version of that article, for a posting rate of around 238.64 Linux/Windows articles annually. This is clearly 237.64 more articles than necessary. [wrings hands] What should be done?
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Lake Effect, a weblog
Disclaimer: I'm only 80% through the book so far.
The Mars trilogy has its fans and its anti-fans. Still, it was a downhill slope: If you didn't really like _Red Mars_, you were not likely to enjoy Green and Blue at all. I enjoyed the deep politics, but even I -- an admitted political junkie -- found it tedious by the end of the trilogy. Still, there was enough character development, travelogue, and hard-sf detail to keep me reading.
Antarctica is both tighter and lighter than the Mars books. KSR has clearly worked to insert more fun and tone down the political theory. The characters are less complex and more accessible, while not losing their personality or individual motivations. The storyline moves along at a much faster pace, clearly inspired by the recent trend of high-altitude/low-temperature adventure stories (Into Thin Air, Endurance, Across the Top of the World, et al.). I've read a lot of those, and so I was well-versed in the early history of Antarctica to which KSR frequently refers. It's good to read this book with a map and a couple of reference works close at hand, ideally with a photographic work to ground you to the experience. I looked up a LOT of Antarctic web pages in the process (start with The Ice), and I even looked at the _Lonely Planet_ guide to the continent -- yes, an Antarctic travel book.
Even if you didn't like Red Mars much, this book touches on many of the same themes in a much more immediate, action-oriented adventure context. In the same way that the Mars trilogy was really a roman à clef for the ecological arguments currently swirling about how to manage the Earth*, Antarctica contains thoughtful lessons to absorb for our very near future.
In short, this is basically _Red Mars_ aimed at a wider audience, successfully. It's not as deep as the trilogy, but that's a good thing. Whereas the trilogy is, in any practical sense, unfilmable (cf. LoTR), this would make a really fun 2-hour movie.
* and if you didn't read that into it, try thinking that one over and picking the books up again -- especially if you were bored!
[GETTING REALLY PISSED OFF as I hit "Preview" three times in a row and got "Error" three times in a row. Slashdot and proxy servers simply do not mix.]
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Lake Effect, a weblog
The "biography" and "trivia" sections both contain mentions of his election to the US Senate.
fusiongyro sez:
... or are computers just tools for end-users? As much as I enjoy the toy factor, I am painfully aware of how end-users are impacted by closed systems such as Windows, with all that implies (we need not retread those arguments here).
I don't have a problem with people learning to use Linux. I have a problem with everyone trying to make life simple for the users, because that's just going to invite them to come in and stomp all over what we've made so far. There is a difference between teaching users, and catering to them. We have to draw a line.
You are obviously not in the business of building computer systems for end-users, or you'd realize just how ridiculous you sound.
Are computers toys for hackers
My objective in supporting Linux is to have an OS that can be used in a corporate environment, with a much smaller total-cost-of-ownership, and reasonable support requirements. Now, Windows ain't gonna go away, but Linux has a shot at occupying a big chunk of the corporate market.
In other words, I'm not supporting Linux because I think Torvalds is cool and open source is cool and I like being part of a subculture and, oh yeah, Microsoft is evil; I'm actually supporting Linux because it's better for people.
And I'm sorry, but in the real world, easy-to-use is a big part of that, too.
Your "let's keep Linux arcane and difficult so the masses don't find out about it" argument is juvenile. As far as I'm concerned, Linux advocacy does not need people like you. You don't "love Linux"; you love being part of the Linux subculture, and you want to keep it exclusionary and secretive. You're part of the problem. Please stop.
When will people inovate their own ideas. Apple did this years ago with the powerbook 1400.
I guess if Apple has a good idea, nobody else is supposed to try it, ever?
So GM comes out with a sports car and nobody else is ever, ever, supposed to make a sports car because GM did it first?
There is a new franchise in California, "Pac Hut", that has been silently buying up Pizza Huts off of Pepisico. What tipped me off was that one of the restaurants served Coke products.
... at least, people who read the business section once in a while. :)
It wasn't that silent. It's just that a holding company like Tricon Global doesn't have the name recognition that Pepsico does. You don't sell a $20B business without people noticing
And Tricon, burdened by debt that Pepsico assigned to it during the spinoff (nice guys), has been selling corporate stores to franchisors right and left. All of them are struggling with outdated store concepts and menus. But being managed by restaurant people instead of sugar-water people has helped immensely, if what I've read is to be believed.
Just FYI, nobody is "prepared" for any disaster. The authorities conducted an evacuation and are evaluating the situation before taking rash action.
Contrary to widespread popular belief, a nuclear reaction is not in itself dangerous. Nuclear reactions are taking place all the time wherever there are radioactive minerals. The danger relates to the amount of radioactivity and the length of time of the reaction.
[There are dinner plates -- Fiestaware -- that were glazed back in the 30s with radioactive uranium. (Gave it a characteristic orange color.) They're decaying: a nuclear reaction, but it takes a very long time. You don't keep them in the house or eat off of them. But they're safe to own.]
In this case, a nuclear reaction was caused involving a certain amount of uranium with other amounts of water and nitric acid. The uranium in question would be decaying and emitting radiation as a matter of course; what happened here is that the material was concentrated enough that decaying particles from the uranium atoms strike other atoms and trigger a further reaction. This is simply a "self-sustaining" nuclear reaction.
This does not compare to Chernobyl. In Chernobyl, a reactor-sized pile of fuel was not only in a self-sustaining reaction, there was an explosion and fire. The damping system was permanently damaged. The roof was blown off the structure (this was one of the biggest errors made by the Russians: no containment structure). The fire was spewing radioactive ash high into the atmosphere. Without containment or control systems, stopping the fire was the only option. Even so, the way in which it was done (involving panic, local and army firemen with no training, and contradictory instructions from various levels of officials), and the criminal choice of not evacuating the town, were of greater importance.
This chain reaction in Japan, though, is simply exactly what Enrico Fermi caused to happen, for the first time, under the seat of the University of Chicago's football stadium.
What do you do when you have a critical mass that begins a self-sustaining nuclear reaction?
Well, two things, basically. You separate the material; or you insert dampers.
What they're doing here is a process of attempting to separate the material by draining radioactive water (not into the environment, of course, but into a holding tank). This way they can reduce the fuel beneath critical mass and the chain reaction will dissipate naturally.
No comparison with Chernobyl, really; more like other lesser accidents that have happened, such as Three Mile Island, or Windscale. In terms of human error and botched procedures, though, hopefully this will offer many lessons.
Sorry about that. I had a proxy time-out.
(not a personal slam at teraflop, you obviously understand the issues)
... somewhat impractical.
I just want to caution Slashdot readers (some of whom seem to be posting) that one scientist's hypothesis does not a solution make. Clearly there is room for debate on this issue, particularly since actually going out to Pioneer and taking measurements is
So, Scientists A&B say, we have something odd here, and nothing we've investigated explains it (first article in physics journal, reported in NS). Scientists C&D say, it looks to us like the probe's excess heat, using these calculations (2nd NS article). That doesn't mean that A&B will automatically agree with C&D (they don't).
It's often said, not entirely tongue-in-cheek, that scientists (who have careers at stake) never admit they're wrong, and that the only way new theories become accepted is for all the old scientists to die off!
In any case, the Pioneer conundrum is a very interesting one. It's not, in itself, evidence of a new force, but it is dramatic example of how complex something as "simple" as a spaceship trajectory can be, and how we don't understand everything yet. (Which to that I say: Thank God, what a boring universe it would be if we understood everything.)
[As for the slashdot kiddies complaining "we heard about this already", maybe Slashdot should stop reporting on, say, Microsoft vs. the DOJ. After all, it was first reported on over a year ago, the fact that they're still arguing is irrelevant. It's old news!]
(not a personal slam at teraflop, you obviously understand the issues) I just want to caution Slashdot readers (some of whom seem to be posting a lot) that one scientist's hypothesis does not a solution make. Clearly there is room for debate on this issue, particularly since actually going out to Pioneer and taking measurements is ... somewhat impractical. So, Scientists A&B say, we have something odd here, and nothing we've investigated explains it (first article in physics journal, reported in NS). Scientists C&D say, it looks to us like the probe's excess heat, using these calculations (2nd NS article). That doesn't mean that A&B will automatically agree with C&D (they don't). It's often said, not entirely tongue-in-cheek, that scientists (who have careers at stake) never admit they're wrong, and that the only way new theories become accepted is for all the old scientists to die off! In any case, the Pioneer conundrum is a very interesting one. It's not, in itself, evidence of a new force, but it is dramatic example of how complex something as "simple" as a spaceship trajectory can be, and how we don't understand everything yet. (Which to that I say: Thank God, what a boring universe it would be if we understood everything.) [As for the slashdot kiddies complaining "we heard about this already", maybe Slashdot should stop reporting on, say, Microsoft vs. the DOJ. After all, it was first reported on over a year ago, the fact that they're still arguing is irrelevant. We heard it all last year, we know what we think. It's old news!]
The chat transcript in question. Valid at least until the next time it's used, I guess.
The IP reporting is not "unusual" as stated in the boston.com article (see my other post), nor is it given for "each participant". It is only shown when the originating ISP cannot be resolved.
ABC has been showing either the home ISP or the IP address (when it can't resolve ISP) for as long as I've been viewing their chats -- about a year. I have no idea how long before that.
CNN, ABC, and other "big news" outlets getting into the interactivity department have learned a few things along the way. For instance, CNN discovered that with open registration, people felt anonymous and would fill up their forums with obscenities and personal abuse (flamewars for the uninitiated). CNN began requiring a "real" e-mail address (though so far as I know mainly they reject hotmail). ABC began posting chat messages like this:
frank rizzo from proxy.aol.com at 10:02am ET
Evas mom from splitrock.net at 10:04am ET
Kisuh from [210.183.28.97] at 10:11am ET
This holds in all chat rooms, not just the political ones. So far as I know, all chats at ABC are moderated anyway, so only postings approved by the moderator are shown. This policy is also something found at MANY web-based chat systems, e.g. bianca.com, again instituted after abuse forced them to.
ABC is not in the business of providing an anonymous forum; they're in the business of entertaining people with news. There are plenty of other places on the internet where one can speak their mind privately.
The person posting this was obviously a first-time ABC chat user, otherwise they would have known this. I don't understand the shock; this sort of thing is common and I'm convinced this person is a newbie with an itchy privacy finger.
The tide had turned in the Pacific War, and the Japanese were demonstrating that they would fight to the last man to hold any island. The first Kamikaze units were deployed in 1944. The plans were being drawn up for an invasion of the Japanese mainland, and everyone expected massive Allied casualties in the process. The Atomic Bomb was a secret project whose outcome was uncertain (the first test would not be until April 1945).
... certainly the "asteroid drop" will be a weapon of choice in any interplanetary wars!
World War II saw unprecedented technological innovation in the means of war; some of these ideas were crazy, some of them were impractical, some of them were unethical.
What is more important to remember is that this was never used. Although a future society may not be so prissy
First of all, not all the French nuke tests were underground; you may want to ask the residents of certain Polynesian islands about that one.
d 8.html
Second, France was hardly alone in conducting underground nuke tests. The US and USSR moved to underground testing in the sixties; the decision to end atmospheric tests was one of the first agreements between the two countries. France never signed (claiming they wanted a disarmament treaty).
http://www.greenpeace.org/~comms/nukes/ctbt/rea
As for testing on fault lines, no, the Kerguelen islands (where the drill-bore tests were conducted) aren't really on fault lines; they're actually well within the Indian plate.
Government IS us, anarcho-dude. Or did you think that government was green space aliens or something?
Oh, I guess you probably don't vote. No wonder you're pissed off.
demona sez:
A "partnership" between the state and private industry usually (not necessarily in this case) spells facism.
Well, maybe it spells "fascism" to you, but you may wish to look the word up first. Generally, it involves government telling industry what to do, rather than asking industry what it can do for them.
NASA already acts as a "partner" for the aeronautics industry; what we need them to do is graduate to the same role for the space industry. Up until Challenger, the mission creep at NASA had turned them into the biggest competitor for the commercial satellite launch industry; since then, they've had to find other missions, such as the space station. Right now the entire commercial launch business *is* privatized. What Goldin is proposing is getting business to take over a vast array of government pork barrel projects that are not profitable.
TrevorB wrote:
... all while the space science mission operates on a shoestring, and even what-if thinking about human exploration of Mars is all but banned.
[many things that are so flattering of Goldin, he might as well have been paid for writing them]
Goldin has taken a decade to be humbled to the point that he'll accept even the slightest hint of returning NASA to its original purpose, the same one it serves in the aeronautics industry: fostering new technologies and assisting industry in achieving what it's actually best at.
The most important thing NASA does, period, is space exploration via planetary probes. The "better faster cheaper" program in that area is a response (a good one) toward brutal budget cuts he backed.
The program Goldin loves the best is astronautics, in the form of the Shuttle and International Space Station. These are program which cost many billions of dollars, yet will achieve negligible science results. The lower flight rate of the shuttle in the post-Challenger era has only led to higher per-launch costs. "Privatization" in the form of the United Space Alliance is a figleaf for the benefit of Congress; it hasn't changed shuttle management, goals, or procedures much at all, and hasn't lowered costs except at the expense of personnel. We've seen the outcome of that policy in the wiring problems aboard the shuttle fleet.
Private business has never been charged with planetary exploration, so your comparison is pointless. If you look at what the private sector HAS accomplished in space, you will find hundreds of communications, weather, and imaging satellites, none of them put there by government programs.
As long as Goldin is running the space agency, we will continue to see many billions of dollars poured down the hole of the ISS program, and more billions spent dithering with "future technologies" intended to build massive public-works corporate welfare like VentureStar to keep Lockheed Martin in business
Almost everything that you praise Goldin for accomplishing, has instead, been accomplished IN SPITE of his administration.
Effective exploitation of near-Earth space will never be accomplished by a government program more interested in providing pork-barrel projects for Congressman and standing in for foreign aid to Russia. That's what Dan Goldin stands for, and if you don't see it, I'm sorry for you.
For a more clear-headed approach to thinking about Goldin and NASA, visit NASA Watch. Though sometimes attitude gets the better of them, they offer a welcome antitode to the "company line" of pro-NASA boosterism. And if you still aren't convinced, read Dragonfly, and be enlightened.
Clearly both are derived from the root /cap/ meaning, of course, "head" (and usage of one influenced the other). Separate but related etymologies.
Seriously, investing in the stock market is not that hard, and is an excellent long-term risk ... emphasis on long-term.
... and how you can actually earn money in the market. Best of all, it's free! No, really!
People going for short-term profits, like the infamous day-traders, or who obtusely put all their life savings into penny stocks or something else inadviseable, are the people really taking risks. But as for the average person, it's really pretty easy to earn money in stocks.
The key is being willing to wait 20 or 30 years for your money to appreciate. Historically, stocks give an excellent rate of return -- upwards of 12 to 15%. (Try getting THAT from your bank.) The problem is that not every single stock appreciates like that, and frequently stocks do decline in price for a period of time.
For my money, and I mean that literally, the best place to learn is the Motley Fool. Start by browsing the Fool's School, and you'll hopefully have a better appreciation of how it all works
As for investing in risky things like the high-tech market, well, first of all: invest only in companies that you understand. And even then, invest only money that you can lose -- because you just might. And meanwhile, invest money you CAN'T lose (like your retirement fund) in tax shelters like 401(k) plans, IRAs, and so on -- and with proven techniques, mostly involving buying stocks and holding onto them for a Very Long Time, as opposed to trying to outguess the highs and lows of the market.
Try this press release on for size.
As for you not knowing much, well, Po Bronson points out that there are clear lines between who gets to know stuff about IPOs; of course, it has to do with securities laws in the end, but the practical effect is to make certain things very secret, even from the people whose lives are materially affected by the outcome.
As to how it works, "Mcafee.com" can easily be a stock-issuing subsidiary to another corporation. It happens in the other direction all the time: one corporation investing in another by buying, say, 10% of its stock. In this case, the subsidiary is in a substantially-enough different business from the main corporation that they want to give investors the ability to "track" its success separately. This can be done by a special class of stock, or as a semi-public subsidiary.
Since the prospectus isn't available yet (that I can find), it's hard to tell how much stock is being made public and how much NAI is still going to own.
Will this 'trademark infringement' idea hold up in court?
Probably not, as they found out in Virginia. But the Denver judge may be more sympathetic; we'll see.
Besides, isn't 'You've Got Mail' as generic nowadays as 'Kotex' or 'Xerox' or 'Kleenex'?
Careful. None of those trademarks is generic; to this day, they have all been successfully defended by their owners. You may ask, more accurately, "as generic as 'escalator' or aspirin'?" The owners of those trademarks did not have lawyers as good as AOL's, and they lost them. The fact that they lost, means that people like AOL realize they have to aggressively defend their marks.
It's difficult, but not impossible, to claim a trademark on a common word or phrase. In this case, AOL is trying hard, but I think in the long run they are going to lose.
brennanw writes:
.... Fourth District.
Didn't the courts already rule that AOL can't own the phrase "You've got mail"? [snip] then there's no way they can sue someone for using a phrase that is derived from something they don't have the right to enforce as a trademark.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. The Judge who issued that ruling, Claude M. Hilton, is in the Eastern District of the Fourth Circuit. At this point, his ruling is only enforceable within that court district. AOL is free to sue anyone in any other district court in the country and hope they get a more favorable judge (in practice, this is rare, as judges tend to respect each other's reasoning -- but it keeps lawyers employed, and if all judges agreed in the first place, there would be no reason for appeals courts to exist).
The Hilton ruling, according to this CNET article, has been appealed to the Fourth District U.S. Court of Appeals. If and when a ruling is issued from them, that legal precedent will then hold throughout the entire
Again, other judges are free to rule in concert with the Hilton precedent, or not if they feel strongly about it. Hilton's ruling is a legal ruling: it is not the law of the land.
Presumably, ideally, AOL will also lose at the Fourth District level, and appeal to the Supreme Court. At that time, an individual Supreme Court justice will consider the appeal and whether to take it up. If he does, good for AOL: they get the entire U.S. Supreme Court to consider their case.
At this point, the earlier paragraphs still hold: other judges are free to respect the Hilton decision, or not. It is not law, only a legal precedent that a judge may consider in making her decision.
After the U.S. Supreme Court considers the case, they will decide whether to affirm the original decision. They may do so without taking arguments, usually indicating that they feel there is no new point of law to be discussed. They generally then simply affirm it without comment.
If they take arguments, they will then (often after months of research and quiet haggling) issue their respective opinions. Generally there is a majority opinion and a minority opinion.
Only at this point will the Hilton ruling become effective across the entire United States.
But wait, there's more! Perhaps AOL's lawyers can creatively argue to another judge that the previous decision was flawed based on a different arcane point of law. Then, the entire process starts again at the Federal District court level.
Whee! Ain't a federal democracy judiciary fun?!
discore sez:
i think that if you are going to install linux, you've got to learn a few things.
No. If you are going to become a knowledgeable computer geek, you need to learn a few things. But why should Aunt Jane have to learn how to compile a filesystem just to have a cheap e-mail/word processing computer? Why should Linux force extra learning on people? Isn't the point of open source software to create something that's arguably better than closed-source stuff like Windows? How does making it easy violate that principle?
The last thing the Linux community needs is to turn into a bunch of arrogant helpdesk geeks laughing at the newbies who don't know that the disk label goes out. That's just adolescent egotism, and doesn't reflect well on anybody. That is, unless you only want arrogant helpdesk geeks using Linux. Well, then, that attitude's gonna help keep it that way.
Here's a clue from my many years supporting end users: end users don't care how the computer works, as long as it works. Hell, you can even be an advanced 32-bit environment C++ developer -- a good one -- and need help putting the RAM in the right way (actual example). Linux will always have the availability of the CLI to get under the hood, but please, I beg you, don't force people to use it.