Before Bdale went back to work for Hewlett-Packard, he worked with their spin off, Agilent Technologies. While he was there, he was my boss. Bdale impressed me from the minute I met him with his knowledge and experience. It was a great personal loss for me when he went to HP, but it has been a great thing for Debian. Expect great things from him!
I have wondered for a while now why Slashdot/Andover.net doesn't just place an attorney on attainer to answer these questions as they come up. Law advice from someone in the profession would be most useful to us on the technical side of things and would help to stifle stupid and bad advice from people who slept through a Law 101 course.
"Geeks" are not a singular group like "African Americans" or "women".
I strongly disagree with you on this point. Consider the case of women. There are groups such as N.O.W. which claim to stand for all women, and yet a certain percentage of the females in this country do not agree with what this organization stands for. This is always going to be the case with any organization that stands for a group of people. But the important thing to remember is that often times, these organizations stand for some portion of society who's views are not being addressed. Does this sound at all like the geek contingent?
I will admit that geeks as a group do not all believe in the same things, but my question is this: What do we as a group feel is not having our needs addressed by our respective governments? Is there one or several common issues that we need to present to those in power to protect our rights and our ideals?
If there are things that a large contingent of geeks feel are not being addressed, then let's figure out how to get them addressed.
Sometime in the next century, genetic engineering and biotechnology will merge to grow computers within our own bodies that allow us to do far more sophisticated tasks and have incredible memories. By the end of the century, non-verbal communication will be made possible because of these bio-computers being able communicate with each other "wirelessly." We will really be connected to the web.
Additionaly Info on Ender's Game
on
Ender's Shadow
·
· Score: 2
Orson Scott Card came to a local bookstore and did a book signing. Before he started signing everyones books, he got up and took questions from the gathered crowd. Some of the interesting things he mentioned are:
- He just finished a screen play of Ender's Game and is looking for a producer for it. If this movie is made, he hopes that Ender's Shadow will be filmed at the same time. - There will be a follow on to Ender's Shadow. - There will be a book about Petra's perspective on the events in Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow.
Those are the main points. I certainly hope that if he does a book on Petra, that he does a wonderful a job with it as he did with Ender's Shadow. As far as the movie(s), I can't wait to see them!
I thought this was an entertaining movie, but I noticed at least one inaccuracy in the facts.
This being that the Xerox PARC people didn't invent the mouse as the movie seems to claim. It was actually invented by Doug Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute.
I thought the HP scene was interesting, since I work for HP. I laughed because the company has been kicking itself for years about that decision, but because at that time we were purely an instrument company, we saw no need for computers. Not quite the same level of mistake as Xerox's, but still a mistake.
The restriction is supposedly in the interest of national security. However, what the US government may finally be waking up to is that it is just hurting the private sector. This is especially the case with crypto.
As far as not exporting to Iran is concerned, I believe it is because the US has an embargo against Iran because they still consider Iran to be a terrorist state and thus an enemy.
I think (and I'm probably not 100% right, I may even be wrong) that the "Linux Community" only has two options now: 1. Accept Microsoft's challenge (however we're supposed to do that) and have as many experts on tuning, etc., on hand as possible to make sure Linux gets as much of a fair shake is possible given the hardware.
And if Linux doesn't beat Microsoft, then Microsoft can say "see, even with their best tuners and experts, they still didn't beat us." Great marketing stuff for them.
2. Do nothing and let Microsoft trumpet to the press that the "Linux Community" didn't have the balls to accept their challenge because Linux really was inferior to NT (which we know good and well it isn't).
There is another spin to this. By not accepting the obviously rigged challenge and pointing this out to the media, you still come out smelling better than you would if Linux loses or if they just shy away and let Microsofts marketing geniuses stomp all over Linux.
Any way you look at it, this is dangerous ground for Linux at this point in time. Dirkin Har
The skinny according to a report on Quicken.com is that the company will split along the lines of the Test and Measurement division, and the rest of the company (servers, pc, perphrials, etc.) This sucks for me if it is true (we haven't even heard from inside what the real skinny is yet.) I am in the Test and Measurement Division. Guess it is time to tune up the ol' resume, just in case.
Slashdot Mirror
Before Bdale went back to work for Hewlett-Packard, he worked with their spin off, Agilent Technologies. While he was there, he was my boss. Bdale impressed me from the minute I met him with his knowledge and experience. It was a great personal loss for me when he went to HP, but it has been a great thing for Debian. Expect great things from him!
I have wondered for a while now why Slashdot/Andover.net doesn't just place an attorney on attainer to answer these questions as they come up. Law advice from someone in the profession would be most useful to us on the technical side of things and would help to stifle stupid and bad advice from people who slept through a Law 101 course.
"Geeks" are not a singular group like "African Americans" or "women".
I strongly disagree with you on this point. Consider the case of women. There are groups such as N.O.W. which claim to stand for all women, and yet a certain percentage of the females in this country do not agree with what this organization stands for. This is always going to be the case with any organization that stands for a group of people. But the important thing to remember is that often times, these organizations stand for some portion of society who's views are not being addressed. Does this sound at all like the geek contingent?
I will admit that geeks as a group do not all believe in the same things, but my question is this: What do we as a group feel is not having our needs addressed by our respective governments? Is there one or several common issues that we need to present to those in power to protect our rights and our ideals?
If there are things that a large contingent of geeks feel are not being addressed, then let's figure out how to get them addressed.
Sometime in the next century, genetic engineering and biotechnology will merge to grow computers within our own bodies that allow us to do far more sophisticated tasks and have incredible memories. By the end of the century, non-verbal communication will be made possible because of these bio-computers being able communicate with each other "wirelessly." We will really be connected to the web.
Orson Scott Card came to a local bookstore and did a book signing. Before he started signing everyones books, he got up and took questions from the gathered crowd. Some of the interesting things he mentioned are:
- He just finished a screen play of Ender's Game and is looking for a producer for it. If this movie is made, he hopes that Ender's Shadow will be filmed at the same time.
- There will be a follow on to Ender's Shadow.
- There will be a book about Petra's perspective on the events in Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow.
Those are the main points. I certainly hope that if he does a book on Petra, that he does a wonderful a job with it as he did with Ender's Shadow. As far as the movie(s), I can't wait to see them!
I thought this was an entertaining movie, but I noticed at least one inaccuracy in the facts.
This being that the Xerox PARC people didn't invent the mouse as the movie seems to claim. It was actually invented by Doug Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute.
I thought the HP scene was interesting, since I work for HP. I laughed because the company has been kicking itself for years about that decision, but because at that time we were purely an instrument company, we saw no need for computers. Not quite the same level of mistake as Xerox's, but still a mistake.
That's my $0.02 worth.
The restriction is supposedly in the interest of national security. However, what the US government may finally be waking up to is that it is just hurting the private sector. This is especially the case with crypto.
As far as not exporting to Iran is concerned, I believe it is because the US has an embargo against Iran because they still consider Iran to be a terrorist state and thus an enemy.
Dirkin Har
And if Linux doesn't beat Microsoft, then Microsoft can say "see, even with their best tuners and experts, they still didn't beat us." Great marketing stuff for them.
2. Do nothing and let Microsoft trumpet to the press that the "Linux Community" didn't have the balls to accept their challenge because Linux really was inferior to NT (which we know good and well it isn't).
There is another spin to this. By not accepting the obviously rigged challenge and pointing this out to the media, you still come out smelling better than you would if Linux loses or if they just shy away and let Microsofts marketing geniuses stomp all over Linux.
Any way you look at it, this is dangerous ground for Linux at this point in time.
Dirkin Har
The skinny according to a report on Quicken.com is that the company will split along the lines of the Test and Measurement division, and the rest of the company (servers, pc, perphrials, etc.) This sucks for me if it is true (we haven't even heard from inside what the real skinny is yet.) I am in the Test and Measurement Division. Guess it is time to tune up the ol' resume, just in case.