Hey, point that stick the other way! Pluderhosen? I thought you said you dressed in funny clothes? Now I'm gonna have to look up 'pluderhosen'. I'm also going to have to look into hurdy gurdy since I have a childhood memory of "The Hurdy Gurdy Man" with a monkey. I don't think he was wearing pluderhosen though.
"...if 3 different Windows variants came along..."
Not likely since MS wouldn't be split into multiple OS companies. One company gets the OS, another gets Apps, etc. Since they won't be able to share information any of the 'new' companies would have to create an OS from scratch and all of their Apps would have to be rewritten.
"....my beef really isn't with Apogee as much as UCITA and what it makes theoretically legal. "
Unfortunately I didn't read the prior story that way. It starts out saying that UCITA could be used to ban negative reviews and the link was Apogee has now done this, giving the impression that they had sought legal action based on negative comments about their company or product. Since the link the story came from was slashdotted (I assume) I could only go by what was posted here.
I have similar concerns about UCITA, but this particular story should have served to point us to an example of an agreement that might be used in such a way. It would also have been nice if/. had checked with Apogee for clarification before posting.
'Beta testing of ToonTalk began in January 1995 at the Encinal School in Menlo Park, California'
why isn't this software in general circulation yet. We studied logo when I was in elementary school, if we would have had this stuff, there'd be more programmers out there today."
Do the candidates (or sitting legislators) ever jump in and discuss the issues? Those are great resources, but the essay seemed to be directed at political entities--parties, candidates, coalitions--the sort of things your E-Democracy site links to.
"Threaded discussion boards would allow these groups of like-minded people to share information, organize and build consensus around issues. A collaborative filter would allow the best ideas rise to the top, and give individuals the ability to shape the overall direction of the organization."
And therein lies the problem. Political organizations do not want to be 'shaped' but prefer to be the ones doing the shaping. How would such a site, with online discussion and collaborative filtering, avoid the criticism of being 'poll' driven?
How do you propose our political leaders allow their positions to be influenced without appearing to be vacilating on issues, or without compromising their own convictions?
Additionally, those of us who have been online long enough know that, yes, there is a great deal of information on the net, but there is also a great deal of misinformation. You say that such a site allows the best ideas to rise to the top. Many online discussions, moderated or not, often end up being nothing more than pooled ignorance rather than shared wisdom. How would an organization keep their die-hard supporters from moderating contrary positions into oblivion (assuming the die-hards would likely outnumber the casual observers and information seekers), and how would you motivate such an organization to do so?
Hmmm. Seems that my memory was a bit foggy. Most of the sites I (briefly) checked indicated that folks used land lines while in port. Suggestions included Internet cafes and libraries. I did locate one article, here that addresses email at sea.
Many seagoing craft have internet access now. Depends on the Captain of a smaller craft. I thought I read somewhere recently about the big cruise ships offering access.
"I can understand being morally uncomfortable about risklessly killing people at a distance. I would guess this is a remnant from the times when personal man-to-man battles were the only honorable form of combat."
I don't see the discomfort coming from this type of warfare not being able to give the same level of satisfaction to the bloodthirsty. My discomfort stems from the fact that I think we are far too cavalier in our decisions to 'get involved' when we don't have to count the cost in terms dearer than dollars.
American involvement in Kosovo makes no sense if the reason was to prevent genocide when far worse scenarios play out between the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda or the radical Muslim government in Sudan against all others. Why don't we get involved there if human rights is a valid reason for intervention? It would seem to me that the higher the body count, the more compelling should be our interest in intervention.
I was in an AT&T class on data transmission in the early 80's and the instructor was explaining cyclical redundancy checking. He claimed that one of the gurus at Bell Labs had developed an algorithm that was able to predict at what point in the data stream noise would occur and how long it would last and substitute good data with dummy bits so it didn't matter if they got blown away. Having access to the same magical formula, the modem at the other end would know that the dummy data was coming and simply discard it as it came in and automatically pick up when the first good bit showed up.
I raised my hand and asked if I could get my hands on the algorithm so I could take it to Vegas.
"Are you alive? This is a QUANTUM algorithm. I'm SURE that OS/2 does not have any quantum algorithms, because the machines OS/2 runs on are BINARY machines, not QUANTUM. Now go do some reading on what quantum computing is and why it's so dang cool"
Which is why I think that those ads for QUANTUM airlines (you know, the ones with the little koala bear?) are so cool. Talk about understated, they don't even mention that their planes are so much faster than the other airlines and that they can fly in all different directions at the same time! Hah! Not like those binary planes that can only fly from point 0 to point 1.....
"How can you justify trading with a Chinese Communist government, still unapologetic about human rights violations (i.e. Tienemen Square), when you won't trade with Fidel Castro's Communist Cuba for the same reason?"
And Cuba's record on that count is actually better than China's in recent years. Maybe this has more to do with Chinese campaign contributions and the current administration than market size. Maybe polls were commissioned.
Why did we intervene in Kosovo when over 2 million have been killed and many more displaced in Sudan? Albright says it's because Sudan isn't 'marketable' to the American people.
"If you sit down and say I am going to be the next Alan Cox, or whatever, you will become increasingly disappointed in yourself and ultimitely fail."
I think that's key. There are too many proto-gurus who have it in their heads that they are the next uber-guru. This field of endeavor isn't that much different in that respect than sports. You may be the superstar in high school, among the better players in college, a name on the roster in some farm club and just another fan in the stands when it comes to the big leagues.
That's not to mean that you should just sit back and coast. Work hard at stuff that gives you satisfaction. I get a big charge out of taking something that exists and making it better, easier to use, more versatile, whatever.
carlos
Re:Everything by Bradury is great
on
Fahrenheit 451
·
· Score: 1
"Not exactly...I have tried reading his last three collections of stories and found all of them fairly disappointing - I always liked his tales of mystery and science fiction, but *sigh* the last three collections are just lame."
I have to agree. I haven't read the most recent stuff, but I read a few stories in the 80's that didn't measure up to what I'd come to expect from his earlier stuff. Wasn't it 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' that opened with a lengthy description of a leaf blowing down the street? Sounds boring, but I was totally captivated (of course I was only 15 at the time).
F-451 is the only earlier work I'm aware of that I haven't read. Always intended to, but never got to it.
"What is not really mentioned in Jon's article, is that sticking a pc in each employees home, complete with net connection, also gives the corporation a pipe directly to the employee that is available 24/7. It gives the employer another means of trying to coax more work out of the employee."
I guess I'm at a loss to see how Ford is going to coax a line employee to log in from home and torque down a few extra lug nuts. I understand that the motivation is not purely altruistic, but I think building employee loyalty would be a more reasonable assumption. Companies routinely attach significant monetary values to "Goodwill", an intangible asset. I don't see why a similar measurement wouldn't be able to be applied internally.
"Gun are inherently bad. They don't kill people by themselves. They can have good uses, self-defense, sport, hunting, etc. But guns can be bad. Very bad."
Guns are not inherently bad or good. Guns are inanimate objects. When you're on the wrong end of a gun your situation might be bad, but the gun isn't bad or good. Whether your situation is bad or not depends entirely upon the person with the gun. The gun is a tool that can magnify the severity of the situation you find yourself in (or if you have the gun it could greatly reduce the severity).
Technology is neither good nor bad. Technology is a tool. Whether your situation is good or bad depends upon how the technology is being used (against you or to help you) and often whether or not you wield the technology.
"Ultimatly I think their plan is to nail the 'questionable' MP3 related services (Napster, MP3.com, etc.) till they have established in the public's eye that MP3=illegal."
The comments posted here show that the line has already been blurred. Some posters have not been able to make the distinction between Napster and the MP3 format.
"So finally, despite our best efforts, there will be control over the internet"
I think it was inevitable. William Penn wrote that men would either be governed by God or ruled by tyrants. In other words, people will either do right on their own or it will be imposed upon them from an outside source. Once that outside source has been empowered, well, power corrupts.
It seems that there are increasing numbers of people who do not know how to govern themselves. I keep seeing the posts of those who justify their own theft. Al Capone went to prison insisting he was just a furniture dealer too.
1. CD's cost too much. Then don't buy them. Let the people who sell them be the pirates. Once demand for the product dries up those prices will fall (or the industry will hop on the 'internet as distribution channel' bandwagon).
2. Music should be free. Since the creation of music requires, if nothing else, a person's time, then whatever you produce that is of any value should also be free. Shouldn't food be free since it is more fundamental to survival than music? But how will the farmer buy gas to run the tractors (or hay to feed the oxen) if nobody buys the produce? Why should production workers show up on Monday morning to make your automobiles or chairs or appliances or PC's (how many of us can make a computer from scratch? No, not putting components together, but build your own cpu from silicone, make your own mother boards, etc. from raw materials taken from the earth...) once everything is free? And once people stop showing up for work, there is no more being produced.
The fact is that, unless you live totally off the land, the bulk of what you consume is produced by someone else. How many of us are willing to produce things for other people without remuneration?
Hey, I don't much care for money. But everywhere I go other people want it. Went to the grocery store the other day. Told 'em I was a nice guy. Didn't matter. Told 'em I read slashdot. Mattered even less. I can't obtain many of the things I do care about unless I give some money to the folks that have it.
"Um, no. According to the story, Jesus created the bread and wine (perhaps you meant bread and fishes?) because there was a (temporary, local) shortage, and he voluntarily gave it away."
Actually, (don't you hate it when responses start that way?) the wine was created from water, no bread mentioned. The bread and fishes were multiplied (duplicated for distribution?) from a small initial amount. Separate events.
Slashdot Mirror
carlos
Not likely since MS wouldn't be split into multiple OS companies. One company gets the OS, another gets Apps, etc. Since they won't be able to share information any of the 'new' companies would have to create an OS from scratch and all of their Apps would have to be rewritten.
carlos
Troll? I'm hurt. Some people just don't appreciate corn-ball humor I guess.
Unfortunately I didn't read the prior story that way. It starts out saying that UCITA could be used to ban negative reviews and the link was Apogee has now done this, giving the impression that they had sought legal action based on negative comments about their company or product. Since the link the story came from was slashdotted (I assume) I could only go by what was posted here.
I have similar concerns about UCITA, but this particular story should have served to point us to an example of an agreement that might be used in such a way. It would also have been nice if /. had checked with Apogee for clarification before posting.
carlos, who misspells Apogee as 'Kndglech'
'Beta testing of ToonTalk began in January 1995 at the Encinal School in Menlo Park, California'
why isn't this software in general circulation yet. We studied logo when I was in elementary school, if we would have had this stuff, there'd be more programmers out there today."
You were in elementary school in 1995???
carlos
Do the candidates (or sitting legislators) ever jump in and discuss the issues? Those are great resources, but the essay seemed to be directed at political entities--parties, candidates, coalitions--the sort of things your E-Democracy site links to.
And therein lies the problem. Political organizations do not want to be 'shaped' but prefer to be the ones doing the shaping. How would such a site, with online discussion and collaborative filtering, avoid the criticism of being 'poll' driven?
How do you propose our political leaders allow their positions to be influenced without appearing to be vacilating on issues, or without compromising their own convictions?
Additionally, those of us who have been online long enough know that, yes, there is a great deal of information on the net, but there is also a great deal of misinformation. You say that such a site allows the best ideas to rise to the top. Many online discussions, moderated or not, often end up being nothing more than pooled ignorance rather than shared wisdom. How would an organization keep their die-hard supporters from moderating contrary positions into oblivion (assuming the die-hards would likely outnumber the casual observers and information seekers), and how would you motivate such an organization to do so?
carlos
carlos
carlos
I don't see the discomfort coming from this type of warfare not being able to give the same level of satisfaction to the bloodthirsty. My discomfort stems from the fact that I think we are far too cavalier in our decisions to 'get involved' when we don't have to count the cost in terms dearer than dollars.
American involvement in Kosovo makes no sense if the reason was to prevent genocide when far worse scenarios play out between the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda or the radical Muslim government in Sudan against all others. Why don't we get involved there if human rights is a valid reason for intervention? It would seem to me that the higher the body count, the more compelling should be our interest in intervention.
carlos
Today 50 Serbian soldiers, 5 radios and an electric toothbrush were killed by a nineteen year old armed with a GED and a toggle switch.
carlos
I raised my hand and asked if I could get my hands on the algorithm so I could take it to Vegas.
We had a different instructor after lunch.
carlos
Which is why I think that those ads for QUANTUM airlines (you know, the ones with the little koala bear?) are so cool. Talk about understated, they don't even mention that their planes are so much faster than the other airlines and that they can fly in all different directions at the same time! Hah! Not like those binary planes that can only fly from point 0 to point 1.....
carlos
I'm pretty certain I saw the same thing on the cover of the National Enquirer last year. carlos
carlos
And Cuba's record on that count is actually better than China's in recent years. Maybe this has more to do with Chinese campaign contributions and the current administration than market size. Maybe polls were commissioned.
Why did we intervene in Kosovo when over 2 million have been killed and many more displaced in Sudan? Albright says it's because Sudan isn't 'marketable' to the American people.
carlos
I especially liked his link to the guy who thinks turtles live on mars and has the pictures to prove it.
carlos
I've wanted to go to Mars ever since those pre-teen days reading The Martian Chronicles and Burroughs' Mars series.
carlos
I think that's key. There are too many proto-gurus who have it in their heads that they are the next uber-guru. This field of endeavor isn't that much different in that respect than sports. You may be the superstar in high school, among the better players in college, a name on the roster in some farm club and just another fan in the stands when it comes to the big leagues.
That's not to mean that you should just sit back and coast. Work hard at stuff that gives you satisfaction. I get a big charge out of taking something that exists and making it better, easier to use, more versatile, whatever.
carlos
I have to agree. I haven't read the most recent stuff, but I read a few stories in the 80's that didn't measure up to what I'd come to expect from his earlier stuff. Wasn't it 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' that opened with a lengthy description of a leaf blowing down the street? Sounds boring, but I was totally captivated (of course I was only 15 at the time).
F-451 is the only earlier work I'm aware of that I haven't read. Always intended to, but never got to it.
carlos
I guess I'm at a loss to see how Ford is going to coax a line employee to log in from home and torque down a few extra lug nuts. I understand that the motivation is not purely altruistic, but I think building employee loyalty would be a more reasonable assumption. Companies routinely attach significant monetary values to "Goodwill", an intangible asset. I don't see why a similar measurement wouldn't be able to be applied internally.
carlos
Guns are not inherently bad or good. Guns are inanimate objects. When you're on the wrong end of a gun your situation might be bad, but the gun isn't bad or good. Whether your situation is bad or not depends entirely upon the person with the gun. The gun is a tool that can magnify the severity of the situation you find yourself in (or if you have the gun it could greatly reduce the severity).
Technology is neither good nor bad. Technology is a tool. Whether your situation is good or bad depends upon how the technology is being used (against you or to help you) and often whether or not you wield the technology.
carlos
The comments posted here show that the line has already been blurred. Some posters have not been able to make the distinction between Napster and the MP3 format.
"So finally, despite our best efforts, there will be control over the internet"
I think it was inevitable. William Penn wrote that men would either be governed by God or ruled by tyrants. In other words, people will either do right on their own or it will be imposed upon them from an outside source. Once that outside source has been empowered, well, power corrupts.
It seems that there are increasing numbers of people who do not know how to govern themselves. I keep seeing the posts of those who justify their own theft. Al Capone went to prison insisting he was just a furniture dealer too.
1. CD's cost too much. Then don't buy them. Let the people who sell them be the pirates. Once demand for the product dries up those prices will fall (or the industry will hop on the 'internet as distribution channel' bandwagon).
2. Music should be free. Since the creation of music requires, if nothing else, a person's time, then whatever you produce that is of any value should also be free. Shouldn't food be free since it is more fundamental to survival than music? But how will the farmer buy gas to run the tractors (or hay to feed the oxen) if nobody buys the produce? Why should production workers show up on Monday morning to make your automobiles or chairs or appliances or PC's (how many of us can make a computer from scratch? No, not putting components together, but build your own cpu from silicone, make your own mother boards, etc. from raw materials taken from the earth...) once everything is free? And once people stop showing up for work, there is no more being produced.
The fact is that, unless you live totally off the land, the bulk of what you consume is produced by someone else. How many of us are willing to produce things for other people without remuneration?
Hey, I don't much care for money. But everywhere I go other people want it. Went to the grocery store the other day. Told 'em I was a nice guy. Didn't matter. Told 'em I read slashdot. Mattered even less. I can't obtain many of the things I do care about unless I give some money to the folks that have it.
carlos
Actually, (don't you hate it when responses start that way?) the wine was created from water, no bread mentioned. The bread and fishes were multiplied (duplicated for distribution?) from a small initial amount. Separate events.
carlos
"The act of smashing into a tree?"
Could be. I understand he plagiarized the Kennedy clan for that one.
carlos