One good thing that could come of this is a renewal of the "arms race mentality" between the US and Russia. If the Russians and the ESA get together and go to Mars, and at first we tell them to go suck a fig, then after a little while when the Russia/Europe partnership starts to work out, we're going to want to get back in it because the good ol' USA doesn't like to be beat to the punch by anyone. This arms race mentality would be much more likely to be instilled if the Russians go in with the Chinese and the Japanese rather than the Europeans.
If the idea comes about that "we must beat them no matter what," then we're going to go do it. That's what happened with the Moon, but in the current state of affairs, it will not happen with Mars. Say what you will, and I absolutely love peace, but the fear that came along with the Cold War got us to do some amazing things. Man, would I love to see us go to Mars.
Doesn't this seem just a little foolish to anyone? After all, running Linux on top of Windows loses any and all advantages Linux might have. Basically, you get the glitzy user interface of Linux with the stability and security of Windows and the speed of emulation. Usually, emulation is used to unlock a world of programs that aren't available to you on your own system, which is why people emulate Windows on Linux: Windows has more programs. And if you're trying to convince people to switch to Linux with something like this, how/why would it work? It can be no more stable than Windows, it's uglier than Windows (let's be honest), and it's slower than Windows (emulation). And a new user would realize none of this.
In short, this is an interesting application and I'm sure it could be used well in a few situations, but ultimately it isn't all that useful.
Fine, try not to support the actor, but why is the movie suddenly less important than the cast? Actually, I suppose it isn't so sudden, but that's a terrible trend that's been going on for a few decades. Minority Report is one of the few movies to come out in the past few years that is actually intriguing and thought-provoking, with very good writing and a director no less than the venerable Spielberg. Refute me if you must, but I have always believed, and will continue to believe, that the movie is more important than the actor. The director is more important than the actor. The script is more important than the actor. In some cases the sets are more important than the actor. As long as the actor can do something along the lines of acting, it doesn't matter who he is.
On another note, Cruise doesn't play a Scientologist in the movie, so getting hot and bothered about his beliefs in reality while watching him play a completely different character in a movie is just a little unbalanced. As an actor, he puts himself into the mind of someone else while he is on stage, and as a good actor, he does it well.
And just remember, nobody is ever going to use more than 640K of memory. Isn't it a little shortsighted to claim that anything is too much speed, and always will be?
Yes, but what if the father Saturn (QWERTY) starts to eat the children because he knows that one of them will one day overtake him and become the most powerful keyboard layout in the universe? All of the new keyboard layouts would be consumed, and the mother Rhea (DVORAK) would become very unhappy that all her children were being eaten. So, she would remedy the situation by feeding QWERTY a fake child/keyboard layout, perhaps just a random one that perhaps resembles a rock that in turn resembles a baby. Once QWERTY consumes this rock/keyboard layout, the new baby keyboard layout, let's call him "Jupiter," would be left to be raised somewhere out in the wilderness by nymphs of some sort. After many years, once Jupiter has honed his skills, he could come back and vanquish his father QWERTY, thus fulfilling the millenia-old prophecy for a second time.
Actually, that's what the Mars Society advocated when we send people to Mars. Set up their watches to tick once every 1.04 seconds or something, so it seems to them that they are living a 24 hour day (and they can make guesses based on what they are used to), but their times correspond to the rising/setting of the sun. Pretty interesting stuff. I don't know how well it would work on earth, though, seeing as we'd all get thrown off by the sun.
Yes, thank you. Bear in mind that he did not say that the "estimate" was $1B, which was a key assumption that I did not make. And isn't it possible to tell whether you're off by a factor of 10 too high or too low? I mean, that's something a human should pick up on pretty easily, so one of the options could be dropped, in all likelihood.
I kind of hope that nobody uses this to price software that they're selling to a company, lest they lose their credibility. There is no assurance that this guy did not lean toward making this software seem more valuable than it really is, thus making open source software more attractive (because you're getting something for nothing). I'd be careful using this in any other capacity than your home computer for the purpose of having fun.
On a similar note, do the prices seem accurate, for those of you who have used this thing?
You put up a lot of things that you don't think would be inconvenient, but you don't actually know how the customers would react, so the convenient/inconvenient argument is pretty moot. More importantly, the steps you have put up were in the guise of some type of anti-spam handbook, for use by corporations and legislators, but the real idea behind your steps to a spam free life is to make the prospect of spamming unappealing, which would in turn essentially end spam. So in effect, it is not as direct as you have made it out to be. Spam can only be stopped once the spammers can no longer find a reason to do it, and your steps are designed simply to make spamming unattractive.
Wouldn't you only be able to sue a spammer who is based in the same state as you are? The internet is a national/international entity, and I don't really see why Virginia state law should apply to the whole thing. In Virginia it might be illegal to drive over 75 MPH, but if you heard about someone doing 80 in Canada you wouldn't advocate arresting him, would you?
People cover the vents on their iMacs? It must take them a while to do it then, because the back of the macine is sloped. That's one of the conveniences Apple ran into with their design: it would take conscious effort (and possibly tape) to block the vents.
Yeah, not to mention the fact that he's driving the whores right out of business... usually someone gets 3-4 free karma points for linking to the cached version of the site.
A lot of those do seem pretty inconvenient, and if I was ISP hunting I wouldn't jump at the idea of signing up with one like that. I don't like step 4, as there is no assurance that the ISP will not then sell that information to shady characters, and I don't like step 6. What exactly would that block? Would that stop someone from having their own mail server? Why would you want to do that? In step 7, would that require that all email sent from an account such as Hotmail go through your servers as well? Because that would take a little longer for the customer and it sure wouldn't be fun for your servers. Not to mention the fact that MS might not be all too pleased with something like that. Step 2 could be modified such that the ISP actively searches for open relays and when one is found the owner of the system is contacted with a request to close said open relay within 3 days (and instructions as to how to do so, tailored for that specific situation), and if nothing is done within 3 days his/her connection should be shut down until such time as the open relay problem is fixed.
So according to steps 1 and 5, you would fine the spammer literally thousands of dollars and then release his name to his "victims?" That seems just a little harsh. I mean, maybe give each victim a small part of the fine gained, or put the fine towards credits on the victim's account for more bandwidth, but you don't want to set up an environment where customers have an incentive to attack each other physically. You could, however, release that information to other ISPs, so they would know who to allow and not to allow to use their service, or at least to monitor their actions if they do sign up.
You're right that that's a good start, but that's all it is. Spammers will still find some way to get around those and other methods of thwarting them. Also, unless the ISP to do this was very reputable and very large, and convinced the other big boys in the ISP business to cooperate, this plan could hardly be implemented. Imagine if AOL & MSN & all the others (I haven't been in the market for a really long time) got together and put a system like this into effect: then, and possibly only then, it would work.
Okay, if you were a reputable ISP, how would you go about shutting down spammers? It sounds really easy, but the point of a spammer is to circumvent policies put in place to stop him and put out a message to thousands of people who don't want to hear about it. No matter what you do, they will find a way around it, and as your anti-spam measures become more pro-active and draconian, your customers will start to lose their legitimate emails from their friends, and they will complain or simply quit and go somewhere else. The war against spam is a very difficult one to fight, and I was just wondering how you, or anyone else, would propose fighting it.
So when someone buys something new to replace something old, you say it shouldn't count as a new sale? What if McDonald's followed your logic? Once someone buys a hamburger, you no longer need to market to them, because they no longer count. After all, it's not like they're paying for a whole new hamburger...
The same goes for computers. If the people building computers sell one, it counts as a sale, regardless of how many computers the customer already has.
What makes this FUD? They are telling us about a radically new design for an airplane, and they are giving us a reasonable time frame for its release. They're not doing what Microsoft does, as you can see by the fact that the BWB is not just a 747 with extra "features" tacked onto the side...
I suppose it would be better if they just kept the whole thing a secret until they were ready to sell it, making sure that there would be no demand for their product at the outset.
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So it's just a remote control solution?
One good thing that could come of this is a renewal of the "arms race mentality" between the US and Russia. If the Russians and the ESA get together and go to Mars, and at first we tell them to go suck a fig, then after a little while when the Russia/Europe partnership starts to work out, we're going to want to get back in it because the good ol' USA doesn't like to be beat to the punch by anyone. This arms race mentality would be much more likely to be instilled if the Russians go in with the Chinese and the Japanese rather than the Europeans.
If the idea comes about that "we must beat them no matter what," then we're going to go do it. That's what happened with the Moon, but in the current state of affairs, it will not happen with Mars. Say what you will, and I absolutely love peace, but the fear that came along with the Cold War got us to do some amazing things. Man, would I love to see us go to Mars.
So what, then, is the usefulness of this X Windows on Windows?
Doesn't this seem just a little foolish to anyone? After all, running Linux on top of Windows loses any and all advantages Linux might have. Basically, you get the glitzy user interface of Linux with the stability and security of Windows and the speed of emulation. Usually, emulation is used to unlock a world of programs that aren't available to you on your own system, which is why people emulate Windows on Linux: Windows has more programs. And if you're trying to convince people to switch to Linux with something like this, how/why would it work? It can be no more stable than Windows, it's uglier than Windows (let's be honest), and it's slower than Windows (emulation). And a new user would realize none of this.
In short, this is an interesting application and I'm sure it could be used well in a few situations, but ultimately it isn't all that useful.
Fine, try not to support the actor, but why is the movie suddenly less important than the cast? Actually, I suppose it isn't so sudden, but that's a terrible trend that's been going on for a few decades. Minority Report is one of the few movies to come out in the past few years that is actually intriguing and thought-provoking, with very good writing and a director no less than the venerable Spielberg. Refute me if you must, but I have always believed, and will continue to believe, that the movie is more important than the actor. The director is more important than the actor. The script is more important than the actor. In some cases the sets are more important than the actor. As long as the actor can do something along the lines of acting, it doesn't matter who he is.
On another note, Cruise doesn't play a Scientologist in the movie, so getting hot and bothered about his beliefs in reality while watching him play a completely different character in a movie is just a little unbalanced. As an actor, he puts himself into the mind of someone else while he is on stage, and as a good actor, he does it well.
And just remember, nobody is ever going to use more than 640K of memory. Isn't it a little shortsighted to claim that anything is too much speed, and always will be?
Yes, but what if the father Saturn (QWERTY) starts to eat the children because he knows that one of them will one day overtake him and become the most powerful keyboard layout in the universe? All of the new keyboard layouts would be consumed, and the mother Rhea (DVORAK) would become very unhappy that all her children were being eaten. So, she would remedy the situation by feeding QWERTY a fake child/keyboard layout, perhaps just a random one that perhaps resembles a rock that in turn resembles a baby. Once QWERTY consumes this rock/keyboard layout, the new baby keyboard layout, let's call him "Jupiter," would be left to be raised somewhere out in the wilderness by nymphs of some sort. After many years, once Jupiter has honed his skills, he could come back and vanquish his father QWERTY, thus fulfilling the millenia-old prophecy for a second time.
How's that?
So...? What does that have to do with going to see the movie?
Maybe I'm a little behind, but what does Scientology have to do with Minority Report? Please enlighten me.
Actually, that's what the Mars Society advocated when we send people to Mars. Set up their watches to tick once every 1.04 seconds or something, so it seems to them that they are living a 24 hour day (and they can make guesses based on what they are used to), but their times correspond to the rising/setting of the sun. Pretty interesting stuff. I don't know how well it would work on earth, though, seeing as we'd all get thrown off by the sun.
Yes, thank you. Bear in mind that he did not say that the "estimate" was $1B, which was a key assumption that I did not make. And isn't it possible to tell whether you're off by a factor of 10 too high or too low? I mean, that's something a human should pick up on pretty easily, so one of the options could be dropped, in all likelihood.
Oh, okay. Makes sense. I didn't see it said that the "estimate" in question was $1B. Had that been there it would have been much simpler.
If it's off by a factor of 10, how could it range between 100M and 10B? Wouldn't that be 2 factors of 10? And that's a whole hell of a lot of linux!
I kind of hope that nobody uses this to price software that they're selling to a company, lest they lose their credibility. There is no assurance that this guy did not lean toward making this software seem more valuable than it really is, thus making open source software more attractive (because you're getting something for nothing). I'd be careful using this in any other capacity than your home computer for the purpose of having fun.
On a similar note, do the prices seem accurate, for those of you who have used this thing?
You put up a lot of things that you don't think would be inconvenient, but you don't actually know how the customers would react, so the convenient/inconvenient argument is pretty moot. More importantly, the steps you have put up were in the guise of some type of anti-spam handbook, for use by corporations and legislators, but the real idea behind your steps to a spam free life is to make the prospect of spamming unappealing, which would in turn essentially end spam. So in effect, it is not as direct as you have made it out to be. Spam can only be stopped once the spammers can no longer find a reason to do it, and your steps are designed simply to make spamming unattractive.
Wouldn't you only be able to sue a spammer who is based in the same state as you are? The internet is a national/international entity, and I don't really see why Virginia state law should apply to the whole thing. In Virginia it might be illegal to drive over 75 MPH, but if you heard about someone doing 80 in Canada you wouldn't advocate arresting him, would you?
Thanks for the line, I couldn't remember the semantics. :)
"Remember this date folks, 80 past 10 on April 40th, we have officially switched to metric time..."
What's the line, and when was the last time they played that episode?
People cover the vents on their iMacs? It must take them a while to do it then, because the back of the macine is sloped. That's one of the conveniences Apple ran into with their design: it would take conscious effort (and possibly tape) to block the vents.
Yeah, not to mention the fact that he's driving the whores right out of business... usually someone gets 3-4 free karma points for linking to the cached version of the site.
A lot of those do seem pretty inconvenient, and if I was ISP hunting I wouldn't jump at the idea of signing up with one like that. I don't like step 4, as there is no assurance that the ISP will not then sell that information to shady characters, and I don't like step 6. What exactly would that block? Would that stop someone from having their own mail server? Why would you want to do that? In step 7, would that require that all email sent from an account such as Hotmail go through your servers as well? Because that would take a little longer for the customer and it sure wouldn't be fun for your servers. Not to mention the fact that MS might not be all too pleased with something like that. Step 2 could be modified such that the ISP actively searches for open relays and when one is found the owner of the system is contacted with a request to close said open relay within 3 days (and instructions as to how to do so, tailored for that specific situation), and if nothing is done within 3 days his/her connection should be shut down until such time as the open relay problem is fixed.
So according to steps 1 and 5, you would fine the spammer literally thousands of dollars and then release his name to his "victims?" That seems just a little harsh. I mean, maybe give each victim a small part of the fine gained, or put the fine towards credits on the victim's account for more bandwidth, but you don't want to set up an environment where customers have an incentive to attack each other physically. You could, however, release that information to other ISPs, so they would know who to allow and not to allow to use their service, or at least to monitor their actions if they do sign up.
You're right that that's a good start, but that's all it is. Spammers will still find some way to get around those and other methods of thwarting them. Also, unless the ISP to do this was very reputable and very large, and convinced the other big boys in the ISP business to cooperate, this plan could hardly be implemented. Imagine if AOL & MSN & all the others (I haven't been in the market for a really long time) got together and put a system like this into effect: then, and possibly only then, it would work.
Okay, if you were a reputable ISP, how would you go about shutting down spammers? It sounds really easy, but the point of a spammer is to circumvent policies put in place to stop him and put out a message to thousands of people who don't want to hear about it. No matter what you do, they will find a way around it, and as your anti-spam measures become more pro-active and draconian, your customers will start to lose their legitimate emails from their friends, and they will complain or simply quit and go somewhere else. The war against spam is a very difficult one to fight, and I was just wondering how you, or anyone else, would propose fighting it.
So when someone buys something new to replace something old, you say it shouldn't count as a new sale? What if McDonald's followed your logic? Once someone buys a hamburger, you no longer need to market to them, because they no longer count. After all, it's not like they're paying for a whole new hamburger...
The same goes for computers. If the people building computers sell one, it counts as a sale, regardless of how many computers the customer already has.
Oh crap! I have like five computers. So that's why those federale goons came to my house the other day claiming that I had a monopoly...
What makes this FUD? They are telling us about a radically new design for an airplane, and they are giving us a reasonable time frame for its release. They're not doing what Microsoft does, as you can see by the fact that the BWB is not just a 747 with extra "features" tacked onto the side...
I suppose it would be better if they just kept the whole thing a secret until they were ready to sell it, making sure that there would be no demand for their product at the outset.
Seattle is a state?