OS X comes with web server (Apache), SSH server (where's that in XP anything?),
RDP. XP (Pro) comes with Remote Desktop built-in. Apple's Remote Admin app leaves a bit to be desired, not much better than VNC IMO. On the bright side, I can RDP my windows machine from my Mac. And Virtual PC is nice and snappy (when I'm Remote Desktopping my XP machine via VPC).
Although, I wish RDP would support hosing apps without forcing the entire windows desktop on the user.
I believe that their high-end machines are defineatley appropriately priced.
The dual 2ghz G5 I bought a year and a half ago for $2000 was the best $2000 I ever spent in my whole entire life. I will be beating on that poor thing 10 years from now. The equivalently priced PC from any vendor is crap.
Their flatscreens are way overpriced - but nobody's forced to buy one (except on an iMac).
Apple needs to lower it's prices on it's iMac line, and frankly the Mini is overpriced (considering the low RAM and crappy slow hard drive).
You know, I have watched hundreds of mevies wherein I *knew* a couple had sex, but it was not depicted explicity, yet this did not detract one bit from the movie's entertainment value.
Part of what an artist (in this case, the Director, Producer, Writer, Actors, Editor, etc.) tries to do with his or her medium, is to convey information. Some of the information is logic (story), some is emotional. (in fact, Aristotle said that it's best to make arguments using three elements together: logos, ethos, and pathos - logic, ethics, and emotion).
So while some people don't require more than a subtle implied sexual encounter, others are less sensitive, or maybe the artist wants to dial-up the emotional impact a notch or two for dramatic effect.
Who the FUCK are YOU, to say that an artist can not use his or her medium in this way?
You are a paying customer. So when material is too explicit for your tastes, simple; don't pay for that material. Don't watch. 'k?
Yes, it's true that there are hacks out there (probably 99% of the movie industry) who abuse this freedom, because, frankly, sex sells. Also, there's simply a style in moviemaking in our contemporary era, that calls for such intensity of explicitness, or pathos, (similar to the 19th century Fauvists painters use of intense color and crude shapes). Maybe a decade or two from now, that style may change, or not, depending on the tastes of the audience, and how strongly the market is controlled by government/religious regulation.
It could be said that the current "style" of moviemaking is driven by market demand. And that demand, is shaped, in part, by a social backlash to religious repression of sexuality, dating back to your cited "golden age" of classic cinema.
I posit that without such repression, people, in general, will see such explicitness, and eventually get sick of it, and the demand for that style will change, to something else.
I would like to see that happen. As a market response to a supply of material that's over-saturated in explicitness.
But the more folks like James Dobson, Michael Powell, and yourself, try to tell people what they can (or should) or can not (or should not) see, or create, the more people will want to see, or create those things.
I want to see good moviemaking, and more emphasis on subtlety, and logos and ethos, and less emphasis on pathos, as well.
But I'm voting with my dollars. I don't think that government or church should intervene in this market, other than to break industry dominance by the few players, both in production and distribution.
If the market is freed, demand will drive the next evolution in cinema. (and not, as Lucas and his ilk wants us to believe, technology - technology could make it possible to break the screwed up over-consolidated market, but it's not going to do anything to change demand-driven stylistic content - who here is sick of "good eye-candy, crappy story" movies? raise your hand./raises hand, not alone).
The per passenger fuel cost of A380 is 20% or more lower than than of B747.
IF the plane is full. But if there aren't enough travellers willing to pay what the fuel costs (+terminal rental, financing, labor, marketing, etc.) to get them to their destination on the superjumbo - then the superjumbo flies with empty seats, and cost per passenger goes way up.
Also, I suspect that if non-business travel is too expensive, then business travel will also either either end or it will continue existing only on the few very popular routes.
Not necessarily. Business travel, for sales, anyway, is life-and-death for a lot of industries. Most companies will pay any price to get their salespeople in front of customers. I've worked at software companies where in the same quarter, they refuse to equip their engineers with necessary systems, because "revenues were down", yet they treated their salesguys to an "offsite" in South Africa, including a commemerative gold watch, and a "team-building" safari trip. Companies can always find money to fund sales and marketing, and business travel, no matter how expensive it gets, will always be a necessary part. Price will affect demand, of course, but only to a certain point. Some of that exposure slack will be taken up by more focus on regional hiring. But at some point, managers have to travel to regional offices to "maintain order". Beyond that, if it becomes a fatal expense - then the business travel will stop, along with the rest of the business. (uh-oh).
Try to count how many economy vs business seats are in a typical flight in the US. The vast amount of revenue is coming from the economy class customers.
Of course, as an engineer, when I travel for business, I'm routinely in "economy class" - so that doesn't mean squat.
But the end of Cheap Oil is going to affect a whole lot more than air travel. Airlines are typically geared so "high" financially speaking, that when oil prices go up, they are like fragile flowers. At some point, they have no choice but to pass that cost on to customers. My point is: Business travel can absorb that extra cost. The beleagured US Middle Class leisure traveller cannot. Not in this environment of declining wages and advancing energy costs and debt.
Business class travellers would rather have more frequent flights, but, the reality is, there's not enough of them to cover the increased operating costs.
But what are the airlines going to do when jet fuel becomes so expensive (due to increasing demand) that non-business travel necessarily gets priced out of reach of most consumers?
I'm serious. Cheap oil is a thing of the past. And if I have to pay $5000 for a discount ticket, I'll more than likely choose a domestic vacation that I can drive to. I don't think that non-business travel is going to be a growing market, because it's enabled by Cheap Oil.
So that leaves business travel - which will shrink as prices go up, of course, but it's simply a necessity for some industries, so as non-business travel declines, business travel will take a higher percentage of the total air-travel market, which means the A380 is already obsolete.
Decimation was a Roman punishment used for disloyal troops.
A loyal legion would be used to pull 1 in 10 soldiers out of a disloyal (or cowardly) legion, and beat them to death. The remaining 9 in 10, presumably, would think twice before disobeying orders to attack.
. ..or the whole thing could be computer-generated, like the moon-landings.
(this is why CPU speeds doubled every 18-months, because the "known" industry, state-of-the-art, had to catch up quickly (over 20 years) to the CPU technology the greys gave us back in 1962.)
I may be conflating memories from two separate trips. Latest trip was in 99. Previous trip was in the 1970's as a child. I was aware of the existence of the ha'penny coin, but maybe never saw one on that trip. I didn't realize they didn't have a 1 pound note either. But the 2 pound coin is the truly novel item for me, as an American. (you could really hurt someone with a roll of those in your fist!)
I never left any change in a vending machine, but I did quickly tire of having this huge bag of change bulging my pocket and jingling as I walk. In the US, I generally never spend coin anywhere except vending machines, and even then, more often than not, I'm spending bills, (and often, no significant change, either; $1.00 is pretty standard for a 20 oz cola in these parts).
The Business Software Alliance wants everyone to know that today is World Intellectual Property Day
Yes - they WANT everyone to know that. But since I Trademarked "World Intellectual Property Day" - they will be required to pay me (inserts pinky in mouth) one-million dollars - ah ha ha ha ha ha ha!
So - if this thing knows about what software is installed/running - can it report on spyware apps that are otherwise not visible in Add/Remove programs... or Task Manager?
It's called a "Bussard Ramjet" after the guy who dreamed it up.
Better still, was an idea for a variation on the Solar Sail, which creates a magnetic field from an onboard power-source. Solar-wind drag on this magnetic field is what then propels the craft - which solves the propellent problem. As with a "conventional" solar sail - accelleration is very low (as compared to the very low accelleration of today's ion-drive technology, akin to the weight of a sheet of paper) - but top speed is limited by the speed of the solar-wind, which is higher than the top speed attainable by ion-drives by a couple of orders of magnatude. . . which is also, higher than the top speed attainable via chemical rockets by another couple of orders of magnatude (ie. you can't travel any faster than the speed of the stuff you're chucking out the back).
Darn, I have even seen people leaving.40 GBP (pences) in the chocolate vending machines!! it seems they put the pound and they dont like the change.
One thing I noticed when I was in the UK; As opposed to Americans, Britons seem to use coins far more than Americans do. There's a 2-pound coin, there's a half-penny coin, and if your change from a purchase is in pounds, you're more likely to get a 1-pound coin back than you are to get a 1-pound note. I don't know why - but after my first week, I had a huge pocketful of coins, and I found that I had to make much more of an effort to spend the coins than I otherwise would have in the US.
Maybe they left the.40 in the machine because they didn't want more coin in their pockets.
All Roundup Ready items must be Roundup Ready or you cannot plant there (roundup stays in the soil).
Please don't spread misinformation. Roundup is basically a chemical called glycophosphate. While Monsanto-sponsored studies found it to be pretty much non-toxic in animals, as a reflex, I take corporate-sponsored studies with a grain of salt. (Anyone who does not, is foolish).
But while toxic effects are arguable, one thing is not: glycophosphate is water soluable. As such, roundup does *not* stay in the soil. Not past the first rain.
The IP restrictions on GM crops, however, are a legitimate reason for serious, serious, concern.
Should we ban slave-collars for those who willingly, cheerfully, don them?
we've got these nifty steam injection techniques that can extract from oil sands which have oil concentrations that are far below what previously would have been considered justification for even installing a well.
Which is why Shell *lied* about their proven reserves back in 2000, because they thought they could use this nifty new technique, which ended up collapsing the reservoirs, causing it to be MORE difficult to get the oil out.
Get your head out of the clouds. Oil is NOT a sustainable resource.
The price of gas is shooting up to sky-high levels for many reasons:
a) Terrorists blowing up pipelines and oil infrastructure, mostly in Iraq, but also in other countries as well.
b) Industry is NOT investing in expanding capacity, at a time of high demand. Free Market theory says that they will. We've had 5 years of inflated oil prices, and no indication of any oil companies (outside of China) expanding capacity.
c) FTC and SEC regulators turn a blind eye to industry collusion and price-fixing (as was done during the 2000 California energy crisis - it's proven that the market was manipulated, so where's the convictions? where's the fines? where's the tearing up of fraudulent contracts?)
The bugaboo of "Its really hard to get permission to build refineries in the US" is bullshit. Bullshit bullshit bullshit. Yes, there are environmental regs. If they want the benefit of protection of the US military, they can comply with US law, or they're perfectly free to build their refinery in some third-world shithole, without US environmental regs, and ship the gasoline here. Why don't they do it? Because they're afraid of a revolution, and losing the refinery to nationalization, or they're afraid of guerilla/insurgent/sabotage action (ie, they want US-taxpayer-funded military security). At a time of record profits for the industry, they don't want to invest in expanding capacity. Why not? Because they know damn well that working together, they can keep prices at a profitable level, and they also know that reserves are going to be in decline from here on out (Hubbart Peak).
The reason it's bad is that it's being driven by ideology, not pragmatism.
Ideology says: "If we don't give the corporations what their lobbyists want, which is a guaranteed percentage of ROI for R&D dollars spent, all innovation will grind to a halt!"
Pragmatism says: ". . . to promote the useful arts and sciences. . . for a limited time. .." (actually, that's what the Constitution says).
There's still a place for patent and copyright law, but the effect of today's laws is to remove the risk from R&D spending for large, established corporations, and eliminate competition from the marketplace. It has a detrimental effect, overall, on innovation, because it creates unnecessarily high barriers to entry in many markets and industries today.
This is an area of policy where lawmakers really need to tear everything down, and go back to what the Constitution said about Copyright, and what the Founding Fathers intended. Otherwise, the Free Market will make us it's bitch, and overseas competitors with less draconian IP law will supplant ours (already happening in some areas).
Dumbest idea EVER. I do not understand this infatuation with outsourcing professional workers. You can't tell me it's anywhere near as cost effective as they're making it out to be. (My own experience says otherwise.) I smell another crash of DotCom proportions...
My own experience says likewise.
However, that does not mean that there aren't other employers who are executing outsourcing successfully.
On the other hand, the thing to remember about all of this, is that it's a trend. A fad. In the 1990's, you put a ".com" at the end of your company name, and voila! instant stock-price boost. Today, all you have to do is tell the media that you're stiffing your overpaid lazy american workers, and you get; well, not quite the same effect, at least your stock holds water. But it doesn't matter if it's a smart business move or not. It's a fad. Nothing more. It will pass, but I'm afraid the long-term (structural) damage to our economy is done, and it will likely take decades to really recover as a leading industrial economy, (if we ever do) - and while we're recovering, our competitors are growing stronger.
Will they punish corps (today's example: Ameritrade) - who make my personal information available to hackers in contradiction to their own privacy policies?
The problem with this is that now we have Yet Another Process Which Periodically Iterates My Entire File System.
Along with: Prebinding Permissions Repair Disk First Aid (Repair) Virus Scanner
It's nice that this is a "background process" - but I do not leave my computer "ON" all the time. I keep it in "sleep" mode, and I wake it for an hour or two tops, each day, to use it. I don't leave it running long enough to index my entire file system, and I sure as hell don't want that background process running while I'm using the system. Unless it's smart enough to just do ONE scan, and then add to it's metadata index as new files are added. One of the things I absolutely detest about Microsoft's system, is that it bogs down every day when it tries to index the hard drive for searches. And that's for my work-system, which is left powered on 24x7.
If we could get a single process to iterate the file system ONE time, and take care of all of these chores (permissions repair, virus scan, prebinding) at the same time - (I know, you don't really need constant periodic prebinding, only after new software installs) - then that would cut down on the time my system's bogged down walking the file system for maintenance chores.
Slashdot Mirror
OS X comes with web server (Apache), SSH server (where's that in XP anything?),
RDP. XP (Pro) comes with Remote Desktop built-in. Apple's Remote Admin app leaves a bit to be desired, not much better than VNC IMO. On the bright side, I can RDP my windows machine from my Mac. And Virtual PC is nice and snappy (when I'm Remote Desktopping my XP machine via VPC).
Although, I wish RDP would support hosing apps without forcing the entire windows desktop on the user.
No.
I believe that their high-end machines are defineatley appropriately priced.
The dual 2ghz G5 I bought a year and a half ago for $2000 was the best $2000 I ever spent in my whole entire life. I will be beating on that poor thing 10 years from now. The equivalently priced PC from any vendor is crap.
Their flatscreens are way overpriced - but nobody's forced to buy one (except on an iMac).
Apple needs to lower it's prices on it's iMac line, and frankly the Mini is overpriced (considering the low RAM and crappy slow hard drive).
You know, I have watched hundreds of mevies wherein I *knew* a couple had sex, but it was not depicted explicity, yet this did not detract one bit from the movie's entertainment value.
/raises hand, not alone).
Part of what an artist (in this case, the Director, Producer, Writer, Actors, Editor, etc.) tries to do with his or her medium, is to convey information. Some of the information is logic (story), some is emotional. (in fact, Aristotle said that it's best to make arguments using three elements together: logos, ethos, and pathos - logic, ethics, and emotion).
So while some people don't require more than a subtle implied sexual encounter, others are less sensitive, or maybe the artist wants to dial-up the emotional impact a notch or two for dramatic effect.
Who the FUCK are YOU, to say that an artist can not use his or her medium in this way?
You are a paying customer. So when material is too explicit for your tastes, simple; don't pay for that material. Don't watch. 'k?
Yes, it's true that there are hacks out there (probably 99% of the movie industry) who abuse this freedom, because, frankly, sex sells. Also, there's simply a style in moviemaking in our contemporary era, that calls for such intensity of explicitness, or pathos, (similar to the 19th century Fauvists painters use of intense color and crude shapes). Maybe a decade or two from now, that style may change, or not, depending on the tastes of the audience, and how strongly the market is controlled by government/religious regulation.
It could be said that the current "style" of moviemaking is driven by market demand. And that demand, is shaped, in part, by a social backlash to religious repression of sexuality, dating back to your cited "golden age" of classic cinema.
I posit that without such repression, people, in general, will see such explicitness, and eventually get sick of it, and the demand for that style will change, to something else.
I would like to see that happen. As a market response to a supply of material that's over-saturated in explicitness.
But the more folks like James Dobson, Michael Powell, and yourself, try to tell people what they can (or should) or can not (or should not) see, or create, the more people will want to see, or create those things.
I want to see good moviemaking, and more emphasis on subtlety, and logos and ethos, and less emphasis on pathos, as well.
But I'm voting with my dollars. I don't think that government or church should intervene in this market, other than to break industry dominance by the few players, both in production and distribution.
If the market is freed, demand will drive the next evolution in cinema. (and not, as Lucas and his ilk wants us to believe, technology - technology could make it possible to break the screwed up over-consolidated market, but it's not going to do anything to change demand-driven stylistic content - who here is sick of "good eye-candy, crappy story" movies? raise your hand.
The per passenger fuel cost of A380 is 20% or more lower than than of B747.
IF the plane is full.
But if there aren't enough travellers willing to pay what the fuel costs (+terminal rental, financing, labor, marketing, etc.) to get them to their destination on the superjumbo - then the superjumbo flies with empty seats, and cost per passenger goes way up.
Also, I suspect that if non-business travel is too expensive, then business travel will also either either end or it will continue existing only on the few very popular routes.
Not necessarily. Business travel, for sales, anyway, is life-and-death for a lot of industries. Most companies will pay any price to get their salespeople in front of customers. I've worked at software companies where in the same quarter, they refuse to equip their engineers with necessary systems, because "revenues were down", yet they treated their salesguys to an "offsite" in South Africa, including a commemerative gold watch, and a "team-building" safari trip. Companies can always find money to fund sales and marketing, and business travel, no matter how expensive it gets, will always be a necessary part. Price will affect demand, of course, but only to a certain point. Some of that exposure slack will be taken up by more focus on regional hiring. But at some point, managers have to travel to regional offices to "maintain order". Beyond that, if it becomes a fatal expense - then the business travel will stop, along with the rest of the business. (uh-oh).
Try to count how many economy vs business seats are in a typical flight in the US. The vast amount of revenue is coming from the economy class customers.
Of course, as an engineer, when I travel for business, I'm routinely in "economy class" - so that doesn't mean squat.
But the end of Cheap Oil is going to affect a whole lot more than air travel. Airlines are typically geared so "high" financially speaking, that when oil prices go up, they are like fragile flowers. At some point, they have no choice but to pass that cost on to customers. My point is: Business travel can absorb that extra cost. The beleagured US Middle Class leisure traveller cannot. Not in this environment of declining wages and advancing energy costs and debt.
Business class travellers would rather have more frequent flights, but, the reality is, there's not enough of them to cover the increased operating costs.
But what are the airlines going to do when jet fuel becomes so expensive (due to increasing demand) that non-business travel necessarily gets priced out of reach of most consumers?
I'm serious. Cheap oil is a thing of the past. And if I have to pay $5000 for a discount ticket, I'll more than likely choose a domestic vacation that I can drive to. I don't think that non-business travel is going to be a growing market, because it's enabled by Cheap Oil.
So that leaves business travel - which will shrink as prices go up, of course, but it's simply a necessity for some industries, so as non-business travel declines, business travel will take a higher percentage of the total air-travel market, which means the A380 is already obsolete.
Decimation was a Roman punishment used for disloyal troops.
A loyal legion would be used to pull 1 in 10 soldiers out of a disloyal (or cowardly) legion, and beat them to death. The remaining 9 in 10, presumably, would think twice before disobeying orders to attack.
. . .or the whole thing could be computer-generated, like the moon-landings.
(this is why CPU speeds doubled every 18-months, because the "known" industry, state-of-the-art, had to catch up quickly (over 20 years) to the CPU technology the greys gave us back in 1962.)
When were you in the UK?!
I may be conflating memories from two separate trips.
Latest trip was in 99. Previous trip was in the 1970's as a child. I was aware of the existence of the ha'penny coin, but maybe never saw one on that trip. I didn't realize they didn't have a 1 pound note either. But the 2 pound coin is the truly novel item for me, as an American. (you could really hurt someone with a roll of those in your fist!)
I never left any change in a vending machine, but I did quickly tire of having this huge bag of change bulging my pocket and jingling as I walk. In the US, I generally never spend coin anywhere except vending machines, and even then, more often than not, I'm spending bills, (and often, no significant change, either; $1.00 is pretty standard for a 20 oz cola in these parts).
The Business Software Alliance wants everyone to know that today is World Intellectual Property Day
Yes - they WANT everyone to know that. But since I Trademarked "World Intellectual Property Day" - they will be required to pay me (inserts pinky in mouth) one-million dollars - ah ha ha ha ha ha ha!
So - if this thing knows about what software is installed/running - can it report on spyware apps that are otherwise not visible in Add/Remove programs... or Task Manager?
does uranium hexaflouride have enough uranium per cross section to go supercritical?
.
Maybe as a Bose-Einstein condensate. .
Maintaining Cryogenic conditions in a substance undergoing nuclear chain-reaction is an excercise left for the no-bid contractor. . .
It's called a "Bussard Ramjet" after the guy who dreamed it up.
Better still, was an idea for a variation on the Solar Sail, which creates a magnetic field from an onboard power-source. Solar-wind drag on this magnetic field is what then propels the craft - which solves the propellent problem. As with a "conventional" solar sail - accelleration is very low (as compared to the very low accelleration of today's ion-drive technology, akin to the weight of a sheet of paper) - but top speed is limited by the speed of the solar-wind, which is higher than the top speed attainable by ion-drives by a couple of orders of magnatude. . . which is also, higher than the top speed attainable via chemical rockets by another couple of orders of magnatude (ie. you can't travel any faster than the speed of the stuff you're chucking out the back).
Darn, I have even seen people leaving .40 GBP (pences) in the chocolate vending machines!! it seems they put the pound and they dont like the change.
.40 in the machine because they didn't want more coin in their pockets.
One thing I noticed when I was in the UK;
As opposed to Americans, Britons seem to use coins far more than Americans do. There's a 2-pound coin, there's a half-penny coin, and if your change from a purchase is in pounds, you're more likely to get a 1-pound coin back than you are to get a 1-pound note.
I don't know why - but after my first week, I had a huge pocketful of coins, and I found that I had to make much more of an effort to spend the coins than I otherwise would have in the US.
Maybe they left the
How is it that in US people still call their goventment a "democracy"?
They don't.
They call it a "republic". Or sometimes, a "democratic-republic".
But, I guess, as long as Americans can have their assult rifles for "home protection" they will be happy....
I think it's not just the gun-nuts who will be needing them soon.
All Roundup Ready items must be Roundup Ready or you cannot plant there (roundup stays in the soil).
Please don't spread misinformation.
Roundup is basically a chemical called glycophosphate. While Monsanto-sponsored studies found it to be pretty much non-toxic in animals, as a reflex, I take corporate-sponsored studies with a grain of salt. (Anyone who does not, is foolish).
But while toxic effects are arguable, one thing is not: glycophosphate is water soluable. As such, roundup does *not* stay in the soil. Not past the first rain.
The IP restrictions on GM crops, however, are a legitimate reason for serious, serious, concern.
Should we ban slave-collars for those who willingly, cheerfully, don them?
I never intended to have such large birds as pets, and would most certainly not encourage it.
I'm pretty sure my chickens are bigger than your cockatoos.
But they aren't all that smart.
But they DO produce breakfast!
we've got these nifty steam injection techniques that can extract from oil sands which have oil concentrations that are far below what previously would have been considered justification for even installing a well.
Which is why Shell *lied* about their proven reserves back in 2000, because they thought they could use this nifty new technique, which ended up collapsing the reservoirs, causing it to be MORE difficult to get the oil out.
Get your head out of the clouds. Oil is NOT a sustainable resource.
So what's your solution?
Just not punish price-fixing?
We need to lighten the regulation and we need to allow more and bigger refineries to be built.
I've ggt a good idea!
Let's install the refinery in YOUR backyard, with no environmental regulations. 'k?
Your explanation is also wrong.
The price of gas is shooting up to sky-high levels for many reasons:
a) Terrorists blowing up pipelines and oil infrastructure, mostly in Iraq, but also in other countries as well.
b) Industry is NOT investing in expanding capacity, at a time of high demand. Free Market theory says that they will. We've had 5 years of inflated oil prices, and no indication of any oil companies (outside of China) expanding capacity.
c) FTC and SEC regulators turn a blind eye to industry collusion and price-fixing (as was done during the 2000 California energy crisis - it's proven that the market was manipulated, so where's the convictions? where's the fines? where's the tearing up of fraudulent contracts?)
The bugaboo of "Its really hard to get permission to build refineries in the US" is bullshit. Bullshit bullshit bullshit. Yes, there are environmental regs. If they want the benefit of protection of the US military, they can comply with US law, or they're perfectly free to build their refinery in some third-world shithole, without US environmental regs, and ship the gasoline here. Why don't they do it? Because they're afraid of a revolution, and losing the refinery to nationalization, or they're afraid of guerilla/insurgent/sabotage action (ie, they want US-taxpayer-funded military security). At a time of record profits for the industry, they don't want to invest in expanding capacity. Why not? Because they know damn well that working together, they can keep prices at a profitable level, and they also know that reserves are going to be in decline from here on out (Hubbart Peak).
The reason it's bad is that it's being driven by ideology, not pragmatism.
." (actually, that's what the Constitution says).
Ideology says: "If we don't give the corporations what their lobbyists want, which is a guaranteed percentage of ROI for R&D dollars spent, all innovation will grind to a halt!"
Pragmatism says: ". . . to promote the useful arts and sciences. . . for a limited time. .
There's still a place for patent and copyright law, but the effect of today's laws is to remove the risk from R&D spending for large, established corporations, and eliminate competition from the marketplace. It has a detrimental effect, overall, on innovation, because it creates unnecessarily high barriers to entry in many markets and industries today.
This is an area of policy where lawmakers really need to tear everything down, and go back to what the Constitution said about Copyright, and what the Founding Fathers intended. Otherwise, the Free Market will make us it's bitch, and overseas competitors with less draconian IP law will supplant ours (already happening in some areas).
"We both profit more if we cooperate."
Dumbest idea EVER. I do not understand this infatuation with outsourcing professional workers. You can't tell me it's anywhere near as cost effective as they're making it out to be. (My own experience says otherwise.) I smell another crash of DotCom proportions...
My own experience says likewise.
However, that does not mean that there aren't other employers who are executing outsourcing successfully.
On the other hand, the thing to remember about all of this, is that it's a trend. A fad. In the 1990's, you put a ".com" at the end of your company name, and voila! instant stock-price boost. Today, all you have to do is tell the media that you're stiffing your overpaid lazy american workers, and you get; well, not quite the same effect, at least your stock holds water. But it doesn't matter if it's a smart business move or not. It's a fad. Nothing more. It will pass, but I'm afraid the long-term (structural) damage to our economy is done, and it will likely take decades to really recover as a leading industrial economy, (if we ever do) - and while we're recovering, our competitors are growing stronger.
Will they punish corps (today's example: Ameritrade) - who make my personal information available to hackers in contradiction to their own privacy policies?
Lexis Nexus? Verity? ad infinitum. . .
The problem with this is that now we have Yet Another Process Which Periodically Iterates My Entire File System.
Along with:
Prebinding
Permissions Repair
Disk First Aid (Repair)
Virus Scanner
It's nice that this is a "background process" - but I do not leave my computer "ON" all the time. I keep it in "sleep" mode, and I wake it for an hour or two tops, each day, to use it. I don't leave it running long enough to index my entire file system, and I sure as hell don't want that background process running while I'm using the system. Unless it's smart enough to just do ONE scan, and then add to it's metadata index as new files are added. One of the things I absolutely detest about Microsoft's system, is that it bogs down every day when it tries to index the hard drive for searches. And that's for my work-system, which is left powered on 24x7.
If we could get a single process to iterate the file system ONE time, and take care of all of these chores (permissions repair, virus scan, prebinding) at the same time - (I know, you don't really need constant periodic prebinding, only after new software installs) - then that would cut down on the time my system's bogged down walking the file system for maintenance chores.