Your post assumes the same either/or logic that people use when they talk about "why are we doing X when there is still world hunger to solve?" It's not as if the Linux community is a single monolithic group that only works on a single problem at a time. The reality is that the people who are interested in Active Directory will work on that in parallel with the people who are interested in OpenGL acceleration. Trying to force people who are interested in volunteering for X to work on Y because Y is "more important" would only alienate them, so neither X nor Y would get done.
Having to spend $400 before getting any actual content is pretty harsh. The readability and low power consumption are a step in the right direction, but until the price drops considerably this won't be mainstream thats for sure.
I wonder how long I would have to wait until Apple comes out with a nicely done iPod/eBook-reader/wifi-web-browser combo? (One could probably throw "cell-phone" in too, but maybe that's asking too much)
Um, we're trying it your way with Iran and North Korea. IT IS NOT WORKING
It doesn't surprise me that it's not working in those cases. Bush named Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as "the axis of evil". Iraq didn't have any WMDs, and the whole world saw what happened to them. If I was Iran or North Korea, I'd be doing everything I could to get some nukes too. Nukes are the only real guarantee against being invaded by the USA.
And the stakes in both situations are infinitely higher than they were with Iraq.
Yup, and that's another reason why it's too bad we already blew our wad (both militarily/logistically and in terms of credibility and good faith) in Iraq.
I'm not blogging to make friends or get people to "like" me.
That's fine, but then what is your purpose in posting?
I blog to voice my opinion and/or point out factual information.
If you are trying to "point out factual information", wouldn't you be better off doing so in such a way that people will be willing to read what you post? Otherwise you are just talking to yourself. If you just enjoy blowing off steam, then by all means continue your intellectual masturbation, but if you want to engage in real conversation and be taken seriously, you'll find it much more effective to be polite.
Perhaps bribing results in more fair stories being published.
You have a very interesting definition of "fair"... I'd say that articles written by the highest bidder aren't news stories at all, they are properly called "advertisements".
When someone attacks the country I love, and know to be doing the correct thing...I will attack them personally. Because a baseless attack on my country is an attack on me.
... and that does what, exactly? Makes you feel better? Because it sure doesn't win you any arguments. Mostly it just makes people dislike you and causes them to ignore any credible points that you do have. Or, to put it another way: nobody is going to read anything you say when all your posts are at -5.
...so it's okay for the president to make speeches saying how great he is and why everyone should love him (a trait I personally consider extremely obnoxious), but if the government as a whole does that, it's dishonorable, horribly unethical propaganda?
I have no idea how you read the above into my statement, but it's not what I meant at all. What I meant was simply this: if the US government was effectively improving the condition of the world, they would certainly have the ability (and every right) to crow about it... and that's one way that people would know that the US was being nice to Muslims (which was the question I was responding to). I wasn't making any distinction between the President and the US government as a whole, only using him as an example.
As far as propaganda goes... if you say you are improving things but in reality conditions keep getting worse because of your actions, then you may or may not be unethical but you are definitely not credible.
To date, what form of government is advancing and which is in decline?
That's a very good question... what forms of government are advancing?
My personal view would be that socialist governments are in decline (Russia, China), democracies are mixed (Eastern Europe, USA), and authoritarian/theocratic regimes (Iran) are on the rise.
I'm sorry, what informed decisions do you have to make?
Well, there's that whole voting thing, for one... it's hard to know which politicians to support if you are clueless about their platforms or the effectiveness of their policies (not that that seems to stop anyone)
Well, I imagine the President could make a nice speech listing all the projects he was supporting to help make life better for Muslims. If the projects were effective and not just window dressing, word would get out by various other channels as well.
But we haven't seen much of that(*), only tough talk about smoking out the bad guys.
(*) Well that's not 100% true: we did do a credible job with tsunami relief, and I think the Muslim world did notice and appreciate that.
It's never enough just to disagree with someone, is it? You've got to attack their character as well. Why not be an adult and discuss things politely, rather than reverting to playground name-calling tactics?
If I had mod points, I would mod you down. Not because you're right or wrong, but because you're belligerent and obnoxious.
The only thing that would make a difference would be to actually change their foreign policy to be less aggressive and unilateral, and to treat the rest of the world as partners to be co-operated with in good faith, rather than as marks to be subjugated/exploited/suppressed. Trying to solve the problems by propaganda alone is merely putting lipstick on a pig, and won't fool anyone.
Of course, the above won't happen any time soon, because it would involve sacrificing much of the profit that our current policies squeeze out of the third world.
(disclaimer: this isn't meant to be flamebait or a troll, it is merely my honest appraisal of the situation)
... and what the message comes down to, as I see it, is: "Democracy, civil rights, and due process of law are pretty lies used to keep the masses from complaining. When push comes to shove, it's perfectly acceptable to subvert them for the sake of convenience." Would you agree with that characterization? Certainly it seems like that is the position of many in White House today, in any case, and I think that sort of thinking is what Team America was satirizing.
What I find deeply troubling is that many people seem to take exactly the wrong lesson from the satire: instead of seeing that attitude as a problem, they see it as an inevitable fact of life. So the effect is that instead of encouraging (shaming?) the US to try to live up to its ideals, we end up with people abandoning those ideals and adopting the ethics-free "might makes right" mindset instead. I won't try to defend America's foreign policy because I think you are mostly correct about it, but at least in the past there was widespread agreement about what a modern democracy's ideals should be... i.e. that it should respect human and civil rights, honor its international commitments, be honest with the public, etc. Those ideals (even if we didn't always live up to them) were one of the reasons why the U.S. won the ideological battle that was the Cold War. Now we are seeing the jettisoning of those ideals and the reduction of America, even in its own eyes, to "just another greedy empire" with no underlying ethical or moral basis for its actions. It greatly disappoints me that people give up their ideals so easily.
But well, I'm assuming you are American. Those always have problems getting the truth and meanings behind words.
But it appears Americans have no monopoly on being patronizing and insulting. Feel free to take a look at the log in your own eye sometime -- it isn't as if other areas of the world haven't seen their share of conflict either.
I'm sure that OSX, being a Unix gives you a cron daemon. Learn to use it. Shell scripts are far more powerful than any GUI-based system Vista will have
That would work, but for many people the whole point of having a Mac is so that they don't have to muck around with shell scripts and other such arcana. If they were okay with shell scripting things, they would have bought a Linux box for half the price. So it's not really an acceptable solution for them.
Is it just me, or is it always like the Bigger guy always goes any straight up copies what is successful for the little guy
It has nothing to do with big guys and little guys. Whenever company A comes out with a valuable innovation, of course its competitors are likely to copy that innovation if they can. That's the nature of competition. To re-use your fast-food analogy: where do you think Wendy's copied the hamburgers/soda/french-fries/mass-franchise model from?
It goes both ways, and that's generally a good thing.
It would be a shame if somebody shot him. True, they'd better break his fingers one by one before they'd kill that guy. Heck, just dont kill him but send him to iraq. Fodder.
As much fun as imagining Godfather scenarios might be, I'd just as soon have someone tip off the police, who could collect all kinds of incriminating info from his ISP before arresting him, confiscating all his equipment (lots more incriminating info), and sending him to Federal pound-me-in-the-ass-prison for a long long time.
Seems to me like that shouldn't be too difficult -- I imagine there aren't too many places in Roland with "a used-car lot, a gas station/convenience store and a strip club" to look for...
Carbon fiber nanotubes are pretty conductive IIRC. I don't know why they can't use the cable to provide power as well, since we are talking about the near impossible anyway.
As I understand it, using the carbon fibers to conduct electricity to the climber isn't practical, because even a small amount of resistance becomes very significant over thousands of kilometers, so you would end up dissipating most of your energy as heat. A superconducting thread of some sort might work, but short of that the plan is to beam up the energy using multiple ground-based lasers that track photovoltaic cells on the bottom of the climber.
Since Hummer owners want to drive a military-style vehicle, I think we should give them the full experience: every hummer should come with an all-expenses paid 6-month stint as a chauffeur in Baghdad. Nothing shows one's masculinity and patriotism more than Supporting the Troops, right?
And yet you were still somehow able to summon the strength to click the Reply button and share your fascinating post-reading experience with all and sundry. Keep up the great work -- I'll be waiting on tenterhooks for your next critique!
From there website it seems that it is okay to draw GUIs but does it have more than 16 colors and a 10 Hz frequency ? I am really interested...
I'm not sure about the number of colors it supports, but the update frequency is definitely better than 10Hz. Probably around 30Hz at least (that's by eye, I don't have any way to really measure it)
I think the main obstacle to using it for arbitrary GUIs would be figuring out how to upload your own firmware to it, since AFAIK that isn't documented anywhere. But I'm sure it's possible and that someone will have Linux running on it eventually:^)
Slashdot Mirror
Your post assumes the same either/or logic that people use when they talk about "why are we doing X when there is still world hunger to solve?" It's not as if the Linux community is a single monolithic group that only works on a single problem at a time. The reality is that the people who are interested in Active Directory will work on that in parallel with the people who are interested in OpenGL acceleration. Trying to force people who are interested in volunteering for X to work on Y because Y is "more important" would only alienate them, so neither X nor Y would get done.
I wonder how long I would have to wait until Apple comes out with a nicely done iPod/eBook-reader/wifi-web-browser combo? (One could probably throw "cell-phone" in too, but maybe that's asking too much)
It doesn't surprise me that it's not working in those cases. Bush named Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as "the axis of evil". Iraq didn't have any WMDs, and the whole world saw what happened to them. If I was Iran or North Korea, I'd be doing everything I could to get some nukes too. Nukes are the only real guarantee against being invaded by the USA.
And the stakes in both situations are infinitely higher than they were with Iraq.
Yup, and that's another reason why it's too bad we already blew our wad (both militarily/logistically and in terms of credibility and good faith) in Iraq.
Not at all. But people who are paid (by the subjects of the story) always produce biased stories, almost by definition.
That's fine, but then what is your purpose in posting?
I blog to voice my opinion and/or point out factual information.
If you are trying to "point out factual information", wouldn't you be better off doing so in such a way that people will be willing to read what you post? Otherwise you are just talking to yourself. If you just enjoy blowing off steam, then by all means continue your intellectual masturbation, but if you want to engage in real conversation and be taken seriously, you'll find it much more effective to be polite.
You have a very interesting definition of "fair"... I'd say that articles written by the highest bidder aren't news stories at all, they are properly called "advertisements".
I have no idea how you read the above into my statement, but it's not what I meant at all. What I meant was simply this: if the US government was effectively improving the condition of the world, they would certainly have the ability (and every right) to crow about it... and that's one way that people would know that the US was being nice to Muslims (which was the question I was responding to). I wasn't making any distinction between the President and the US government as a whole, only using him as an example.
As far as propaganda goes... if you say you are improving things but in reality conditions keep getting worse because of your actions, then you may or may not be unethical but you are definitely not credible.
That's a very good question... what forms of government are advancing?
My personal view would be that socialist governments are in decline (Russia, China), democracies are mixed (Eastern Europe, USA), and authoritarian/theocratic regimes (Iran) are on the rise.
Well, there's that whole voting thing, for one... it's hard to know which politicians to support if you are clueless about their platforms or the effectiveness of their policies (not that that seems to stop anyone)
Well, I imagine the President could make a nice speech listing all the projects he was supporting to help make life better for Muslims. If the projects were effective and not just window dressing, word would get out by various other channels as well.
But we haven't seen much of that(*), only tough talk about smoking out the bad guys.
(*) Well that's not 100% true: we did do a credible job with tsunami relief, and I think the Muslim world did notice and appreciate that.
If I had mod points, I would mod you down. Not because you're right or wrong, but because you're belligerent and obnoxious.
The only thing that would make a difference would be to actually change their foreign policy to be less aggressive and unilateral, and to treat the rest of the world as partners to be co-operated with in good faith, rather than as marks to be subjugated/exploited/suppressed. Trying to solve the problems by propaganda alone is merely putting lipstick on a pig, and won't fool anyone.
Of course, the above won't happen any time soon, because it would involve sacrificing much of the profit that our current policies squeeze out of the third world.
(disclaimer: this isn't meant to be flamebait or a troll, it is merely my honest appraisal of the situation)
I would prefer that the US spend its military resources on defending the nation (as opposed to invading and occupying other nations).
What I find deeply troubling is that many people seem to take exactly the wrong lesson from the satire: instead of seeing that attitude as a problem, they see it as an inevitable fact of life. So the effect is that instead of encouraging (shaming?) the US to try to live up to its ideals, we end up with people abandoning those ideals and adopting the ethics-free "might makes right" mindset instead. I won't try to defend America's foreign policy because I think you are mostly correct about it, but at least in the past there was widespread agreement about what a modern democracy's ideals should be... i.e. that it should respect human and civil rights, honor its international commitments, be honest with the public, etc. Those ideals (even if we didn't always live up to them) were one of the reasons why the U.S. won the ideological battle that was the Cold War. Now we are seeing the jettisoning of those ideals and the reduction of America, even in its own eyes, to "just another greedy empire" with no underlying ethical or moral basis for its actions. It greatly disappoints me that people give up their ideals so easily.
But well, I'm assuming you are American. Those always have problems getting the truth and meanings behind words.
But it appears Americans have no monopoly on being patronizing and insulting. Feel free to take a look at the log in your own eye sometime -- it isn't as if other areas of the world haven't seen their share of conflict either.
That would work, but for many people the whole point of having a Mac is so that they don't have to muck around with shell scripts and other such arcana. If they were okay with shell scripting things, they would have bought a Linux box for half the price. So it's not really an acceptable solution for them.
It has nothing to do with big guys and little guys. Whenever company A comes out with a valuable innovation, of course its competitors are likely to copy that innovation if they can. That's the nature of competition. To re-use your fast-food analogy: where do you think Wendy's copied the hamburgers/soda/french-fries/mass-franchise model from?
It goes both ways, and that's generally a good thing.
As much fun as imagining Godfather scenarios might be, I'd just as soon have someone tip off the police, who could collect all kinds of incriminating info from his ISP before arresting him, confiscating all his equipment (lots more incriminating info), and sending him to Federal pound-me-in-the-ass-prison for a long long time.
Seems to me like that shouldn't be too difficult -- I imagine there aren't too many places in Roland with "a used-car lot, a gas station/convenience store and a strip club" to look for...
Buddhism and Unitarianism are two counter-examples to that characterization. There are probably others as well.
If criminals are now "the backbone of our society", then our society is fucked.
If I could I would come up with a nice Team America Dick/Pussy/Asshole imagery. But well.
You realize that movie was a satire, right?
As I understand it, using the carbon fibers to conduct electricity to the climber isn't practical, because even a small amount of resistance becomes very significant over thousands of kilometers, so you would end up dissipating most of your energy as heat. A superconducting thread of some sort might work, but short of that the plan is to beam up the energy using multiple ground-based lasers that track photovoltaic cells on the bottom of the climber.
Since Hummer owners want to drive a military-style vehicle, I think we should give them the full experience: every hummer should come with an all-expenses paid 6-month stint as a chauffeur in Baghdad. Nothing shows one's masculinity and patriotism more than Supporting the Troops, right?
We're halfway there! Only 50% more to go and then we will have finally kicked our addiction to oil for once and for all!
And yet you were still somehow able to summon the strength to click the Reply button and share your fascinating post-reading experience with all and sundry. Keep up the great work -- I'll be waiting on tenterhooks for your next critique!
I'm not sure about the number of colors it supports, but the update frequency is definitely better than 10Hz. Probably around 30Hz at least (that's by eye, I don't have any way to really measure it)
I think the main obstacle to using it for arbitrary GUIs would be figuring out how to upload your own firmware to it, since AFAIK that isn't documented anywhere. But I'm sure it's possible and that someone will have Linux running on it eventually