I would only add that the term "religious extremist" seems to get used, not to label those who hold their beliefs dearly and clearly, but to those who are willing to twist religious sentiment to justify just about anything they want to accomplish. In that sense, you and the parent poster are both right.
Yes it's a standard dramatic format, but also something else, especially in terms of it being a trilogy x2: it's symmtery. This whole story is about a simple, ultimate good vs. evil battle that cycles in perpetuity. So, natch, the episodes mirror each other as the force goes 'round.
Of the three posters who replied to me saying "it doesn't matter", I'll reply to you, since you give the most compelling examples. I do agree, up to a point, that oil companies must face the changing economic landscape and adapt or risk getting left behind. However, these are not just dollars I'm referring to - and I tried to make that clear. All of their assets, and decades of expertise, are sigularly focused on one thing: locating, extracting, refining, and delivering oil.
An automobile company using a new engine? They're designing new engines every year. Their expertise lies in building the assembly line - design the vehicle, make (or contract out) all the parts, ship, assemble, and market. The parts are pretty interchangeable. The process is the key to the car company. Apple Computer? They could switch to selling rebranded Dell PC's tomorrow and probably less than 30% of the company would notice if it wasn't announced. (yes mac users, I know you'd notice!). Apple's a big company which, again, does many things. But ask Steve Jobs what he's selling, and he'll tell you: vision. And vision doesn't come in the PowerPC chip.
For an oil company to successfully market any other fuel, they would have to grow an entirely new company within themselves - there is little to the company that could be leveraged or re-purposed to selling just about anything else. They'd be better off switching to selling car air-fresheners: at least those are made from oil!
Sure, if other cheap energy forms came along, oil companies would be interested. But don't forget, these companies (their exectutives, I should say) don't operate in a theoretical economy. They have real investments -- Billions of dollars -- in everything from extraction technologies and patents to real estate and leases on oil fields, to refineries, to private armies in Sierra Leone. These investments are not easily transferrable to another, albiet related, industry.
PS Sorry about the italics
I was just reading the FAQ at gaim's website the other day, and this announcement surprises me. I agree with the spirit of flexibility that the GPL provides, and surely the gaim people must have considered this when developing gaim, but I also agree with the Unix philosophy of modularity. See: http://gaim.sourceforge.net/faq.php#q24
I hope that the developers of this project are careful to code their "fork" so that it can be used as a plugin, or at least, the source can optionally be compiled with "-video" or something. It's getting to the point where I'm going to need a 20Gb hdd and 512Mb of ram, just to be able to run a file browser (nautilus), web browser (mozilla) and chat program (gaim).
These apps are becoming beasts, are starting to overlap each other in their functionality, and are making the desktop more cumbersome. Remember, if the end user does not want choice or flexibility, there's no reason why the OS or any apps need to integrate everything: the distro can provide that.
Back in my day, the web was a place where people voluntarily put stuff they wanted to be public. If all the ad revenue on the net suddenly dried up, and people stopped making money off it, I'd probably be a lot happier. Unemployed, yes, but happier.
It's one thing to let a troll blather on in the corner, it's another thing altogether to let them slander you. Let's use an example from the real world. Say I am a raging lunatic and a pathological liar. Say I'm standing on the street corner shouting lies about you at anyone who passes by. Now, if I'm standing on Slashdot Street, everyone will ignore me, right? But, suppose I'm standing at the corner of Front and Main, wearing a suit, and talking to a Police Officer, pointing over at you, while the Officer is taking notes and nodding. Are you going to ignore me then?
Hint - if you answered yes, go directly to Jail. Do not pass go.....
Yes, a house is a good investment. So, this guy could be a winner at the Game of Life. But then, he has no LAN and no neighbours to play games with. Only a yard to mow, some ledgers to balance, and a grave to dig. Money isn't everything. Seriously.
>> "Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb."
> Instantly an image came to my mind - Dubya !!
I don't get it - something is wrong here. Does this mean that Bush is actually good? Or, if the original statement is true, does this then mean that GWB is actually involved in the most insidious plot (a lifetime effort, I might add) to appear dumb?
I am so confused. Does this mean that world domination will come to me in 2004?
The roses at the start were nice, but the article really started to stink after a while. Like here:
Some tech execs say SCO is bluffing and running a shakedown. Investors believe otherwise; after all, SCO previously bought a little-known program related to Microsoft DOS and exacted a multimillion-dollar settlement from the formidable software giant. SCO shares, which traded at less than $1 before SCO sued IBM, have soared to $17.36. And even at that price Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Skiba rates SCO a buy, saying it could hit $45 in the short term.
Brian Skiba seems to have experience with this sort of thing from 2000:
On TheStreet.com
Joining the anti-L&H claque is TheStreet.com, the high-profile financial news service. This site has published ten aggressively negative articles about L&H by Herb Greenberg. Although it was announced that he was on holiday and that his column would not appear last week, Greenberg couldn't resist filing a story on Friday reiterating the WSJ's claims about L&H's Korean customers. Greenberg has attracted an unofficial FAQ, which notes that "stocks often react in the opposite direction to sentiment voiced (by Greenberg). Another player seems to be Brian Skiba, a financial analyst for Lehman Brothers, who is known to have a negative view of L&H.
Coincidentally (and we don't mean this sarcastically) Rocker has a 10 per cent shareholding in TheStreet.com. TheStreet.com has a policy that its columnists may not have holdings or a short position in any stocks other than in mutuals or TheStreet.com. TheStreet.com says in its conflict and disclosure policy: "In stories primarily concerned with [a list of companies backing the company, but excluding Rocker], TheStreet.com notes their ownership stake". No stories mentioning Rocker note the 1,177,828 shares that Rocker held in it on 8 May, according to a Form 13F filed with the SEC.
The same report shows that Rocker held on that day 562,700 L&H shares then worth $62,178,000 "long" (i.e. actually owned), which was by far Rocker's biggest investment.
Rocker's holding in these shares enables it, if it so wishes, to take advantage of a weak market - when NASDAQ or EASDAQ is closed. At such times it is possible to push the price down by selling only a few shares: a sign of this is a big spread between the buying and selling prices.
What an inspiration! I have a question, though, and maybe RMS or someone else on this site would be able to answer this. No, it's not about how the first thing he mentions is a kernel and the last thing to actually be done (if you can even say that) is the kernel.
It's about RMS switching between "I" and "we". What's up with that? Obviously this post is a shout-out to anyone interested in helping. But on that date, when RMS first shouted-out this revolutionary idea [chokes back tears, pauses to regain composure], who else was already involved? Who was this "we" he speaks of? Or was it a theoretical "we"? The Royal "we"?
While I'm writing, can I just say once more to Richard, Linus, Rusty, Alan, and all the other* millions who have contributed their code in the spirit of the GNU project: A MILLION THANK YOU'S!! You have already changed the world!
*If you're a big-kahuna-GNU/developer, please don't be offended that I left your name out. I love you too.
Well, overall, I disagree with your simplistic, racist rhetoric, and take exception to it. But, I don't feel like engaging in a flame war, and I'm willing to learn. A google search for Bo Yang turns up a lot of garbage.... can you refer me to some material that may enlighten me?
Although I can see the communism connection you speak of (especially in regard to the bearded, guerrilla look), I would like to disagree slightly in your assessment of this sentiment. You say the belief is "that it is immoral for developers to expect to be financially compensated for their effo[r]ts".
Actually, I think the ideology posits that it's immoral to betray yourself by building something less than the best because you're chasing a buck - it's better to be poor if, deep in your heart, you know the world would be better off with {insert pet project here}.
Ideally, computer programs are written through the collaboration of those most interested in seeing the project into existence. This actually works quite in software, as well as other economic activities, imo.
Well I admit I went ahead and read most of the comments while I was waiting for the server to respond.... And a lot of the criticism of the GnuCash team sounded reasonable. But, after reading the FA, I have to say... Go GnuCash, and that accountant guy who loves it so much should write a book about how to use it, in collaboration with the developers who are currently documenting the API.
Enough of the bitching from the/. community... they didn't come here, we (or, at least the/. editors) brought the story here. So, how about some constructive responses to their plan? I think if they can get half of it done in the next few months, the project will live and evolve for many more years. Sounds like the compromise of using C and Scheme could work great here (you Python developers are trolling), as long as the core and plugin functionality are well divided. Not knowing what their code looks like, I wondered how well that has been done to date.
On a related note, I would suggest one more thing to those who wish to see this plan bear fruit: Reduce the dependency tree!! That will need to happen, any way you cut it. I'm sure this is possible if the developers attack it from all possible angles.
1. Build straw-man 2. Tear down straw-man 3. Watch the controversy unfold 4. Profit
Seriously, if MSN and Yahoo are really competing with google, they're doomed. Compare the results of Yahoo with google's searches.... methinks Yahoo is using google's engine and data.... Yahoo is on track to become google's biggest customer!
Second, google's success was built on the tail end of the dot-com boom... Kudos to them for keeping the innovation and financial success flowing, but the article makes it sound like they just came up with the idea last month and moved into number 1 position in that time. Google's been around for years, and has been getting more and more popular since. For me, google became my primary search about 3 years ago.
Overall, it's a good, informative article. But, really, there are some misleading statements that just make the story sound so much more like a faery tale.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that google's ads are so successful. After all, aside from the benefits in the article, the bottom line is that it just makes sense for the user/consumer... After all, when I'm SEARCHING for information is when I would be interested in hearing someone's pitch. When I'm looking for the weather, I don't want to see big blinking flash banners promoting the latest model of cell phone. But maybe that's just me...
I think it's time we bumped the max rating up to 20, but still only let browsing only go 5+. I've seen too many things at +5 that were just miles overhead of anything else. Or maybe an all-time high score.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is "Regular Porn" on the other side of "Nazi" in your continuum? Are you a Liberal Alabaman?
I would only add that the term "religious extremist" seems to get used, not to label those who hold their beliefs dearly and clearly, but to those who are willing to twist religious sentiment to justify just about anything they want to accomplish. In that sense, you and the parent poster are both right.
Duh.
You forgot "...in Soviet Utah..." at the end.
An automobile company using a new engine? They're designing new engines every year. Their expertise lies in building the assembly line - design the vehicle, make (or contract out) all the parts, ship, assemble, and market. The parts are pretty interchangeable. The process is the key to the car company. Apple Computer? They could switch to selling rebranded Dell PC's tomorrow and probably less than 30% of the company would notice if it wasn't announced. (yes mac users, I know you'd notice!). Apple's a big company which, again, does many things. But ask Steve Jobs what he's selling, and he'll tell you: vision. And vision doesn't come in the PowerPC chip.
For an oil company to successfully market any other fuel, they would have to grow an entirely new company within themselves - there is little to the company that could be leveraged or re-purposed to selling just about anything else. They'd be better off switching to selling car air-fresheners: at least those are made from oil!
Sure, if other cheap energy forms came along, oil companies would be interested. But don't forget, these companies (their exectutives, I should say) don't operate in a theoretical economy. They have real investments -- Billions of dollars -- in everything from extraction technologies and patents to real estate and leases on oil fields, to refineries, to private armies in Sierra Leone. These investments are not easily transferrable to another, albiet related, industry. PS Sorry about the italics
I was just reading the FAQ at gaim's website the other day, and this announcement surprises me. I agree with the spirit of flexibility that the GPL provides, and surely the gaim people must have considered this when developing gaim, but I also agree with the Unix philosophy of modularity. See: http://gaim.sourceforge.net/faq.php#q24
I hope that the developers of this project are careful to code their "fork" so that it can be used as a plugin, or at least, the source can optionally be compiled with "-video" or something. It's getting to the point where I'm going to need a 20Gb hdd and 512Mb of ram, just to be able to run a file browser (nautilus), web browser (mozilla) and chat program (gaim).
These apps are becoming beasts, are starting to overlap each other in their functionality, and are making the desktop more cumbersome. Remember, if the end user does not want choice or flexibility, there's no reason why the OS or any apps need to integrate everything: the distro can provide that.
Back in my day, the web was a place where people voluntarily put stuff they wanted to be public. If all the ad revenue on the net suddenly dried up, and people stopped making money off it, I'd probably be a lot happier. Unemployed, yes, but happier.
It's one thing to let a troll blather on in the corner, it's another thing altogether to let them slander you. Let's use an example from the real world. Say I am a raging lunatic and a pathological liar. Say I'm standing on the street corner shouting lies about you at anyone who passes by. Now, if I'm standing on Slashdot Street, everyone will ignore me, right? But, suppose I'm standing at the corner of Front and Main, wearing a suit, and talking to a Police Officer, pointing over at you, while the Officer is taking notes and nodding. Are you going to ignore me then?
Hint - if you answered yes, go directly to Jail. Do not pass go.....
Yes, a house is a good investment. So, this guy could be a winner at the Game of Life. But then, he has no LAN and no neighbours to play games with. Only a yard to mow, some ledgers to balance, and a grave to dig. Money isn't everything. Seriously.
>And it makes the whole thing less fun... becomes an ego show where everyone is concerned about how to look good...
Ummm... have you ever been to North America? About 99.9% of our economy is devoted to that task alone.
>> "Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb."
> Instantly an image came to my mind - Dubya !!
I don't get it - something is wrong here. Does this mean that Bush is actually good? Or, if the original statement is true, does this then mean that GWB is actually involved in the most insidious plot (a lifetime effort, I might add) to appear dumb?
I am so confused. Does this mean that world domination will come to me in 2004?
Linuxant explains why they're charing money for their drivers here: https://www.linuxant.com/store/faq.php
That's my brother you're talking about, there.
What an inspiration! I have a question, though, and maybe RMS or someone else on this site would be able to answer this. No, it's not about how the first thing he mentions is a kernel and the last thing to actually be done (if you can even say that) is the kernel.
It's about RMS switching between "I" and "we". What's up with that? Obviously this post is a shout-out to anyone interested in helping. But on that date, when RMS first shouted-out this revolutionary idea [chokes back tears, pauses to regain composure], who else was already involved? Who was this "we" he speaks of? Or was it a theoretical "we"? The Royal "we"?
While I'm writing, can I just say once more to Richard, Linus, Rusty, Alan, and all the other* millions who have contributed their code in the spirit of the GNU project: A MILLION THANK YOU'S!! You have already changed the world!
*If you're a big-kahuna-GNU/developer, please don't be offended that I left your name out. I love you too.
If you're comparing two sets of code vis. their MD5 sums, then won't that miss matching lines that differ by even one character - like, say, a space?
Well, overall, I disagree with your simplistic, racist rhetoric, and take exception to it. But, I don't feel like engaging in a flame war, and I'm willing to learn. A google search for Bo Yang turns up a lot of garbage.... can you refer me to some material that may enlighten me?
Although I can see the communism connection you speak of (especially in regard to the bearded, guerrilla look), I would like to disagree slightly in your assessment of this sentiment. You say the belief is "that it is immoral for developers to expect to be financially compensated for their effo[r]ts".
Actually, I think the ideology posits that it's immoral to betray yourself by building something less than the best because you're chasing a buck - it's better to be poor if, deep in your heart, you know the world would be better off with {insert pet project here}.
Ideally, computer programs are written through the collaboration of those most interested in seeing the project into existence. This actually works quite in software, as well as other economic activities, imo.
Well I admit I went ahead and read most of the comments while I was waiting for the server to respond.... And a lot of the criticism of the GnuCash team sounded reasonable. But, after reading the FA, I have to say... Go GnuCash, and that accountant guy who loves it so much should write a book about how to use it, in collaboration with the developers who are currently documenting the API.
/. community... they didn't come here, we (or, at least the /. editors) brought the story here. So, how about some constructive responses to their plan? I think if they can get half of it done in the next few months, the project will live and evolve for many more years. Sounds like the compromise of using C and Scheme could work great here (you Python developers are trolling), as long as the core and plugin functionality are well divided. Not knowing what their code looks like, I wondered how well that has been done to date.
Enough of the bitching from the
On a related note, I would suggest one more thing to those who wish to see this plan bear fruit: Reduce the dependency tree!! That will need to happen, any way you cut it. I'm sure this is possible if the developers attack it from all possible angles.
1. Build straw-man
2. Tear down straw-man
3. Watch the controversy unfold
4. Profit
Seriously, if MSN and Yahoo are really competing with google, they're doomed. Compare the results of Yahoo with google's searches.... methinks Yahoo is using google's engine and data.... Yahoo is on track to become google's biggest customer!
Second, google's success was built on the tail end of the dot-com boom... Kudos to them for keeping the innovation and financial success flowing, but the article makes it sound like they just came up with the idea last month and moved into number 1 position in that time. Google's been around for years, and has been getting more and more popular since. For me, google became my primary search about 3 years ago.
Overall, it's a good, informative article. But, really, there are some misleading statements that just make the story sound so much more like a faery tale.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that google's ads are so successful. After all, aside from the benefits in the article, the bottom line is that it just makes sense for the user/consumer... After all, when I'm SEARCHING for information is when I would be interested in hearing someone's pitch. When I'm looking for the weather, I don't want to see big blinking flash banners promoting the latest model of cell phone. But maybe that's just me...
RFC 3514.
I think it's time we bumped the max rating up to 20, but still only let browsing only go 5+. I've seen too many things at +5 that were just miles overhead of anything else. Or maybe an all-time high score.