Like wars in strange lands far away who are no threat to you? 1 trillion dollars buys a lot of space program. Oh, but wait, space programs don't make rich people richer...
I've always been curious as to how the world would behave if it lost the Internet for a while. A lot of people I work for go spastic if they lose their connection for more than an hour, I can't imagine what they would do if they lost it for a week.
Despite the fact the Internet was conceived of as a decentralized network, it's actually quite centralized. It would only take a few well placed attacks to bring it to its knees. Think of the Northeast Blackout of 2003. That wasn't even an attack, that was just some overgrown trees.
Once you've got a working theory, it's not really the cost of the equipment, it's the cost of the permits. Local governments right uppity when you mention 'nuclear' in any kind of regulatory discussion.
My solution to that is to lie and tell them I simply collect and recondition old computer equipment (what I really do;)
But if I ever do get the time machine working, I'll let you know about it last Sunday!
Boo! Who modded that down to Troll? I can understand a 0 if it wasn't funny, but a -1? Man, that's harsh. Like throwing tomatoes at a guy.
Seriously, what's the world coming to when people can't enjoy a little blue humour on a Sunday? Surely I'm not the only Slashdot reader who gets spam offering strange tech, herbs and drugs to make my 'member' bigger so I can "rock her all night long"? Quantum entanglement, I'm sure it's a interesting concept in physics, but it also sounds like a good name for a perfume.
Roof key, bicycle key and motorcycle key I'd leave at home. Unless you're out with one of the bikes then I'd leave others at home. You're only ever going to use the roof key at home and you can only drive one vehicle at a time. I've just saved you three keys. Two for the inner door? Get a locksmith and get them matched. Just saved you another key. Three for the GF's place...inner door and outer door? Probably don't need the third one at all times, why not just leave it at her place? Saved you another key. Now we are down to seven keys, which is incidentally the same number I carry.
My summer ninja nerd configuration is:
Six door keys of varying types on a ring in the left pocket. Keys to my van and my cell in my right. I wear my Leatherman on my right hip on the belt, my Maglite on the left. Box cutter and USB stick in the right back pocket, wallet in the left. Sunglasses and a pen go in the left breast pocket of the work shirt, Sharpie on the left. Works well for me so far, though it makes air-flight a bit troublesome.
Perhaps the GP is just frustrated by a society that seems to be increasingly dominated by officiousness, bureaucracy and legal dogmatism. It's lawyers who tend to make that happen and people are starting to become afraid of them.
RIAA lawsuits, anyone? America has got the the point where a lawyer with an axe to grind can bankrupt a defendant without actually winning the case.
I think people are starting to question professionals in general, because after the last few years, it seems as if all they want to do is get richer and use everyday people to do it.
You can understand why some folks have a bit of resentment.
I could do the priest thing, you know, I like reading old books, giving inspirational speeches, choirs are cool... But I also like making love to my wife. The celibacy thing is a real deal breaker for me.
I wish they would too. I wouldn't even mind if they had ads. The CBC does this, I don't mind it. In fact, I prefer the ads they use in webcasts because there tend to only be three or four of them, instead of the 20 you get bombarded with on regular TV. You'd think advertisers would see that as more valuable, because there is less chance your pitch is going to be drowned out by 19 others.
But I do chuckle as I watch my Doctor Who torrents come down. The BBC is funded by British taxpayers. So in addition to getting my DW fix, I'm also ripping off an entire nation.:) No worries, I'll pay you all back on like Tuesday.
What I find hysterical is the bullshit advertising the large ISPs do to promote their crippled Internet. The local incumbent cable company where I live is offering a 50Mb/s service!!!! It even brags that you can download a 700MB movie in 2 minutes! Whatever kind of movie do they mean? 700MB, yeah, that's going to be a torrent since I can't think of a lot of HTTP sites that are able or willing let users download files at 6250kB/s. So you look at the fine print, and they plainly state that they throttle all p2p down to 80kB/s at all times. With that kind of service why would you even bother with anything more than a 1Mb/s connection?
Read the short story, "The Road Not Taken" by Turtledove. We may already be a match for some extra-terrestrial civilizations. Hard to say.
A better option is do the Master of Orion thing - get really big and scary as fast as you can. Scary, like on an galactic scale. So if the aliens do come and have a bone to pick, we kick their asses. Historically this has worked well for human civilizations, and I don't know about you, but my unevolved brain can dream up some pretty scary weapons.
So maybe the Western World should grow a bigger pair. Tell these nutjobs that if you want to try to kill me over a cartoon, then I'm going to try to kill you right back.
I have an Palm M500 and the sucker works to this day (even the original battery!) I have a metal exterior case for it, but I've dropped that thing, stepped on it, spilled stuff on it and it continues to work like a champ. I've never bought a replacement PDA because it still does what I need it to do. In fact, I still use the Palm Desktop software, because in my estimation, it's the perfect day planner/address book.
Not sure what their current hardware is like, but my m500 owes me no favours given how bad I've treated it and in terms of hardware quality and endurance, I'd have to say excellent. It would be a shame if slacking off in terms of quality is what is killing this company because IMHO they used to produce a great product.
I'm not sure that I ever want to see completely computer controlled cars either. Look at all the trouble Toyota is having right now.
Even UAVs have human pilots. I like the fact the computer in my van keeps my engine running efficiently, but to actually have it steer... computers are going to have to get an awful lot smarter.
I don't know about you, but I don't ever want to see flying cars. Most people can barely figure out how to safely operate a wheeled car in two dimensions. Imagine how nuts it would be if we added a third.
I'm one of these types who actually lays out money for media (well mostly), but I like the "try before buy" capability the Internet gives me. In my home country this doesn't make me a criminal, but it seems the U.S. government is bound and determined to make me one. I'll bet there will be an extradition clause this sucker.
In the U.S., you can do more time for downloading a movie than stealing a car. But I think I'm going to download even more now. Things like ACTA... Sooner or later all our freedoms are going to legislated away so a few rich buggers can have even more of the pie. Fuck 'em, I'm going to enjoy some pie now too.
When they sue me, I'm not going to bother to show up at court. Not like I own anything worth taking anyway. When they get a warrant I'm going to run for it. Hide, steal, lie, whatever it takes, I'm a criminal, right? I'm going to do time for downloading that song, so who cares? I want nothing less than to be featured on the America's Most Wanted for the horrific, heinous, terrorist (you just know someone is going to use that word) act of copyright infringement. I'm sure they'll catch me eventually and bring me to the judge in shackles. But maybe if I do this, the clueless folks who make up the majority of our society will wake up to the fact laws like this are nuts and it's time for some change.
Part of the problem is that open source companies pay to create a product that they then give away for free. Conventional business wisdom would describe this as nuts.
Okay, so you sell services to support this free product, that's the model. But with Linux, part of the problem is most of your customers don't need your help to manage the product. Your typical Linux sysadmin doesn't need the need the help of a RedHat engineer. Why would he buy RHEL when Fedora Core does everything he needs for free? Doesn't exactly leave a lot of options for making money short of hanging a Paypal button on your site.
You only need to look at my nic to know what side of the fence I'm going to come down on. Still:
"They will then proceed to abuse their prescriptions (people do this already with prescription meds) to get high... well, higher." As you said, this is happening now. Good luck in trying to reverse it. I remember reading somewhere that 15% of the adult Western World is talking some form of anti-depressant. So that means that 15% of the adult Western World are legal drug addicts. But doctors prescribe those drugs, don't they?
"In wine there is truth," the old Roman proverb says. For some, it might actually be a healthy activity. People like getting out of their heads sometimes. It has been happening for thousands of years and the world hasn't been destroyed yet.
It's called summer in Canada. The girls here waste no time in peeling the layers off. It is magnificent.
Seriously, this is the Daily Star we're talking about here. "Hopefully one day I’ll find a superstud who can satisfy me." Uh-huh. Why is this news on Slashdot, again? oh wait...
Wozniak was all about the pragmatic. Jobs was all about the profitable. There seems to be a lot of the latter floating around the world today. Which do you suppose is better?
Slashdot Mirror
Like wars in strange lands far away who are no threat to you? 1 trillion dollars buys a lot of space program. Oh, but wait, space programs don't make rich people richer...
Show us the code Adobe. We of the nerd community would have had that problem fixed for you long ago.
I've always been curious as to how the world would behave if it lost the Internet for a while. A lot of people I work for go spastic if they lose their connection for more than an hour, I can't imagine what they would do if they lost it for a week.
Despite the fact the Internet was conceived of as a decentralized network, it's actually quite centralized. It would only take a few well placed attacks to bring it to its knees. Think of the Northeast Blackout of 2003. That wasn't even an attack, that was just some overgrown trees.
Yeah, so what's the alternative? Anarchy? That's a great idea. Worked out nicely for places like Somalia.
Once you've got a working theory, it's not really the cost of the equipment, it's the cost of the permits. Local governments right uppity when you mention 'nuclear' in any kind of regulatory discussion.
My solution to that is to lie and tell them I simply collect and recondition old computer equipment (what I really do ;)
But if I ever do get the time machine working, I'll let you know about it last Sunday!
Boo! Who modded that down to Troll? I can understand a 0 if it wasn't funny, but a -1? Man, that's harsh. Like throwing tomatoes at a guy.
Seriously, what's the world coming to when people can't enjoy a little blue humour on a Sunday? Surely I'm not the only Slashdot reader who gets spam offering strange tech, herbs and drugs to make my 'member' bigger so I can "rock her all night long"? Quantum entanglement, I'm sure it's a interesting concept in physics, but it also sounds like a good name for a perfume.
The real question is: can it be used as a sex aid? Because then you can make some serious money on the Internet.
Roof key, bicycle key and motorcycle key I'd leave at home. Unless you're out with one of the bikes then I'd leave others at home. You're only ever going to use the roof key at home and you can only drive one vehicle at a time. I've just saved you three keys. Two for the inner door? Get a locksmith and get them matched. Just saved you another key. Three for the GF's place...inner door and outer door? Probably don't need the third one at all times, why not just leave it at her place? Saved you another key. Now we are down to seven keys, which is incidentally the same number I carry.
My summer ninja nerd configuration is:
Six door keys of varying types on a ring in the left pocket. Keys to my van and my cell in my right. I wear my Leatherman on my right hip on the belt, my Maglite on the left. Box cutter and USB stick in the right back pocket, wallet in the left. Sunglasses and a pen go in the left breast pocket of the work shirt, Sharpie on the left. Works well for me so far, though it makes air-flight a bit troublesome.
Perhaps the GP is just frustrated by a society that seems to be increasingly dominated by officiousness, bureaucracy and legal dogmatism. It's lawyers who tend to make that happen and people are starting to become afraid of them.
RIAA lawsuits, anyone? America has got the the point where a lawyer with an axe to grind can bankrupt a defendant without actually winning the case.
I think people are starting to question professionals in general, because after the last few years, it seems as if all they want to do is get richer and use everyday people to do it.
You can understand why some folks have a bit of resentment.
I could do the priest thing, you know, I like reading old books, giving inspirational speeches, choirs are cool... But I also like making love to my wife. The celibacy thing is a real deal breaker for me.
I wish they would too. I wouldn't even mind if they had ads. The CBC does this, I don't mind it. In fact, I prefer the ads they use in webcasts because there tend to only be three or four of them, instead of the 20 you get bombarded with on regular TV. You'd think advertisers would see that as more valuable, because there is less chance your pitch is going to be drowned out by 19 others.
But I do chuckle as I watch my Doctor Who torrents come down. The BBC is funded by British taxpayers. So in addition to getting my DW fix, I'm also ripping off an entire nation. :) No worries, I'll pay you all back on like Tuesday.
Dangerous pirates, the lot of us! Yarrrr, eh!
What I find hysterical is the bullshit advertising the large ISPs do to promote their crippled Internet. The local incumbent cable company where I live is offering a 50Mb/s service!!!! It even brags that you can download a 700MB movie in 2 minutes! Whatever kind of movie do they mean? 700MB, yeah, that's going to be a torrent since I can't think of a lot of HTTP sites that are able or willing let users download files at 6250kB/s. So you look at the fine print, and they plainly state that they throttle all p2p down to 80kB/s at all times. With that kind of service why would you even bother with anything more than a 1Mb/s connection?
Read the short story, "The Road Not Taken" by Turtledove. We may already be a match for some extra-terrestrial civilizations. Hard to say.
A better option is do the Master of Orion thing - get really big and scary as fast as you can. Scary, like on an galactic scale. So if the aliens do come and have a bone to pick, we kick their asses. Historically this has worked well for human civilizations, and I don't know about you, but my unevolved brain can dream up some pretty scary weapons.
So maybe the Western World should grow a bigger pair. Tell these nutjobs that if you want to try to kill me over a cartoon, then I'm going to try to kill you right back.
I have an Palm M500 and the sucker works to this day (even the original battery!) I have a metal exterior case for it, but I've dropped that thing, stepped on it, spilled stuff on it and it continues to work like a champ. I've never bought a replacement PDA because it still does what I need it to do. In fact, I still use the Palm Desktop software, because in my estimation, it's the perfect day planner/address book.
Not sure what their current hardware is like, but my m500 owes me no favours given how bad I've treated it and in terms of hardware quality and endurance, I'd have to say excellent. It would be a shame if slacking off in terms of quality is what is killing this company because IMHO they used to produce a great product.
I'm not sure that I ever want to see completely computer controlled cars either. Look at all the trouble Toyota is having right now.
Even UAVs have human pilots. I like the fact the computer in my van keeps my engine running efficiently, but to actually have it steer... computers are going to have to get an awful lot smarter.
I don't know about you, but I don't ever want to see flying cars. Most people can barely figure out how to safely operate a wheeled car in two dimensions. Imagine how nuts it would be if we added a third.
I'm one of these types who actually lays out money for media (well mostly), but I like the "try before buy" capability the Internet gives me. In my home country this doesn't make me a criminal, but it seems the U.S. government is bound and determined to make me one. I'll bet there will be an extradition clause this sucker.
In the U.S., you can do more time for downloading a movie than stealing a car. But I think I'm going to download even more now. Things like ACTA... Sooner or later all our freedoms are going to legislated away so a few rich buggers can have even more of the pie. Fuck 'em, I'm going to enjoy some pie now too.
When they sue me, I'm not going to bother to show up at court. Not like I own anything worth taking anyway. When they get a warrant I'm going to run for it. Hide, steal, lie, whatever it takes, I'm a criminal, right? I'm going to do time for downloading that song, so who cares? I want nothing less than to be featured on the America's Most Wanted for the horrific, heinous, terrorist (you just know someone is going to use that word) act of copyright infringement. I'm sure they'll catch me eventually and bring me to the judge in shackles. But maybe if I do this, the clueless folks who make up the majority of our society will wake up to the fact laws like this are nuts and it's time for some change.
Service on par with the pay, I suppose.
I tend to use Abiword, but my word processing needs are fairly simple.
Part of the problem is that open source companies pay to create a product that they then give away for free. Conventional business wisdom would describe this as nuts.
Okay, so you sell services to support this free product, that's the model. But with Linux, part of the problem is most of your customers don't need your help to manage the product. Your typical Linux sysadmin doesn't need the need the help of a RedHat engineer. Why would he buy RHEL when Fedora Core does everything he needs for free? Doesn't exactly leave a lot of options for making money short of hanging a Paypal button on your site.
You only need to look at my nic to know what side of the fence I'm going to come down on. Still:
"They will then proceed to abuse their prescriptions (people do this already with prescription meds) to get high... well, higher." As you said, this is happening now. Good luck in trying to reverse it. I remember reading somewhere that 15% of the adult Western World is talking some form of anti-depressant. So that means that 15% of the adult Western World are legal drug addicts. But doctors prescribe those drugs, don't they?
"In wine there is truth," the old Roman proverb says. For some, it might actually be a healthy activity. People like getting out of their heads sometimes. It has been happening for thousands of years and the world hasn't been destroyed yet.
It's called summer in Canada. The girls here waste no time in peeling the layers off. It is magnificent.
Seriously, this is the Daily Star we're talking about here. "Hopefully one day I’ll find a superstud who can satisfy me." Uh-huh. Why is this news on Slashdot, again? oh wait...
Wozniak was all about the pragmatic. Jobs was all about the profitable. There seems to be a lot of the latter floating around the world today. Which do you suppose is better?
They better not make it illegal, I've got 2 years left on my contract with MNU.