Why is NASA still putzing around in low earth orbit with the space shuttle? NASA (and the rest of us) need to aspire higher and undertake a project that will serve to inspire the current generation in the same way that the Apollo project did in the 60s.
I'm a big fan of Robert Zubrin's Case for Mars proposal to send astronauts to Mars using current technology. For those of you who aren't familiar with this, read the book or visit the Mars Society website for more information.
I've thought for a while that one of the reasons the U.S. Congress has been slow to act on spam is probably because most of our Senators and Representatives haven't personally had to deal with spam themselves. I assume (maybe wrongly) that most of them don't have the time (or inclination) to check their own email; their staffers most likely are doing it for them.
So I was gratified to see that one of the reasons Senator Schumer gave for proposing this anti-spam legislation was that "his 14-year-old daughter was inundated with spam promoting pornographic Web sites and that he was 'utterly amazed' to learn that no federal criminal laws existed to punish that practice." I mean, I'm not gratified that his granddaugher is getting nasty spam, but glad that the problem is finally starting to hit home with our legislators. It's about time!
Legislation won't completely solve the problem of spam, but the more we can do to delegitimize the practice, the more successful the fight against spam will be.
Sorry, but this is one of the more ridiculous Ask Slashdot questions I've ever seen.
Certainly there is room for improvement in the way we pay for communications access today, but to expect that you won't have to pay anything is just plain silly.
Having a intelligent media system for my house is something I'm very interested in (and I'm sure this is true for many others here). If Microsoft isn't going to make it possible for us, so what? I'm sure the open source community will help make this a reality, and in many cases it already is. For instance, the Slimp3 device is a great example of the "right way" to distribute music throughout a house.
I agree...software is not math. In essence, writing software is the process of attempting to fully replicate human decision-making in an automated machine.
In other words, computers become extensions of the human mind through software. And once software has been written and perfected for a particular application, we humans are free to move on to more interesting things!
I think this project is really just a proof of concept. As another post pointed out, to make this really useful you'd need to regularly update your local data set, which isn't very practical for most people.
Also, if the downloadable dataset only covers a small portion of the web, how can this system's utility really compare to Google's?
That said, I think computer science proof-of-concept type project are very useful and serve a valuable purpose in getting the ideas out there for others to improve upon.
I've been a happy Netflix customer for the past few months, but I nevertheless still think Walmart's announcement is a Good Thing. Competition has a way of focusing one's attention. In this case, I think Netflix will be forced to continue to innovate and differentiate their service from Walmart's.
For instance, Netflix's movie recommendation system could be vastly improved. To me, this feature, along with the catalog searching feature, is one of the best things about Netflix--no more standing around at Blockbuster trying to find something to watch.
It's also very likely that Netflix will have to lower their prices to match Walmart's. If not, they'll have to justify higher prices by providing better service, more selection, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is NASA still putzing around in low earth orbit with the space shuttle? NASA (and the rest of us) need to aspire higher and undertake a project that will serve to inspire the current generation in the same way that the Apollo project did in the 60s.
I'm a big fan of Robert Zubrin's Case for Mars proposal to send astronauts to Mars using current technology. For those of you who aren't familiar with this, read the book or visit the Mars Society website for more information.
I've thought for a while that one of the reasons the U.S. Congress has been slow to act on spam is probably because most of our Senators and Representatives haven't personally had to deal with spam themselves. I assume (maybe wrongly) that most of them don't have the time (or inclination) to check their own email; their staffers most likely are doing it for them.
So I was gratified to see that one of the reasons Senator Schumer gave for proposing this anti-spam legislation was that "his 14-year-old daughter was inundated with spam promoting pornographic Web sites and that he was 'utterly amazed' to learn that no federal criminal laws existed to punish that practice." I mean, I'm not gratified that his granddaugher is getting nasty spam, but glad that the problem is finally starting to hit home with our legislators. It's about time!
Legislation won't completely solve the problem of spam, but the more we can do to delegitimize the practice, the more successful the fight against spam will be.
Sorry, but this is one of the more ridiculous Ask Slashdot questions I've ever seen.
Certainly there is room for improvement in the way we pay for communications access today, but to expect that you won't have to pay anything is just plain silly.
Having a intelligent media system for my house is something I'm very interested in (and I'm sure this is true for many others here). If Microsoft isn't going to make it possible for us, so what? I'm sure the open source community will help make this a reality, and in many cases it already is. For instance, the Slimp3 device is a great example of the "right way" to distribute music throughout a house.
I agree...software is not math. In essence, writing software is the process of attempting to fully replicate human decision-making in an automated machine.
In other words, computers become extensions of the human mind through software. And once software has been written and perfected for a particular application, we humans are free to move on to more interesting things!
I think this project is really just a proof of concept. As another post pointed out, to make this really useful you'd need to regularly update your local data set, which isn't very practical for most people.
Also, if the downloadable dataset only covers a small portion of the web, how can this system's utility really compare to Google's?
That said, I think computer science proof-of-concept type project are very useful and serve a valuable purpose in getting the ideas out there for others to improve upon.
I've been a happy Netflix customer for the past few months, but I nevertheless still think Walmart's announcement is a Good Thing. Competition has a way of focusing one's attention. In this case, I think Netflix will be forced to continue to innovate and differentiate their service from Walmart's.
For instance, Netflix's movie recommendation system could be vastly improved. To me, this feature, along with the catalog searching feature, is one of the best things about Netflix--no more standing around at Blockbuster trying to find something to watch.
It's also very likely that Netflix will have to lower their prices to match Walmart's. If not, they'll have to justify higher prices by providing better service, more selection, etc.