Very bad. Most (if not all) small farmers set aside a certain portion of their harvest specifically for next year's planting. The rest gets sold off, or used for feed for their stock (if they've got any.) Combine-->dryer-->bin-->wait til spring-->planter....
Now, the big "agri-corporations" don't have any stock to feed. *They* would probably come out ahead if they didn't have to make special arrangements to separate,dry,and store next years seed (if they even do now, I don't know....) Just order a couple of trucks of new seed each spring and voila! They produce even more, driving the price/bushel down, so Bob & Sons has to mortgage the ranch again.
Anyone else think this is where we're headed? Think about it. Already the economic boundaries between the rich and poor are more than they've been in a long time. This directly effects education, opportunities, behavior, etc. etc.
Now, think about it. Do you think that the health insurance companies will cover this? It ain't going to be free, that's for sure. The rich and powerful could be (virtually) guaranteed to have smarter, more 'athletic', better looking kids...while everyone else has to make do with what they've got.
Fast forward a couple of centuries. The gene pool has basically split into two types of humans: the 'uber' humans, through a combination of social engineering and genetic engineering have kept to *them*selves and continued to produce more smart, rich, magazine-cover babies.... While the poor, not-so-bright, ugly folks have been relegated to mating with others of their 'class.'
On the other hand, this 'upper' class will probably (if current conditions have any relevance) be in much fewer numbers than the 'lower.' You'd think that eventually (by that I mean a few centuries) this gene pool will stagnate out...but not if we can artifically mix it up....
Correct, but as the other poster mentions, it just gets re-routed. But stop and think for a minute.
Power grids and telephone circuits can be affected the same way, take out one of those big "power towers" that traverse large spans, and a couple of remote stations, a few satellite uplinks, some telco switching stations/relay towers, and havoc *will* ensue. It doesn't matter if it *can* be re-routed, the resultant chaos and downtimes would cost probably millions. Cyberwarfare isn't about information, it's about $$$$$ lost when the infrastructures disappear.
Then we'll be falling back to all the guys with their ham sets.... ---...
Just kidding!:) I just wanted to see how many old sci.physics junkies still exist....
But seriously, we'll probably never know the answer as to why it's slowing down. Those old probes weren't designed for experiments such as this (I don't think....)
Let's send out another one, this time specifically designed for precise gravitational measurements, with current technology, and with a couple of ion thrusters (yes they do bloody exist) on the back to catch up to the others, and let's have a look!
Oh wait, that would cost money, and we can't spend money on anything that doesn't make more money for Unca To^H^HSam.
In my area it seems to be similar. Where is this great shortage of "computer people" I keep hearing about? In "the valley?" Please. Nobody *really* wants to live and work there unless you plan on dying from pollution, ulcers and/or a stress-induced coronary at 35. And so I hear about yet another area with no tech jobs, yet a bunch of 'tech' people. All the while more and more programmers from India get off the boat.... Maybe it just hasn't proliferated throughout the entire country yet. I dunno. Maybe there's just too many 'NT-heads' who couldn't use a CLI to save themselves, and everyone's realizing that it doesn't take a rocket scientist (or a good CS-oriented person) to point-n-click.
"Who cares?" "Name the product we *least* want ported to Linux." "Flash sux coz it's not free...errr.."
Um, excuse me guys, isn't this exactly the kind of thing we *do* want? We need more apps, even the little ones like this from the BIG names to be ported over to Linux if it's ever going to take hold.
Nobody says that every god$^@$ package that runs on Linux has to be free, open and GPL'd
Until then, I'll await with baited breath to see if it'll supports Flash 4 and maybe even sound this time?
Macromedia! Port everything you've got over to the penguin!
The birds are *professionals* for cryin out loud. With a resume. I suppose it wouldn't have made a difference if they'd hung a big banner underneath the main one reading:
"No penguins were harmed during this exposition."
I suppose next we'll get a story by Katz on how the penguins couldn't get in to see South Park, either.
I had heard rumors that the locals were going to band together to 'shut off' Cornwall from England to keep the already heavy summer population rise down.
Anyone know? Wish I coulda been there. Somebody should have gone out by the merry maidens and seen if anything lined up.
A friend and I were waiting in line to get into a Dead Milkmen concert, and, being the good engineering students that we were, started talking about the ebb and flow/accordion-like nature of the queue and how you could probably model the behavior as an oscillating system....
Of course then we moved onto traffic jams and how the same behavior applied....and the list of variables we deduced was quite impressive. I wish I could remember more, but I was, um, slightly in a non-remembering physical state if you take my meaning.
then we got inside, he got punched in the throat whilst in the pit, and I had to help break up a chick fight.
Just who in the hell do Case & Gates think they are, anyway? Some sort of dieties of the computer world? Just the mere notion that they think they can be *it* when it comes to internet access....I shake my head in disbelief.
Microsoft thinks it's anti-trust troubles are just about over...if they (or AOL for that matter) started to take over in the manner they described, putting countless local ma-n-pa ISP's out of business, I would *hope* the government would step in.
The sad part is it will probably happen like this. Big companies will take control of the access points to the internet, just like they've taken control of the access points to the telephone system, the cable Tv systems, etc. etc. Anyone thinking of starting an ISP should probably think twice.
Anyone know when internet2 will start going public?
Seriously, though. Can anyone else see where we'll be in another 10 or 15 years? We'll end up with corporate "bases" like the military's got. Onsite housing, medical, security, the PX...restricted airspace, armed guards at the gate...
and Ludvig Van playing 24 hrs a dayly day me brothers!!!
With all of the other interesting things you could write about, do you really have to advocate film piracy? Breaking the rules? Jiminy Crickets... This one takes the cake.
In a word, childish. This is what kids do when there's rules that won't let them do what they want. *waaaaaah* That's life. Cope.
It probably doesn't have as much to do with their actual age...
it probably has more to do with the fact that older, more experienced programmers, because of their experience, will command a higher salary. In this world of a million and one high tech startups who don't want to/can't pay somebody like this what they're worth, that's the way the chips fall.
That doesn't mean it's right, though. If I had a chance I'd hire one of these "old" guys who could probably read a page of assembler and tell you what it was over some MIS/business school, point-n-click trained Windows weenie any day. These are the guys when faced with a command line go "uhhhh....Where's the Start button!!!???"
Kind of like the old guy who you take your car to, he'd listen to it for a second, and tell you exactly what's wrong...as opposed to the kid who has to get out the scan tool and the meters and plug it in and look up all the codes in the book....yadda yadda.
They're *more* likely to have 'hacker-like tendencies' in my opinion. More likely to *not* be marketing controlled droids, and more likely to know more about the 'real world.' Hire 'Em!!!
Let me just get a couple of things off my under-exercised chest here....
1. Libertarianism is about one thing. The right to do whatever I damn well please in *my* house, with *my* stuff, with *my* family & friends, so long as it doesn't interfere with anybody else's right to do the same, and doesn't involve risking another party. In short, keeping the government out of my home and my choices in life. If I want to let my kids watch South Park in all of it's uncut NC-17 glory, then fine, I'll go rent the tape when it comes out. Its about responsible freedom, not some twisted anarchistic vision.
2. I for one am appalled that you would behave this way in a public establishment which is only trying to enforce the rules placed upon it. You may as well go down to the liquor store and buy the kids hanging around outside that bottle of Boones they're after, or go buy 'em a pack of Camels. You wouldn't do *that*, would you? No.(I hope.) I'm even *more* appalled that this lady would let a complete stranger take any sort of responsibility for her and someone else's children.
3. The 'R' rating has been around for a while, with the same restrictions as always. Just because theaters, in the past, have been overly lax in enforcing it, doesn't mean they have to continue that way. Get pulled over for speeding, and do you tell the officer "but I was going 75 here for the last two weeks, and NOW you're going to ticket me?" Of course not.
The way I see it, there really isn't a whole lot of difference between the two 'camps.'
Stallman is the voice of idealism, sometimes a bit extreme, yes...but he's there to get in our face and remind us what the underlying principles are, or at least *should be.* His views aren't popular, because he won't fsck around trying to sugar coat the message for the masses.
Raymond, on the other hand, seems to be the voice of practicality. "Let's put this out there in front of the suits in terms they can understand and will adopt...that they'll get used to and embrace."
Call it a difference in psychology. Stallman's message is one of 'slap you in face and yell this is how is ought to be dammit! *whack*' While Raymond's is more 'C'mon...this really is a good thing...you *know* you want it...mmmm...good...mmm. C'mon...open up...that's a good PHB...mmmm.'
It's nothing we should be throwing "outbursts" like this one about for, though. IMHO, this article was a step backwards in unifying the two 'camps.'
Nobody *HAS* to force BMW to release it's engine specs. If I want to know how they did it, I'll pull the engine out, put it on a stand, tear it down, measure everything, send chips of metal off to the labs to figure out what it is, etc. etc. They can't stop me from doing that. That and a (i.e.) 350ci V-8 is pretty much a 350. A V-8 is a V-8 is a V-8 (on the lowest level...) You could even build from scratch an exact clone of the latest BMW engine after you've done all that...but why? Now if they (to use the analogy) welded the hood shut and said "We're not going to tell you what's under there...just turn the key and drive!....and if you do otherwise you're violating our terms of sale!"..that's different.
Herein lies the problem with propietary file formats. Yes you *can* do essentially the same thing (go in an examine the files byte-by-byte with a hex editor to view all the little goodies that make it what it is) and really nobody can stop you. But what a royal PAIN.
The 'good point' is that Microsoft has built this grip on our information, and really the only way to break it is to turn these formats *into* "standards." release *all* the specs, all the tags, all the formatting characters, etc. etc. And let anyone build their own V-8. Stop them from 'extending' the standard unless the additions are widely approved by a standards body, like the w3c and ietf....or even sae.
This is really cool. Funny thing is, if this were to happen in the US, the whole place would be bulldozed under and replaced with the Bletchley Memorial Shopping Center.
Slashdot Mirror
Very bad.
Most (if not all) small farmers set aside a certain portion of their harvest specifically for next year's planting. The rest gets sold off, or used for feed for their stock (if they've got any.) Combine-->dryer-->bin-->wait til spring-->planter....
Now, the big "agri-corporations" don't have any stock to feed. *They* would probably come out ahead if they didn't have to make special arrangements to separate,dry,and store next years seed (if they even do now, I don't know....)
Just order a couple of trucks of new seed each spring and voila! They produce even more, driving the price/bushel down, so Bob & Sons has to mortgage the ranch again.
Anyone else think this is where we're headed?
Think about it. Already the economic boundaries between the rich and poor are more than they've been in a long time. This directly effects education, opportunities, behavior, etc. etc.
Now, think about it. Do you think that the health insurance companies will cover this? It ain't going to be free, that's for sure. The rich and powerful could be (virtually) guaranteed to have smarter, more 'athletic', better looking kids...while everyone else has to make do with what they've got.
Fast forward a couple of centuries. The gene pool has basically split into two types of humans: the 'uber' humans, through a combination of social engineering and genetic engineering have kept to *them*selves and continued to produce more smart, rich, magazine-cover babies.... While the poor, not-so-bright, ugly folks have been relegated to mating with others of their 'class.'
On the other hand, this 'upper' class will probably (if current conditions have any relevance) be in much fewer numbers than the 'lower.' You'd think that eventually (by that I mean a few centuries) this gene pool will stagnate out...but not if we can artifically mix it up....
Maybe the eugenics wars aren't that far off?
Correct, but as the other poster mentions, it just gets re-routed. But stop and think for a minute.
... --- ...
Power grids and telephone circuits can be affected the same way, take out one of those big "power towers" that traverse large spans, and a couple of remote stations, a few satellite uplinks, some telco switching stations/relay towers, and havoc *will* ensue. It doesn't matter if it *can* be re-routed, the resultant chaos and downtimes would cost probably millions. Cyberwarfare isn't about information, it's about $$$$$ lost when the infrastructures disappear.
Then we'll be falling back to all the guys with their ham sets.
Just kidding! :)
I just wanted to see how many old sci.physics junkies still exist....
But seriously, we'll probably never know the answer as to why it's slowing down. Those old probes weren't designed for experiments such as this (I don't think....)
Let's send out another one, this time specifically designed for precise gravitational measurements, with current technology, and with a couple of ion thrusters (yes they do bloody exist) on the back to catch up to the others, and let's have a look!
Oh wait, that would cost money, and we can't spend money on anything that doesn't make more money for Unca To^H^HSam.
If I understand things correctly, this pertained explicitly to databases of compiled common knowledge.
I was just looking at the copyright applications the other day, and there are provisions for registering databases (said this explicitly)
What's it mean? That weather.com (for example) can't claim exclusive rights to publish the temperatures for Arizona for the month of August....
Am I right?
His completely kick-@$$ role in 'Exorcist III'
Wasn't he currently in the middle of some stage show on broadway or something?
In my area it seems to be similar. Where is this great shortage of "computer people" I keep hearing about? In "the valley?" Please. Nobody *really* wants to live and work there unless you plan on dying from pollution, ulcers and/or a stress-induced coronary at 35. And so I hear about yet another area with no tech jobs, yet a bunch of 'tech' people. All the while more and more programmers from India get off the boat.... Maybe it just hasn't proliferated throughout the entire country yet. I dunno. Maybe there's just too many 'NT-heads' who couldn't use a CLI to save themselves, and everyone's realizing that it doesn't take a rocket scientist (or a good CS-oriented person) to point-n-click.
Duh!
Sorry just had to say that out loud.
(for those scratching their head, think football....)
Ohhh...yeah!
I see a lot of stuff like:
"Who cares?"
"Name the product we *least* want ported to Linux."
"Flash sux coz it's not free...errr.."
Um, excuse me guys, isn't this exactly the kind of thing we *do* want? We need more apps, even the little ones like this from the BIG names to be ported over to Linux if it's ever going to take hold.
Nobody says that every god$^@$ package that runs on Linux has to be free, open and GPL'd
Until then, I'll await with baited breath to see if it'll supports Flash 4 and maybe even sound this time?
Macromedia! Port everything you've got over to the penguin!
What a nation of whiners we are.
The birds are *professionals* for cryin out loud. With a resume. I suppose it wouldn't have made a difference if they'd hung a big banner underneath the main one reading:
"No penguins were harmed during this exposition."
I suppose next we'll get a story by Katz on how the penguins couldn't get in to see South Park, either.
"Penguins have rights, too! Waaaaaah!"
I had heard rumors that the locals were going to band together to 'shut off' Cornwall from England to keep the already heavy summer population rise down.
Anyone know? Wish I coulda been there. Somebody should have gone out by the merry maidens and seen if anything lined up.
A friend and I were waiting in line to get into a Dead Milkmen concert, and, being the good engineering students that we were, started talking about the ebb and flow/accordion-like nature of the queue and how you could probably model the behavior as an oscillating system....
Of course then we moved onto traffic jams and how the same behavior applied....and the list of variables we deduced was quite impressive. I wish I could remember more, but I was, um, slightly in a non-remembering physical state if you take my meaning.
then we got inside, he got punched in the throat whilst in the pit, and I had to help break up a chick fight.
*sniff* memories.....
Just who in the hell do Case & Gates think they are, anyway? Some sort of dieties of the computer world? Just the mere notion that they think they can be *it* when it comes to internet access....I shake my head in disbelief.
Microsoft thinks it's anti-trust troubles are just about over...if they (or AOL for that matter) started to take over in the manner they described, putting countless local ma-n-pa ISP's out of business, I would *hope* the government would step in.
The sad part is it will probably happen like this. Big companies will take control of the access points to the internet, just like they've taken control of the access points to the telephone system, the cable Tv systems, etc. etc. Anyone thinking of starting an ISP should probably think twice.
Anyone know when internet2 will start going public?
(sorry for the CWO thing.. ;)
Seriously, though. Can anyone else see where we'll be in another 10 or 15 years? We'll end up with corporate "bases" like the military's got. Onsite housing, medical, security, the PX...restricted airspace, armed guards at the gate...
and Ludvig Van playing 24 hrs a dayly day me brothers!!!
My advice to you is this: lay off the pipe, man.
With all of the other interesting things you could write about, do you really have to advocate film piracy? Breaking the rules? Jiminy Crickets... This one takes the cake.
In a word, childish. This is what kids do when there's rules that won't let them do what they want. *waaaaaah* That's life. Cope.
It probably doesn't have as much to do with their actual age...
it probably has more to do with the fact that older, more experienced programmers, because of their experience, will command a higher salary. In this world of a million and one high tech startups who don't want to/can't pay somebody like this what they're worth, that's the way the chips fall.
That doesn't mean it's right, though. If I had a chance I'd hire one of these "old" guys who could probably read a page of assembler and tell you what it was over some MIS/business school, point-n-click trained Windows weenie any day. These are the guys when faced with a command line go "uhhhh....Where's the Start button!!!???"
Kind of like the old guy who you take your car to, he'd listen to it for a second, and tell you exactly what's wrong...as opposed to the kid who has to get out the scan tool and the meters and plug it in and look up all the codes in the book....yadda yadda.
They're *more* likely to have 'hacker-like tendencies' in my opinion. More likely to *not* be marketing controlled droids, and more likely to know more about the 'real world.' Hire 'Em!!!
Let me just get a couple of things off my under-exercised chest here....
1. Libertarianism is about one thing. The right to do whatever I damn well please in *my* house, with *my* stuff, with *my* family & friends, so long as it doesn't interfere with anybody else's right to do the same, and doesn't involve risking another party. In short, keeping the government out of my home and my choices in life. If I want to let my kids watch South Park in all of it's uncut NC-17 glory, then fine, I'll go rent the tape when it comes out. Its about responsible freedom, not some twisted anarchistic vision.
2. I for one am appalled that you would behave this way in a public establishment which is only trying to enforce the rules placed upon it. You may as well go down to the liquor store and buy the kids hanging around outside that bottle of Boones they're after, or go buy 'em a pack of Camels. You wouldn't do *that*, would you? No.(I hope.) I'm even *more* appalled that this lady would let a complete stranger take any sort of responsibility for her and someone else's children.
3. The 'R' rating has been around for a while, with the same restrictions as always. Just because theaters, in the past, have been overly lax in enforcing it, doesn't mean they have to continue that way. Get pulled over for speeding, and do you tell the officer "but I was going 75 here for the last two weeks, and NOW you're going to ticket me?" Of course not.
I think that it merits some looking into....
Think about it. Flying at 40,000 ft. in your B-2 bomber...
"What're we supposed to drop these on again?"
"Just aim for that line of trees down there!"
The way I see it, there really isn't a whole lot of difference between the two 'camps.'
Stallman is the voice of idealism, sometimes a bit extreme, yes...but he's there to get in our face and remind us what the underlying principles are, or at least *should be.* His views aren't popular, because he won't fsck around trying to sugar coat the message for the masses.
Raymond, on the other hand, seems to be the voice of practicality. "Let's put this out there in front of the suits in terms they can understand and will adopt...that they'll get used to and embrace."
Call it a difference in psychology. Stallman's message is one of 'slap you in face and yell this is how is ought to be dammit! *whack*' While Raymond's is more 'C'mon...this really is a good thing...you *know* you want it...mmmm...good...mmm. C'mon...open up...that's a good PHB...mmmm.'
It's nothing we should be throwing "outbursts" like this one about for, though. IMHO, this article was a step backwards in unifying the two 'camps.'
Nobody *HAS* to force BMW to release it's engine specs. If I want to know how they did it, I'll pull the engine out, put it on a stand, tear it down, measure everything, send chips of metal off to the labs to figure out what it is, etc. etc. They can't stop me from doing that. That and a (i.e.) 350ci V-8 is pretty much a 350. A V-8 is a V-8 is a V-8 (on the lowest level...) You could even build from scratch an exact clone of the latest BMW engine after you've done all that...but why? Now if they (to use the analogy) welded the hood shut and said "We're not going to tell you what's under there...just turn the key and drive!....and if you do otherwise you're violating our terms of sale!"..that's different.
Herein lies the problem with propietary file formats. Yes you *can* do essentially the same thing (go in an examine the files byte-by-byte with a hex editor to view all the little goodies that make it what it is) and really nobody can stop you. But what a royal PAIN.
The 'good point' is that Microsoft has built this grip on our information, and really the only way to break it is to turn these formats *into* "standards." release *all* the specs, all the tags, all the formatting characters, etc. etc. And let anyone build their own V-8. Stop them from 'extending' the standard unless the additions are widely approved by a standards body, like the w3c and ietf....or even sae.
I dunno....
*TOP* maybe?
pipe it to a file or something.
This is really cool. Funny thing is, if this were to happen in the US, the whole place would be bulldozed under and replaced with the Bletchley Memorial Shopping Center.
Their machines don't run on Ununoctium like Rob's does! :) Throw him into the cyclotron!
He's got a point, though....