dammit, you're right.... sorry i have taken so long to admit this, but I had to go all the way to the burbs whence my storage locker lies to retrieve my "box o' bible books". Nice chops.
How long could it be before I can get a fully loaded battle mech?
Read the article! This robot is form "home use" and home use only! Fully loaded Battle Mech? For home use, your robot should be armed with nothing more powerful than a.38 calibre side arm (rifles permitted up to.762 but limited to clips of ten rounds or less).
The site states that Humanoider Roboter von Honda (referred to as "the Robot" from here on...) cannot judge the height of the stairs.... yet "he" (it, she.... heck, them... it does have more than one cpu...) has a binocular vision set up. Back in the late 60's at MIT, Gospar et al were teaching computers to catch a ping pong ball.... catch a ping pong ball.... in the sixties.... shouldn't it be "easy" (read "easy for smart people who spend their lives doing this sorta stuff") to use the triangulated data of binocular vision to figure out the height of a riser?
Apparently you can also download the dangerwillrobinson.wav file for this thing.... but I forget the url:)
Okay, perhaps this is not the perfect solution... however at present it presents the only vaguely-workable solution to the domain name disaster we are experiencing. A lot of people on this site have voiced some very strong opinions and some very viable ideas on solutions. ICANN is sure as hell not lurking/. to come up with policy... so take your ideas and opinions to the source. The worst that can happen is that they are ignored. If you don't sign up, you're gauranteed that your ideas/opinions will be ignored. Most notably, I expect that the people who had good ideas about tlds to sign up. In case you have forgotten who you are, here's the list: SlushDot Colin Smith Montressor m.o alarmo Snarfangel dsplat Mr Z CoughDropAddict Greyfox kerrbear mtphoto
Additionally, there are several folks who have voiced very strong and (sometimes) very well reasoned opinions about domain name administration. I would like to remind said folks again that, while we enjoy your input here, it has zero chance of making an impact on reality if stays on slashdot. If said people need to be reminded of their identities, they are: JohnJake Duane Dibbley DHartung titus-g cd_Csc chrome koran robman haplo21112 hidden Garry Anderson
Lastly, remember that since ICANN is not inviting you specifically to join, a vote of abstention (by not joining) will go unheard.... and if anyone has a better, workable solution, speak it.
Devon Island is totally unable to support what they have in mind.
Actually, the CBC has been all over this angle all day (radio 1). Apparently the locals were notified about this on Thursday. The locals are, of course, not white and don't speak English... if they wanted to build a mars simulation on Frontenac St. you know for damn sure there'd be six years notice and a referendum.
The Society for Mars Theme Parks on Inuit Land has stated however that they are looking after environmental concerns... how? They'll all be peein in barrels and carting it out with them. While I appreciate their concern for soil ammonia (an issue to be sure) it seems like a gesture at best. Permafrost ain't so perma... any bozo with a pickup truck can cause massive surface melts. Remember though that this is the same governmetn coalition that gave us "non-ivasive" uses of wilderness like low-level, supersonic flight testing in Labrador.
On the plus side, if we get to mars and find out that all our previous calculations about gravity, atmospheric pressure and composition yatta yatta were way off, we'll be glad we spent all that cash on Mars Condos.
Interesting. Do you find it offensive that non-Christian churches don't have to pay taxes?
yes.
The aetheists that I know who rant and rave over religious institutions not being taxed also rant and rave about why separation of Church and State is a good thing. You can't have it both ways you know.
I fail to see the point. We have a de facto separation of State and Bicycle Manufacturers. Bicycle Manufacturers pay tax. Tax exemption is tantamount to subsidization. Ergo, the state is subsidizing religious organizations... many with overt political objectives. I find it mildly nauseating that my tax dollars go partially towards picking up the slack left by groups which lobby the government to suppress gay and women's rights.
I don't disagree that the Bible says that women shouldn't hold the priesthood. I'm just saying that that is no excuse for discriminatory hiring practices. As an atheist I can only see this as "special rights" being given to a group because they have an old book that says they deserve said special rights. NB. The Bible also states that borrowing money on interest is a Bad Thing... I would like to see the Xians who put such a great stake in the bible that they oppress women give up their mortgages and credit cards and put some effort into working towards economic justice based on said principles (ie non-OECD debt forgivness)... but by the same token I don't want to see anyone stoned to death for making the wrong kind of incense.
If you don't like this, then you need to get into the debate of freedom of religion. Should Christians be allowed the free exercise of religion?
I, of course, agree with the free practice of religion. But that doesn't mean the practice of religion for free. I'm free to leave the country, but I have to pay for my plane ticket, and pay airport tax on it as well. NB. it is only because of the separation of church and state that freedom of religion exists at all.... a fast look at history has shown that when Xian theology has dominated the political sphere the freedom to be anything but a Xian (usually of a certain denomination) was severely curtailed. Usually with violence. The only way to ensure that all religions and denominations have freedom is to ensure that none have direct sway with the gov't. Tax exemption treads very close to that line. Support the Letter to the Danbury Baptists (for Americans) as the only way to ensur the 1st ammdmt.
Greenpeace had their tax status removed in '87. Just one example. Furthermore, I find it curious as to why Churches are granted such status...
Also from the I'm-too-lazy-to-go-look-for-more-than-one-example file is this bit about the recent baptist convention and their decision to not hire women as pastors. If I publicly announced on cnn that I refused to hire women for my business (or nonprofit) just because they were women... well, that wouldn't go over too well. This example is by denomonation, however it is the largest protestent denomination in the US and the Catholics have a similar stand (ms. O'Connor is involved with a splinter group, unrecognized by the vatican)
That was usually not an occupation. Take, for example, the book of Luke, written by a medical doctor.
1. "Bible writer" was really a bit of fluffery as most of the accounts in the bible were passed orally through several generations and only a few people actually did the writing (70 for the old T if you believe the Septugint). However, the occupation of "Bible info transmitter" is not an exclusive occupation. The laiety makes a large cotribution to the bible. viz. Christ: messiah/carpenter. To say "he was not the messiah, he was a carpenter" is taking mutual exclusion a bit far.
2. That luke is lucius, physician to Paul, is still speculation. There is some compelling evidence, but Bible Writers(TM) have demonstrated a habit of assigning authorship to other sources to increase credibility (witness Moses as author of pentateuch)
hey, someone +1 this guy for quoting the NIV!
Re:Tell me all your thoughts on god...
on
Calculating God
·
· Score: 2
Unfortunately, until we have conclusive evidence one way or the other
On the evolution front, I'm curious as to what would be considered "conclusive evidence"? It seems to me that anti-evolution forces have skewed our definition of that to serve their own ends.
1. Evolution is different than natural selection. We see evolution all around us as a result of livestock husbandry. That is not natural selection however (unless we consider a farmer a force of nature...) Evolution is demonstrable, repeatable and falsifiable and is demonstrated every damn day.
2. Natural selection is pretty much conclusively proved. Fossil records, genetic diversity between populations of the same species yatta yatta. It's massively documented. The "missing link" argument of creationists is specious (no pun intended) at best. There will always be a missing link. The missing link in the set {1,2,3} is 2.5... in {1,2,2.5,3} it's 2.75... ad infinitum. There is more evidence for natural selection than there is for black holes...
3. The bible makes a lot of claims about the natural world that are patently false. I would gladly let creationists teach in classrooms if they can show my an insect that has four feet (Leviticus 11:22-23).
Ultimately, if you have enough faith you can believe anything you want... it just doesn't necessarily make it true. If you're really doing the "working through" thing, I would suggest Sagan's Demon Haunted Wordl and, of course, the bible... although I'd keep a copy of Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible handy while reading it.
Many of the miracles recorded in the Bible have been demonstrated to be natural processes
People always forget the human element though. In the bible we have verbally-reported accounts passed orally through several translations by people who, by the sheer dint of their occupation (bible writer) have demonstrated that they are willing to believe some pretty outrageous things. Add to that the human tendency to hyperbolize for sake of a good story plus the (at that time) very valid concept of rhetoric (whereby hyperbole was completely acceptable if it furthered your argument) and you have a formula for massive distortion. So, first we have to establish some pedigree of fact for these ocurrences.
Not only do science and God not have to be mutually exclusive, they shouldn't be mutually exclusive.
So, basically go with science and then just tack on a footnote saying "As set up by God". Why bother? Violates Occam's Razor.
As both a geek and a christian, I find it offensive to constantly....snip
As an atheist I find it offensive that Christian churches don't pay tax and are permitted to blatantly persue discriminatory hiring practices that would get secular organizations sued...
I find it offensive to constantly be put in a position where I'm confronted by these works of 'literature'
What do you mean "put in a position"? Are people coming uninvited to your door to talk to you about these works of literature? Are people surreptitiously slipping them into hotel romms across the nation?
3.141592654... an irrational number and so is God.
Wrong! According to the Bible God Himself defines pi to be exactly 3.0... a whole, positive integer. Don't believe me? Check out 2 Chr.4:2 and 1 Kg.7:23 and do the "math"
My "second" computer at work is a sparc10 (first is the G4) and I admit it has "zip" for the specs, but, really, the overall level of performance would drive me crazy if I used it as my home machine. The bottom line is that I'm looking to get a fourth machine (1. G3/350, 2. 9600/233, 3. PII/300 laptop) so, frankly, price is the biggest factore. The sad fact of life is that x86 land is where the cheap boxes lie and since I already have a bit of a mac habit I can't really afford to get embroiled with another hardware architecture that has a $2000 entry level...
Oh, and as a Canadian I have to consider that killer exchange
You're absolutely right, I overstated myself with the "perform comparably" line. Let's change that to "perform passably"... we are talking about chips that take twice as many MHz and 3 times the power to do the same thing....
Yes, there are used sparcs... but even a sparc10 is $400 and that's just got no power
I admit it. I like Sun's stuff (boo, hiss and downmod now)... and let's not forget that they gave us a lot of cool and useful things (NFS anyone?).
My biggest hope for this is that it will result in an x86 version of Solaris that will perform comparably to the sparc rev. I would dearly love to have a full-on Solaris box in my bedroom, but the cost of Sparc hardware is just out of this world and is justifiable only for corporate budgets.
If sun gives the community some source and the community gives the world a Solaris that can run on my compaq Barbie/Hotwheels celeron box, I will dance in the streets (after rush hour of course)
Everywhere, all you see is slow-walking and slow-driving people
Take a walk down Queen St. at 5pm... you see the same thing. Your point?
"Brain-Sucking Alien" emblem (available here as a screen saver), all over
There are about a million times as many pictures of the Queen in Toronto (check your pocket change)... so, uh, your point?
Since they seem to completely distrust and shun every other ethnic group
Gee, it seems like you are the one shunning and distrusting other ethnic groups... so what's your point?
Multiculturalism is a dangerous experiment.
Hm, seems like the last "experiment" we had with state sponsored racism (Germany '33 - '45) turned out to be extremely dangerous. It also failed, as Mr. Hitler et al ruined most of Europe and (in Hitler's case) didn't even have the courage to stick around and take what was coming to him after we kicked his ass.... so, really, I don't get your point.
I hate being forced by my government to be a part of it. I hate Canada.
It's time to stop irresponsibly dropping cash on space research and start focusing on Earth-based work
but.... I likemy teflon pan.... and although I think that plastic is used stupidly (why give me something that is permanent for a use that is obviously temporary???) HDPE can be wonderful stuff! Hey, did I mention that my local electric company just yesterday started offering solar power?
But don't trust me, I'm just some geek in an over-air-conditioned room.... read what the ieee thinks about the benefits we got, get and will continue to get from ye olde space programme
In a war, you win by imposing chaos on your enemy and allowing your units to function. Since we are organized chaos, it's hard for them to impose further chaos on us, and easy for us to impose chaos upon them.
I don't necessarily think that "chaos" is the right concept... We have a very different organizational structure: 1. It's based on de jure rather than de facto authority. As Kropotkin said "in the matter of shoes I deffer to the authority of a cobler". 2. It's decentralized. Sure there're a few high profile folks, but by and large it runs at the klatch level.
don't fight conventionally when you can win a different way.
That comes back to the positional vs. geurilla theory. MS has a massive positional advantage in the desktop arena that gives them a huge advantage. This advantage (ie, fud, saftey-in-numbers etc.) easily offsets technological weaknesses. They're the VHS of the world. We're the 3/4 inch (Apple gets to be Betamax). Honestly, VHS is not a great tech... but who the hell is going to buy a 3/4" deck if there are only 3 releases available to rent and you have to drive to another province to get them? I'm enough of an idealist that I believe that if Endusers were given an unfettered opportunity to make an informed choice they would choose Linux more than Winders. We can't get to that position by following the MS formula, though. We need to move into the niches as branch from there. The server niche goes nicely so far and embedded is shaping up, but neither of those are consumer niches. Apple has desktop publishing and soon amateur video. What do we have?
And, as the original poster said, remember that the pie is growing - and we keep getting larger fractions
Yes, the pie is growing but the fractions are changing much more slowly than the pie growth...
> We are fighting a war. See, no, we're not. We're competing in a market space.
Hence the "rhetoric" warnings in my post.... Any competition has to be played within the boundaries of commonly-agreed rules. The less and laxer the rules, the more "competitive" the situation gets... follow that to its logical extreme and you get competition with no rules including the prohibition on physical violence, ie war. Yes, reductum ad absurdio... but that's the what the 'rhetoric' tags are for.
It's only our binary-obsessed Western mythos
War is an affliction on all cultures and in all times.
It's not a war. It's a competition, in the capitalist sense -- everyone wins different sized slices of the pie, but anyone who has a slice at all is a winner.
No, that's not true. Well, okay, it is true... but not in the context of traditional capitilism. Capitalism is based on the assumption of limited resources and unlimited demand (driven by necessity or greed). A finite pie, and no slice big enough. In this scenario, the only way to increase your pie share is at the expense of your competitor(s). The theory is that this should lead to a balance of players, each struggling against each other and providing the consumers with the benefits of lower prices/better products (Smith).... the reality is that situation is easily made unstable and results in monopoly capitalism (Reality). Anyway, that's straight Marx and lord knows hewrote enough of it so my repetition isn't going to help....
You can say that Microsoft is treating this as a war, and so we need to react in kind, but I maintain that setting "beat Microsoft" as the goal of any alternative project is the death knell for quality
No, beating Microsoft is just a side effect. The real objective is to get onto the nation's desktop. If Linux gets there and people decide, after making a fair decision, that they would rather have Winders... well, so be it. The fact of the matter is that for a variety of reasons that have little to do with technical merit, MS has a strangle hold on those desktops. They will not invite their competition into this hearland, so "we" must go there without their blessing. Nobody fights a war for the sake of killing the the opposition. They fight a war to gain territory or resources or political autonomy. The fact that the oppposing army (well, the civilians mostly...) get killed is a byproduct.
I would like to state one last time, that war is a bad thing and were it not for the fact that we tend to glorify it in the eyes of young boys of the middle class and drill it into their skulls daily, I would probably never consider it an appropriate metaphor for anything.
Yes, it's a story about a big expo. Yes, it's main thrust is that "everyone" is doing the winders thang. Is it "irrellevant" or a "sign of decaying standards at slashdot"? No.
For the last year the linux-centric media (here included) have been blaring that linux is "ready for the desktop", "set for primetime" and "friendly enough for my dad". If you get most of yer daily quotient of geek news from said media, you might actually get into a head space where you believe that linux's domination of Joe Q. Enduser's desktop is imminent. If anything, this article is a much-needed reminder that this is notthe case.
Start rhetoric: We are fighting a war. A war against a very large, very well-funded enemy. This enemy owns most of the land and major resources. We are iquana-eating geurillas living in the hills, hiding under bushes every time a helicoper flies over. In any geurilla war, there comes a time when the geurillas have to make a decision to stop playing hit-and-run and move into the arena of positional warfare. The biggest threat to success is making that decision too soon. A few victories can swell heads fast and lead to brash maneouvers later on.End rhetoric.
Here's the facts: linux owns a tiny percentage of the boxes out there and then even then only in narrow markets. The Fatherland of the desktop is still far, far behind the lines. If we tout linux as desktop-ready before it can actually compete we run the risk of further entrenching the notion that our beloved OS is a toy for propellerheads and nothing more.
It's good to be reminded that the recipie-catalogers and porn-surfers of the world are winders zombies. It helps prevent hubris. We may celebrate the fact that the media has dropped "upstart" as a mandatory adjective when they talk about linux, but remember that Apple lost "beleaguered" two years ago and they still can't put a serious dent in redmond. We're still in the hills, Winders is still down on the convention floor... we need to remeber that if we are to have a hope of winning.
For the record, I think war is absolutely the stupidist thing humans have ever thought up. I chose the analogy only to cover up my complete lack of understanding about sports:)
I wrote a spaceship game on my Vic-20 (in basic, if you can stomach that) where the ship would actually orbit around fixed planets.... it didn't account for drag either, but it sure wasa drag to play....
think what the apollo missions were able to do without the assistance of an Athlon..
Actually, the entire Apollo mission only had 64k of RAM at its disposal. Minesweeper uses more than 64k. Puts a whole new perspective on bloatware doesn't it?
Robert Frisbee, senior engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Really. The rocket scientist's name is Frisbee?
My question is, with the financial ruin of Russia, they must have buckets of rockets sitting around without enough cash for gas. Why not just pick up one of those at the Moscow Multi-Family Garage Sale? Russia may not have the hottest safety record in space, but it's gottabe safer than a barrel of hair dye in a tube!
Slashdot Mirror
dammit, you're right.... sorry i have taken so long to admit this, but I had to go all the way to the burbs whence my storage locker lies to retrieve my "box o' bible books". Nice chops.
Read the article! This robot is form "home use" and home use only! Fully loaded Battle Mech? For home use, your robot should be armed with nothing more powerful than a .38 calibre side arm (rifles permitted up to .762 but limited to clips of ten rounds or less).
Sheesh.
Apparently you can also download the dangerwillrobinson.wav file for this thing.... but I forget the url :)
SlushDot
Colin Smith
Montressor
m.o
alarmo
Snarfangel
dsplat
Mr Z
CoughDropAddict
Greyfox
kerrbear
mtphoto
Additionally, there are several folks who have voiced very strong and (sometimes) very well reasoned opinions about domain name administration. I would like to remind said folks again that, while we enjoy your input here, it has zero chance of making an impact on reality if stays on slashdot. If said people need to be reminded of their identities, they are:
JohnJake
Duane Dibbley
DHartung
titus-g
cd_Csc
chrome koran
robman
haplo21112
hidden
Garry Anderson
Lastly, remember that since ICANN is not inviting you specifically to join, a vote of abstention (by not joining) will go unheard.... and if anyone has a better, workable solution, speak it.
Actually, the CBC has been all over this angle all day (radio 1). Apparently the locals were notified about this on Thursday. The locals are, of course, not white and don't speak English... if they wanted to build a mars simulation on Frontenac St. you know for damn sure there'd be six years notice and a referendum.
The Society for Mars Theme Parks on Inuit Land has stated however that they are looking after environmental concerns... how? They'll all be peein in barrels and carting it out with them. While I appreciate their concern for soil ammonia (an issue to be sure) it seems like a gesture at best. Permafrost ain't so perma... any bozo with a pickup truck can cause massive surface melts. Remember though that this is the same governmetn coalition that gave us "non-ivasive" uses of wilderness like low-level, supersonic flight testing in Labrador.
On the plus side, if we get to mars and find out that all our previous calculations about gravity, atmospheric pressure and composition yatta yatta were way off, we'll be glad we spent all that cash on Mars Condos.
yes.
The aetheists that I know who rant and rave over religious institutions not being taxed also rant and rave about why separation of Church and State is a good thing. You can't have it both ways you know.
I fail to see the point. We have a de facto separation of State and Bicycle Manufacturers. Bicycle Manufacturers pay tax. Tax exemption is tantamount to subsidization. Ergo, the state is subsidizing religious organizations... many with overt political objectives. I find it mildly nauseating that my tax dollars go partially towards picking up the slack left by groups which lobby the government to suppress gay and women's rights.
If you don't like this, then you need to get into the debate of freedom of religion. Should Christians be allowed the free exercise of religion?
I, of course, agree with the free practice of religion. But that doesn't mean the practice of religion for free. I'm free to leave the country, but I have to pay for my plane ticket, and pay airport tax on it as well. NB. it is only because of the separation of church and state that freedom of religion exists at all.... a fast look at history has shown that when Xian theology has dominated the political sphere the freedom to be anything but a Xian (usually of a certain denomination) was severely curtailed. Usually with violence. The only way to ensure that all religions and denominations have freedom is to ensure that none have direct sway with the gov't. Tax exemption treads very close to that line. Support the Letter to the Danbury Baptists (for Americans) as the only way to ensur the 1st ammdmt.
Secular non-profits don't pay taxes either
Greenpeace had their tax status removed in '87. Just one example. Furthermore, I find it curious as to why Churches are granted such status...
Also from the I'm-too-lazy-to-go-look-for-more-than-one-example file is this bit about the recent baptist convention and their decision to not hire women as pastors. If I publicly announced on cnn that I refused to hire women for my business (or nonprofit) just because they were women... well, that wouldn't go over too well. This example is by denomonation, however it is the largest protestent denomination in the US and the Catholics have a similar stand (ms. O'Connor is involved with a splinter group, unrecognized by the vatican)
1. "Bible writer" was really a bit of fluffery as most of the accounts in the bible were passed orally through several generations and only a few people actually did the writing (70 for the old T if you believe the Septugint). However, the occupation of "Bible info transmitter" is not an exclusive occupation. The laiety makes a large cotribution to the bible. viz. Christ: messiah/carpenter. To say "he was not the messiah, he was a carpenter" is taking mutual exclusion a bit far.
2. That luke is lucius, physician to Paul, is still speculation. There is some compelling evidence, but Bible Writers(TM) have demonstrated a habit of assigning authorship to other sources to increase credibility (witness Moses as author of pentateuch)
hey, someone +1 this guy for quoting the NIV!
On the evolution front, I'm curious as to what would be considered "conclusive evidence"? It seems to me that anti-evolution forces have skewed our definition of that to serve their own ends.
1. Evolution is different than natural selection. We see evolution all around us as a result of livestock husbandry. That is not natural selection however (unless we consider a farmer a force of nature...) Evolution is demonstrable, repeatable and falsifiable and is demonstrated every damn day.
2. Natural selection is pretty much conclusively proved. Fossil records, genetic diversity between populations of the same species yatta yatta. It's massively documented. The "missing link" argument of creationists is specious (no pun intended) at best. There will always be a missing link. The missing link in the set {1,2,3} is 2.5... in {1,2,2.5,3} it's 2.75... ad infinitum. There is more evidence for natural selection than there is for black holes...
3. The bible makes a lot of claims about the natural world that are patently false. I would gladly let creationists teach in classrooms if they can show my an insect that has four feet (Leviticus 11:22-23).
Ultimately, if you have enough faith you can believe anything you want... it just doesn't necessarily make it true. If you're really doing the "working through" thing, I would suggest Sagan's Demon Haunted Wordl and, of course, the bible... although I'd keep a copy of Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible handy while reading it.
People always forget the human element though. In the bible we have verbally-reported accounts passed orally through several translations by people who, by the sheer dint of their occupation (bible writer) have demonstrated that they are willing to believe some pretty outrageous things. Add to that the human tendency to hyperbolize for sake of a good story plus the (at that time) very valid concept of rhetoric (whereby hyperbole was completely acceptable if it furthered your argument) and you have a formula for massive distortion. So, first we have to establish some pedigree of fact for these ocurrences.
Not only do science and God not have to be mutually exclusive, they shouldn't be mutually exclusive.
So, basically go with science and then just tack on a footnote saying "As set up by God". Why bother? Violates Occam's Razor.
As an atheist I find it offensive that Christian churches don't pay tax and are permitted to blatantly persue discriminatory hiring practices that would get secular organizations sued...
I find it offensive to constantly be put in a position where I'm confronted by these works of 'literature'
What do you mean "put in a position"? Are people coming uninvited to your door to talk to you about these works of literature? Are people surreptitiously slipping them into hotel romms across the nation?
Wrong! According to the Bible God Himself defines pi to be exactly 3.0... a whole, positive integer. Don't believe me? Check out 2 Chr.4:2 and 1 Kg.7:23 and do the "math"
My "second" computer at work is a sparc10 (first is the G4) and I admit it has "zip" for the specs, but, really, the overall level of performance would drive me crazy if I used it as my home machine. The bottom line is that I'm looking to get a fourth machine (1. G3/350, 2. 9600/233, 3. PII/300 laptop) so, frankly, price is the biggest factore. The sad fact of life is that x86 land is where the cheap boxes lie and since I already have a bit of a mac habit I can't really afford to get embroiled with another hardware architecture that has a $2000 entry level...
Oh, and as a Canadian I have to consider that killer exchange
Yes, there are used sparcs... but even a sparc10 is $400 and that's just got no power
I admit it. I like Sun's stuff (boo, hiss and downmod now)... and let's not forget that they gave us a lot of cool and useful things (NFS anyone?).
My biggest hope for this is that it will result in an x86 version of Solaris that will perform comparably to the sparc rev. I would dearly love to have a full-on Solaris box in my bedroom, but the cost of Sparc hardware is just out of this world and is justifiable only for corporate budgets.
If sun gives the community some source and the community gives the world a Solaris that can run on my compaq Barbie/Hotwheels celeron box, I will dance in the streets (after rush hour of course)
Take a walk down Queen St. at 5pm... you see the same thing. Your point?
"Brain-Sucking Alien" emblem (available here as a screen saver), all over
There are about a million times as many pictures of the Queen in Toronto (check your pocket change)... so, uh, your point?
Since they seem to completely distrust and shun every other ethnic group
Gee, it seems like you are the one shunning and distrusting other ethnic groups... so what's your point?
Multiculturalism is a dangerous experiment.
Hm, seems like the last "experiment" we had with state sponsored racism (Germany '33 - '45) turned out to be extremely dangerous. It also failed, as Mr. Hitler et al ruined most of Europe and (in Hitler's case) didn't even have the courage to stick around and take what was coming to him after we kicked his ass.... so, really, I don't get your point.
I hate being forced by my government to be a part of it. I hate Canada.
Congratulations. Get the fuck out.
but.... I likemy teflon pan.... and although I think that plastic is used stupidly (why give me something that is permanent for a use that is obviously temporary???) HDPE can be wonderful stuff! Hey, did I mention that my local electric company just yesterday started offering solar power?
But don't trust me, I'm just some geek in an over-air-conditioned room.... read what the ieee thinks about the benefits we got, get and will continue to get from ye olde space programme
I don't necessarily think that "chaos" is the right concept... We have a very different organizational structure: 1. It's based on de jure rather than de facto authority. As Kropotkin said "in the matter of shoes I deffer to the authority of a cobler".
2. It's decentralized. Sure there're a few high profile folks, but by and large it runs at the klatch level.
don't fight conventionally when you can win a different way.
That comes back to the positional vs. geurilla theory. MS has a massive positional advantage in the desktop arena that gives them a huge advantage. This advantage (ie, fud, saftey-in-numbers etc.) easily offsets technological weaknesses. They're the VHS of the world. We're the 3/4 inch (Apple gets to be Betamax). Honestly, VHS is not a great tech... but who the hell is going to buy a 3/4" deck if there are only 3 releases available to rent and you have to drive to another province to get them? I'm enough of an idealist that I believe that if Endusers were given an unfettered opportunity to make an informed choice they would choose Linux more than Winders. We can't get to that position by following the MS formula, though. We need to move into the niches as branch from there. The server niche goes nicely so far and embedded is shaping up, but neither of those are consumer niches. Apple has desktop publishing and soon amateur video. What do we have?
And, as the original poster said, remember that the pie is growing - and we keep getting larger fractions
Yes, the pie is growing but the fractions are changing much more slowly than the pie growth...
And my standard disclaimer... war sucks.
See, no, we're not.
We're competing in a market space.
Hence the "rhetoric" warnings in my post.... Any competition has to be played within the boundaries of commonly-agreed rules. The less and laxer the rules, the more "competitive" the situation gets... follow that to its logical extreme and you get competition with no rules including the prohibition on physical violence, ie war. Yes, reductum ad absurdio... but that's the what the 'rhetoric' tags are for.
It's only our binary-obsessed Western mythos
War is an affliction on all cultures and in all times.
It's not a war. It's a competition, in the capitalist sense -- everyone wins different sized slices of the pie, but anyone who has a slice at all is a winner.
No, that's not true. Well, okay, it is true... but not in the context of traditional capitilism. Capitalism is based on the assumption of limited resources and unlimited demand (driven by necessity or greed). A finite pie, and no slice big enough. In this scenario, the only way to increase your pie share is at the expense of your competitor(s). The theory is that this should lead to a balance of players, each struggling against each other and providing the consumers with the benefits of lower prices/better products (Smith).... the reality is that situation is easily made unstable and results in monopoly capitalism (Reality). Anyway, that's straight Marx and lord knows hewrote enough of it so my repetition isn't going to help....
You can say that Microsoft is treating this as a war, and so we need to react in kind, but I maintain that setting "beat Microsoft" as the goal of any alternative project is the death knell for quality
No, beating Microsoft is just a side effect. The real objective is to get onto the nation's desktop. If Linux gets there and people decide, after making a fair decision, that they would rather have Winders... well, so be it. The fact of the matter is that for a variety of reasons that have little to do with technical merit, MS has a strangle hold on those desktops. They will not invite their competition into this hearland, so "we" must go there without their blessing. Nobody fights a war for the sake of killing the the opposition. They fight a war to gain territory or resources or political autonomy. The fact that the oppposing army (well, the civilians mostly...) get killed is a byproduct.
I would like to state one last time, that war is a bad thing and were it not for the fact that we tend to glorify it in the eyes of young boys of the middle class and drill it into their skulls daily, I would probably never consider it an appropriate metaphor for anything.
For the last year the linux-centric media (here included) have been blaring that linux is "ready for the desktop", "set for primetime" and "friendly enough for my dad". If you get most of yer daily quotient of geek news from said media, you might actually get into a head space where you believe that linux's domination of Joe Q. Enduser's desktop is imminent. If anything, this article is a much-needed reminder that this is notthe case.
Start rhetoric: We are fighting a war. A war against a very large, very well-funded enemy. This enemy owns most of the land and major resources. We are iquana-eating geurillas living in the hills, hiding under bushes every time a helicoper flies over. In any geurilla war, there comes a time when the geurillas have to make a decision to stop playing hit-and-run and move into the arena of positional warfare. The biggest threat to success is making that decision too soon. A few victories can swell heads fast and lead to brash maneouvers later on.End rhetoric.
Here's the facts: linux owns a tiny percentage of the boxes out there and then even then only in narrow markets. The Fatherland of the desktop is still far, far behind the lines. If we tout linux as desktop-ready before it can actually compete we run the risk of further entrenching the notion that our beloved OS is a toy for propellerheads and nothing more.
It's good to be reminded that the recipie-catalogers and porn-surfers of the world are winders zombies. It helps prevent hubris. We may celebrate the fact that the media has dropped "upstart" as a mandatory adjective when they talk about linux, but remember that Apple lost "beleaguered" two years ago and they still can't put a serious dent in redmond. We're still in the hills, Winders is still down on the convention floor... we need to remeber that if we are to have a hope of winning.
For the record, I think war is absolutely the stupidist thing humans have ever thought up. I chose the analogy only to cover up my complete lack of understanding about sports :)
Actually, the entire Apollo mission only had 64k of RAM at its disposal. Minesweeper uses more than 64k. Puts a whole new perspective on bloatware doesn't it?
Robert Frisbee, senior engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Really. The rocket scientist's name is Frisbee?
My question is, with the financial ruin of Russia, they must have buckets of rockets sitting around without enough cash for gas. Why not just pick up one of those at the Moscow Multi-Family Garage Sale? Russia may not have the hottest safety record in space, but it's gottabe safer than a barrel of hair dye in a tube!
I like batteries... a lot.