Re:I paid for that, and you might have also.
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Inside Echelon
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· Score: 1
You must have never heard of Nathan Hale. The quote "I only regret I have but one life to lose for my country" were his last words before being hanged as a spy on September 22, 1776 - the first American captured and executed for spying. He is considered a hero for the US Intelligence agencies, and a statue to him stands in front of the CIA headquarters. Our founding fathers not only believed in aggressive collection of intelligence, they practiced it and used it to help us win wars, not the least of which was the American Revolution.
I am not surprised at all that the US and others collect information on both allies and declared enemies alike. There are no "friends" among nations, only common interests. How many times in history has a nation formed an alliance, entered into a war in their ally's support, then later in the same war shifted loyalty and fought against their so-called "friend"?
The world is not the friendly place we would sometimes like to think it is. The keeping of secrets and the discovery of the secrets of others has been part of maintaining a country since the beginning of recorded history, and will likely remain so for a long time.
HTML 3.2 is to blame. Most of the deprecated tags date from that version.
I'll have to argue with you on the source of these errors: the doctype definition on the page clearly defines the standard to compare against as HTML 3.2. Here's the tag:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
This is a change from the last time I ran a validator on Slashdot's code; before the only error it gave was that the author didn't specify which DTD to use for validation. While I admit they should perhaps have chosen HTML 4.0 transitional instead, thay do seem to be making good efforts at producing clean, portable code. I've read slashdot on Lynx and AvantGo (a PalmOS-based browser) and while it's a bit inconvenient to read on a palm pilot screen it was rendered accurately.
I guess my point is that while we shouldn't be making poor excuses to cover up the mistakes of our editors, they are doing a decent job. Let's cut them (and the standards comittee) some slack, OK?
Umm... Someone correct me if I'm mistaken, but aren't the shuttles routinely carried from point ot point on the back of airplanes? I seem to remember seeing pictures of this not long ago, and the plane looked rather similar to a 747. It may have been a C-130 or some other military plane instead, it wasn't a very good picture.
The real obstacle to using planes as an airborne launch platform is that the shuttle would need to carry enough fuel to get from 20K feet to orbit - THAT might be too much of a strain on the jet...
"Space exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." - Buzz Aldarin
The fuel was also a thick gelatin at normal temperatures. At normal temperatures/pressures instead of spilling all over the ground (like Gasoline or other "normal" liquids would) it could be pumped through the fuel lines in spite of the gaps.
"Space exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." - Buzz aldarin
This is 3rd hand information, take it for what it's worth...
A friend of mine used to work for Microsoft as a "permatemp". If what he tells me is true, the MS API's are not documented even internally. When he asked where documentation was on the various API's, he was told, "the source code is the documentation." Evidently, the sharing of source code among the various development groups is how they keep things working across the various applications and versions.
I have no way to confirm the truth of this one way or the other. On the other hand, I've known my friend for a long time, and I trust his report. If this really is the case then releasing the source code for review would be the only way to release the API.
"Space exploration is not infinite circles in low earth orbit." - Buzz Aldarin
I'm more interested in the freedom-related issues related to ASP's in this case. For example, whose freedom is beng infringed if the source code is not distributed along with the software? Does the end-user need his freedom to modify and redistribute a program written to be distributed across a large network by a central server?
It would seem to me that the end users are unlikely to benefit from the source code, and are very unlikely to set up a competing ASP server using their workstation as the hardware platform for it. Even if they are qualified to suggest patches, those patches would have to be approved through the sysadmin anyway. These freedoms would be more valued by the system administrator who runs the ASP server.
I read your post because it intrigued me - I admire your willingness to express your opinion. I don't intend this as a flame, so PLEASE don't take it like that. I'm just really curious about why you feel so strongly that it's a Bad Thing (TM). Please fill me in, I'm honestly interested in the answers to my questions about this.
Your primary complaint, "freeloaders leeching off the cable co's network," suggests that either the cable co. is being ripped off by people using their infrastructure or that you are having your bandwidth stolen.
I have trouble believeing that the cable co. isn't going to protect its investment. Don't they charge rent on the modems? Aren't they charging access fees to cover their infrastructure costs? How would any of this change if they started allowing people to pay another company for the email accounts, web space, and Usenet access that accompany an account with an "Internet Service Provider"?
So, assuming that the people taking advantage of the "open access" are still paying the cable company for the bandwidth, who loses? Even if the "new" ISP's can work the deal so that is costs the same to the end user (ISP fee + rent on modem + access fee == old fee paid to cable company for proprietary cable internet service) the same people would be signing up for the service as would have before. I don't see how it would attract a big crowd of new users, especially not big enough to saturate the network and create notable bandwidth problems.
That's my take on the situation. All that, just to say, in a few words, "I don't get it." What issues have I overlooked? Are there other factors that I'm not understanding about the situation? Please let me know.
I know that under the Freedom of Information Act we have the right to request any documents that They (TM) have on us, and They (TM) have to give them to us. I assume that you'd have to talk to the agency who was keeping the files, but I've never tried it out... Has anyone out there done this/know how it might be done?
I'm surprised no one's noticed...
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LonelyNet
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· Score: 1
that their research methods probably are skewing their data! Reading through the Stanford site I noticed that they distributed WebTV consoles to their test subjects (see methods used). As I see it, this will cause (a) a decrease in TV viewing proportional to Internet use due to the use of the television and (b) a decrease in telephone conversation proportional to the time spent using the line as a dialup connection. And then they act surprised that such a trend shows up in their data. I wonder how many of the people who said they do more work at home and the same amount at the office are telecommuters?
I'm surprised that they didn't do a better job of analyzing their methods. Their publication doesn't seem to even consider the possibility of these variables confounding each other. At best, it shows a lack of awareness of the medium, at worst a blatant disregard for standard self - analysis procedures. It seems to me that their research itself may have been the cause for some of the percieved trends. At this point it would take a lot of explanation to convince me that this survey wasn't entirely inconclusive.
"Space exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit" -Buzz Aldarin
ecampbel's _Simple Letters won't cut it_ is perhaps the most important post I've seen on this thread. To have an effect on their decision making process, we need to answer the questions they're asking and address the issues they are examining. If my reading of their document is correct, informed and autoritative letters will hold much more weight on their decision than a mass of knee-jerk activist-type responses.
I hope high-profile autorities in the Linux community will respond to their request.
Don't get me wrong, I'm going to write in, too, even though I'm in no way autoritative or high-profile. On the other hand, I'll be writing with a copy of the request document in hand.
"Space exploration is not endless circles in low-earth orbit." -Buzz Aldarin
1) Where on their website do they advertise this free service? It doesn't even get a hit on their on-site search engine.
2) If you're so big on worldspy, why is your email address at netzero? Doesn't worldspy offer and email inbox with their service?
Don't get me wrong; I currently use netzero for my home connection. On the other hand, I think I'd really enjoy switching to someone that just tracks my usage instead of force-feeding me large images. I'm not really that big on caring whether people see where I go when I surf the net; I just wish they would get a clue and at least force-feed me advertisements I'm actually interested in...
It turns out that there is already a business model out there for this. There are many mail-order pharmacies in business which will ship you drugs from out of state. They are quite successful (although limited in number) and offer a modest discount over most hospital or drug store pharmacies. I know about this because when I got my new employee orientation at work they reccommended the use of mail-order pharmacies because it decreases costs both to me and to the insurance company.
Your point about there being a significant time lag is quite correct - you don't want to do this for your first filling of the prescription. On the other hand, if you're on a long-term medication program it can add up to a big savings. It's also possible to get just enough doses from your local pharmacy to carry you through until your mail-order prescription arrives. I've been assured that the people filling the prescriptions at these mail-order houses really are full-time pharmacists (ie. with degrees in the appropriate field); I tend to accept that pretty easily considering that we're talking about people reccommended by an insurance company.
The bottom line is that the business model is there. I don't have all of the specific details here in front of me (I'd have to go home for that), but I can post them later if someone's REALLY interested in doing a BBB search on the individual houses. Porting this business model to the web wouldn't take a lot of work, and would potentially speed up the responses time.
Doesn't the Food and Drug Administration already review new drugs and place a fine on improper distribution? If I understand correctly, there are mail-order pharmacies that will ship out of state, and they are already under federal jurisdiction. Regulating US-based e-commerce of prescription drugs seems to be a natural extension of that role. This wouldn't keep people from ordering drugs from France, just like it wouldn't keep them from physically going to Mexico to buy them.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the more important significance of this is the fact that the Feds are finally trying to get into the Net world in a real way. It will be interesting to see if it has any effect.
The word "Sorgenti" that's all over the place is the producer's name: it translates to "Sources".
Sorry for nitpicking, but "sources" may not be the best translation. The concept is closer to that of an artesian well - the "mountain spring" type of water source. There is a more specific word for "spring" in the water source sence in Italian ("fonte"), but if I understand correctly (I am not a native) it connotes a less active type of spring or a well.
The fun part of the word "sorgenti" is that it doesn't necessarily imply water: it could be an active source of something else - crude oil or, in this case, innovation, for example. It's also in the plural (singular is "sorgente"), implying that they are an active source of many different (presumably desirable) things.
In any case, "Sorgenti" still carries with it the mental image of "artesian wells" of whatever it is that you're getting out of it. The verb most closely related to it, "sorgere", means to spring or emerge energetically, like water from an artesian well. The adjective for this is "sorgente" (same word for both noun and adjective! And they say European languages are less ambiguous:), the plural of which is "sorgenti". Therefore, in advertising they would take advantage of the double meaning of the word by calling their products "prodotti Sorgenti", which means both "products of Sorgenti corporation" and "new, active, energetic products". Kudos to the marketing guru who came up with this name, it's linguistically a wonderful choice for the Italian language and culture.
Oh ye of little faith! I see that Tower has truly cast his pearls before swine. Fundamental principles are laid before you and identified as such, and you accuse the moderator of an input error!!! When will the world finally accept the truth???
On a more serious note, I believe that informative is a wonderful moderator adjective for that post; if nothing else it exposes those who are unaware to the "darktron" theory of light bulb functionality. I should add that one of the proofs of this theory is the black residue in burnt out light bulbs - the bulb is saturated with darktrons and cannot absorb any more!
And while this rates right up there with the "magic smoke" theory of computers, it is part of our geek culture. A part that we should cherish. Informative, indeed.
"The scientific mind is open, if not fully ventilated." -Martin Gardner, from Scientific American
In the interest of not being completely closed-minded, I actually went in and read some of the articles. I had hoped to find some well-reasoned arguments somewhere in there, but was sorely disappointed. Most of them seemed to rely on emotional appeals and questionable analogies, not the facts of the case.
Two of my favorite examples:
One article compared punishing Microsoft for succeeding to forcing a talented basketball player to wear weights on his wrists and ankles when playing. I agree with this analogy at the level of individual players. On the other hand, I find it interesting that the NBA, along with most other professional sports associations, has done something very similar to the teams as organizations - salary caps. It isn't hard to understand the logic. Teams that win get good crowd turnout, go to chanpionships, and earn more money per year than teams that lose habitually. If a team were able to gather a large pool of talent, such that it consistently earned large amounts of money, it could spend the extra money on buying talent - shamelessly bribing the best players from other teams to come to theirs. A successful team could theoretically buy out all of the best players in the league, win every game, and buy every rookie with bright prospects. It would be extremely hard to displace such a team from the top position in the rankings. While it could be argued that they earned their success, the result would be that the quality of competition in the league would diminish - both the impoverished teams who can't afford good players and the rich team whose players never get really challenged (except perhaps in practice) would be hurt by such behavior. Ask any sports fan if they would be in favor of removing salary caps, and see what they say. This is what Microsoft, in essence, has done. I would argue that regardless of the pool of talent at their resources, their attitude of "Microsoft Everywhere" (translated, "Us or No-one") has already done similar harm to the software industry. Their prodcts are not superior, just better marketed and in a position to stay that way indefinitely.
Here's a quote from "Judge Jackson's Findings of Fiction" by Dr. Edwin A. Locke, Ph.D.:
Market dominance has to be earned through a long struggle, by providing better products and better prices than anyone else. Dominant companies who falter (as did Xerox, IBM, General Motors and Kodak) will find their market share eroded, sometimes very quickly.
There is no threat from these dominant players so along as their competitors are legally permitted to enter the field, invent new products, and combine with each other to gain the needed market power. (emphasis added)
It's interesting that Microsoft never had such a struggle, nor are their products better or prices lower than those who would compete with them.
Another analogy comes to mind, if you will allow a Biblical reference. At the time of Moses' birth the Pharoh issued a command that all male Hebrew babies should be killed at birth. It was feared that, if allowed to reproduce freely, the Jews might become independent of their Egyptian masters and rise up in rebellion.
Compare this to Microsoft's acquisition of companies whose products threaten any of Microsoft's products and/or would free users of their dependence on the Windows platform. In many cases, Microsoft has no intention of implementing these technologies in ways that could be useful; instead they are simply bought and bundled, then forgotten. Consider the case of Intel's Native Signal Processing (NSP) technology. Microsoft threatened to entirely withdraw their support if Intel continued to develop such technologies, and offered as an alternative that the capabilities offered by NSP would be incorporated into Direct X. Intel accepted the terms, but Microsoft didn't deliver.
"Even as late as the end of 1998, though, Microsoft still had not implemented key capabilities that Intel has been poised to offer consumers in 1995."
Paragraph 101, USA vs. MS Finding of Fact
That is what I call harming the consumer; that's also what I call killing the baby at birth.
Many other examples could be listed if I had the time to research and list them all. This is why I support the antitrust case against Microsoft.
"Space exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." - Buzz Aldarin
I just came back from the Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism's site, and I wasn't impressed. None of the three links to "hot news items," specifically an FAQ and two articles, entitled "Judge Jackson's Findings of Fiction," and "Why America Should Care About Antitrust" repectively, worked. With a bit of searching I found that if you clicked on "More Essays on US v. Microsoft" there were other links to the same articles that did work, but I didn't bother.
<logical fallacy>If an organization can't manage to even present a decent page of HTML to me, I don't trust them to have the judgement to present facts to me in a reliable manner.</logical fallacy>
Yes, I'm admitting that I'm guilty of logical fallacy and being closed-minded; however, I think I've listened to M$ lies for long enough to recognise the sound of one coming.
resolution of certain time-travel paradoxes
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Time Doesn't Exist
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· Score: 1
If this is correct, then several hard questions like, "if I traveled back in time and met myself, would I remember having done it before I left," "...could I become my own father," "... if I killed myself, would I cease to exist" etc. become very easy to explain.
You would remember having met yourself, since returning to any point that you had previously passed through defines that point as a place where there are two of you: you the way you remember yourself and also the "time traveller you" with the memory of yourself being that way. It's not hard to see why this is a requirement: if you weren't in two places at once when you got to that point the first time, then you can't actually arrive back at the same point.
It also wouldn't be inconsistent to become your own father - simply returning to the old path through platonia at a previous point and marrying your mother while continuing along the same path would be sufficient. Of course, your father would have to remember being you, and you'd have some severe deja vu to deal with as you raise yourself.
This brings up other problems, though. This means that time travel as we have typically conceptuallized it would be extremely difficult. To re-enter history where you remember it you would have to exactly match your velocity through platonia (direction and speed - there's no guarantee that once you start time travel that you're travelling at the same speed as the rest of us!), or else you will end up in a different reality than the one you experienced first. This is how you would explain killing yourself in the past - the positions in platonia where you had killed yourself are in a different location than where you experienced it before (ie. living to travel back in time) and the time travelling version of you would continue on its way, wondering why he still existed. The path you follow through platonia would look like a loop with just a few points of intersection, after which the paths diverge again. This could become very confusing if you ever returned again to another point in platonia further along your original path of travel; you'd wonder why you weren't dead anymore and if feeling guilty were justified.
Logical extensions to this "time-travel" (if it can be called that anymore) scenario include the possibility of travelling to a "place" where you don't remember your past anymore, or to another "place" where people remember you doing something that you never did and won't ever remember doing. They might even have proof that you did it! For example: in their memory you committed a crime, they caught you on tape, and you left to go time travelling, and then the "real" you comes time travelling into their police station - bad luck. This follows from the assumption that there is no place in platonia that you couldn't theoretically go, provided that you exist at that point.
You would need a good map of platonia to do this successfully; I don't think I 'd want to try for it otherwise. Too much opportunity for confusion. To be honest, though, I find this both appealing and horrifying from a religious standpoint. My religion teaches that God sees all of time spread out before Him from eternity to all eternity; if He did have a complete map of platonia then it would be easy for Him to be able to make that claim. On the other hand, having Him "know the end from the beginning" as other scriptures suggest implies that He perhaps controlls our path through the infinite possibilities, which contradicts the notion that I am free to do what I want or accountable for my actions. This discussion can become very interesting extremely quickly. I'll probably spend a good bit of time thinking about this in the near future... assuming that I can really call it that;^)
All intelligence efforts, regardless of which group or nation conducts them, are attempts to protect the interests of the country in question. The NSA, in collaboration with all of the other intelligence agencies in the US, is attempting to make sure that the United States, as a nation, continues to exist by both enhancing its own position and knowing as much about the weaknesses and strengths of everyone else in the world.
Why everyone? Good question; the answer is that everyone else is doing the same thing. At least the countries that can afford to in any reasonable manner. I have an interesting perspective on this, having recently recieved intelligence training in the Army. The unclassified records we were shown during training regarding people who were recently busted spying on us (mostly our own people), showed that they were working for Germany, Israel, France, even England.
As altruistic as we may want to be about things like the secret service, spy agencies in general, etc., nations don't have friends, they have interests. They look out for their own, and we look out for ours. In the intel community, this is called "the gentleman's game." You either play, or you lose. Here in the US, we play to win.
I wonder if the "not yet tried in court" status of the GPL is why they haven't already decided to use it (I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt here...). I can see them talking to their lawyers about how to avoid seeing an M$ port of their NKFS code. Not that it would stop Microsoft anyways..
-Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
My top pick for a document "which have profoundly affected computing and the Internet" (emphasis added) is Bill Gates' document, "An Open Letter to Hobbyists." According to the PBS film mentioned in a previous post ("triumph of the nerds") this was the first evangelization of proprietary software. Making it more meningful, it's written by the man who has profited the most by it.
As long as we're including the documents that we hope will define the internet in the future (GNU Manifesto, Open Source Definition, Debian Free Software Guidelines, etc.) we should also be careful to include the documents that made computing what it is today...
"Space exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." - Buzz Aldarin
Before BeOS - or any platform, for that matter - can get a really good footing in the market people need a good reason for using it as opposed to something else. That usually means offering an application that many people need that no one else can (or does) offer. For the Apple (back in the day) that was the spreadsheet. Lately, M$ has cloned, bought, or otherwise scuttled everyone else's efforts at making a killer app of the sort. IMHO, this is the biggest way in which M$ denies market entry to other companies. Again IMHO, the need for low-price medium-sized Web servers was what allowed Linux+Apache to break into the server market; I'm not sure whether that makes Apache the killer app for Linux or vice-versa;) Meanwhile, there is no killer app for the Linux desktop environment. I see a link between this lack of a killer app and the slow growth of Linux in the desktop market as compared to its growth in the mid-sized server market.
My point is that, admitting that BeOS is wonderful and has great potential, until it has something to offer that Windows can't BeOS won't last in the long run.
I love seeing this story in major news sources. I can't wait to see the rest of the articles and fallout. Knock 'em dead with the lawsuit, eneryone who's in on it!
Slashdot Mirror
You must have never heard of Nathan Hale. The quote "I only regret I have but one life to lose for my country" were his last words before being hanged as a spy on September 22, 1776 - the first American captured and executed for spying. He is considered a hero for the US Intelligence agencies, and a statue to him stands in front of the CIA headquarters. Our founding fathers not only believed in aggressive collection of intelligence, they practiced it and used it to help us win wars, not the least of which was the American Revolution.
I am not surprised at all that the US and others collect information on both allies and declared enemies alike. There are no "friends" among nations, only common interests. How many times in history has a nation formed an alliance, entered into a war in their ally's support, then later in the same war shifted loyalty and fought against their so-called "friend"?
The world is not the friendly place we would sometimes like to think it is. The keeping of secrets and the discovery of the secrets of others has been part of maintaining a country since the beginning of recorded history, and will likely remain so for a long time.
HTML 3.2 is to blame. Most of the deprecated tags date from that version.
I'll have to argue with you on the source of these errors: the doctype definition on the page clearly defines the standard to compare against as HTML 3.2. Here's the tag:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
This is a change from the last time I ran a validator on Slashdot's code; before the only error it gave was that the author didn't specify which DTD to use for validation. While I admit they should perhaps have chosen HTML 4.0 transitional instead, thay do seem to be making good efforts at producing clean, portable code. I've read slashdot on Lynx and AvantGo (a PalmOS-based browser) and while it's a bit inconvenient to read on a palm pilot screen it was rendered accurately.
I guess my point is that while we shouldn't be making poor excuses to cover up the mistakes of our editors, they are doing a decent job. Let's cut them (and the standards comittee) some slack, OK?
Umm... Someone correct me if I'm mistaken, but aren't the shuttles routinely carried from point ot point on the back of airplanes? I seem to remember seeing pictures of this not long ago, and the plane looked rather similar to a 747. It may have been a C-130 or some other military plane instead, it wasn't a very good picture.
The real obstacle to using planes as an airborne launch platform is that the shuttle would need to carry enough fuel to get from 20K feet to orbit - THAT might be too much of a strain on the jet...
"Space exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." - Buzz Aldarin
The fuel was also a thick gelatin at normal temperatures. At normal temperatures/pressures instead of spilling all over the ground (like Gasoline or other "normal" liquids would) it could be pumped through the fuel lines in spite of the gaps.
"Space exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." - Buzz aldarin
This is 3rd hand information, take it for what it's worth...
A friend of mine used to work for Microsoft as a "permatemp". If what he tells me is true, the MS API's are not documented even internally. When he asked where documentation was on the various API's, he was told, "the source code is the documentation." Evidently, the sharing of source code among the various development groups is how they keep things working across the various applications and versions.
I have no way to confirm the truth of this one way or the other. On the other hand, I've known my friend for a long time, and I trust his report. If this really is the case then releasing the source code for review would be the only way to release the API.
"Space exploration is not infinite circles in low earth orbit." - Buzz Aldarin
I'm more interested in the freedom-related issues related to ASP's in this case. For example, whose freedom is beng infringed if the source code is not distributed along with the software? Does the end-user need his freedom to modify and redistribute a program written to be distributed across a large network by a central server?
It would seem to me that the end users are unlikely to benefit from the source code, and are very unlikely to set up a competing ASP server using their workstation as the hardware platform for it. Even if they are qualified to suggest patches, those patches would have to be approved through the sysadmin anyway. These freedoms would be more valued by the system administrator who runs the ASP server.
I read your post because it intrigued me - I admire your willingness to express your opinion. I don't intend this as a flame, so PLEASE don't take it like that. I'm just really curious about why you feel so strongly that it's a Bad Thing (TM). Please fill me in, I'm honestly interested in the answers to my questions about this.
Your primary complaint, "freeloaders leeching off the cable co's network," suggests that either the cable co. is being ripped off by people using their infrastructure or that you are having your bandwidth stolen.
I have trouble believeing that the cable co. isn't going to protect its investment. Don't they charge rent on the modems? Aren't they charging access fees to cover their infrastructure costs? How would any of this change if they started allowing people to pay another company for the email accounts, web space, and Usenet access that accompany an account with an "Internet Service Provider"?
So, assuming that the people taking advantage of the "open access" are still paying the cable company for the bandwidth, who loses? Even if the "new" ISP's can work the deal so that is costs the same to the end user (ISP fee + rent on modem + access fee == old fee paid to cable company for proprietary cable internet service) the same people would be signing up for the service as would have before. I don't see how it would attract a big crowd of new users, especially not big enough to saturate the network and create notable bandwidth problems.
That's my take on the situation. All that, just to say, in a few words, "I don't get it." What issues have I overlooked? Are there other factors that I'm not understanding about the situation? Please let me know.
I know that under the Freedom of Information Act we have the right to request any documents that They (TM) have on us, and They (TM) have to give them to us. I assume that you'd have to talk to the agency who was keeping the files, but I've never tried it out... Has anyone out there done this/know how it might be done?
that their research methods probably are skewing their data! Reading through the Stanford site I noticed that they distributed WebTV consoles to their test subjects (see methods used). As I see it, this will cause (a) a decrease in TV viewing proportional to Internet use due to the use of the television and (b) a decrease in telephone conversation proportional to the time spent using the line as a dialup connection. And then they act surprised that such a trend shows up in their data. I wonder how many of the people who said they do more work at home and the same amount at the office are telecommuters?
I'm surprised that they didn't do a better job of analyzing their methods. Their publication doesn't seem to even consider the possibility of these variables confounding each other. At best, it shows a lack of awareness of the medium, at worst a blatant disregard for standard self - analysis procedures. It seems to me that their research itself may have been the cause for some of the percieved trends. At this point it would take a lot of explanation to convince me that this survey wasn't entirely inconclusive.
"Space exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit"
-Buzz Aldarin
ecampbel's _Simple Letters won't cut it_ is perhaps the most important post I've seen on this thread. To have an effect on their decision making process, we need to answer the questions they're asking and address the issues they are examining. If my reading of their document is correct, informed and autoritative letters will hold much more weight on their decision than a mass of knee-jerk activist-type responses.
I hope high-profile autorities in the Linux community will respond to their request.
Don't get me wrong, I'm going to write in, too, even though I'm in no way autoritative or high-profile. On the other hand, I'll be writing with a copy of the request document in hand.
"Space exploration is not endless circles in low-earth orbit." -Buzz Aldarin
Two questions:
1) Where on their website do they advertise this free service? It doesn't even get a hit on their on-site search engine.
2) If you're so big on worldspy, why is your email address at netzero? Doesn't worldspy offer and email inbox with their service?
Don't get me wrong; I currently use netzero for my home connection. On the other hand, I think I'd really enjoy switching to someone that just tracks my usage instead of force-feeding me large images.
I'm not really that big on caring whether people see where I go when I surf the net; I just wish they would get a clue and at least force-feed me advertisements I'm actually interested in...
It turns out that there is already a business model out there for this. There are many mail-order pharmacies in business which will ship you drugs from out of state. They are quite successful (although limited in number) and offer a modest discount over most hospital or drug store pharmacies. I know about this because when I got my new employee orientation at work they reccommended the use of mail-order pharmacies because it decreases costs both to me and to the insurance company.
Your point about there being a significant time lag is quite correct - you don't want to do this for your first filling of the prescription. On the other hand, if you're on a long-term medication program it can add up to a big savings. It's also possible to get just enough doses from your local pharmacy to carry you through until your mail-order prescription arrives. I've been assured that the people filling the prescriptions at these mail-order houses really are full-time pharmacists (ie. with degrees in the appropriate field); I tend to accept that pretty easily considering that we're talking about people reccommended by an insurance company.
The bottom line is that the business model is there. I don't have all of the specific details here in front of me (I'd have to go home for that), but I can post them later if someone's REALLY interested in doing a BBB search on the individual houses. Porting this business model to the web wouldn't take a lot of work, and would potentially speed up the responses time.
Doesn't the Food and Drug Administration already review new drugs and place a fine on improper distribution? If I understand correctly, there are mail-order pharmacies that will ship out of state, and they are already under federal jurisdiction. Regulating US-based e-commerce of prescription drugs seems to be a natural extension of that role. This wouldn't keep people from ordering drugs from France, just like it wouldn't keep them from physically going to Mexico to buy them.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the more important significance of this is the fact that the Feds are finally trying to get into the Net world in a real way. It will be interesting to see if it has any effect.
The word "Sorgenti" that's all over the place is the producer's name: it translates to "Sources".
:), the plural of which is "sorgenti". Therefore, in advertising they would take advantage of the double meaning of the word by calling their products "prodotti Sorgenti", which means both "products of Sorgenti corporation" and "new, active, energetic products". Kudos to the marketing guru who came up with this name, it's linguistically a wonderful choice for the Italian language and culture.
Sorry for nitpicking, but "sources" may not be the best translation. The concept is closer to that of an artesian well - the "mountain spring" type of water source. There is a more specific word for "spring" in the water source sence in Italian ("fonte"), but if I understand correctly (I am not a native) it connotes a less active type of spring or a well.
The fun part of the word "sorgenti" is that it doesn't necessarily imply water: it could be an active source of something else - crude oil or, in this case, innovation, for example. It's also in the plural (singular is "sorgente"), implying that they are an active source of many different (presumably desirable) things.
In any case, "Sorgenti" still carries with it the mental image of "artesian wells" of whatever it is that you're getting out of it. The verb most closely related to it, "sorgere", means to spring or emerge energetically, like water from an artesian well. The adjective for this is "sorgente" (same word for both noun and adjective! And they say European languages are less ambiguous
Oh ye of little faith! I see that Tower has truly cast his pearls before swine. Fundamental principles are laid before you and identified as such, and you accuse the moderator of an input error!!! When will the world finally accept the truth???
On a more serious note, I believe that informative is a wonderful moderator adjective for that post; if nothing else it exposes those who are unaware to the "darktron" theory of light bulb functionality. I should add that one of the proofs of this theory is the black residue in burnt out light bulbs - the bulb is saturated with darktrons and cannot absorb any more!
And while this rates right up there with the "magic smoke" theory of computers, it is part of our geek culture. A part that we should cherish. Informative, indeed.
"The scientific mind is open, if not fully ventilated."
-Martin Gardner, from Scientific American
Two of my favorite examples:
On the other hand, I find it interesting that the NBA, along with most other professional sports associations, has done something very similar to the teams as organizations - salary caps. It isn't hard to understand the logic. Teams that win get good crowd turnout, go to chanpionships, and earn more money per year than teams that lose habitually. If a team were able to gather a large pool of talent, such that it consistently earned large amounts of money, it could spend the extra money on buying talent - shamelessly bribing the best players from other teams to come to theirs. A successful team could theoretically buy out all of the best players in the league, win every game, and buy every rookie with bright prospects. It would be extremely hard to displace such a team from the top position in the rankings. While it could be argued that they earned their success, the result would be that the quality of competition in the league would diminish - both the impoverished teams who can't afford good players and the rich team whose players never get really challenged (except perhaps in practice) would be hurt by such behavior. Ask any sports fan if they would be in favor of removing salary caps, and see what they say.
This is what Microsoft, in essence, has done. I would argue that regardless of the pool of talent at their resources, their attitude of "Microsoft Everywhere" (translated, "Us or No-one") has already done similar harm to the software industry. Their prodcts are not superior, just better marketed and in a position to stay that way indefinitely.
It's interesting that Microsoft never had such a struggle, nor are their products better or prices lower than those who would compete with them.
Another analogy comes to mind, if you will allow a Biblical reference. At the time of Moses' birth the Pharoh issued a command that all male Hebrew babies should be killed at birth. It was feared that, if allowed to reproduce freely, the Jews might become independent of their Egyptian masters and rise up in rebellion.
Compare this to Microsoft's acquisition of companies whose products threaten any of Microsoft's products and/or would free users of their dependence on the Windows platform. In many cases, Microsoft has no intention of implementing these technologies in ways that could be useful; instead they are simply bought and bundled, then forgotten.
Consider the case of Intel's Native Signal Processing (NSP) technology. Microsoft threatened to entirely withdraw their support if Intel continued to develop such technologies, and offered as an alternative that the capabilities offered by NSP would be incorporated into Direct X. Intel accepted the terms, but Microsoft didn't deliver.
That is what I call harming the consumer; that's also what I call killing the baby at birth.
Many other examples could be listed if I had the time to research and list them all. This is why I support the antitrust case against Microsoft.
"Space exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." - Buzz Aldarin
I just came back from the Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism's site, and I wasn't impressed. None of the three links to "hot news items," specifically an FAQ and two articles, entitled "Judge Jackson's Findings of Fiction," and "Why America Should Care About Antitrust" repectively, worked. With a bit of searching I found that if you clicked on "More Essays on US v. Microsoft" there were other links to the same articles that did work, but I didn't bother.
<logical fallacy>If an organization can't manage to even present a decent page of HTML to me, I don't trust them to have the judgement to present facts to me in a reliable manner.</logical fallacy>
Yes, I'm admitting that I'm guilty of logical fallacy and being closed-minded; however, I think I've listened to M$ lies for long enough to recognise the sound of one coming.
If this is correct, then several hard questions like, "if I traveled back in time and met myself, would I remember having done it before I left," "...could I become my own father," "... if I killed myself, would I cease to exist" etc. become very easy to explain.
;^)
You would remember having met yourself, since returning to any point that you had previously passed through defines that point as a place where there are two of you: you the way you remember yourself and also the "time traveller you" with the memory of yourself being that way. It's not hard to see why this is a requirement: if you weren't in two places at once when you got to that point the first time, then you can't actually arrive back at the same point.
It also wouldn't be inconsistent to become your own father - simply returning to the old path through platonia at a previous point and marrying your mother while continuing along the same path would be sufficient. Of course, your father would have to remember being you, and you'd have some severe deja vu to deal with as you raise yourself.
This brings up other problems, though. This means that time travel as we have typically conceptuallized it would be extremely difficult. To re-enter history where you remember it you would have to exactly match your velocity through platonia (direction and speed - there's no guarantee that once you start time travel that you're travelling at the same speed as the rest of us!), or else you will end up in a different reality than the one you experienced first. This is how you would explain killing yourself in the past - the positions in platonia where you had killed yourself are in a different location than where you experienced it before (ie. living to travel back in time) and the time travelling version of you would continue on its way, wondering why he still existed. The path you follow through platonia would look like a loop with just a few points of intersection, after which the paths diverge again. This could become very confusing if you ever returned again to another point in platonia further along your original path of travel; you'd wonder why you weren't dead anymore and if feeling guilty were justified.
Logical extensions to this "time-travel" (if it can be called that anymore) scenario include the possibility of travelling to a "place" where you don't remember your past anymore, or to another "place" where people remember you doing something that you never did and won't ever remember doing. They might even have proof that you did it! For example: in their memory you committed a crime, they caught you on tape, and you left to go time travelling, and then the "real" you comes time travelling into their police station - bad luck. This follows from the assumption that there is no place in platonia that you couldn't theoretically go, provided that you exist at that point.
You would need a good map of platonia to do this successfully; I don't think I 'd want to try for it otherwise. Too much opportunity for confusion. To be honest, though, I find this both appealing and horrifying from a religious standpoint. My religion teaches that God sees all of time spread out before Him from eternity to all eternity; if He did have a complete map of platonia then it would be easy for Him to be able to make that claim. On the other hand, having Him "know the end from the beginning" as other scriptures suggest implies that He perhaps controlls our path through the infinite possibilities, which contradicts the notion that I am free to do what I want or accountable for my actions. This discussion can become very interesting extremely quickly. I'll probably spend a good bit of time thinking about this in the near future... assuming that I can really call it that
All intelligence efforts, regardless of which group or nation conducts them, are attempts to protect the interests of the country in question. The NSA, in collaboration with all of the other intelligence agencies in the US, is attempting to make sure that the United States, as a nation, continues to exist by both enhancing its own position and knowing as much about the weaknesses and strengths of everyone else in the world.
Why everyone? Good question; the answer is that everyone else is doing the same thing. At least the countries that can afford to in any reasonable manner. I have an interesting perspective on this, having recently recieved intelligence training in the Army. The unclassified records we were shown during training regarding people who were recently busted spying on us (mostly our own people), showed that they were working for Germany, Israel, France, even England.
As altruistic as we may want to be about things like the secret service, spy agencies in general, etc., nations don't have friends, they have interests. They look out for their own, and we look out for ours. In the intel community, this is called "the gentleman's game." You either play, or you lose. Here in the US, we play to win.
I wonder if the "not yet tried in court" status of the GPL is why they haven't already decided to use it (I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt here...). I can see them talking to their lawyers about how to avoid seeing an M$ port of their NKFS code.
Not that it would stop Microsoft anyways..
-Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The URL for whomever wants to read it:
http://www.dsuper.net/~pcmuseum/openltr.html
and here's the link.
My top pick for a document "which have profoundly affected computing and the Internet" (emphasis added) is Bill Gates' document, "An Open Letter to Hobbyists." According to the PBS film mentioned in a previous post ("triumph of the nerds") this was the first evangelization of proprietary software. Making it more meningful, it's written by the man who has profited the most by it.
As long as we're including the documents that we hope will define the internet in the future (GNU Manifesto, Open Source Definition, Debian Free Software Guidelines, etc.) we should also be careful to include the documents that made computing what it is today...
"Space exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." - Buzz Aldarin
Before BeOS - or any platform, for that matter - can get a really good footing in the market people need a good reason for using it as opposed to something else. That usually means offering an application that many people need that no one else can (or does) offer. For the Apple (back in the day) that was the spreadsheet. Lately, M$ has cloned, bought, or otherwise scuttled everyone else's efforts at making a killer app of the sort. IMHO, this is the biggest way in which M$ denies market entry to other companies. Again IMHO, the need for low-price medium-sized Web servers was what allowed Linux+Apache to break into the server market; I'm not sure whether that makes Apache the killer app for Linux or vice-versa ;) Meanwhile, there is no killer app for the Linux desktop environment. I see a link between this lack of a killer app and the slow growth of Linux in the desktop market as compared to its growth in the mid-sized server market.
My point is that, admitting that BeOS is wonderful and has great potential, until it has something to offer that Windows can't BeOS won't last in the long run.
I got to this headline a bit late; between the time that it was posted and when I read it the URL had changed. The new address:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/mds022.htm
I love seeing this story in major news sources. I can't wait to see the rest of the articles and fallout. Knock 'em dead with the lawsuit, eneryone who's in on it!