I can take any lance corporal off the field, and with windows, he's most likely to know how to at least do basic stuff like surf the web, read e-mail, etc. If the guvment were to use Linux, they would have to spend additional manpower on installation, more man power keeping those boxes up to date (or pay money for RedHats up2date service), not to mention retraining a lot of staff on how to use these computers.
How many developer-years does $100,000,000 purchase? (Consider a developer at $50,000 with expenses roughly equal to salary, or $100,000 annually; this would give 1,000 developer-years.)
I for one think that perhaps the government should put out a contract on "upgrading" Linux to be pixel-compatible with Windows -- and every flavor of Windows, so if the lance corporal in your example was familiar with Windows 98, he could click the "emulate Windows 98" button, or XP, or 2K, ad nauseum.
There is already a project to make Linux look like XP: XPde. I would bet that with just $5,000,000, the government could finish the project (and be well on their way to emulating the rest of the flavors of Windows).
$5,000,000 == 50 * $100,000, so would be about 50 developer-years. Since the "hard part" is already done (the interface exists, the developers would merely be emulating it), I would imagine that a team of 50 developers could pull it off. Some of those would be testers, both to ensure that users could be moved seamlessly to the new environment, and also that all the features worked, and that it truly was pixel-compatible (VMware would be great for this testing, to take screenshots, but I digress).
It'll never happen, though, at least not under this administration.
Thanks for the response. I had never considered the Devil as another "God" -- thanks for that! I suppose the angels could also be considered "Gods" because they are immortal and have other powers.
I agree wholeheartedly that environment changes the way you think about the world. An over-used example, Eskimos have many different words for snow -- "crusty snow", "powder snow" etc. which we need multiple words to describe.
An example from personal experience: Brazil has the Amazon, which is a dangerous place. The Portuguese word for "jungle" is "mato" and the Portuguese word for "kill" is also "mato" -- the idea being that the jungle will kill you. I thought that was neat.
The goal might be different, but the methods seem largely the same; an eternal war that can't be won against a foe with a constantly changing face, surveillance of citizens in the name of this war [...]
I was in High School well before DARE came about, but we did have a speaker who came in to talk about how drugs ruined his life. (I now wish I had asked him more questions about his other life choices, because the spectre of "drugs" can't ruin anyone's life any more than, say, an unhealthy overconsumption of chocolate, MSG, or sex.)
At any rate, it was about then that we started the whole "War on Drugs" movement. I knew as it was being started that it was completely unwinnable; people have various reasons for altering their consciousness and nobody will ever be able to remove all of those reasons (I mean, children spin around until they fall down dizzy -- how can you eliminate that?).
You hit the nail on the head -- an eternal war with constant casualties on both sides which is completely unwinnable, consuming more and more resources because we MUST "think of the children."
Changing the subject slightly, we are in for an incredible conflict when nanotechnologybecomes a reality: we truly will no longer need the "ruling class" and there will be one hell of a class struggle. I am looking forward to the technological aspects (physical items will be "free" just as music and movies are currently "free", although frowned upon; IA (intelligence amplification) will be possible and most probably required (the government mandates vaccines...)) -- however, I am most definitely not looking forward to the social aspects of the singularity, because things will be changing too fast for people to keep up, and people will start to revolt. We truly live in interesting times.
PS A great book on facing and traveling through the singularity is The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect which was mentioned here several months ago.
I have been a committed christian (lower case "c" because I wasn't committed to any particular denomination), an agnostic, an atheist, an agnostic, a polytheist, an animist, and finally again a polytheist.
I was reading an interesting "book" that came in the mail about how Militant Islamics view Americans, and one of the things that caught me was that they view Christians as polytheists.
They (Christians) worship three "Gods", the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. So Christians do not worship Allah, the "one true God" and are therefore heathens.
I'm pretty blind without my glasses, but I can significantly
improve my resolution by making a crude pinhole lens by circling my index finger to a near pinhole of a few millimeters. Try it, if you wear glasses.
Cool, thanks! This really works. I took off my glasses (I'm near-sighted), and moved my head so I could read your post. I was about 4 inches from the monitor.
Then I tried your index-finger trick, and moved back until I could just barely read the text. I was almost 2 feet away before I couldn't read it any more!
Then I tried it squinting, and I was only about 10 inches away from the monitor when I stopped being able to read it. So your finger trick is more than twice as effective as squinting!
These alchemists had no idea that there were nanoscopic particles whose physics lead to the change in color, yet it happened, and we are only NOW finally realizing why and how it happened.
Reminds me of my molecular biologist friend, who is from an Italian family. He once described to me, while cooking an excellent pasta sauce, that the reason they slow-cooked vegetables was to keep the flavor in.
He then told me that only recently have they been able to describe why the flavor is kept in: it's because slow cooking does not destroy the cell walls of the vegetables, so the fluids inside the cell walls stay there, keeping it crisp and flavorful.
I think it's so cool that we "know" things before we truly "understand" them. Like bleeding with leeches, the leech saliva has healing properties. Or no sex before the big game, because that takes testosterone out of the body making you less effective physically.
Linare will try to offer better technical support than do current $200 PC makers by outsourcing technical support to employees in India who don't cost as much to hire.
Apu: I have come to make amends, sir. At first, I blamed you for
squealing, but then I realized, it was _I_ who wronged _you_. So
I have come to work off my debt. I am at your service.
Homer: You're...selling _what_, now?
Apu: I am selling only the concept of karmic realignment.
Homer: You can't sell that! Karma can only be portioned out by the
cosmos. [slams the door]
Apu: He's got me there.
Come on, guys. Netflix are competing with a very large and not-so-gentle adversary, Walmart.
This doesn't follow from the evidence. Walmart only recently announced that they'd be entering this arena. From the patent it shows that Netflix filed for this patent in April of 2000, over 3 years ago.
And from reading the terms in the patent, it's obvious that they're trying to capitalize on being associated with "the Internet" rather than actually patenting something heretofore unknown. There's plenty of prior art.
Also note that item 15 of the "Claims" section specifically states renting games, so it appears they will be going after gaming sites which do this (one was mentioned in a previous post).
Other sections differentiate between "by mail" and "by a delivery agent" so it appears they're also targeting electronic delivery.
The goal is to build mindshare, you cannot get people to try Linux on their mission critical desktop PCs unless they trust you, truely trust you.
You can however get a stranger to run a CD on their gaming console, people dont have to trust you for that.
I believe that's why Knoppix was created -- so you could pop in the CD, reboot, and have a Linux desktop to play around with, without having to install/partition/nonsense.
The key is to not allow the buses to be slowed down for any reason - so the rules for other vehicles have to be very strict.
I got a ticket (which my wife was able to talk the cop out of, saying "he's just a dumb gringo, he didn't know") for driving in the "bus lane" in Natal, in Rio Grande de Norte, Brazil.
They actually have 2 lanes of the road on which only busses can drive. I didn't study the transit system there so I don't know if it actually runs better than our systems over here, but it did catch my attention that there were lanes that could only be used by mass transit.
When a cop pulls someone over for violating the "multiple drivers in this lane only" law, to [give them a ticket/generate revenue for the state] -- it creates a wave of slowdown, as other drivers rubberneck to see what the problem was, and eliminates the efficiency that the carpool lane was created for!
ironically, I think that the protesters are *dead on* but believe me, its not going to change the company's practices. Nothing but an act of god is going to do that.
Please post your root passwords. The act of God will follow.
Enter the possibility that the record companies may no longer wish to sell albums because 99 cent singles are making all the money.
This also raises the possibility that artists can start generating money in a couple days (time it takes to conceive and record a single track) instead of a couple months (for a full album, much of which may be filler).
I agree that it creates something of a competitive problem, but looking at the good points, it could be beneficial for artists and consumers alike: they can start generating income faster, and we can pick-and-choose the music that we want.
Homer: I reluctantly accept your proposal!
Bill Gates: Well everyone always does. Buy 'em out, boys!
[Gates' lackeys trash the room.]
Homer: Hey, what the hell's going on!
Bill Gates: Oh, I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks! [insane laughter]
-- Bill Gates buys Homer's Internet company ("Compuglobalhypermeganet"), "Das Bus"
Reminds me of a story from my college days. A friend had a suped-up El Camino, and we were going to a concert. He was behind someone going slow, so decided to pass. But that guy had decided to pass the guy ahead of him -- so my friend drove in the far shoulder, passing a car that was passing a car.
The U.S. is re-balancing the field, and is more than entitled to impose a tariff on a subsidized product when it competes with products made in the U.S.
Hmm, I think the fair thing to do would be to subsidize an American company that competes. Rather than imposing tarrifs. But what do I know?
It's a neat idea, and would be amazing if it works. "Free energy" by stealing from a higher plane. I wonder if the denizens of the higher plane would be concerned?
I was very amused by one of their pages. They have several typos throughout their pages, but this one typo painted an amusing picture:
Anchored to the main body by 90 stainless steel crews [...]
(Note: should have been "screws"...)
I pictured 90 crew members, exhausted, gripping the main body and the Upper Payload Body, trying to keep them from drifting apart. Yeah, I'm a little twisted.
Slashdot Mirror
How many developer-years does $100,000,000 purchase? (Consider a developer at $50,000 with expenses roughly equal to salary, or $100,000 annually; this would give 1,000 developer-years.)
I for one think that perhaps the government should put out a contract on "upgrading" Linux to be pixel-compatible with Windows -- and every flavor of Windows, so if the lance corporal in your example was familiar with Windows 98, he could click the "emulate Windows 98" button, or XP, or 2K, ad nauseum.
There is already a project to make Linux look like XP: XPde. I would bet that with just $5,000,000, the government could finish the project (and be well on their way to emulating the rest of the flavors of Windows).
$5,000,000 == 50 * $100,000, so would be about 50 developer-years. Since the "hard part" is already done (the interface exists, the developers would merely be emulating it), I would imagine that a team of 50 developers could pull it off. Some of those would be testers, both to ensure that users could be moved seamlessly to the new environment, and also that all the features worked, and that it truly was pixel-compatible (VMware would be great for this testing, to take screenshots, but I digress).
It'll never happen, though, at least not under this administration.
Thanks for the response. I had never considered the Devil as another "God" -- thanks for that! I suppose the angels could also be considered "Gods" because they are immortal and have other powers.
I agree wholeheartedly that environment changes the way you think about the world. An over-used example, Eskimos have many different words for snow -- "crusty snow", "powder snow" etc. which we need multiple words to describe.
An example from personal experience: Brazil has the Amazon, which is a dangerous place. The Portuguese word for "jungle" is "mato" and the Portuguese word for "kill" is also "mato" -- the idea being that the jungle will kill you. I thought that was neat.
At any rate, it was about then that we started the whole "War on Drugs" movement. I knew as it was being started that it was completely unwinnable; people have various reasons for altering their consciousness and nobody will ever be able to remove all of those reasons (I mean, children spin around until they fall down dizzy -- how can you eliminate that?).
You hit the nail on the head -- an eternal war with constant casualties on both sides which is completely unwinnable, consuming more and more resources because we MUST "think of the children."
Changing the subject slightly, we are in for an incredible conflict when nanotechnology becomes a reality: we truly will no longer need the "ruling class" and there will be one hell of a class struggle. I am looking forward to the technological aspects (physical items will be "free" just as music and movies are currently "free", although frowned upon; IA (intelligence amplification) will be possible and most probably required (the government mandates vaccines...)) -- however, I am most definitely not looking forward to the social aspects of the singularity, because things will be changing too fast for people to keep up, and people will start to revolt. We truly live in interesting times.
PS A great book on facing and traveling through the singularity is The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect which was mentioned here several months ago.
They (Christians) worship three "Gods", the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. So Christians do not worship Allah, the "one true God" and are therefore heathens.
Cool, thanks! This really works. I took off my glasses (I'm near-sighted), and moved my head so I could read your post. I was about 4 inches from the monitor.
Then I tried your index-finger trick, and moved back until I could just barely read the text. I was almost 2 feet away before I couldn't read it any more!
Then I tried it squinting, and I was only about 10 inches away from the monitor when I stopped being able to read it. So your finger trick is more than twice as effective as squinting!
Reminds me of my molecular biologist friend, who is from an Italian family. He once described to me, while cooking an excellent pasta sauce, that the reason they slow-cooked vegetables was to keep the flavor in.
He then told me that only recently have they been able to describe why the flavor is kept in: it's because slow cooking does not destroy the cell walls of the vegetables, so the fluids inside the cell walls stay there, keeping it crisp and flavorful.
I think it's so cool that we "know" things before we truly "understand" them. Like bleeding with leeches, the leech saliva has healing properties. Or no sex before the big game, because that takes testosterone out of the body making you less effective physically.
Heh, I would bet that IBM is currently one of the many players shorting SCO. No way they'd buy that company!
Me fail English? That's unpossible!
ObSimpsons: "Thank-you-come-again."
It's yelled out when an article is posted, and generally results in being modded down. Unless it's done in a clever way, like this post.
This doesn't follow from the evidence. Walmart only recently announced that they'd be entering this arena. From the patent it shows that Netflix filed for this patent in April of 2000, over 3 years ago.
And from reading the terms in the patent, it's obvious that they're trying to capitalize on being associated with "the Internet" rather than actually patenting something heretofore unknown. There's plenty of prior art.
Also note that item 15 of the "Claims" section specifically states renting games, so it appears they will be going after gaming sites which do this (one was mentioned in a previous post).
Other sections differentiate between "by mail" and "by a delivery agent" so it appears they're also targeting electronic delivery.
I believe that's why Knoppix was created -- so you could pop in the CD, reboot, and have a Linux desktop to play around with, without having to install/partition/nonsense.
Heh... I just divorced my X-Box. Now I'm looking for a GNU/Box.
Eye-Bee-Em Unix
I got a ticket (which my wife was able to talk the cop out of, saying "he's just a dumb gringo, he didn't know") for driving in the "bus lane" in Natal, in Rio Grande de Norte, Brazil.
They actually have 2 lanes of the road on which only busses can drive. I didn't study the transit system there so I don't know if it actually runs better than our systems over here, but it did catch my attention that there were lanes that could only be used by mass transit.
When a cop pulls someone over for violating the "multiple drivers in this lane only" law, to [give them a ticket/generate revenue for the state] -- it creates a wave of slowdown, as other drivers rubberneck to see what the problem was, and eliminates the efficiency that the carpool lane was created for!
Please post your root passwords. The act of God will follow.
This also raises the possibility that artists can start generating money in a couple days (time it takes to conceive and record a single track) instead of a couple months (for a full album, much of which may be filler).
I agree that it creates something of a competitive problem, but looking at the good points, it could be beneficial for artists and consumers alike: they can start generating income faster, and we can pick-and-choose the music that we want.
Instead of: Mom: "Johnny, save your game and come to dinner," we get: Box: "click" Johnny: "Goddammit I was almost through that level!"
Nah, Bill gates should buy them out, boys.
The time bounce has happened!
Haven't remembered that in years. Thanks! ;-)
I was very amused by one of their pages. They have several typos throughout their pages, but this one typo painted an amusing picture:
(Note: should have been "screws"...)I pictured 90 crew members, exhausted, gripping the main body and the Upper Payload Body, trying to keep them from drifting apart. Yeah, I'm a little twisted.