The existance of atoms and quanta can be proven with mathematics (besides scientific observation) - they can be "seen" when you use the language of science. I know of no mathematical formula or scientific experimant that _proves_ the exisitance of God - so He truly is "un-seeable" (in the context of the physical world, anyway).
Belief in a Higher Power is (or should be, anyhow) a matter of faith and personal choice, nothing else, IMHO.
So far all the replies to this story have been "we already knew that" and "duh". I find those comments idiotic. In that spirit, when cigarette execs admitted they knew their products were bad for people, there should have been no story.
Agreed. Read on, though, Macduff..
This event is significant, because from the mouth of someone significantly important in MSFTs power structure, there is an admission of failing.
Hunh?
Where is the Utopia you live in, bud? I'd like to move there.
It would be nice to just take Mr. Valentines statement at face value, applaud them for being honest and move on, but this is Microsoft we're talking about. These are smart, ruthless, paranoid people who never do anything without a reason, that reason normally being protecting or extending thier dominance over a market. In that regard, I'll say "Thanks, Brian. First, if you need some help, I'll do what I can. Second - what are you guys really up to here?"
Maybe the exec just wanted to confess his (their) sins?
You know, I'd love to hear something like this from Microsoft and not think "There's an alterior motive here...", but I can't help it - they're too smart and too powerful to NOT be very careful around them. Until there's demonstrative proof that Microsoft wants to just make cool tech and not own or control it all, I'll continue to cast a very cautious, critical eye in thier direction.
A million smackers can do a lot, when it's used to help marshall a community of volunteers.
A few men firing an artillery gun that has bad aim can be cut to peices very quickly by a devoted team with swords and knives - this is what should happen here.
Hmmm. Wouldn't uber-geeks want to go to LBJ in Houston instead of Kennedy Space Center since that is where all the real geeks monitor the US Space program?
No, somebody sure as fuck doesn't need to use a song from The Villiage People to karma whore. TVP are the real reason I hate the RIAA so much, not the DMCA. Jerk.
*Bashes head off of desk so ringing in ears drowns out that horrid, horrid tune*
Anyway, my girlfriend and my mother and I were all sitting around playing Monopoly when a friend called on my cell. I answered and started to chat. It was a very light conversation, no deep thinking, but I kept playing Monopoly as I talked.
Bad move.
We played two complete turns, with my opponents landing on a property owned by me EVERY TIME. Guess what? I didn't even notice. In my mind, I was playing just as well. Of course, I was seriously mistaken. I lost something like $2000 in that short time.
Cell phones make you lose @ Monopoly, too? Cool!
Now, how do I send a cell phone with a 1-800 number to one Steve "Monkey Boy" Ballmer ? (Back charged to him of course);-)
The "Blue pill" returns your Linux machine back to normal function. The "Red pill" puts a trace on the kernel, and "shows you just how deep the rabbit hole goes...."
I vote for "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace -- but that's because I think giant hurds of free-roaming hamsters would rule. --MM
For starters, the GNU mascot is a, well, Gnu, not a hamster. As well, the Hurd is a microkernel, not a monolithic one, so it's just not that big. Infinet Jest is also a little to close to the expected release date of the HURD, too, so I'd run the other way if you're every introduced to one Richard M. Stallman.
Said the AC: Yes, First you discuss, Then you form a standards group, then you make the standard.
Other than being "Captain Obvious", the AC is correct. You need to get all of the cats into the same corral before you can herd them along.
At least they're attacking the root problem - a useable, patent free, open standard document format, rather than a de facto standard format that's closed, proprietary and difficult to reverse engineer.
Yeah yeah, bad bot impersonation, but its better than the: While they are handing out patents I'll take a patent out on math/science/sex/etc comments that will start cropping up.
I know! You could pretty much guarantee that those comments would get posted immediately. Karma whores.
Hell, anyone who's been here long enough could use Perl to write a Slashbo.....
Actually, it's simpler science, I would imagine. Can you cook a whole chicken by pointing a cutting torch at it? Why not? Seems like common sense, but there's a lot of science behind the reason why the above isn't a terribly good idea.
The reason why you toss a (good) steak on a raging hot grill is to sear the outside of the meat closed. Then when you cook it, all of the good stuff stays inside, instead of dripping on to the coals and burning away. A properly cooked, medium rare steak should only lose about 1/8 of it's pre-cooked weight to moisture loss. Anyway, simple chemistry/physics tells us that the more fuel+oxygen you give a fire (forcing a faster chemical reaction = more of the by-products in a shorter time span, in this case infra-red energy), the hotter it gets, and the hotter it gets, the better the seal on the food. The hair dryer's providing a way of flash-searing the food he's grilling.
I cook holiday turkeys with this in mind - I start with the oven @280 C (450 F) for about 1/2 an hour. The reason? I try to turn the skin essentially into a watertight bag, so the critter cooks in it's own juices after I turn the heat down to 200 C (325 F). I also make an oversized aluminum foil tent that I put over the bird, in order to disrupt the normal heat flow in my non-convection oven and even out the heat on the bird. The hot air flows from the bottom to the top through the middle, hits the ovens roof and goes back down via the sides, then repeats. The tent forces the heat to the sides before it hits the roof, and creates turbulance. This turbulance washes the sides of the bird in hot air. Result? My turkey is done about %60 faster and is almost always overly juicy. Yum.
Like the reviewer said, it's all about heat distribution. Dammit, now I'm hungry.
I wouldn't quite start cheering yet. I'd be awfully wary of what comes out of this. MS gets a FREE security check of XBOX, and look what they can do with all this:
* They can see where all the holes that hackers/modders are exploiting in the console are.
* They can "slipstream" secutity updates into future games and break the above.
* They get some PR karma for not going after an academic/researcher who is doing benefit for the "public good" (i.e. fixing security holes that could "JEAPORDIZE NATIONAL SECURITY"
* They know what works and what doesn't for security in future products.
Y'know, all of these points are some of the reasons why a lot of companies like the OSS model.
Could it be that Microsoft is recognising some of the benefits to sharing info with hackers? Have they got a "cancerous" tumour of OSS ethics, that can start spreading ??
Ahem. For you younger folk, this isn't another request for more pr0n. Jaws is a classic thriller about an unusually large Great White shark that eats people, starting with a girl skinny dipping in the ocean. Erk...
I'd like to see a "Wealth Generated per $100 In Sales" type of comparison - how much does it cost for each OS to generate $X worth of wealth for others. Not just hard $, but soft benefits as well. Does Microsoft and Windows actually grease the wheels of innovation by generating lots of $, or does Linux provide more benefits with the sharing of code and IP?
That would be actually rather interesting, from both social and business points of view. Not easy at all, but interesting.
That's amazing. A company called "Monday"? Sounds like the Adams Family goes to Wall Street.
I can think of no better way to drive employee morale into the very bottom of the old outhouse like having to work at "Monday" every damned day of the bloody week. When I have a bad day at work on a Tuesday, if someone asks I say "Monday's still here."
Mondays suck. Then, I hear PwC did too. For sure the consultant that picked such a scary name for a company sucked at thier job.
Anyway, I bet there's a bunch of PwC workers jumping up and down screaming "W00t!! No more Monday!!!":P
Aren't Barney jokes a little... oh I don't know... 1994?
No! NO! Until that purple, sugar coated, white gumed (LOOK AT THE UGLY THING SOMETIME - HE HAS NO TEETH!!) lame ass excuse for corporate brainwashing of our kids is dead, I will continue to parody and make him the butt of as many jokes as I can. A pox on him.
Hey, maybe we could resurect another '90s joke, and convince Jerry Falwell that Barney is Tinky-Winky's gay live in. Adds new meaning to "I love you, You love me...". GAHHH!
(*Cranks up 7Dust to clear the stench of the Barney song from his head*)
What is 'noncommercial' about that? I guest we can chalk up another 'blow to speech' by the corporations that RUN mpaa and riaa. [/cheapshot]
Grow up already.
The RIAA and MPAA aren't in of themselves profit making orgs - they promote the agendas (however *evil* they may be) of the big media companies. Free speech means anyone can voice thier opinion and try to convince the masses that they're right.
That wasn't a cheap shot, it was all together wrong.
Errmmm.... Let me qualify that for you a bit, please.
" -- "We need to build a vibrant and healthy developer community. That's the lesson Linux has taught us. Having people to help. Knowing where to get questions answered," Rudder said. --
MS, open up some of your source code, with a non-restictive and free license, please. That might help."
Poisoning (too strong a word, but none other will do here) the OSS talent pool with closed, proprietary IP will not do us any good. Niether will disparaging remarks - keep it to the playing field, please.
Slashdot Mirror
Stop being pendantic and splitting hairs.
The existance of atoms and quanta can be proven with mathematics (besides scientific observation) - they can be "seen" when you use the language of science. I know of no mathematical formula or scientific experimant that _proves_ the exisitance of God - so He truly is "un-seeable" (in the context of the physical world, anyway).
Belief in a Higher Power is (or should be, anyhow) a matter of faith and personal choice, nothing else, IMHO.
Soko
So far all the replies to this story have been "we already knew that" and "duh". I find those comments idiotic. In that spirit, when cigarette execs admitted they knew their products were bad for people, there should have been no story.
Agreed. Read on, though, Macduff..
This event is significant, because from the mouth of someone significantly important in MSFTs power structure, there is an admission of failing.
Hunh?
Where is the Utopia you live in, bud? I'd like to move there.
It would be nice to just take Mr. Valentines statement at face value, applaud them for being honest and move on, but this is Microsoft we're talking about. These are smart, ruthless, paranoid people who never do anything without a reason, that reason normally being protecting or extending thier dominance over a market. In that regard, I'll say "Thanks, Brian. First, if you need some help, I'll do what I can. Second - what are you guys really up to here?"
Maybe the exec just wanted to confess his (their) sins?
Yeah, to St. IGNUcius hisself. Right.
You know, I'd love to hear something like this from Microsoft and not think "There's an alterior motive here...", but I can't help it - they're too smart and too powerful to NOT be very careful around them. Until there's demonstrative proof that Microsoft wants to just make cool tech and not own or control it all, I'll continue to cast a very cautious, critical eye in thier direction.
Soko
A million smackers can do a lot, when it's used to help marshall a community of volunteers.
A few men firing an artillery gun that has bad aim can be cut to peices very quickly by a devoted team with swords and knives - this is what should happen here.
Soko
Better still, since there's a processor on every part of the furniture, "Imagine a beowulf cluster" in the futon...
Soko
Hmmm. Wouldn't uber-geeks want to go to LBJ in Houston instead of Kennedy Space Center since that is where all the real geeks monitor the US Space program?
:P
Well, what do you expect for peanuts?
Soko
No, somebody sure as fuck doesn't need to use a song from The Villiage People to karma whore. TVP are the real reason I hate the RIAA so much, not the DMCA. Jerk.
*Bashes head off of desk so ringing in ears drowns out that horrid, horrid tune*
Soko
Anyway, my girlfriend and my mother and I were all sitting around playing Monopoly when a friend called on my cell. I answered and started to chat. It was a very light conversation, no deep thinking, but I kept playing Monopoly as I talked.
;-)
Bad move.
We played two complete turns, with my opponents landing on a property owned by me EVERY TIME. Guess what? I didn't even notice. In my mind, I was playing just as well. Of course, I was seriously mistaken. I lost something like $2000 in that short time.
Cell phones make you lose @ Monopoly, too? Cool!
Now, how do I send a cell phone with a 1-800 number to one Steve "Monkey Boy" Ballmer ? (Back charged to him of course)
Soko
Naw. It's *SEE-SHARP" for sure, as in
;-)
/MS Bash mode off
"Ouch!! That hurt! Fuck, now I'm bleeding cash!
Soko
Don't tell me. Lemme guess.
The "Blue pill" returns your Linux machine back to normal function. The "Red pill" puts a trace on the kernel, and "shows you just how deep the rabbit hole goes...."
Soko
*snif* [wipes tear from his eye]
OK, OK, now that I've stoppped laughing aloud to your comment and sig together, think about it.
The obvious answer is "any bricklayer that was 13 once and had a wang." Ha.
Thanks for the laughter, bud.
Soko
Sorry for answering your question early, but the first step is getting everyone together and committed to the project.
:-P
Then, to actually make it happen, you shoot all of the lawyers. Next.
Soko
I vote for "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace -- but that's because I think giant hurds of free-roaming hamsters would rule. --MM
;)
For starters, the GNU mascot is a, well, Gnu, not a hamster. As well, the Hurd is a microkernel, not a monolithic one, so it's just not that big. Infinet Jest is also a little to close to the expected release date of the HURD, too, so I'd run the other way if you're every introduced to one Richard M. Stallman.
Besides, I thought that Linux provided utopia?
Soko
Said the AC:
Yes,
First you discuss,
Then you form a standards group,
then you make the standard.
Other than being "Captain Obvious", the AC is correct. You need to get all of the cats into the same corral before you can herd them along.
At least they're attacking the root problem - a useable, patent free, open standard document format, rather than a de facto standard format that's closed, proprietary and difficult to reverse engineer.
Soko
Yeah yeah, bad bot impersonation, but its better than the:
While they are handing out patents I'll take a patent out on math/science/sex/etc
comments that will start cropping up.
I know! You could pretty much guarantee that those comments would get posted immediately. Karma whores.
Hell, anyone who's been here long enough could use Perl to write a Slashbo.....
*Sigh* Nevermind.
Soko
Actually, it's simpler science, I would imagine. Can you cook a whole chicken by pointing a cutting torch at it? Why not? Seems like common sense, but there's a lot of science behind the reason why the above isn't a terribly good idea.
The reason why you toss a (good) steak on a raging hot grill is to sear the outside of the meat closed. Then when you cook it, all of the good stuff stays inside, instead of dripping on to the coals and burning away. A properly cooked, medium rare steak should only lose about 1/8 of it's pre-cooked weight to moisture loss. Anyway, simple chemistry/physics tells us that the more fuel+oxygen you give a fire (forcing a faster chemical reaction = more of the by-products in a shorter time span, in this case infra-red energy), the hotter it gets, and the hotter it gets, the better the seal on the food. The hair dryer's providing a way of flash-searing the food he's grilling.
I cook holiday turkeys with this in mind - I start with the oven @280 C (450 F) for about 1/2 an hour. The reason? I try to turn the skin essentially into a watertight bag, so the critter cooks in it's own juices after I turn the heat down to 200 C (325 F). I also make an oversized aluminum foil tent that I put over the bird, in order to disrupt the normal heat flow in my non-convection oven and even out the heat on the bird. The hot air flows from the bottom to the top through the middle, hits the ovens roof and goes back down via the sides, then repeats. The tent forces the heat to the sides before it hits the roof, and creates turbulance. This turbulance washes the sides of the bird in hot air. Result? My turkey is done about %60 faster and is almost always overly juicy. Yum.
Like the reviewer said, it's all about heat distribution. Dammit, now I'm hungry.
Soko
I wouldn't quite start cheering yet. I'd be awfully wary of what comes out of this. MS gets a FREE security check of XBOX, and look what they can do with all this:
* They can see where all the holes that hackers/modders are exploiting in the console are.
* They can "slipstream" secutity updates into future games and break the above.
* They get some PR karma for not going after an academic/researcher who is doing benefit for the "public good" (i.e. fixing security holes that could "JEAPORDIZE NATIONAL SECURITY"
* They know what works and what doesn't for security in future products.
Y'know, all of these points are some of the reasons why a lot of companies like the OSS model.
Could it be that Microsoft is recognising some of the benefits to sharing info with hackers? Have they got a "cancerous" tumour of OSS ethics, that can start spreading ??
Nahhhhh...
Soko
JAWS
:-P
Ahem. For you younger folk, this isn't another request for more pr0n. Jaws is a classic thriller about an unusually large Great White shark that eats people, starting with a girl skinny dipping in the ocean. Erk...
Well, OK, it's almost pr0n.
Soko
I'd like to see a "Wealth Generated per $100 In Sales" type of comparison - how much does it cost for each OS to generate $X worth of wealth for others. Not just hard $, but soft benefits as well. Does Microsoft and Windows actually grease the wheels of innovation by generating lots of $, or does Linux provide more benefits with the sharing of code and IP?
That would be actually rather interesting, from both social and business points of view. Not easy at all, but interesting.
Soko
Go ahead. Take out a radio ad, a TV ad, a newspaper ad and an ad on Yahoo or AOL. Oh, wait.... ;-)
Soko
If this thing can repel them, I wonder if they have something that could be used to attract them somewhere else.
As most geeks probably realize, it's generally much easier to repel a given organism than it is to attract it.
Except if that organism happens to be at the other end of the tech support phone line, asking where the "any" key is in Linux.
*Bashes forehead on keyboard*
Soko
That's amazing. A company called "Monday"? Sounds like the Adams Family goes to Wall Street.
:P
I can think of no better way to drive employee morale into the very bottom of the old outhouse like having to work at "Monday" every damned day of the bloody week. When I have a bad day at work on a Tuesday, if someone asks I say "Monday's still here."
Mondays suck. Then, I hear PwC did too. For sure the consultant that picked such a scary name for a company sucked at thier job.
Anyway, I bet there's a bunch of PwC workers jumping up and down screaming "W00t!! No more Monday!!!"
G'nite, folks.
Soko
Aren't Barney jokes a little... oh I don't know... 1994?
No! NO! Until that purple, sugar coated, white gumed (LOOK AT THE UGLY THING SOMETIME - HE HAS NO TEETH!!) lame ass excuse for corporate brainwashing of our kids is dead, I will continue to parody and make him the butt of as many jokes as I can. A pox on him.
Hey, maybe we could resurect another '90s joke, and convince Jerry Falwell that Barney is Tinky-Winky's gay live in. Adds new meaning to "I love you, You love me...". GAHHH!
(*Cranks up 7Dust to clear the stench of the Barney song from his head*)
Soko
[cheapshot]
mpaa.org?
riaa.org?
What is 'noncommercial' about that? I guest we can chalk up another 'blow to speech' by the corporations that RUN mpaa and riaa.
[/cheapshot]
Grow up already.
The RIAA and MPAA aren't in of themselves profit making orgs - they promote the agendas (however *evil* they may be) of the big media companies. Free speech means anyone can voice thier opinion and try to convince the masses that they're right.
That wasn't a cheap shot, it was all together wrong.
Soko
Then again, do we know what would of happened to all those OSS projets funded by HPAQ if he had of gone through with this? Where would Perl be?
Swallowing his pride may of been the lesser of 2 evils. It most certainly isn't a black and white situation. Grow up.
HP likely said "Put those huge balls back in your pants. You'll get to use them later - in spades."
Soko
Errmmm.... Let me qualify that for you a bit, please.
" -- "We need to build a vibrant and healthy developer community. That's the lesson Linux has taught us. Having people to help. Knowing where to get questions answered," Rudder said. --
MS, open up some of your source code, with a non-restictive and free license, please. That might help."
Poisoning (too strong a word, but none other will do here) the OSS talent pool with closed, proprietary IP will not do us any good. Niether will disparaging remarks - keep it to the playing field, please.
Soko