Maybe they should follow the lead of this idea , as seen on Segfault. [added commentary follows]
TV-Distributed Web to Be Censored
Television companies will are poised to start delivery of Web content, but have announced today that they will be censoring all content they deliver. Due to fears of lawsuits based on the decency of material found on the Internet and the potential for distribution of copyrighted material, all content sent to homes over TV station bandwidth will be delivered sans graphics, video and audio. This is made possible by a revolutionary new piece of technology called Lynx.
"Lynx will allow our affiliate stations to deliver web content with full certainty that none of the content is indecent, offensive, or copyrighted," said Jeff Singleworth, vice-president of ABC Corp. "We're also putting into place a word blocker which removes all offensive language from websites, so that we can be absolutely positive there is nothing which will get us in any trouble with anyone for any reason."
"The real beauty of the system is that it will allow our users to stream text into their home in real-time, what with all the bandwidth we're saving by not transmitting graphics, audio or video."
Pricing for the text browsing service is expected to start at $49.00/mo, and is projected to launch late third quarter, 2001.
All we need is a purely text based sytem for gaming.
Pure Text(tm), the latest advance in Mature Systems gaming. PureText by MS would be the best system for CDs, DVDs, and Streaming Text presentation systems. Plus the use of the Pure Text system allows for far more content and far larger worlds than has been experienced before.
as a side note, I would probably include in the pages some sort of hidden string or meta tag that identify the page location and the corresponding locations for the alternate forms of the page, etc. I would also identify the pages by some sort of standardized naming scheme and/or directory scheme.
The idea is that with such a standardized scheme, a script for bulk conversion becomes much easier, since the name and location and function of the page is related to the metatags or whatever in the file itself.
Just my two bits.
of course, for pages generated via CGI, php, etc., a different approach is needed, but you still might be able to script the conversion, depending on the original design.
If the design is basically AdHoc with no naming conventions and lots of inconsistent setups (with bazillions of cgi scripts, etc for lots of funky sites)...
Well, you may have a problem.
It could become a problem similar to the Y2K issue. You would have to re-write everything.
The simplest thing might be to generate a set of parallel pages which are oriented to those with various disabilities.
This might be far easier than trying to do a combo page. And once a template is set up, you might be able to set up a script for bulk conversions. It would probably be less effort to correct a bunch of text oriented pages which are 90 -95% compliant then to re-design everything from scratch.
I think there is a distinct differance in the mental models of management here. This is very much related to the Zero-Sum Game article ("Can You Suggest Any Non-Zero Sum Games?") from the other day.
Unions tend to function in an US vs THEM atmosphere. Many small companies function in a team atmosphere, where most everyone is working more or less as an "US". Note that I did not say all small companies, because you see many variations, including the family business, and the pointy haired boss in his/her own small business. Some of these make you wonder how they survive. And if you look around, many businesses do not survive their first year.
The problem (of us vs them) can come in when the group gets sufficiently large that you do not have a chance to know everyone. It can also come in when you have people schooled exclusively in the older schools of management.
One of the problems that promotes the segregation of managers is not the sheer volume of data, but the fact of people who would be clueless as managers on the general team getting all confused and spreading that confusion to everyone else with every new bit of mis-information they create in their minds as they try to understand things.
These folks naturally tend to corrupt data, adding in their own pre-existing fixed ideas and confusions, and making a splendid mess of things. You definitely have a problem when the majority of people in the company fall in this category. This is where you get companies who need to "hire an adult" to run things for the creative types.
When you have a company that has grown to be very successful, it is easy for the various branches and depts to devolve into fiefdoms, etc. At that point you are doomed to the "us vs them" atmosphere.
Unions thrive on this and promote the Us vs Them atmosphere. Unions are a cure for abuses of management, where working conditions devolve towards a state of serfdom or slavery. They are there to make sure that the rank and file have a voice of some sort.
Unfortunately, unions can be very clueless as well. I can recall a company or two that agreed to union demands, and then went bankrupt. The owners decided that it would be easier just to cash out. And then the unions said "oops, we didn't know". This is where the unions get the reputation in management circles of being parasites.
So all and all, it is a mixed bag. It cries out for a different business model.
makes you wonder how many are actually worried about rights, and how many are just collegiate level arguments about politics, who can make the most interesting post, etc.
Except that IBM is commiting itself to Linux. The ex-evil empire turning to open source, that isn't exactly where it started. Hear that speech at LinuxWorld?
And you can even see a video (via the link on the page) with some very interesting comments.
One thing that is mentioned is that IBM spends about 5 billion us dollars a year on R&D, and that money is *dwarfed* by all of the man-hours open source developers put into linux. IBM cannot compete. period.
listen to the video and hear them say in in plain english.
The recording companies seem intent on killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. The look at the goose, and seeing that the eggs are this weird soft metal, the goose can't be worth anything.
To save their millions they are throwing away billions, because they want 100% of a small pie, rather than 10% of a fantastically huge pie.
reminds me of the old monkey traps.
For those who do not know:
you have a large heavy pot with a hole just large enough to except a fruit like an apple or an organge, etc. (whatever the monkey likes. The hole is also just large enought for you hand. But it is too small for you (or a monkey) to take the hand out while holding on to the fruit. You have to tip the jar over.
You as a human can figure this out. but a monkey can not. It grabs on to the fruit, and won't let go.
Voila! One monkey dinner
The record companies are like the trapped monkey. They won't let go, they can't let go, even if it kills them.
I've been watching their coverage creep closer and closer to where I live. I can't believe this isn't a viable business model - wireless 128k service for $75 a month or something? Shit, my 384k DSL line costs me around $90/month. I've been strapped with a piece of junk cellular "modem" at 14.4 for so long it's ridiculous.
The Register has this story about Laramie, Wyoming, where they run their own non-profit community wireless Internet service. It includes high-speed Net access service for a fraction of the price of most services in the US. Normal dial-up service is $5 a month, $20-$30 a month for high speed (10MB/second). Businesses can now get T1 wireless or SDSL for fee $125 monthly. Information on how to set up a similar enterprise can be found on their site.
Bottom line is that a bunch of geeks can get together, form their own user groups, and ust the group to set up their own ISP, with their own rules for fairly cheap.
On a separate note, I have seen some of the new Omnisky products, and I got to say that they seem to be pretty solid. They must be putting in some pretty intense QA on them, all things considered.
You'll probably still see small mom and pop ISP operations in those areas where the bigh companies can't be bothered.
While you can sit around and gripe, the other option is to get togetther with a few of your friends, and start your own service.
While this may seem a bit outrageous, it is not that impractical. The Register has this story about Laramie, Wyoming, where they run their own non-profit community wireless Internet service called Lariat (Laramie Internet Access and Telecommunications). It includes high-speed Net access service for a fraction of the price of most services in the US.
The initial cost was about $3,000. Many residents donating their own PCs. Normal dial-up service is $5 a month, $20-$30 a month for high speed (10MB/second). Businesses can now get T1 wireless or SDSL for fee $125 monthly
Information on how to set up a similar enterprise can be found on the lariat site.
Will this spin doctor try to spin this spin on himself in about three weeks?
Well since he was the actual genius who invented the Mac (not Jobs), I can cut him some slack as far as feeling he has some right to speak up. How big would anyone's ego be if they had invented the Mac. Heck, Gates, merely copied it for the most part, and look at him! [joke]
Quoting from the article:
For those who don't believe I invented the Mac, read the original documents. (Stanford University has put many of them online.) Lots of great people had a hand in it, and some made essential contributions, but at Apple, the
dream, vision, and many fundamental design concepts, were first learned from me.
This following part is what I think is the core of the issue:
Many people missed, and Burg did not make clear, that I was talking about the *interface* to UNIX, not to UNIX itself, which I think is a work of genius and a masterpiece of elegant design. I was a UNIX user for years, but I know that we can do even better today.
(...)
Why is UNIX so much better than its interface? Because, its designers were experts at the theory and practice of software design and development. They were not experts at cognitive psychology, and the field of interface design barely existed when they were designing it. Now that we know a significantly more, it is time to fix the mistakes that they (understandably) made.
OS X, on the other hand, was built recently, and thus there is no excuse for its designers to have done so badly in terms of interface design.
'nuff said
remember kids, some things require the ability to read books and things without pictures!
The "for Dummies" version of the article (NOTE - commentary follows)
ST:TMP was yanked away from him (Wise) by the studio and plopped into theaters in hopes of cashing in on the success of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Paramount wanted the movie in theaters for the holidays, even though the special effects weren't even completed till, literally, the last minute.
"At the time I made it, I was pretty unhappy," the 86-year-old Wise says now. "There were some unfortunate things going on. We had problems with the script--we were rewriting the script all the way through (...) There were so many things taken out I don't think should have been taken out, so when I had a chance to go back (...), that made me much happier about the film. With all my other films, everything went fine--I got my cut on them and got along with the studios. This is the only one I had this experience with."
When the idea of restoring ST:TMP was suggested by filmmakers David C. Fein and Michael Matessino two years ago, Wise was at first resistant. The two finally convinced him to approach Paramount about completing his movie, and the studio agreed, but only for home-video release. It would take five months for the filmmakers to, at long last, "find the movie's flow," as Fein says.
For Wise, it was necessary to step back in time, if only because he needed "closure," a term often used by Nimoy, Fein, and Wise himself. He has retired from filmmaking, and is content that at long last, all 40 of his films look, sound, and feel just as he intended.
Most of the additions are taken from the additional 12 minutes' worth of footage put back in the film when it aired on ABC in the '80s. Scenes have actually been trimmed (especially those containing repetitive dialogue), and much of what has been added are additional special-effects shots, and a new sound mix that Fein insists makes the film far more "intense."
What this shows is the tendency of the marketing types who want to tinker with property for their marketing aims.
An example of this is what happened with the aborted sequel to Babylon 5. TNT wanted to make it into a combo Baywatch/WWF in Space. Fortunately the author (jms) told them where to go. If that is what they want, then let the marketroids write it themselves. Unfortunately, what happens is that nobody watches it, and then they try to rip off the name of a quality product to sell their junk.
What we have above is an earlier example of that kind of disturbed thinking on the part of Paramount, in my opinion.
Given the situation, not being released to the theater, but a home release, at least he has his final say in the matter. I hope it turns out good.
This would be a biting and insightful comment if Internet Explorer didn't have the most comprehensive support for W3C standards of any browser in existence.
i don't know about you, but I get bit by web pages that have incomplete tags all the time. That, in the context of this recommendation:
1.7 Warn users about incomplete documents and transfers.
sort of like saying "it is not completely bad, just mostly"
I just get bent out of shape by MS abuse of the standards process.
the behaviors described are not protocols officially accepted by MS. (just look at the behavior of the browsers)
Given the dominance of MS in the market, is this document even relevant? [even though it is brilliant, insightful, and written by people who care about what is going on]
I am just glad we haven't progressed to the point where Microsoft "red" is a shade between black and blue.
This is true weirdness from the article (link added):
Over the past year, Assistant Professor Weija
Wen has created a white powder of tiny
particles that, when combined with oil, can be
either a fluid or a solid. It changes its state
when an electrical charge is applied or
removed, a property known as
electrorheology". Wen's is not the first
substance that can do this, but the molecular
properties of Wen's particles make this fluid
much more rigid than those that have gone
before, he said. For instance, it exceeds the
rigidity standard set by General Motors Corp.
for use in a clutch, which the auto maker has
been researching for more than ten years.
In a car, such a clutch might last longer than
a mechanical one, Wen said. In a small
hard-disk drive, such as for a handheld
device, it could remove the need to make tiny,
expensive gears and clutches. If used to
replace existing parts, the technology could be
commercialized in just two or three years, he
estimated.
I don't know, I have visions of someone zapping the car, and watching it melt around me as I fly down the pavement at unhealthy speeds.
Each person who is connecting to the network will be required to purchase a Free World Dialup node which will an estimated retail cost of US$ 100 and connect a telephone line (analog POTS) to the RJ-11 jack in the back of the node. As long the person has "always-on" Broadband access to the Net, the node will become a qualified FWD Node and free phone calling will be enabled.
lemme see - so each person who has broad band always on can hook up a phone line that other folks can dial in and out of to get their free long distance phone calls.
This is noble, but I am not that rich yet, to donate both the hardware and the dialup line.
At least they were kind enough to supply this list of other free phone services:
- - - -
Free Telephony Services - 2001 Update
(Note: all "Free" Phone to Phone
services have been removed since the services have
been discontinued)
As the Free Telephony revolution continues, please
visit our friends at the following websites which offer Free
Telephony Services:
The second point of view is the insurance company's. How do they know the person applying for coverage isn't terminally ill and will make the company pay out millions of dollars for treatment? The company has a right to know the state of their paitents before giving coverage.
It is expected that most insurance companies would have some sort of medical exam for things like life insurance, to avoid issues just like this.
But more general items like health insurance are another thing. Or would you like to have YOUR own insurance cancelled because, you are getting older, and might get sick, and thank you for paying out the 30 or 40 years of premiums without much payout.
There has been a major problem with insurances companies cancelling insurance whne you go to use it in a major way.
In this context, avoiding people who might not even know they have some genetic condition can be suspect. The point is not insuring people based on pre-existing conditions is a bad thing. The potential insurance liability should be shared "equally" (or at random) by all insurers.
"Unapproved" tests in this case is not the same as "unapproved" medicine. Medicine is sometimes regulated so that people do not hurt themselves. Tests are sometimes regulated so that the companies do not rip you off.
Leadbeater sounds like someone trying to sell people on the easy life of a canary in a cage with a firewire connection straight into the skull.
He sees the Internet not as an information system or a data system, but a world wide entertainment system, or a world wide hedonism system. All for his profit, fun, and folly.
The analogy I would make for the Internet vs the WWW is life coming on land from the sea. All life depends on the sea, and you ignore it at your peril. But land dwellers tend to be myopic and ignorant of anything not rooted in their particular clod of mud.
I recall several dumb movies from someplace (and a few dumb shows) where everyone was wired into the shoot-them up games systems, and the fantasy lives of being directly wired in.
This man sounds like just the fool to sell us on this, or to sell us on being Borg.
the danger in any of these, despite the apparent advantadges, is being a drone for the system, not being in control of your own life. I do not fancy life as a bloated corpusle is the body of cyber-consumerism
This ties in so well with the story the other day about excessive computer use making people stupid (actually, causing memory loss). (NB - entitled "Are Computers Stealing Your Memory?")
Sounds like Leadbeater is a poster child for the cause.
What's your source? Literacy was always the badge of the elite: of citizens in Greece (wealthy men only), clergy in the middle ages, etc. It's only been relatively recently that universal literacy has been a goal, and only in parts of the world
I was thinking of the Library of Alexandria. I am also sure that there were other national libraries such as in Babylonia and Rome.
while literacy was limited, those who could read certainly had access.
The argument is not about who hand access to literacy, but rather, who has had access to libraries, which generally was/is anyone who was literate. A slightly different thing, and a point that should not get muddled.
As far as I can tell, the free reading of books has been a part of western civilization since writing was invented, and books were scrolls. Yes, there have been private libraries where you paid a fee, or had have to be a student at a university, or some other type of member, etc.
But this type of thing is really just a power grab.
It also opens the door to freedom of speech issues. in that is speech free if you can stop or impede people from listening, reading, etc because you need your cut of the pie.
In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi warned that American missile defense "will have a far-reaching and extensive negative impact on the global and regional strategic balance and stability."
Remember that the USA and the West outspent the Soviets, bankrupting them. It certainly disrupted the Soviet block, among other things.
So just on this basis, I can see that China is not yet ready for an arms race vs the USA.
It's economy is not big enough, yet.
As far as the effectiveness of a missile defense goes, remember that it does not have to be 100% effective.
Even if the defense was 50% effective you would have to spend at LEAST twice as much to get through, and a lot more than that if you want to ensure that you hit the targets you have chosen. You might have to put in four times as much to ensure that you take out your favorite heavily defended target.
That by itself will put additional economic pressure on China. So of course, they would get nervous about this.
I think the problem with your plan is that the guys with Gravity on their side are bound to win.
Agreed. If we are dealing with only the local population, such as here on Earth, that is one thing. If you have visitors from outside, that is another.
also, for that matter you could just start dropping appropriate size rocks. But it depends on what you are aiming to do. For example, do you want to wipe them out, or just make life miserable?
The planetary orbit story from the other day also has weapons potential, but you need to assess just how mad you are at the other guy. You do not waste a perfectly good planet unless you have plenty of spares.
Right now, for example, in March Madness in basketball, alot of schools are making Big Bucks of off the mostly free efforts of the athletes. There has been some controversy over this, at least last year, in that more people want a piece of the pie.
So here in the XFL, we have a bunch of guys playing for relatively cheap. How long before these guys want to have a bigger cut of the pie, especially if the XFL takes off? Or will they continue to do it for the love of the game, while the owners get rich and fat off their efforts? (if it succeeds at all?)
Slashdot Mirror
Pure Text(tm), the latest advance in Mature Systems gaming. PureText by MS would be the best system for CDs, DVDs, and Streaming Text presentation systems. Plus the use of the Pure Text system allows for far more content and far larger worlds than has been experienced before.
This is an Idea whose time has come.
The idea is that with such a standardized scheme, a script for bulk conversion becomes much easier, since the name and location and function of the page is related to the metatags or whatever in the file itself.
Just my two bits.
of course, for pages generated via CGI, php, etc., a different approach is needed, but you still might be able to script the conversion, depending on the original design.
If the design is basically AdHoc with no naming conventions and lots of inconsistent setups (with bazillions of cgi scripts, etc for lots of funky sites)...
Well, you may have a problem.
It could become a problem similar to the Y2K issue. You would have to re-write everything.
The simplest thing might be to generate a set of parallel pages which are oriented to those with various disabilities.
This might be far easier than trying to do a combo page. And once a template is set up, you might be able to set up a script for bulk conversions. It would probably be less effort to correct a bunch of text oriented pages which are 90 -95% compliant then to re-design everything from scratch.
Unions tend to function in an US vs THEM atmosphere. Many small companies function in a team atmosphere, where most everyone is working more or less as an "US". Note that I did not say all small companies, because you see many variations, including the family business, and the pointy haired boss in his/her own small business. Some of these make you wonder how they survive. And if you look around, many businesses do not survive their first year.
The problem (of us vs them) can come in when the group gets sufficiently large that you do not have a chance to know everyone. It can also come in when you have people schooled exclusively in the older schools of management.
One of the problems that promotes the segregation of managers is not the sheer volume of data, but the fact of people who would be clueless as managers on the general team getting all confused and spreading that confusion to everyone else with every new bit of mis-information they create in their minds as they try to understand things.
These folks naturally tend to corrupt data, adding in their own pre-existing fixed ideas and confusions, and making a splendid mess of things. You definitely have a problem when the majority of people in the company fall in this category. This is where you get companies who need to "hire an adult" to run things for the creative types.
When you have a company that has grown to be very successful, it is easy for the various branches and depts to devolve into fiefdoms, etc. At that point you are doomed to the "us vs them" atmosphere.
Unions thrive on this and promote the Us vs Them atmosphere. Unions are a cure for abuses of management, where working conditions devolve towards a state of serfdom or slavery. They are there to make sure that the rank and file have a voice of some sort.
Unfortunately, unions can be very clueless as well. I can recall a company or two that agreed to union demands, and then went bankrupt. The owners decided that it would be easier just to cash out. And then the unions said "oops, we didn't know". This is where the unions get the reputation in management circles of being parasites.
So all and all, it is a mixed bag. It cries out for a different business model.
here, no one notices.
makes you wonder how many are actually worried about rights, and how many are just collegiate level arguments about politics, who can make the most interesting post, etc.
You can read about the speech here.
And you can even see a video (via the link on the page) with some very interesting comments.
One thing that is mentioned is that IBM spends about 5 billion us dollars a year on R&D, and that money is *dwarfed* by all of the man-hours open source developers put into linux. IBM cannot compete. period.
listen to the video and hear them say in in plain english.
I wonder what that means for Microsoft?
To save their millions they are throwing away billions, because they want 100% of a small pie, rather than 10% of a fantastically huge pie.
reminds me of the old monkey traps.
For those who do not know:
you have a large heavy pot with a hole just large enough to except a fruit like an apple or an organge, etc. (whatever the monkey likes. The hole is also just large enought for you hand. But it is too small for you (or a monkey) to take the hand out while holding on to the fruit. You have to tip the jar over.
You as a human can figure this out. but a monkey can not. It grabs on to the fruit, and won't let go.
Voila! One monkey dinner
The record companies are like the trapped monkey. They won't let go, they can't let go, even if it kills them.
This is actually sort of relevant: Check out the comment I made earlier today about Rolling Your Own Internet Connection.
In short:
The Register has this story about Laramie, Wyoming, where they run their own non-profit community wireless Internet service. It includes high-speed Net access service for a fraction of the price of most services in the US. Normal dial-up service is $5 a month, $20-$30 a month for high speed (10MB/second). Businesses can now get T1 wireless or SDSL for fee $125 monthly. Information on how to set up a similar enterprise can be found on their site.
Bottom line is that a bunch of geeks can get together, form their own user groups, and ust the group to set up their own ISP, with their own rules for fairly cheap.
On a separate note, I have seen some of the new Omnisky products, and I got to say that they seem to be pretty solid. They must be putting in some pretty intense QA on them, all things considered.
While you can sit around and gripe, the other option is to get togetther with a few of your friends, and start your own service.
While this may seem a bit outrageous, it is not that impractical. The Register has this story about Laramie, Wyoming, where they run their own non-profit community wireless Internet service called Lariat (Laramie Internet Access and Telecommunications). It includes high-speed Net access service for a fraction of the price of most services in the US.
The initial cost was about $3,000. Many residents donating their own PCs. Normal dial-up service is $5 a month, $20-$30 a month for high speed (10MB/second). Businesses can now get T1 wireless or SDSL for fee $125 monthly
Information on how to set up a similar enterprise can be found on the lariat site.
Well since he was the actual genius who invented the Mac (not Jobs), I can cut him some slack as far as feeling he has some right to speak up. How big would anyone's ego be if they had invented the Mac. Heck, Gates, merely copied it for the most part, and look at him! [joke]
Quoting from the article:
This following part is what I think is the core of the issue: 'nuff saidremember kids, some things require the ability to read books and things without pictures!
ST:TMP was yanked away from him (Wise) by the studio and plopped into theaters in hopes of cashing in on the success of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Paramount wanted the movie in theaters for the holidays, even though the special effects weren't even completed till, literally, the last minute.
"At the time I made it, I was pretty unhappy," the 86-year-old Wise says now. "There were some unfortunate things going on. We had problems with the script--we were rewriting the script all the way through (...) There were so many things taken out I don't think should have been taken out, so when I had a chance to go back (...), that made me much happier about the film. With all my other films, everything went fine--I got my cut on them and got along with the studios. This is the only one I had this experience with."
When the idea of restoring ST:TMP was suggested by filmmakers David C. Fein and Michael Matessino two years ago, Wise was at first resistant. The two finally convinced him to approach Paramount about completing his movie, and the studio agreed, but only for home-video release. It would take five months for the filmmakers to, at long last, "find the movie's flow," as Fein says.
For Wise, it was necessary to step back in time, if only because he needed "closure," a term often used by Nimoy, Fein, and Wise himself. He has retired from filmmaking, and is content that at long last, all 40 of his films look, sound, and feel just as he intended.
Most of the additions are taken from the additional 12 minutes' worth of footage put back in the film when it aired on ABC in the '80s. Scenes have actually been trimmed (especially those containing repetitive dialogue), and much of what has been added are additional special-effects shots, and a new sound mix that Fein insists makes the film far more "intense."
What this shows is the tendency of the marketing types who want to tinker with property for their marketing aims.
An example of this is what happened with the aborted sequel to Babylon 5. TNT wanted to make it into a combo Baywatch/WWF in Space. Fortunately the author (jms) told them where to go. If that is what they want, then let the marketroids write it themselves. Unfortunately, what happens is that nobody watches it, and then they try to rip off the name of a quality product to sell their junk.
What we have above is an earlier example of that kind of disturbed thinking on the part of Paramount, in my opinion.
Given the situation, not being released to the theater, but a home release, at least he has his final say in the matter. I hope it turns out good.
i don't know about you, but I get bit by web pages that have incomplete tags all the time. That, in the context of this recommendation:
1.7 Warn users about incomplete documents and transfers.
sort of like saying "it is not completely bad, just mostly"
I just get bent out of shape by MS abuse of the standards process.
pardon me.
Great - they whack me twice
- first to melt the clutch
- the second to resolidify it as it drains through the gearing
just let me know when I can start screaming
the behaviors described are not protocols officially accepted by MS. (just look at the behavior of the browsers)
Given the dominance of MS in the market, is this document even relevant? [even though it is brilliant, insightful, and written by people who care about what is going on]
I am just glad we haven't progressed to the point where Microsoft "red" is a shade between black and blue.
This is true weirdness from the article (link added):
Over the past year, Assistant Professor Weija Wen has created a white powder of tiny particles that, when combined with oil, can be either a fluid or a solid. It changes its state when an electrical charge is applied or removed, a property known as electrorheology". Wen's is not the first substance that can do this, but the molecular properties of Wen's particles make this fluid much more rigid than those that have gone before, he said. For instance, it exceeds the rigidity standard set by General Motors Corp. for use in a clutch, which the auto maker has been researching for more than ten years.
In a car, such a clutch might last longer than a mechanical one, Wen said. In a small hard-disk drive, such as for a handheld device, it could remove the need to make tiny, expensive gears and clutches. If used to replace existing parts, the technology could be commercialized in just two or three years, he estimated.
I don't know, I have visions of someone zapping the car, and watching it melt around me as I fly down the pavement at unhealthy speeds.
lemme see - so each person who has broad band always on can hook up a phone line that other folks can dial in and out of to get their free long distance phone calls.
This is noble, but I am not that rich yet, to donate both the hardware and the dialup line.
At least they were kind enough to supply this list of other free phone services:
- - - -
Free Telephony Services - 2001 Update
(Note: all "Free" Phone to Phone services have been removed since the services have been discontinued)
As the Free Telephony revolution continues, please visit our friends at the following websites which offer Free Telephony Services:
It is expected that most insurance companies would have some sort of medical exam for things like life insurance, to avoid issues just like this.
But more general items like health insurance are another thing. Or would you like to have YOUR own insurance cancelled because, you are getting older, and might get sick, and thank you for paying out the 30 or 40 years of premiums without much payout.
There has been a major problem with insurances companies cancelling insurance whne you go to use it in a major way.
In this context, avoiding people who might not even know they have some genetic condition can be suspect. The point is not insuring people based on pre-existing conditions is a bad thing. The potential insurance liability should be shared "equally" (or at random) by all insurers.
"Unapproved" tests in this case is not the same as "unapproved" medicine. Medicine is sometimes regulated so that people do not hurt themselves. Tests are sometimes regulated so that the companies do not rip you off.
Leadbeater sounds like someone trying to sell people on the easy life of a canary in a cage with a firewire connection straight into the skull.
He sees the Internet not as an information system or a data system, but a world wide entertainment system, or a world wide hedonism system. All for his profit, fun, and folly.
The analogy I would make for the Internet vs the WWW is life coming on land from the sea. All life depends on the sea, and you ignore it at your peril. But land dwellers tend to be myopic and ignorant of anything not rooted in their particular clod of mud.
I recall several dumb movies from someplace (and a few dumb shows) where everyone was wired into the shoot-them up games systems, and the fantasy lives of being directly wired in.
This man sounds like just the fool to sell us on this, or to sell us on being Borg.
the danger in any of these, despite the apparent advantadges, is being a drone for the system, not being in control of your own life. I do not fancy life as a bloated corpusle is the body of cyber-consumerism
This ties in so well with the story the other day about excessive computer use making people stupid (actually, causing memory loss). (NB - entitled "Are Computers Stealing Your Memory?")
Sounds like Leadbeater is a poster child for the cause.
[/rant]
I was thinking of the Library of Alexandria. I am also sure that there were other national libraries such as in Babylonia and Rome.
while literacy was limited, those who could read certainly had access.
The argument is not about who hand access to literacy, but rather, who has had access to libraries, which generally was/is anyone who was literate. A slightly different thing, and a point that should not get muddled.
A is similar to B, but A is not identical to B.
I recall that it was posted in the Slashdot article Development of OS Satellite Image Processing/Mapping by Hemos on Tuesday May 30, @10:35AM EST
Some things need to be followed up on from time to time, although I am sure that someone is going to complain.
But this type of thing is really just a power grab.
It also opens the door to freedom of speech issues. in that is speech free if you can stop or impede people from listening, reading, etc because you need your cut of the pie.
It is a the death of freedom by a thousand cuts.
Remember that the USA and the West outspent the Soviets, bankrupting them. It certainly disrupted the Soviet block, among other things.
So just on this basis, I can see that China is not yet ready for an arms race vs the USA.
It's economy is not big enough, yet.
As far as the effectiveness of a missile defense goes, remember that it does not have to be 100% effective.
Even if the defense was 50% effective you would have to spend at LEAST twice as much to get through, and a lot more than that if you want to ensure that you hit the targets you have chosen. You might have to put in four times as much to ensure that you take out your favorite heavily defended target.
That by itself will put additional economic pressure on China. So of course, they would get nervous about this.
DING!
There you go.
What you are missing, though, is the fashionable black beret being worn, see against the black curtains, and the black shadows.
It is covering about two thirds of the head of hair you are looking at.
Agreed. If we are dealing with only the local population, such as here on Earth, that is one thing. If you have visitors from outside, that is another.
also, for that matter you could just start dropping appropriate size rocks. But it depends on what you are aiming to do. For example, do you want to wipe them out, or just make life miserable?
The planetary orbit story from the other day also has weapons potential, but you need to assess just how mad you are at the other guy. You do not waste a perfectly good planet unless you have plenty of spares.
So here in the XFL, we have a bunch of guys playing for relatively cheap. How long before these guys want to have a bigger cut of the pie, especially if the XFL takes off? Or will they continue to do it for the love of the game, while the owners get rich and fat off their efforts? (if it succeeds at all?)