1)All commercial promotions sent by email shall require a spammer's license. The License number must be registered with the federal governement, and must be clearly included within the headers of the message. The spammer's license will be for a one year period, and for a specified amount of traffic, with the license fee corresponding to roughly one cent for each 100 emails sent out on a daily basis. Exceeding this limit will call for extreme penalties, fines, jail time, in measured proportion to the number of offences and the magnitude of the offence.
2) ISPs and Companies maintaining routers, etc. may inspect the message headers (automatically, or otherwise), lookup the spammer's license in the publically available database of spammers License Numbers, and bill the owner's of the spamming license an appropriate amount for the traffic incured, even if blocked or rejected.
3)Service providers may collect traffic fees on behalf of their customers as well.
4) Persons, companies, etc sending spam without a proper spammer's license may be prosecuted to the full extant of the law, pay appropriate fines, etc.
[disclaimer - IANAL- but feel free to add teeth to this]
In asking about hacking back, what everyone is looking for, of course, is a way to implement justice on the internet.
Well, maybe not everyone. Some might want to monopolize the whole thing for themselves (like spammers, the RIAA, etc.)
and of course, we also have the whole Freedom of the Internet crowd who want as few rules as possible. The freedom of the early internet was made possible by the fact that it was smaller, the technology was not as developed (and so not as liable to abuse) and that there was a something of an educated culture where individual ownership and responsibility was at least recognized. You didn't trash your servers because that screwed up your link to the world.
Now the masses and the democracy of the mob makes the internet what it is, until we can stage our own revolution of the mind to either ensure people grow up or are somehow restrained into behaving somewhat more responsibly.
This of course opens up another can of worms, since no one agrees of what it all should look like in the first place.
Unfortunately this is what is needed to make progress in this area, because otherwise this is just going to get worse.
Firt, the Disclaimer - IANAL - I am not a Lawyer - and welcome any legal professionals to correct my finer points.
I for one am wondering about what actually constitutes proper use of trademarks.
Obvioulsy, one cannot deliberately try to confuse customers about a well known brand, although I am sure we all recall the infamous "Windows 98 Beer" sold in Moscow, and mentioned here on Slashdot a while back. I think that we can agree that this is a violation of at least the spirit of the idea of trade mark, even if it was not even in the same ballpark as M$ software. They were riding on the novelty factor, and on the free publicity conveniently provided by M$.
I can also recall going into a chain merchandise store and seeing a "Sonic" brand boom box. an off brand if I ever saw one. It was completely identical to a Sony Boombox in the design of th package, the model numbers, etc. Of course, it wasn't a Sony, but a "Sonic"
Again here, the intent was to confuse. Possibly legal, but again, not in the spirit of the law.
There is also the problem of keeping a name unique, and not a generic term. For example, Aspirin used to be a brand name, and now it is not. So These are appropriate concerns to Trademark law, to help maintain the unique identity of a product.
It seems to me that the use of trademark law to prohibit negative speech about a product is a thin thin connection at best.
It is likely overruled by the US Constitution. (but your milage may vary)
who knows, there may be a civil rights law suit in this some place.
Here is the link that gives the intro to the basic wacko theorywith links, etc.
Next we have links to the Expanding Earth theory (with another one here, with some nice graphics, but which is again wacko. It holds that the reason for the shifting of the continents is based on the earth expanding like a balloon, with the crust spreading in sections. The pretty graphics explain the idea nicely. It is tied into the interesting explanation of how dinosaurs could be so big.
Next we have a collection of somewhat related FAQs about science vs areas of psuedo science here, followed by a nice basic intro to plate techtonics here and here.
Some nice graphics related to plate techtonics can be found here and here as well.
the main point being that the continents have been separated and combined into a large single land mass many times through the history of the planet.
so the idea of shifting gravity and an expanding earth is probably a little silly.
There have been experiments in transmission of data at trans light speeds starting a couple years back. These experiments involve quantum tunnelling and some startling results. A decent page with some links is here,and a good introduction is given here. a more technical discussion is given here.
for those not "up to speed' on this issue, here is a quick summarry:
A controversy is presently raging in certain physics journals and conferences over whether Einstein's speed of light barrier has been breached by light itself.
In particular, Prof. Günther Nimtz and his group at the University of Cologne, Germany have published results showing that they used microwaves to transmit what might be interpreted as a signal, Mozart's 40th Symphony, over a path length of 11.4 centimeters at 4.7 times the speed of light.
The work of the Nimtz group raises the question of whether Einsteinian causality has in fact been violated and has spawned a controversy. The players in it, as is characteristic of careful scientists, have engaged in a careful tableau of discussion of various definitions of "velocity" and "causality" that skirt any claim of the fall of Einsteinian causality. One contingent has suggested that the FTL speed in the Nimtz experiment, like that of the Chiao group, might result from time-varying transmission probability in the barrier waveguide. The other argues that the filter advance of the Chiao group is peculiar to their filter type and does not apply to the Nimtz results.
What is meant by a signal has also been a matter of debate. For example, Mozart's 40th Symphony, while it is certainly a signal in some sense, does not contain modulation envelopes or switching edges that rise in 80 picoseconds and could thus place Einsteinian causality under stress by conspicuously arriving too early. Further, since any increase in barrier thickness brings with it a corresponding and exponentially increasing attenuation of any signal, it is not feasible to increase the barrier thickness to distances large enough that the causal implications of a constant barrier transit time become more apparent.
as a final note, there were those who also argued that Mozart's 40th Symphony was not information in the first place, and so relativity was not violated.
This brings a certain smile to the face, depending on you musical tastes.
All Programmers could become obsolete
on
Too Old To Code?
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· Score: 1
Genetic programming is an automated method for creating a working computer program from a high-level problem statement of a problem. Genetic programming does this by genetically breeding a population of computer programs using the principles of Darwinian natural selection and biologically inspired operations.
It is very possible that all programming in ten to twenty years with be done by artificial intelligence engines utilizing genetic algorthms.
You may have to retrain in some new field if you do not make it rich with your new internet startup
There have already been some radical advances in this are that are downright scary. The programs look like nothing any human would right, but they work.
I for one would be interested in knowing what hardware they need or bring with them. And would have alot of concerns as too what is the appropriate level of technology to use in such a situation
what happens all too often is that businesses (and individuals)want to donate their old hardware stored in the back closet (XT, AT, etc) made by companies that at no longer around, and/or are no longer supported. Considerable expertise is required to work with these, and many folks are deficient when dealing with command lind interfaces. Often, the expertise resides with a few people who still remember how these things work
of course, knowledgable folks all want the latest toys.
I can still run my business from a dos database program I know (it's relational), but I don't. (I have moved on to better things)
I know I would be considerably under-happy about providing tech support for people ramping up on this. Especially from overseas.
(I have worked in tech support, and the worse cases are the people who want you to help design their system from scratch over the phone, for free. and of course who do not want to learn since you are their intelligent talking book. It is, of course far easier in a course room situation, where you can grow the appropriate attitudes of personal responsibility)
So the issues are:
technology level documentation training user expectations repair issues
How are these being managed?
The repair issues alone could be horrific. Something works well for six months or a year, then dies a horrible death, and you need to redo the setup with new obsolete hardware. This could be a death trap for the tech supporting the setup.
Pager Spam - Phone Spam - This has the chance to be especially annoying.
It happens now, to some degree.
You are paged to call some number, maybe it's flagged urgeant, or some sort. but it's really a scam, or someone making you call to listen to an ad on your nickel, or call extra long distance for a big phone charge.
sounds like it is time to expand the anti-fax advertising law to include pagers, cell phones, and the like.
too bad I can't set up my cell phone to charge the caller for incoming calls, unless I hit a function key or enter a pin on my cell phone.
actually, that sounds like that would be a good idea for another service to offer. I would not mind having it right now. sort of like a 900 option for regular home phones, that you can turn on and off as needed.
certainly within the technology the telcos offer these days....
Chine putting The Party in control of Business
on
Censorship In China
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· Score: 1
This news story from the British newspaper The Telegragh shed some interesting light on recent events in China
Needless to say, given the well deserved reputaion of Communist style management, I think we might be able to kiss the chinese economy good bye over the next few years..
China orders its party cells into private firms By Damien McElroy in Beijing For the Electronic Telegraph (ww.telegraph.co.uk) 21 May 2000 e Registration, search for the author's name to find article)
Chinese Communist leadership has launched an ambitious drive to install party cells in the nation's flourishing private businesses in order to reassert an iron grip on the economy.
The move is a throwback to the command system built by Mao Tse-tung, in which control over companies was exercised through a network of Communist cadres whose authority outranked that of managers. Western businessmen are privately saying that the consequences of introducing party control over what has been the only promising area of the national economy in the past two decades are likely to be devastating.
- - -
The move raises fundamental questions about Western assumptions that more trade with China will one day lead to increasing freedoms for ordinary people in the totalitarian country. The rising power of entrepreneurs and the increasing autonomy from Communist control of people who do not depend on the state payroll had raised the prospect of the party's dominant role giving way to more democratic politics.
However, faced with the possibility of its eventual displacement, the party leadership appears to have decided to deploy its 61 million members in vital positions in the burgeoning private sector. Although details of the plan have not been announced, it seems likely that the party committees will play the same role in private firms as they have in state enterprises.
The latter are top-heavy with party hacks whose role is to "supervise" professional managers. Every management meeting must include a party representative, whose responsibility is to report back to his superiors. If the party decides that a decision is wrong, the company has little choice but to change and comply with party directives.
The hallmarks of state-sector inertia - corruption and inefficiency - are in large part attributable to the second guessing, in-fighting and favour-seeking that is endemic to the existence of two rival power structures within one organisation.
Communist Party dominance over the economy has been significantly eroded by rapid growth of private businesses under economic reforms introduced since the Mao era. The sector now generates about a third of China's annual income.
Private companies are far more efficient than their state-owned counterparts, and have been helping to soak up large-scale unemployment from the sharply declining public sector, which now occupies less than half the urban workforce.
The reasons for the contrasting fortunes of the two sectors do not appear to have figured highly in deliberations leading to the new decision. Instead, the measure stems from a perceived need to bring all aspects of society under direct party control.
We have all heard many stories of tech support hell, the masses of clueless newbies on AOL, etc.
This presents the major challenge, since who wants to be the tutor for someone with no enducartional fundamentals whatsoever. I have had to instruct beginners in the most elementary basics, such as the guided tour of the keyboard
"Good, now find the ESC key. Excellent. Now find the ENTER key".
I have also been thouroughly thanked for doing just that.
Fortunately, many of these companies are giving access to employyees who are at least semi-skilled, and who can help each other out over the morning cup of coffee. We will now see the true results of our educational systems online, in the average quality of discourse.
Unfortunately, the educational system is geared more to producing compliant factory workers, or clones for corporations, than it is designed to produced competent and independent thinkers.
Since this has so many parody possibilities, is the code for the Dialectizer open source or something like that?
or could SlashDot (or Andover.Net) license it as a module for the site with an aim toward political satire in various forms, on top of the usual mal-formations of the English language?
I for one would be interesting in a Micro$peak module for the Dialectizer, making every thing sound like it was written by Micro$oft lawyer$.
Or an Al Gore Module, or a GWBush Module.
the possibilities are endless...
I'm sure that there would be plenty of volunteers who would love to add or write up an extra module.
Of course extreme overclocking requires extreme cooling. If you go here, you can read about an over-clocking experiment involving a 486sx25, a freezer, and unnatural amounts of alcohol.
they tried various options with good results. They had the computer running in the freezer
Towards the end, things got hazy. To quote:
Accounts of the remainder of the experiment (everything after the celebration) are somewhat sketchy at best.
It would appear that after all the motherboard jumpers were removed for storage, someone accidently powered the system up. This caused the whole setup to run uncontrollably fast.
Fortunately, one of the technicians (the one who had destroyed the least of the "coolant") had the presence of mind to check the clock speed...
247MHz!
There was only one thing to do. Halflife.
Completely playable, the game ran fine for 2 minutes and 34 seconds (or 3 minutes 12 seconds, depending on who you listen to...) then crashed horribly.
By this time however, the processor was utterly wrecked. As was the motherboard.
And the power supply, graphics card, soundcard and RAM. Most of the Holy Spirits had boiled too.
Thanks to the information posted by respondents, I was able to find an Email newsletter archive that had an interest synopsis of the Apple Star Trek Project. It is found in TransWarp #14, dated about 1997.
Here it is in full, as they took it from the Mercury News
What do you think? Cool technology or simply a flight of fancy? Would the 'Star Trek' project have changed Apple's fortunes? Five years ago, a stealth group of engineers from Apple Computer Inc. and Novell Inc. took on a challenge many thought impossible: to make the Macintosh operating system run on Intel Corp. processors.
They raced toward a prototype deadline of Halloween 1992. They made it, but in mid-1993, the project -- dubbed Star Trek -- was killed by political infighting. Today, having lost five crucial years, struggling Apple is again thought to be moving toward Intel processors.
Thursday evening, the group reunited to reminisce and to contemplate what might have been. If Apple had upstaged Microsoft's Windows 95 with a Mac OS for Intel computers, would Microsoft software now control nearly 90 percent of all PCs?
All the Trekkies have left to show of the project is an old hard disk drive with the still-operable code; a postmortem video; an outdated business plan; a technical manual; and the traditional project T-shirt, with its Star Trek ``communicator'' emblem on the front and, on the back, a depiction of a crazed guy gouging his eyes out with a pencil.
And they have their memories.
They began in the summer of 1992, when a group of four from Novell and 14 from Apple quietly moved into a building facing Intel Corp.'s Santa Clara headquarters. Each was supplied an office, a Mac, and a PC donated by Intel. To this day, few outsiders have known of the group's existence.
For the engineers, the lure was a technically challenging project. For Mark Gonzales, a Harvard MBA freshly back from a rejuvenating sabbatical, it was a risky but potentially revolutionary project. ``We weren't sure if it was a good idea to run on Intel,'' said Fred Huxham, who left Apple in 1995. ``Mark had these grand plans. He thought people would at some point buy a new OS, and it could be Star Trek.''
For Fred Monroe, working on the project was a heady experience. At 22, just out of college, he got to travel to Japan and to show the software to future Apple CEO Michael Spindler and a top NEC Corp. executive. Because he was so young, he felt he had something to prove.
``We worked like dogs. It was some of the most fun I've had working,'' said Monroe, co-founder with Huxham of FredLabs Inc., a software company in San Francisco.
Because they made their Halloween deadline -- having completed a prototype in just three months -- they got bonuses of $15,000 to $25,000 and were sent, on Apple's dime, to Cancun.
In December 1992, a few team members showed Apple's board their top-secret project and got an immediate OK to continue.
Novell executives, hoping for a weapon to blunt Microsoft's growing dominance in the computer industry, were stunned at the progress. Darrell Miller, a former Novell vice president, kept exclaiming, ``I can't believe it,'' Huxham said. ``He was going nuts.''
In the end, it wasn't technical difficulties that derailed the project. It was internal politics, especially the loss of key backers.
Star Trek's biggest supporters were Roger Heinen, an Apple vice president hired away by Microsoft in the middle of the project, and John Sculley, Apple's CEO, who was forced out not long after. At the time, Apple was switching its software from the Motorola 68000 processor to the PowerPC, and executives were concerned that bifurcating their efforts could sink both projects.
There were a few other roadblocks: Apple tried to persuade computer makers to include the operating system on their PCs, but found resistance. Gonzales, the project manager, and a few others took the software on the road.
They stopped at Dell Computer in Texas, where they showed Star Trek to founder Michael Dell. Dell was impressed, but told Gonzales bluntly that unless it was free, Dell wouldn't be able to use the promising operating system because Dell was paying Microsoft for its Windows OS for each computer his company shipped, regardless of whether the computer shipped with Windows.
They also would have had to convince applications software developers to rework their applications so they could run on the new system. Huxham maintains this task wouldn't have been too time-consuming.
``There were definitely some tricky problems left, still,'' Huxham said. ``I still believe we could have finished and it would have been interesting, if nothing else.''
If they had kept to their schedule, the developers figure they could have beaten Windows 95 to the market by a year.
After the dinner Thursday, Huxham hooked up his Intel 486-based computer to an Apple monitor and turned it on. While going through the boot-up process, the system kept hitting snags. One particularly ominous error message flashed: ``Missing Operating System.''
``I thought that's what we did,'' one of the Trekkies said in dismay.
After several attempts, Huxham's magic worked: The computer played the familiar chord that signals the Mac starting. The smiling Mac graced the PC's screen.
A mouse click later, these words appeared: ``Star Trek: Boldly Going Where No Mac Has Gone Before.'' Or since.
I can recall a story from long ago and far away that once upon a time apple had an earlier version of one of their OS recompiled and running on and intel platform.
they dropped the project because it ran a bit faster than their own official Apple hardware, and they didn't want to shoot themselves in the hardware department.
so this raises the question of what is the current performance compared between hardware platforms, and is this even relevant anymore.
1) can a corporation unilatterally change the terms of acontract/agreement like that, without giving customers the options to opt out of the contract?
2) Can a corporation unilatterally say that what was yours is now ours, and tough on you...
3) what would they say about a class action suite by many of their customers who are ticked off by this (even if most mony in such a suite goes to the lawyers, etc.)
Just when you thought it was safe to be paranoid in New Mexico . . .
If you check out this DOE site http://www.em.doe.gov/bemr96/lanl.html you will find an extensive listing of the many cleanups they have going under way at Los Gatos.
Things that come to mind are:
Plants tend to metabolize the hazardous materials in the soil. These plants are now being converted into smoke. The contaminated soil that is now being dried out by the fire, and dust being swept up into the air.
Casually checking out the page link given I come up with these goodies [there is LOTS more]:
In support of the Laboratory's mission, the Environmental Management program is also investigating approximately 2,100 sites to determine if cleanup is needed. These sites range in size from less than 1 square meter to tens of hectares (a few square feet to tens of acres).
Potential residual contamination may exist at these sites as the result of 50 years of Laboratory operation. Contaminants may include radionuclides, organic solvents, metals, and high explosives. Residual contamination may exist in more than 7 million cubic meters (9.1 million cubic yards) of environmental media, primarily soils and sediments.
- - - - -
Field Unit 3 consists of 555 potential release sites associated with ten technical areas. It includes sites where high explosives were developed and processed, initiators for nuclear weapons were tested, and reactor components were developed. The primary constituents of concern are radionuclides, high explosives, volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds, polychlorinated biphenyls, asbestos, pesticides, and herbicides.
Much of the contamination in this field unit resulted from operations established during World War II to develop, fabricate, and test explosive components for nuclear weapons. Various other facilities included areas for photo-fission experiments, a mortar impact area, an air gun firing range, gun firing sites, a burning ground, laboratories, storage buildings, sumps, and material disposal areas. In many of the experiments, beryllium-containing weapons initiators were tested, and in some experiments uranium components were used. A high-pressure tritium facility was also in operation until 1990.
One site in this field unit was used to develop nuclear reactors for propulsion of space rockets. Experiments included structural testing of fuel elements made of uranium-loaded graphite, which were tested until they failed. The site also was used to develop methods for uranium isotope separation and to test lasers for exciting uranium hexafluoride gas of various enrichments. Experimental solar buildings and solar ponds, which have since been converted to sanitary waste lagoons, were built later.
Apparently alot of testing was also open air, especially in the early days, before they knew better, or cared much (take your pick).
Slashdot Mirror
Why am I not surprised
could be interestin, y'know?
And the services that have to bear this traffic may charge a reasonable amount for the hassle of dealing with it.
and people who try to avoid this can go to jail.
Of course, governments can get income from this as well.
2) ISPs and Companies maintaining routers, etc. may inspect the message headers (automatically, or otherwise), lookup the spammer's license in the publically available database of spammers License Numbers, and bill the owner's of the spamming license an appropriate amount for the traffic incured, even if blocked or rejected.
3)Service providers may collect traffic fees on behalf of their customers as well.
4) Persons, companies, etc sending spam without a proper spammer's license may be prosecuted to the full extant of the law, pay appropriate fines, etc.
[disclaimer - IANAL- but feel free to add teeth to this]
Well, maybe not everyone. Some might want to monopolize the whole thing for themselves (like spammers, the RIAA, etc.)
and of course, we also have the whole Freedom of the Internet crowd who want as few rules as possible. The freedom of the early internet was made possible by the fact that it was smaller, the technology was not as developed (and so not as liable to abuse) and that there was a something of an educated culture where individual ownership and responsibility was at least recognized. You didn't trash your servers because that screwed up your link to the world.
Now the masses and the democracy of the mob makes the internet what it is, until we can stage our own revolution of the mind to either ensure people grow up or are somehow restrained into behaving somewhat more responsibly.
This of course opens up another can of worms, since no one agrees of what it all should look like in the first place.
Unfortunately this is what is needed to make progress in this area, because otherwise this is just going to get worse.
I for one am wondering about what actually constitutes proper use of trademarks.
Obvioulsy, one cannot deliberately try to confuse customers about a well known brand, although I am sure we all recall the infamous "Windows 98 Beer" sold in Moscow, and mentioned here on Slashdot a while back. I think that we can agree that this is a violation of at least the spirit of the idea of trade mark, even if it was not even in the same ballpark as M$ software. They were riding on the novelty factor, and on the free publicity conveniently provided by M$.
I can also recall going into a chain merchandise store and seeing a "Sonic" brand boom box. an off brand if I ever saw one. It was completely identical to a Sony Boombox in the design of th package, the model numbers, etc. Of course, it wasn't a Sony, but a "Sonic"
Again here, the intent was to confuse. Possibly legal, but again, not in the spirit of the law.
There is also the problem of keeping a name unique, and not a generic term. For example, Aspirin used to be a brand name, and now it is not. So These are appropriate concerns to Trademark law, to help maintain the unique identity of a product.
It seems to me that the use of trademark law to prohibit negative speech about a product is a thin thin connection at best.
It is likely overruled by the US Constitution. (but your milage may vary)
who knows, there may be a civil rights law suit in this some place.
Here is the link that gives the intro to the basic wacko theorywith links, etc.
Next we have links to the Expanding Earth theory (with another one here, with some nice graphics, but which is again wacko. It holds that the reason for the shifting of the continents is based on the earth expanding like a balloon, with the crust spreading in sections. The pretty graphics explain the idea nicely. It is tied into the interesting explanation of how dinosaurs could be so big.
Next we have a collection of somewhat related FAQs about science vs areas of psuedo science here, followed by a nice basic intro to plate techtonics here and here.
Some nice graphics related to plate techtonics can be found here and here as well.
the main point being that the continents have been separated and combined into a large single land mass many times through the history of the planet.
so the idea of shifting gravity and an expanding earth is probably a little silly.
for those not "up to speed' on this issue, here is a quick summarry:
as a final note, there were those who also argued that Mozart's 40th Symphony was not information in the first place, and so relativity was not violated.
This brings a certain smile to the face, depending on you musical tastes.
It is very possible that all programming in ten to twenty years with be done by artificial intelligence engines utilizing genetic algorthms.
You may have to retrain in some new field if you do not make it rich with your new internet startup
There have already been some radical advances in this are that are downright scary. The programs look like nothing any human would right, but they work.
there are plenty of links discussing this here at genetic-programming.org
One big plus to this is that this has real potential to make Microsoft truely obsolete, when everyone can grow their own software.
what happens all too often is that businesses (and individuals)want to donate their old hardware stored in the back closet (XT, AT, etc) made by companies that at no longer around, and/or are no longer supported. Considerable expertise is required to work with these, and many folks are deficient when dealing with command lind interfaces. Often, the expertise resides with a few people who still remember how these things work
of course, knowledgable folks all want the latest toys.
I can still run my business from a dos database program I know (it's relational), but I don't. (I have moved on to better things)
I know I would be considerably under-happy about providing tech support for people ramping up on this. Especially from overseas.
(I have worked in tech support, and the worse cases are the people who want you to help design their system from scratch over the phone, for free. and of course who do not want to learn since you are their intelligent talking book. It is, of course far easier in a course room situation, where you can grow the appropriate attitudes of personal responsibility)
So the issues are:
How are these being managed?
The repair issues alone could be horrific. Something works well for six months or a year, then dies a horrible death, and you need to redo the setup with new obsolete hardware. This could be a death trap for the tech supporting the setup.
It happens now, to some degree.
You are paged to call some number, maybe it's flagged urgeant, or some sort. but it's really a scam, or someone making you call to listen to an ad on your nickel, or call extra long distance for a big phone charge.
sounds like it is time to expand the anti-fax advertising law to include pagers, cell phones, and the like.
too bad I can't set up my cell phone to charge the caller for incoming calls, unless I hit a function key or enter a pin on my cell phone.
actually, that sounds like that would be a good idea for another service to offer. I would not mind having it right now. sort of like a 900 option for regular home phones, that you can turn on and off as needed.
certainly within the technology the telcos offer these days....
Available, of course at the User Friendly site at their store
Needless to say, given the well deserved reputaion of Communist style management, I think we might be able to kiss the chinese economy good bye over the next few years..
This presents the major challenge, since who wants to be the tutor for someone with no enducartional fundamentals whatsoever. I have had to instruct beginners in the most elementary basics, such as the guided tour of the keyboard
I have also been thouroughly thanked for doing just that.
Fortunately, many of these companies are giving access to employyees who are at least semi-skilled, and who can help each other out over the morning cup of coffee. We will now see the true results of our educational systems online, in the average quality of discourse.
Unfortunately, the educational system is geared more to producing compliant factory workers, or clones for corporations, than it is designed to produced competent and independent thinkers.
the obvious problems are language, and the fact that these services are similar in caliber to what was developed here in the US 3 to 5 years ago.
There are basic problems in reliability, among other things.
Although I am amused by the idea of a free speech site protesting corruption in some city in the USA, being hosted in, say, russia or red china.
or could SlashDot (or Andover.Net) license it as a module for the site with an aim toward political satire in various forms, on top of the usual mal-formations of the English language?
I for one would be interesting in a Micro$peak module for the Dialectizer, making every thing sound like it was written by Micro$oft lawyer$.
Or an Al Gore Module, or a GWBush Module.
the possibilities are endless ...
I'm sure that there would be plenty of volunteers who would love to add or write up an extra module.
I can see it now ...
In a way, it is a shame that a system that was arguably better than windows got left in the dust.
On the other hand, it *is* IBM, who in there own day raised as much passion and hate as Microsoft does today.
the final rewards of arrogance, I suppose...
they tried various options with good results. They had the computer running in the freezer
Towards the end, things got hazy. To quote:
some very interesting photos too
the last thing you want to do is to start exposing the electronics, by being a bit too enthusiastic when you are polishing it flat.
that would be a definite bummer
Here it is in full, as they took it from the Mercury News
I can recall a story from long ago and far away that once upon a time apple had an earlier version of one of their OS recompiled and running on and intel platform.
they dropped the project because it ran a bit faster than their own official Apple hardware, and they didn't want to shoot themselves in the hardware department.
so this raises the question of what is the current performance compared between hardware platforms, and is this even relevant anymore.
1) can a corporation unilatterally change the terms of acontract/agreement like that, without giving customers the options to opt out of the contract?
2) Can a corporation unilatterally say that what was yours is now ours, and tough on you...
3) what would they say about a class action suite by many of their customers who are ticked off by this (even if most mony in such a suite goes to the lawyers, etc.)
long hours and not enuf sleep
sorry
If you check out this DOE site http://www.em.doe.gov/bemr96/lanl.html you will find an extensive listing of the many cleanups they have going under way at Los Gatos.
Things that come to mind are:
Plants tend to metabolize the hazardous materials in the soil. These plants are now being converted into smoke.
The contaminated soil that is now being dried out by the fire, and dust being swept up into the air.
Casually checking out the page link given I come up with these goodies [there is LOTS more]:
Apparently alot of testing was also open air, especially in the early days, before they knew better, or cared much (take your pick).
I am just trying to think of how Mico$oft marketing will try to explain this as a feature....