Without fully reading the article, this comparison seems to use random and unrelated baselines. Sales of Macs are falling. That is one assertion. I wonder if this is real, or just normal yearly fluctuations. Since the switch to Intel, the laptops have been unreliable and the desktops uninteresting.
On an unrelated topic, the article seems to indicate that the some people are upgrading to MS Vista. Since this does not necessarily relate to purchases of new computer, I do not see how this indicates that people are choosing PC computers over Macs. I do agree that it would be reasonable to assume that some people bought a computer over christmas because of vista, perhaps not buying a Mac because Vista was advertised to provide the same functionality as the Mac at a lower initial cost, even though it has been shown that vista capable machines were not necessary capable of running all the features that made MS Vista equal to Mac OS X.
The bottom line is even though the conclusion is somewhat reasonable, the data does not support it. If early adopters defined the ultimate market share, the Mac would be a dominate machine.
The US and other G8 countries are spending a bunch of money to compensate for a warmer world, including things like alternative energy, GM food, and the like. The US is also apparently funneling a bunch of money through the MCA. This is all good. my question is we are spending money to hedge against the risk, then why are we not also spending some money to reduce the suspected causes of the risk. If it were a terrorist risk, we would have no problem spending $500 billion to fight even the most unlikely causes. OTOH, we can't even ask industry and individual to try not to pollute so much. It amazing me that we will fine people who throw a 1 oz tissue out a car window $500, but have not problem with the same person producing 1 kg of CO2 for every mile driven in the big truck or SUV, multiplied but the 60 commute every day. Insane.
I was thinking along these lines. One can make your own bussiness cards, but they mostly look homemade, and typically making 50 cards cost the same as ordering 500, so such things only make sense when you need small quantities. Likewise, buying a magazine or book is cheaper than printing it, unless on does not pay for the paper and toner. The economy of the digital age, and threat to established businesses, is in not having to create physical artifacts. Even when a physical artifact is created, say a photograph, it is often much cheaper to have someone else print the picture.
So this will likely not effect most industries. It is not like we are going to print furniture or shelving or desks. We might print personalized items, but those will be at a significant markup, just like the vendors that now sell individual custom embroidered clothes.
A couple industries that will be effected is the electronics and automobile industry. A bit of broken plastic that would previously result in hundreds of dollars of repairs might now be fixed for much less. For instance, headlights on a car might cost $500 each, but might be more economically repaired with such a device.
From one point of view, SCO is in the middle of cold war between the superpowers of IBM and MS. Neither party is going to direct the other directly, so SCO is used as a proxy.
On the internet, no one knows you are a dog, so I make no assumptions about any presence unless I have first hand confirmation. So, does Pamela Jones exist, and if she does is she largely funded by IBM, and if she isn't does IBM have a presence in her life? I don't see any evidence to draw any conclusions. However, if it is true that PJ is some form IBM proxy, does that make any difference. Is Groklaw some sort of corporate entity governed by rules of disclosure? I am sure that SCO lawyers and accountants will support the right of an organization to not disclose any information that is not required or otherwise beneficial to the organization. If Groklaw is the IBM arm of the cold ware, so what? It makes as much difference as if SCO is the MS arm, which is none.
Of course, it could just be that we are all afraid of SCO, and do our best to hide from them.
There is another point that is often missing. That is there is a responsibility parameter in the definition of a person. Children do not have full rights because they do not have full responsibility. Most of us are not going to remove the right to drive for a lifetime if a child drives drunks and kills someone. We are ok with adults drinking or driving because if they do both at once,and kill someone, we have no problem holding the adult responsible and enforcing a consequence.
So the question, to me at least, is not whether a corporation can handle privileges, but wether the corporation can handle responsibilities. For instance, if I put poison in someone's drink, and they die, I get at least manslaughter, and likely end up in jail, denying my family of support, and causing much grief. However, very often a corporation can do this, over and over again, with full knowledge, and never receive such a consequence.
I for one believe that in makes no sense for a corporation to receive such consequences, therefore it makes no sense for them to have full rights.
Almost no one pays for a physical product to upgrade their MS OS, it is simply too expensive. Much cheaper just to buy a new machine. It is not surprising that those who bought a computer a year or two ago are not going to plunk down an equal amount to upgrade the OS.
And this likely does not matter to MS. From some estimates I have seen, MS makes 80% of it's money from license only deals, and most growth comes from OEM sales. Therefore, MS seems to be most concerned with keeping the OEM in line, doing whatever is necessary to keep the desktop monopoly.
In any case,here are the facts as I see them. MS sold millions of copies of MS Vista even before the product was publicly released. Many were already sold through the commercial licensing program. I seem to recall that every one of those contracts were an implicit sale for MS Vista, which is why MS had to get out the OS, at least to corporate, by december. In addition, many machines that have been shipping since December are also an implicit sale of MS Vista, not to mention most machines that are now shipping.
I suspect that the retail software channels are kept awake at night figuring out how to convince the unwitting MS consumer that MS Vista "slim" edition is superior to MS Windows XP, but I doubt seriously many higher ups at MS are.
Another good source is "Can Animals and Machines Be Persons?", by the writer and philosopher Justin Leiber.
In this book, the author imagines what such a discussion might look like at the UN. The basic premise, IIRC, is that the UN, supposedly in an effort to avoid the situation in which every human was automatically equal, used the word person when talking about a being deserving of full rights and privileges. So, though a person is generally a living human, such a definition might be expanded to include to things that are not human, or even not biologically alive.
This of course also leads into the issue of gestalt entities and artificial constructs like corporations. Certainly corporations have been striving for full human rights, and have sometimes gotten them. So, if an articifial entity might have rights, why not a chimp?
Not to mention that we never know when and if google desktop will export our hard disk contents back to google. After all, how can google index the world without knowing what is on my non-public hard disk?
It is kind of like google toolbar. With Camino I have have a variety of tool bar searches, now built in flash control, pop up blocking, etc, all without google spying on my searches.
Google is still too much focused on replacing the deficiencies of the MS Windows OS, and not enough on novel apps. We want more stuff like google earth.
These result probably has more to do with the times than the movie.
Star Wars was an fx film. The most interesting bits were visual. In fact I think it was one of the films that truly moved film back to the visual medium, rather than focusing on dialog and acting. The fx, though impressive, were simple. They did not remain interesting over time.
Serinity is more of the hybrid film. It has fx, it has dialog, it has acting. I think we know what computers can do, and, for the most part, are putting value back into practical effects and dialog.
Hopefully in another 20 years the art of filmmaking will develop and another film will trounce Serenity as the best. I am just happy that The Matrix did not win.
The key thing to a great cult film, at least historically, is empty theaters. A lot of people have seen Children of Men.
This movie did not have empty theaters. From the numbers on IMDB, this movie made 40K per screen opening US weekend and continued to make 5K per screen until it began to decline. Compare this to Go which never did more than 3K per screen, or even better Heather's which took in only a million over the entire run. I think Heaters is more cult that Children will ever be, and more vicious than any modern teen girl movie.
By most definitions, given that Children has grossed the reletively large budget(for a so called cult film) make it at best a crossover blockbuster.
As an aside, what some are complaining about is that 'cult' and 'independent' are being used a negotiation and marketing tools. Studios evidently are cutting the budgets of these movies down to nothing, and then paying huge sums for marketing and reaping the profits, without compensating the players. Given the talent in this movie, and the small budget, one assumes that they are pulling this trick here.
post a real story on april fools day! We barely expect legitimate stories the rest of the year, much less on April 1. Next thing you know stories will be edited to meet standard English requirements.
After all, we all see how successful the RIAA has been in it's efforts to sue students. Unlike the RIAA, which is an umbrella group, so it you want pop music you have to deal with the devil, GlaxoSmithKline is a highly competitive bussiness, probably spending more on marketing than R&D.
Just look at the GSK work in Africa. They are basically giving away Globorix in a PR campaign to win entry to that market. I seriously doubt such a company would not waste time suing children.
As a person who sometimes writes a lot, one reason I love OO.org is the simple yet elegant master document feature. I am sure someone will tell me how to do such a thing in MS Office, but I used MS Office from the inception to MS Office 97, and was never able to get something like the master document to work. OTOH, the first time I used OO.org several years ago, I was able to immediately make the master document work.
MS Office is great for writing memos or doing spreadsheets that would be better done in perl or C, or creating gratuitous presentations, but for the kind of work that I do, MS Office as not been in the lead for many years now. All eye candy aside.
People tend to confuse the software with the machine. As long as most machines runs MS Windows, it does not matter if they run it on an Apple machines, or Dell machine, or HP machine. In all cases, if the user has a copy of MS Windows or MS Office, MS rakes in the cash. In fact, MS probably does better selling an Apple user MS Windows because they get the full price, and it will likely use less customer service because the machines are not made from whatever fell off the back of a truck.
Now, the concern is for the OEMs. I have been saying for a long time that by concentrating on price, they are playing the MS game, which is to maximize profit at MS and minimize profit on the hardware. For example, the Apple switch to Intel is not so interesting for Apple, but does indicate that Intel learned that MS has no interest in hardware profits, and that if Intel continued to focus on MS, it would continue to be has been chip maker.
So, MS is stemming the flow that will hurt it's business in the near term, namely there are no fully compatible OS products, and only allowing virtualization of premium priced products. In the long term, who knows. At some point there has to be a competitive compatible OS. Apple would do well to create the OS and run it as layer in the next Apple OS. But the only danger to MS is that the hardware vendors will wise up and stop cutting their own throats so that MS can make a profit.
Indeed, we have seen many OEMs go away as they can no longer make cheap enough boxen. We are really going to be down to Dell, HP, Lenova and Sony. The later two are more or less premium manufacturers. HP has the experience with HP/UX to rebrand it's PC as *nix workstations, but Dell will continue to be at the mercy of MS, and I feel sorry for them as Apple continues to earn 20% per machine, while squeezing Dell's margin to zero, especially now that the Intel kickbacks seem to be a thing of the past.
The nice thing about ethanol, as opposed to fossil fuels, is that it can be made from a variety of renewable and at a direct and opportunity costs no greater than fossil fuel. Be the raw product grass, corn, or algae, the benefit is less dependence on imported oil, not to mention $10 per gallon surtax we are paying to stabilize our oil production in the middle east.
As far as food is concerned, that is a kicker. We all want food when we want, and none of us want to be hungry. Therefore it is to our benefit for large amounts of food to be grown, as we would rather have extra to mulch rather than not enough. Furthermore, subsidies for farmers make some sense as we need food cheap enough so that everyone can afford it, and we do not have riots.
Ultimately here is the thing with ethanol. If we learn a lesson, and not let profit be the overriding concern, we would make ethanol out of a wide variety of products. If there is extra corn, as there usually is, we would make it out of corn. We would go back to fallow fields, and use whatever is on that field to make ethanol. Furthermore, we would have flexible fuel cars, electric based, with a generator that ran on ethanol or fuel cells.
Algae could be more efficient than sugarcane, and certainly more efficient than corn. All of these option has the benefit of costing much less than $96 billion. It is hard to kick the dominant player out of the market, but sometimes said player just needs to go.
I would go along with the students, as long as the students pay the RIAA 10^x dollars, where x represent the number of songs in their possession that were not specifically bought on the same media on which the students listen to said music. I mean be realistic. If you can take the kind of crap submitted to professors as work worthy of a lawsuit, then J Lo is gold in comparison.
More seriously, I think these kids need to go to a college that is not concerned about the integrity of their degrees. I suspect that they are many schools that are more interested in money that education, and such schools would not degrade the user experience by utilizing turnitin. I would hope that a competant judge would throw this case out with same predujice as SCO and the RIAA.
What is next. Some college student using the DCMA to sue youtube for the sex pictures s/he took and posted.
Kids will use phones. Kids use phones for social status, for communications, and for entertainment. The opening in the MP3 player market, if there is one, is the phone for kids based model.
First, MS can remake the Zune to be cheap. An iPod nano is $150. MS has to make them them for $00.
Second, given them away with a two year subscription. Kids often want the top 40 music, whatever their friends have, and I often see them paying a few dollars for a bootleg copy. Set the subscription to $10-$15 a month, with maybe a $25 setup. A bit more than others, but the kids may pay for because there is only a small upfront charge.
Make the wireless worth something. Many kids do not have computers, but can connect to wireless networks as a guest. All subscribers should be able to share music off their zune, and all subcribers should be able to download new music off any open wireless networks.
I bet with proper DRM, downloading off of Yahoo! would also be a plus.
The big problem with MS is all they can do is copy. Anything innovative or ground breaking is simply too risky to their bottom line. Everyone says "MS missed the ball on the 'net", but in fact the net is extremely destructive to their fragile business model, and things like the net and other modern tech really is a challenge to their bottom line.
The Zune could have been innovative if it did not simply copy the iPod, limited of course by the fears of the MS executives.
The issue is that the New York police investigated, created records, and exchanged such records with other jurisdictions, without any evidence of wrong doing. Generally such investigations, done without probable cause, is called harassment, and is frowned upon.
What is missing in this hysterical world is good police work. Such work requires investigation, analysis, and conclusions free of political bias. Such work is difficult, not glamourous, but must be done. So, instead of working to reduce the 80,000+ violent crimes, the nearly 900 murders, that is one every 10 hours, 3000+ forcible rapes, they decided to attend meeting, file reports, and make accusations against individuals for which they had not evidence.
Is it clear the parent did not read the article because the parent missed the whole point. Let's put this in another perspective. What the NYPD did is in effect a very expensive fishing expedition. Such work is frowned upon. For instance, police cannot enter a premises without cause. Police cannot create reports and exchange reports for innocent person. For instance, a police officer does not have the right to claim that parent poster is a murderer if not such evidence exists. For those who have forgotten history, we do this because the country we were fighting in the American revolutionary war felt like it had the right to enter where it like, take what it wanted, and hold anyone indefinitely without cause. Many thousands good people lost their life fighting England for the freedoms we know enjoy. What is sad that we are so afraid of losing our lifestyle, not out life, just our lifestyle, that we are willing to throw it all away.
I often wonder if the people who support the policy of widespread detainment and widespread police power would actually be willing to allow their property or person to be searched without warrant, or would be willing to give up all possession for the benefit of the state.
Just FYI. I am a OO.org user. I know about Neooffice. I have used Neooffice. I think Neooffice is good software, and the main reason I have not used it is that,for what I do, OO.org is very reliable. Neooffice has not been as reliable. I continue to load it to see if it has become a mature product. It would be useful, on some occasions, to have an integrated MacOS interface, although in some ways X Windows is better.
The other reason that I am not crazy about Neooffice is that every time the discussion come up, the Neooffice people start whining. You have a good product, a good build, and have done something the OO.org people did not do. Whatever battle happened, whatever politics occurred, you have won. Let it go. People who want to use a branch of OO.org in the Mac environment will use Neooffice. Those who don't use Neooffice, like me, probably have a good reason. Most of the time I can live without tight OS integration. When I was growing up I might use four different OS over the course of the day. An integrated product is not a sufficient reason for me to switch anymore than the ability to use a few more website and watch video content is a reason for me to buy a copies of Windows.
Then of course there is the issue of giving credit where credit is due. One of the biggest problems with the OSS community is people taking code, and then pretending that they came up with the code themselves in some hermetically sealed ivory tower. I do believe that the OO.org base, on which the excellent Noeoofice product is built, was donated and is still significantly maintained and supported by Sun. In fact the ability to get service agreements from Sun is one big reason why OO.org is a reasonable competitor to MS Office. I believe Sun is a corporation. Therefore, Noeoffice is quite influenced, and beholden to the corporate culture.
Furthermore, because I do not want to beholden to the corporate culture, and do not want to use bad or unsecured software, the last thing I want on my machine is VBA. That is like wishing Safari had ActiveX controls.
This is not completely unheard of. Lalla ward originally played Princess Astra on the last segment of the Key To Time series. She then took over from Mary Tamm as the Time Lord named Romana. While Ms. Ward was not nearly as entertaining as MS. Tamm, it was a useful diversion.
It certainly would be nice to see the Doctor become a female. Most science fiction has delved into the gender non specific domain, often with good results. I hate to say it, but Ms. Piper seemed to be cast mostly as a fluff character, a plot device that allowed the Doctor to explain pertinent points to the audience, as well as a genuine romantic interest to satisfy those that needs sexual tension. It is not clear how that personality would meld into the expected actions of the doctor. The Doctor is far from infallible, and in the current incarnation is rather moody, but no Doctor has worried about all the stuff that Rose does.
All this is really irrelevent, as the BBC will do whatever will bring the rating and whaterver is cheap. Just look at the two part Dalek episode. Lets not create new materials, just rehash the old ideas.
What would be god, given that Sarah Jane Smith, and her wonderful inquisitiveness, has been introduced to the new generation of Dr Who fans, is that Elisabeth Sladen be given the part of the Doctor. If the Doctor does love humans, she was his first, at least in the context of the show.
Ford and GM releases a report that fossil fuels are the cleanest form of energy, and burning them in big cars actually helps the environment.
The RIAA releases a study that proves illegal downloading is the "gateway drug" to violent crime.
Dow Corning released a report that recommends that all women have breasts removed and get implants because the risk of cancer is significantly greater than the risk of the implants.
The US released study proving that the Iraq war has been won and any further battles or deaths are merely a figment of the deranged liberal imagination, as are all other issues of corruption or drug abuse.
That is what I was thinking. I am planning to write a grant that studies delinquent behavior. I suspect that at least 6% of the gifted students engage in significant crime. I will then submit an article indicating that routine criminal behavior indicates a gifted child. They merely engage in such behavior to relieve stress, and really mean no harm. Perhaps such students just experience more pressure, and use such activities as stealing cars and robbing liquor stores at gunpoint to cope with life.
In fact, music choice, especially for the adolescent, is more a indication of peer group rather than intelligence, and any study that does not indicate a significant penetration of hip hop is biased.
Slashdot Mirror
On an unrelated topic, the article seems to indicate that the some people are upgrading to MS Vista. Since this does not necessarily relate to purchases of new computer, I do not see how this indicates that people are choosing PC computers over Macs. I do agree that it would be reasonable to assume that some people bought a computer over christmas because of vista, perhaps not buying a Mac because Vista was advertised to provide the same functionality as the Mac at a lower initial cost, even though it has been shown that vista capable machines were not necessary capable of running all the features that made MS Vista equal to Mac OS X.
The bottom line is even though the conclusion is somewhat reasonable, the data does not support it. If early adopters defined the ultimate market share, the Mac would be a dominate machine.
The US and other G8 countries are spending a bunch of money to compensate for a warmer world, including things like alternative energy, GM food, and the like. The US is also apparently funneling a bunch of money through the MCA. This is all good. my question is we are spending money to hedge against the risk, then why are we not also spending some money to reduce the suspected causes of the risk. If it were a terrorist risk, we would have no problem spending $500 billion to fight even the most unlikely causes. OTOH, we can't even ask industry and individual to try not to pollute so much. It amazing me that we will fine people who throw a 1 oz tissue out a car window $500, but have not problem with the same person producing 1 kg of CO2 for every mile driven in the big truck or SUV, multiplied but the 60 commute every day. Insane.
So this will likely not effect most industries. It is not like we are going to print furniture or shelving or desks. We might print personalized items, but those will be at a significant markup, just like the vendors that now sell individual custom embroidered clothes.
A couple industries that will be effected is the electronics and automobile industry. A bit of broken plastic that would previously result in hundreds of dollars of repairs might now be fixed for much less. For instance, headlights on a car might cost $500 each, but might be more economically repaired with such a device.
On the internet, no one knows you are a dog, so I make no assumptions about any presence unless I have first hand confirmation. So, does Pamela Jones exist, and if she does is she largely funded by IBM, and if she isn't does IBM have a presence in her life? I don't see any evidence to draw any conclusions. However, if it is true that PJ is some form IBM proxy, does that make any difference. Is Groklaw some sort of corporate entity governed by rules of disclosure? I am sure that SCO lawyers and accountants will support the right of an organization to not disclose any information that is not required or otherwise beneficial to the organization. If Groklaw is the IBM arm of the cold ware, so what? It makes as much difference as if SCO is the MS arm, which is none.
Of course, it could just be that we are all afraid of SCO, and do our best to hide from them.
So the question, to me at least, is not whether a corporation can handle privileges, but wether the corporation can handle responsibilities. For instance, if I put poison in someone's drink, and they die, I get at least manslaughter, and likely end up in jail, denying my family of support, and causing much grief. However, very often a corporation can do this, over and over again, with full knowledge, and never receive such a consequence.
I for one believe that in makes no sense for a corporation to receive such consequences, therefore it makes no sense for them to have full rights.
And this likely does not matter to MS. From some estimates I have seen, MS makes 80% of it's money from license only deals, and most growth comes from OEM sales. Therefore, MS seems to be most concerned with keeping the OEM in line, doing whatever is necessary to keep the desktop monopoly.
In any case,here are the facts as I see them. MS sold millions of copies of MS Vista even before the product was publicly released. Many were already sold through the commercial licensing program. I seem to recall that every one of those contracts were an implicit sale for MS Vista, which is why MS had to get out the OS, at least to corporate, by december. In addition, many machines that have been shipping since December are also an implicit sale of MS Vista, not to mention most machines that are now shipping.
I suspect that the retail software channels are kept awake at night figuring out how to convince the unwitting MS consumer that MS Vista "slim" edition is superior to MS Windows XP, but I doubt seriously many higher ups at MS are.
In this book, the author imagines what such a discussion might look like at the UN. The basic premise, IIRC, is that the UN, supposedly in an effort to avoid the situation in which every human was automatically equal, used the word person when talking about a being deserving of full rights and privileges. So, though a person is generally a living human, such a definition might be expanded to include to things that are not human, or even not biologically alive.
This of course also leads into the issue of gestalt entities and artificial constructs like corporations. Certainly corporations have been striving for full human rights, and have sometimes gotten them. So, if an articifial entity might have rights, why not a chimp?
It is kind of like google toolbar. With Camino I have have a variety of tool bar searches, now built in flash control, pop up blocking, etc, all without google spying on my searches.
Google is still too much focused on replacing the deficiencies of the MS Windows OS, and not enough on novel apps. We want more stuff like google earth.
Star Wars was an fx film. The most interesting bits were visual. In fact I think it was one of the films that truly moved film back to the visual medium, rather than focusing on dialog and acting. The fx, though impressive, were simple. They did not remain interesting over time.
Serinity is more of the hybrid film. It has fx, it has dialog, it has acting. I think we know what computers can do, and, for the most part, are putting value back into practical effects and dialog.
Hopefully in another 20 years the art of filmmaking will develop and another film will trounce Serenity as the best. I am just happy that The Matrix did not win.
This movie did not have empty theaters. From the numbers on IMDB, this movie made 40K per screen opening US weekend and continued to make 5K per screen until it began to decline. Compare this to Go which never did more than 3K per screen, or even better Heather's which took in only a million over the entire run. I think Heaters is more cult that Children will ever be, and more vicious than any modern teen girl movie.
By most definitions, given that Children has grossed the reletively large budget(for a so called cult film) make it at best a crossover blockbuster.
As an aside, what some are complaining about is that 'cult' and 'independent' are being used a negotiation and marketing tools. Studios evidently are cutting the budgets of these movies down to nothing, and then paying huge sums for marketing and reaping the profits, without compensating the players. Given the talent in this movie, and the small budget, one assumes that they are pulling this trick here.
NCC-1701E was TNG ship.
Certainly we meant 1701.
post a real story on april fools day! We barely expect legitimate stories the rest of the year, much less on April 1. Next thing you know stories will be edited to meet standard English requirements.
Since at this point is 2007 April 1 and 0230 GMT I too suspect the festivities has begun. Let us hope they can surpass OMG Ponies.
Just look at the GSK work in Africa. They are basically giving away Globorix in a PR campaign to win entry to that market. I seriously doubt such a company would not waste time suing children.
MS Office is great for writing memos or doing spreadsheets that would be better done in perl or C, or creating gratuitous presentations, but for the kind of work that I do, MS Office as not been in the lead for many years now. All eye candy aside.
Now, the concern is for the OEMs. I have been saying for a long time that by concentrating on price, they are playing the MS game, which is to maximize profit at MS and minimize profit on the hardware. For example, the Apple switch to Intel is not so interesting for Apple, but does indicate that Intel learned that MS has no interest in hardware profits, and that if Intel continued to focus on MS, it would continue to be has been chip maker.
So, MS is stemming the flow that will hurt it's business in the near term, namely there are no fully compatible OS products, and only allowing virtualization of premium priced products. In the long term, who knows. At some point there has to be a competitive compatible OS. Apple would do well to create the OS and run it as layer in the next Apple OS. But the only danger to MS is that the hardware vendors will wise up and stop cutting their own throats so that MS can make a profit.
Indeed, we have seen many OEMs go away as they can no longer make cheap enough boxen. We are really going to be down to Dell, HP, Lenova and Sony. The later two are more or less premium manufacturers. HP has the experience with HP/UX to rebrand it's PC as *nix workstations, but Dell will continue to be at the mercy of MS, and I feel sorry for them as Apple continues to earn 20% per machine, while squeezing Dell's margin to zero, especially now that the Intel kickbacks seem to be a thing of the past.
As far as food is concerned, that is a kicker. We all want food when we want, and none of us want to be hungry. Therefore it is to our benefit for large amounts of food to be grown, as we would rather have extra to mulch rather than not enough. Furthermore, subsidies for farmers make some sense as we need food cheap enough so that everyone can afford it, and we do not have riots.
Ultimately here is the thing with ethanol. If we learn a lesson, and not let profit be the overriding concern, we would make ethanol out of a wide variety of products. If there is extra corn, as there usually is, we would make it out of corn. We would go back to fallow fields, and use whatever is on that field to make ethanol. Furthermore, we would have flexible fuel cars, electric based, with a generator that ran on ethanol or fuel cells.
Algae could be more efficient than sugarcane, and certainly more efficient than corn. All of these option has the benefit of costing much less than $96 billion. It is hard to kick the dominant player out of the market, but sometimes said player just needs to go.
More seriously, I think these kids need to go to a college that is not concerned about the integrity of their degrees. I suspect that they are many schools that are more interested in money that education, and such schools would not degrade the user experience by utilizing turnitin. I would hope that a competant judge would throw this case out with same predujice as SCO and the RIAA.
What is next. Some college student using the DCMA to sue youtube for the sex pictures s/he took and posted.
First, MS can remake the Zune to be cheap. An iPod nano is $150. MS has to make them them for $00.
Second, given them away with a two year subscription. Kids often want the top 40 music, whatever their friends have, and I often see them paying a few dollars for a bootleg copy. Set the subscription to $10-$15 a month, with maybe a $25 setup. A bit more than others, but the kids may pay for because there is only a small upfront charge.
Make the wireless worth something. Many kids do not have computers, but can connect to wireless networks as a guest. All subscribers should be able to share music off their zune, and all subcribers should be able to download new music off any open wireless networks.
I bet with proper DRM, downloading off of Yahoo! would also be a plus.
The big problem with MS is all they can do is copy. Anything innovative or ground breaking is simply too risky to their bottom line. Everyone says "MS missed the ball on the 'net", but in fact the net is extremely destructive to their fragile business model, and things like the net and other modern tech really is a challenge to their bottom line.
The Zune could have been innovative if it did not simply copy the iPod, limited of course by the fears of the MS executives.
What is missing in this hysterical world is good police work. Such work requires investigation, analysis, and conclusions free of political bias. Such work is difficult, not glamourous, but must be done. So, instead of working to reduce the 80,000+ violent crimes, the nearly 900 murders, that is one every 10 hours, 3000+ forcible rapes, they decided to attend meeting, file reports, and make accusations against individuals for which they had not evidence.
Is it clear the parent did not read the article because the parent missed the whole point. Let's put this in another perspective. What the NYPD did is in effect a very expensive fishing expedition. Such work is frowned upon. For instance, police cannot enter a premises without cause. Police cannot create reports and exchange reports for innocent person. For instance, a police officer does not have the right to claim that parent poster is a murderer if not such evidence exists. For those who have forgotten history, we do this because the country we were fighting in the American revolutionary war felt like it had the right to enter where it like, take what it wanted, and hold anyone indefinitely without cause. Many thousands good people lost their life fighting England for the freedoms we know enjoy. What is sad that we are so afraid of losing our lifestyle, not out life, just our lifestyle, that we are willing to throw it all away.
I often wonder if the people who support the policy of widespread detainment and widespread police power would actually be willing to allow their property or person to be searched without warrant, or would be willing to give up all possession for the benefit of the state.
The other reason that I am not crazy about Neooffice is that every time the discussion come up, the Neooffice people start whining. You have a good product, a good build, and have done something the OO.org people did not do. Whatever battle happened, whatever politics occurred, you have won. Let it go. People who want to use a branch of OO.org in the Mac environment will use Neooffice. Those who don't use Neooffice, like me, probably have a good reason. Most of the time I can live without tight OS integration. When I was growing up I might use four different OS over the course of the day. An integrated product is not a sufficient reason for me to switch anymore than the ability to use a few more website and watch video content is a reason for me to buy a copies of Windows.
Then of course there is the issue of giving credit where credit is due. One of the biggest problems with the OSS community is people taking code, and then pretending that they came up with the code themselves in some hermetically sealed ivory tower. I do believe that the OO.org base, on which the excellent Noeoofice product is built, was donated and is still significantly maintained and supported by Sun. In fact the ability to get service agreements from Sun is one big reason why OO.org is a reasonable competitor to MS Office. I believe Sun is a corporation. Therefore, Noeoffice is quite influenced, and beholden to the corporate culture.
Furthermore, because I do not want to beholden to the corporate culture, and do not want to use bad or unsecured software, the last thing I want on my machine is VBA. That is like wishing Safari had ActiveX controls.
I believe you are looking for an acoustic coupler. We had to use this back when AT&T made the phones.
It certainly would be nice to see the Doctor become a female. Most science fiction has delved into the gender non specific domain, often with good results. I hate to say it, but Ms. Piper seemed to be cast mostly as a fluff character, a plot device that allowed the Doctor to explain pertinent points to the audience, as well as a genuine romantic interest to satisfy those that needs sexual tension. It is not clear how that personality would meld into the expected actions of the doctor. The Doctor is far from infallible, and in the current incarnation is rather moody, but no Doctor has worried about all the stuff that Rose does.
All this is really irrelevent, as the BBC will do whatever will bring the rating and whaterver is cheap. Just look at the two part Dalek episode. Lets not create new materials, just rehash the old ideas.
What would be god, given that Sarah Jane Smith, and her wonderful inquisitiveness, has been introduced to the new generation of Dr Who fans, is that Elisabeth Sladen be given the part of the Doctor. If the Doctor does love humans, she was his first, at least in the context of the show.
The RIAA releases a study that proves illegal downloading is the "gateway drug" to violent crime.
Dow Corning released a report that recommends that all women have breasts removed and get implants because the risk of cancer is significantly greater than the risk of the implants.
The US released study proving that the Iraq war has been won and any further battles or deaths are merely a figment of the deranged liberal imagination, as are all other issues of corruption or drug abuse.
In fact, music choice, especially for the adolescent, is more a indication of peer group rather than intelligence, and any study that does not indicate a significant penetration of hip hop is biased.