Along the same lines, people wouldn't accept a 'copy' process either. First of all there is ego. Once you have uploaded a copy of yourself, you are no longer unique. It wouldn't take long before one of you had to be shut off. And I don't think most people could stand having someone that knew EVERYTHING about them.
1. It will devastate the foundation for our current economic system.
This is because it will eliminate any job related to production, whether it is assembly in a factory, or food production (farmers, fishers), or production of raw materials (since the nano-factories would of course reuse our waste). That's a _lot_ of people suddenly without jobs.
Only an abrupt change in technology would devastate our economy. A new technology would not likely affect every industry at once. Consider past technologies; robotic welders, combines, tractors! Are you polite to your elevator operator? We don't miss all the laborers that built our railroads now that we have equipment that allows 4 men to out work 100. People will change to other pursuits. All they need is the time to create new jobs as the old ones are lost. And I'm not convinced that it is technically possible to switch to labor saving technologies fast enough to have a wide effect. Some sectors will struggle of course.
Until we create a replacement for the human brain, and we aren't even close, we are in no danger of becoming obsolete.
I'd like to see pluggable devices about the size of a USB enclosure. Single drive, single 1G NIC, plug it in and tell it how to authenticate.
For my small business customers, a slightly larger box that can hold multiple drives. Dual 1G NICs, one for the users and 1 VLANed to other NAS and backup devices. Build boxes that support 2 and 4 drives in pullout chassis. I'm not overly concerned about RAID, but RAID 0 could be useful at times. IDE is OK, speed isn't a huge factor because we're going to be bottlenecked at the LAN anyway.
Most important, make them easy to install, administer and under $1000 per terrabyte.
Then all I need is a reasonably price tape unit. Oh well, we can always dream.
What? Like the ones that actually block outbound connections too?
Anyone know if there is a free firewall that ONLY blocks outbound connections? ZoneAlarm, Kerio, and others all want to incorporate a ton of features in hopes of selling it.
NAT takes care of most inbound connections. I just want something that can let me know anytime an app tries to make an outbound connection. We're getting too many programs phoning home under the guise of checking for new versions.
Where I am voting we are still using the punch card ballot, and to be honest they are working just fine. I even got to play with some sample test ballots and agree with the conclusion of the county recorder, that hanging chads and incomplete ballots are a sign of voting fraud, not incompetent voters.
Not exactly a problem with voter competence, but the butterfly punch ballots go into a machine that has channels for the chad to fall into a collection area at the bottom. If for any reason they start to collect in the channel, you can get hanging and dimpled chads. Palm Beach county has a large percentage of senior citizens. They may not have the strength or dexterity (thanks to RA) to completely dislodge the chad. And since your eyesight has a tendancy to decline as you get older, they may not even see the problem. It should be up to the election officials to keep the booths operating correctly, but it doesn't always happen.
I'm not sure where you get the $5000 per machine, however. I can get systems that are good enough for voting for about $500, including keyboard, monitor, and NIC for a LAN if you want to simplify printing costs.
So many problems here..... No NICs on voting machines. They should not have any external connections. Each one will require a printer, you can't have ballots stacking up, or out of the control of the voter. And you can't run down to Walmart and pick up the daily special. Voting machines should be at least as secure as an ATM. With the kind of equipment and certification necessary, you will not get $1000 machines.
$4k for a standard machine and $5.5k for a handicap accessible one. So a $5k guess wasn't far off.
They are looking at $170k for 40 terminals in addition to software, maintenance, and training.
As far as incomplete marks, erasures, and overvotes, you are completely dismissing the issues. I have worked with optical scanner equipment in terms of having to write the software, and it is fraught with all kinds of issues that you are openly dismissing here.
No, I'm not. Remember the 1990 census? Well, I worked for the Census Bureau and spent time working with all those forms. We photographed them, processed the film, and scanned (from the film) all the answers. Currently I work writing data collection software.
Now remember, I have seen Diebold's Accuvote-OS in action. For voting, an unreadable ballot is kicked out immediately. A supplied black marker is used to mark the ballot, so there are no shades of gray like you can get from a pencil. An overvote will be kicked back as an unreadable ballot. Undervotes are legitimate. Failing to properly fill in the bubbles could cause a missed vote, but the devices are designed to reject ballots with questionable reads. If you're marking the bubbles with an X, you aren't likely to do just one, you would screw up the whole ballot and it would be noticed by the election official. If you want to completely avoid undervotes, add a 'no vote' bubble to each question on the ballot. And the equipment is maintained by trained professionals, not students and TAs.
And your Rosie scenario is completely manufactured. This same fictitious person would also not be able to operate a computerized voting machine. Most likely she would be afraid of the technology.
My point is using a computer to mark sheets of paper is a complete waste of money. You have inadvertently made the process even more expensive by requiring not only terminals, but an additional tabulation device.
The scanned ballots are something my county uses RIGHT NOW. We have had it for at least 7 years. I used one just 2 days ago for a primary. And I am telling you from experience that it works. Multilingual? Paper can be in any language you want. Blind? Ok, a single special needs terminal to mark a ballot. Incomplete markings or erasures are not a problem. Overvotes are not a problem. The ballot is scanned and authenticated as you leave. You know before you walk out the door that it has been correctly scanned.
Even without support costs you're probably looking at $5000 a machine for your voting terminals. The last place I voted that had actual voting booths used a dozen of them. IMO, out of the $60k plus for one location, $55k of that is utterly wasted.
BTW, I have voted on a butterfly ballot. It has been about 8 or 9 years, but that county still had them in 2000. And every time there was an amendment or question on the ballot, the full text was included. As far as more info on the candidates, if you don't know by the time you get to the poll, it's really too late to read up on them. And it would probably be considered electioneering anyway since no candidate is going to let you write a blurb without OKing it. And I certainly don't want to be waiting in line behind someone who is playing with the terminal to see every option available.
No, the trick is to make the votes easily to tabulate without sacrificing data integrity.
The best solution (IMO) currently available, is offered by the same company that is pushing these crappy voting machines. Diebold makes vote tabulators that read ballots optically. The ones we use in my county have bubbles that you fill in just like the ACT/SAT tests. I have heard there is another variety, possibly by a different manufacturer, that has you connect a line between the candidate and the office and it scans that line.
But the voting machine companies don't like that one because instead of selling 6-10 voting terminals per polling place, they only get to sell one tabulator.
We have been using these for years and they have LOTS of advantages. There is never a line to vote because they just hand you a ballot and a marker. You are free take as much time as you like casting your vote because no one is waiting for you. You can easily ask for help from election workers. If you screw up it's readily obvious and there is an option for requesting a new ballot. The tabulation scanner kicks out any ballot it can't scan, and stores scanned ones internally. (paper trail) It is still possible, and valid, to undervote. It's not possible to overvote. And not only is it possible to do a 100% manual recount, the hardware is already available.
What we have are two problems; people who don't understand KISS. And people who see an opportunity to legislate big $$$ into their pockets.
Mounting one antenna on each side of the wall will work. It may or may not work as desired. Like you suggested, run the AP in diversity mode. (generally the default) The drawback is that with the signal from one antenna getting blocked you will see the strength of the signal pulse. (I have some that do that because they use the stock rubber ducky for one antenna and an aftermarket for the other. It has worked fine for nearly 2 years)
Other options would be to run a couple cables and wire in more than one AP. Or for the lazy people, such as myself, you could also place the AP in the attic and install panel (sector) antennas.
I'm sure you know this, but others here probably do not. Changing the antenna doesn't increase/decrease the output of the AP, it focuses it. Aftermarket Omnis produce a more focused donut shape signal. A sector will produce a signal of roughly 60 degrees in front of the antenna. So if you installed it in the attic pointing down...... Just be sure to mount it as high as possible.
This really isn't a problem with game developers. It's not even unique to open source. Even with commercial development, a lot of projects are started but never completed. Some never make it off of the developers' systems because business requirements change. Some projects make it into production 'incomplete', with the intention of going back and adding features, but it never happens.
It's not necessarily a bad thing. Some projects begin to test a theory that never pans out. Those projects feed into the next iteration that makes it a little further. And some projects are so ill concieved that they never deserve to see the light of day anyway.
You can look at it as R&D, or as the electronic version of Darwinism.
One additional point that apparently isn't in the jargon file. If you call yourself a hacker (or as in the article, a great hacker) you probably are NOT one. The article states that great hackers rarely recognize it in themselves.
Personally, I don't believe in varying qualities of hackers. IE. there is no such thing as a 'great' hacker. You either have the ability or you don't. I also don't believe there is the ability to become one. You either have the talent or you don't.
Speaking of GM and their product lines. I just found out last weekend that 2004 is the last year for the Chevy S10 and GMC S15 (Sonoma), and in 2004 it was only available in a Crewcab. The Chevy version is being replaced by the Colorado. It appears that the Colorado is bigger (and heavier) than the S10. The Vortec V6 is gone and being replaced by an 'I-5'.
I'm going to take a look at them next time I get my truck serviced, but I suspect after owning 3 S10s and 2 S15 over a period of 17 years, I'll probably be leaving GM with my next purchase.
Some quick stats, if anyone is interested... The V6 is 190 HP/250 torque. The I-5 is 220 HP/225 torque. Which probably explains why they went from a 5150 GVWR/5200 towing to 5000 GVWR/4000!!! towing. Although the Colorado is lighter by 500 lbs, it's a less useful truck.
They seem to be using the SUV (bloated minivan really) model. But fuel economy does go from 15 to 17.
If there's one feature MMORPG's could add to make me more likely to play them, it's an account hibernation feature where I could quit if I knew I wasn't going to have time to play this month and resubscribe later.
It's out there, and it's free. You can stop paying your Asheron's Call subscription at any time. Leave for several months, and come right back where you left off. I think they officially say they don't purge accounts inactive less than 6 months. But in practice I can only remember one account purge in the 3 years I've been playing.
Months are also calendar months, not 30 day months like Anarchy Online.
If they are using the SKU as the ID, they aren't using UPC or EAN. Unless their SKU happens to be the UPC/EAN code.
"A UPC number is a twelve digit product identifier consisting of a six-digit manufacturer, a five digit item number, and a calculated check digit" --UCC Universal Product Code: Industrial and Commercial Guidelines. page 1
11 digits are significant. 12 if you want to validate the number.
If they are using hardware that doesn't support EAN, it's time to upgrade anyway. It would have to be pretty old. Kind of like saying "we have this new FM technology, everyone needs to throw away their old AM radios". We just replaced 8 year old scanners that had EAN. (actually have a Janus 2020 with a MFG date of Jan 1995) Any manufacturer supplying European customers will have support for EAN.
As far as RFID supporting the new system, or vice-versa, it's a non-issue. What they are discussing is replacing the UPC barcode format with the EAN format. It's like asking if Code 128 or 3-of-9 (code 39) are going be updated to support EAN. Or for the slashdot crowd, it's the equivalent of changing the default from EXT2 to EXT3, and then asking if JFS would need updated.
Hardware isn't the problem, as least with major manufacturers like Symbol and Intermec. The scanners have been able to read EAN barcodes for years. The problem is with the databases. Some will need to have the 'UPC' field extended. But that will primarily be a problem for retailers and manufacturers that apply for new company IDs. Companies that already have existing blocks of IDs will most likely not bother to change their systems.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security - Benjamin Franklin
The possibility of catching a few terrorists is not worth the guaranteed loss of liberty. A government is like an attack dog on a leash; it MAY do what you want it to, but it is NEVER your friend. You should be particularly concerned when a democratic government claims it need secrecy to monitor its citizens.
We should dump the PATRIOT Act and find another way. Like not supporting dictators in the first place. Sneak and peek is what a burglar does, right before he robs you.
The cost of books is a very real problem. There have been plenty of reports of poor schools in developing region where students had to share books that had been donated decades ago from the west. While you might think that a book on math from 30 yrs ago is as good as as one printed today many teachers would disagree. Especially when the old one was printed in a foreign language.
Then buy them new books. You don't need new books every year. Books are considerably cheaper than computers. People keep pointing out that used computers can be cheap, so can used books. Books don't need electricity. Books can be carried home. Books are simpler to secure when they aren't being used.
I'm all for the appropriate use of computers in schools, but replacing books and putting a computer on every students desk is not appropriate. Many teachers don't have the ability to teach effectivily with computers. Computers are a distraction. Computers have a tendency to break when you need them.
And at pre highschool levels; math, science, native language, and to a somewhat lesser extent history, don't change signicantly in a decade.
Microsoft and Walmart being examples of the modern corporation... purposeful government constructs and all. You know, market socialism. I guess you missed that part. Heh.
I didn't miss it, I just don't agree with it. I don't see a case where the government has created a market or made either of those corporations monopolies. There might be some cases with suppliers for the military, and certainly the tax industry is a market created by the government.
I'm not aware of anything relating to Walmart. And in Microsoft's case it has been more of a situation of the government refusing to regulate rather than endorsing them. Probably the only goverment decision that 'made' Microsoft was the anti-trust prosecution of IBM that drove them to outsource DOS rather than create it themselves.
Microsoft has been giving people what they percieve as very low prices. "My OS didn't cost me anything, it came with my computer." The same can be said for Office in the early years. Nobody buys MS Money. Internet Explorer is free. IIS is essentially free. Because to the average consumer the cost is hidden. Customers feel they are getting a good value from Microsoft, so I doubt they would have any problems in a less regulated market. Where most people have their problem with Microsoft is with their perception of Quality. An educated consumer knows there are places where their quality is good enough and places where it is not. But the average consumer sees it as free and already installed on their new PC. The fact that it works reasonably well is good enough, so quality doesn't enter the value equation.
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Along the same lines, people wouldn't accept a 'copy' process either. First of all there is ego. Once you have uploaded a copy of yourself, you are no longer unique. It wouldn't take long before one of you had to be shut off. And I don't think most people could stand having someone that knew EVERYTHING about them.
1. It will devastate the foundation for our current economic system.
This is because it will eliminate any job related to production, whether it is assembly in a factory, or food production (farmers, fishers), or production of raw materials (since the nano-factories would of course reuse our waste). That's a _lot_ of people suddenly without jobs.
Only an abrupt change in technology would devastate our economy. A new technology would not likely affect every industry at once. Consider past technologies; robotic welders, combines, tractors! Are you polite to your elevator operator? We don't miss all the laborers that built our railroads now that we have equipment that allows 4 men to out work 100. People will change to other pursuits. All they need is the time to create new jobs as the old ones are lost. And I'm not convinced that it is technically possible to switch to labor saving technologies fast enough to have a wide effect. Some sectors will struggle of course.
Until we create a replacement for the human brain, and we aren't even close, we are in no danger of becoming obsolete.
I'd like to see pluggable devices about the size of a USB enclosure. Single drive, single 1G NIC, plug it in and tell it how to authenticate.
For my small business customers, a slightly larger box that can hold multiple drives. Dual 1G NICs, one for the users and 1 VLANed to other NAS and backup devices. Build boxes that support 2 and 4 drives in pullout chassis. I'm not overly concerned about RAID, but RAID 0 could be useful at times. IDE is OK, speed isn't a huge factor because we're going to be bottlenecked at the LAN anyway.
Most important, make them easy to install, administer and under $1000 per terrabyte.
Then all I need is a reasonably price tape unit. Oh well, we can always dream.
What? Like the ones that actually block outbound connections too?
Anyone know if there is a free firewall that ONLY blocks outbound connections? ZoneAlarm, Kerio, and others all want to incorporate a ton of features in hopes of selling it.
NAT takes care of most inbound connections. I just want something that can let me know anytime an app tries to make an outbound connection. We're getting too many programs phoning home under the guise of checking for new versions.
Where I am voting we are still using the punch card ballot, and to be honest they are working just fine. I even got to play with some sample test ballots and agree with the conclusion of the county recorder, that hanging chads and incomplete ballots are a sign of voting fraud, not incompetent voters.
Not exactly a problem with voter competence, but the butterfly punch ballots go into a machine that has channels for the chad to fall into a collection area at the bottom. If for any reason they start to collect in the channel, you can get hanging and dimpled chads. Palm Beach county has a large percentage of senior citizens. They may not have the strength or dexterity (thanks to RA) to completely dislodge the chad. And since your eyesight has a tendancy to decline as you get older, they may not even see the problem. It should be up to the election officials to keep the booths operating correctly, but it doesn't always happen.
I'm not sure where you get the $5000 per machine, however. I can get systems that are good enough for voting for about $500, including keyboard, monitor, and NIC for a LAN if you want to simplify printing costs.
So many problems here..... No NICs on voting machines. They should not have any external connections. Each one will require a printer, you can't have ballots stacking up, or out of the control of the voter. And you can't run down to Walmart and pick up the daily special. Voting machines should be at least as secure as an ATM. With the kind of equipment and certification necessary, you will not get $1000 machines.
For example:
Culpeper County Virgina
$4k for a standard machine and $5.5k for a handicap accessible one. So a $5k guess wasn't far off.
They are looking at $170k for 40 terminals in addition to software, maintenance, and training.
As far as incomplete marks, erasures, and overvotes, you are completely dismissing the issues. I have worked with optical scanner equipment in terms of having to write the software, and it is fraught with all kinds of issues that you are openly dismissing here.
No, I'm not. Remember the 1990 census? Well, I worked for the Census Bureau and spent time working with all those forms. We photographed them, processed the film, and scanned (from the film) all the answers. Currently I work writing data collection software.
Now remember, I have seen Diebold's Accuvote-OS in action. For voting, an unreadable ballot is kicked out immediately. A supplied black marker is used to mark the ballot, so there are no shades of gray like you can get from a pencil. An overvote will be kicked back as an unreadable ballot. Undervotes are legitimate. Failing to properly fill in the bubbles could cause a missed vote, but the devices are designed to reject ballots with questionable reads. If you're marking the bubbles with an X, you aren't likely to do just one, you would screw up the whole ballot and it would be noticed by the election official. If you want to completely avoid undervotes, add a 'no vote' bubble to each question on the ballot. And the equipment is maintained by trained professionals, not students and TAs.
And your Rosie scenario is completely manufactured. This same fictitious person would also not be able to operate a computerized voting machine. Most likely she would be afraid of the technology.
My point is using a computer to mark sheets of paper is a complete waste of money. You have inadvertently made the process even more expensive by requiring not only terminals, but an additional tabulation device.
The scanned ballots are something my county uses RIGHT NOW. We have had it for at least 7 years. I used one just 2 days ago for a primary. And I am telling you from experience that it works. Multilingual? Paper can be in any language you want. Blind? Ok, a single special needs terminal to mark a ballot. Incomplete markings or erasures are not a problem. Overvotes are not a problem. The ballot is scanned and authenticated as you leave. You know before you walk out the door that it has been correctly scanned.
Even without support costs you're probably looking at $5000 a machine for your voting terminals. The last place I voted that had actual voting booths used a dozen of them. IMO, out of the $60k plus for one location, $55k of that is utterly wasted.
BTW, I have voted on a butterfly ballot. It has been about 8 or 9 years, but that county still had them in 2000. And every time there was an amendment or question on the ballot, the full text was included. As far as more info on the candidates, if you don't know by the time you get to the poll, it's really too late to read up on them. And it would probably be considered electioneering anyway since no candidate is going to let you write a blurb without OKing it. And I certainly don't want to be waiting in line behind someone who is playing with the terminal to see every option available.
It sounds like a great application for computers. After all, multi-lingual GUIs are common and practical, ....
Rumor has it that paper is available in several different languages.
No, the trick is to make the votes easily to tabulate without sacrificing data integrity.
The best solution (IMO) currently available, is offered by the same company that is pushing these crappy voting machines. Diebold makes vote tabulators that read ballots optically. The ones we use in my county have bubbles that you fill in just like the ACT/SAT tests. I have heard there is another variety, possibly by a different manufacturer, that has you connect a line between the candidate and the office and it scans that line.
But the voting machine companies don't like that one because instead of selling 6-10 voting terminals per polling place, they only get to sell one tabulator.
We have been using these for years and they have LOTS of advantages. There is never a line to vote because they just hand you a ballot and a marker. You are free take as much time as you like casting your vote because no one is waiting for you. You can easily ask for help from election workers. If you screw up it's readily obvious and there is an option for requesting a new ballot. The tabulation scanner kicks out any ballot it can't scan, and stores scanned ones internally. (paper trail) It is still possible, and valid, to undervote. It's not possible to overvote. And not only is it possible to do a 100% manual recount, the hardware is already available.
What we have are two problems; people who don't understand KISS. And people who see an opportunity to legislate big $$$ into their pockets.
Mounting one antenna on each side of the wall will work. It may or may not work as desired. Like you suggested, run the AP in diversity mode. (generally the default) The drawback is that with the signal from one antenna getting blocked you will see the strength of the signal pulse. (I have some that do that because they use the stock rubber ducky for one antenna and an aftermarket for the other. It has worked fine for nearly 2 years)
Other options would be to run a couple cables and wire in more than one AP. Or for the lazy people, such as myself, you could also place the AP in the attic and install panel (sector) antennas.
I'm sure you know this, but others here probably do not. Changing the antenna doesn't increase/decrease the output of the AP, it focuses it. Aftermarket Omnis produce a more focused donut shape signal. A sector will produce a signal of roughly 60 degrees in front of the antenna. So if you installed it in the attic pointing down...... Just be sure to mount it as high as possible.
This really isn't a problem with game developers. It's not even unique to open source. Even with commercial development, a lot of projects are started but never completed. Some never make it off of the developers' systems because business requirements change. Some projects make it into production 'incomplete', with the intention of going back and adding features, but it never happens.
It's not necessarily a bad thing. Some projects begin to test a theory that never pans out. Those projects feed into the next iteration that makes it a little further. And some projects are so ill concieved that they never deserve to see the light of day anyway.
You can look at it as R&D, or as the electronic version of Darwinism.
I think he was just trying to play BOFH, and couldn't pull it off.
One additional point that apparently isn't in the jargon file. If you call yourself a hacker (or as in the article, a great hacker) you probably are NOT one. The article states that great hackers rarely recognize it in themselves.
Personally, I don't believe in varying qualities of hackers. IE. there is no such thing as a 'great' hacker. You either have the ability or you don't. I also don't believe there is the ability to become one. You either have the talent or you don't.
Speaking of GM and their product lines. I just found out last weekend that 2004 is the last year for the Chevy S10 and GMC S15 (Sonoma), and in 2004 it was only available in a Crewcab. The Chevy version is being replaced by the Colorado. It appears that the Colorado is bigger (and heavier) than the S10. The Vortec V6 is gone and being replaced by an 'I-5'.
I'm going to take a look at them next time I get my truck serviced, but I suspect after owning 3 S10s and 2 S15 over a period of 17 years, I'll probably be leaving GM with my next purchase.
Some quick stats, if anyone is interested... The V6 is 190 HP/250 torque. The I-5 is 220 HP/225 torque. Which probably explains why they went from a 5150 GVWR/5200 towing to 5000 GVWR/4000!!! towing. Although the Colorado is lighter by 500 lbs, it's a less useful truck.
They seem to be using the SUV (bloated minivan really) model. But fuel economy does go from 15 to 17.
I never was all that impressed with Apple's cube.
I always wanted the Intel version of Cobalt's Qube
If there's one feature MMORPG's could add to make me more likely to play them, it's an account hibernation feature where I could quit if I knew I wasn't going to have time to play this month and resubscribe later.
It's out there, and it's free. You can stop paying your Asheron's Call subscription at any time. Leave for several months, and come right back where you left off. I think they officially say they don't purge accounts inactive less than 6 months. But in practice I can only remember one account purge in the 3 years I've been playing.
Months are also calendar months, not 30 day months like Anarchy Online.
Hey, that stuff is $3 a bag at Lowes. I can quickly spend $100 re-mulching my yard.
That's easy, make the voting machine pay off like slot machines. That would also get more people to vote.
If they are using the SKU as the ID, they aren't using UPC or EAN. Unless their SKU happens to be the UPC/EAN code.
"A UPC number is a twelve digit product identifier consisting of a six-digit manufacturer, a five digit item number, and a calculated check digit" --UCC Universal Product Code: Industrial and Commercial Guidelines. page 1
11 digits are significant. 12 if you want to validate the number.
UPC is not synonymous with barcode.
UPS uses Maxicode. That is the square 2-d barcode next to the routing code. PDF417 is primarily used by GM.
If they are using hardware that doesn't support EAN, it's time to upgrade anyway. It would have to be pretty old. Kind of like saying "we have this new FM technology, everyone needs to throw away their old AM radios". We just replaced 8 year old scanners that had EAN. (actually have a Janus 2020 with a MFG date of Jan 1995) Any manufacturer supplying European customers will have support for EAN.
As far as RFID supporting the new system, or vice-versa, it's a non-issue. What they are discussing is replacing the UPC barcode format with the EAN format. It's like asking if Code 128 or 3-of-9 (code 39) are going be updated to support EAN. Or for the slashdot crowd, it's the equivalent of changing the default from EXT2 to EXT3, and then asking if JFS would need updated.
Hardware isn't the problem, as least with major manufacturers like Symbol and Intermec. The scanners have been able to read EAN barcodes for years. The problem is with the databases. Some will need to have the 'UPC' field extended. But that will primarily be a problem for retailers and manufacturers that apply for new company IDs. Companies that already have existing blocks of IDs will most likely not bother to change their systems.
Simply put:
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security - Benjamin Franklin
The possibility of catching a few terrorists is not worth the guaranteed loss of liberty. A government is like an attack dog on a leash; it MAY do what you want it to, but it is NEVER your friend. You should be particularly concerned when a democratic government claims it need secrecy to monitor its citizens.
We should dump the PATRIOT Act and find another way. Like not supporting dictators in the first place. Sneak and peek is what a burglar does, right before he robs you.
Since the NT kernel is a re-implementation of the VAX kernel
Just to be a little pedantic; VAX is the hardware, VMS (or OpenVMS) is the operating system.
Given that, it would seem possible to give NT a VMS personality similar to it's POSIX support.
The cost of books is a very real problem. There have been plenty of reports of poor schools in developing region where students had to share books that had been donated decades ago from the west. While you might think that a book on math from 30 yrs ago is as good as as one printed today many teachers would disagree. Especially when the old one was printed in a foreign language.
Then buy them new books. You don't need new books every year. Books are considerably cheaper than computers. People keep pointing out that used computers can be cheap, so can used books. Books don't need electricity. Books can be carried home. Books are simpler to secure when they aren't being used.
I'm all for the appropriate use of computers in schools, but replacing books and putting a computer on every students desk is not appropriate. Many teachers don't have the ability to teach effectivily with computers. Computers are a distraction. Computers have a tendency to break when you need them.
And at pre highschool levels; math, science, native language, and to a somewhat lesser extent history, don't change signicantly in a decade.
Microsoft and Walmart being examples of the modern corporation... purposeful government constructs and all. You know, market socialism. I guess you missed that part. Heh.
I didn't miss it, I just don't agree with it. I don't see a case where the government has created a market or made either of those corporations monopolies. There might be some cases with suppliers for the military, and certainly the tax industry is a market created by the government.
I'm not aware of anything relating to Walmart. And in Microsoft's case it has been more of a situation of the government refusing to regulate rather than endorsing them. Probably the only goverment decision that 'made' Microsoft was the anti-trust prosecution of IBM that drove them to outsource DOS rather than create it themselves.
Microsoft has been giving people what they percieve as very low prices. "My OS didn't cost me anything, it came with my computer." The same can be said for Office in the early years. Nobody buys MS Money. Internet Explorer is free. IIS is essentially free. Because to the average consumer the cost is hidden. Customers feel they are getting a good value from Microsoft, so I doubt they would have any problems in a less regulated market. Where most people have their problem with Microsoft is with their perception of Quality. An educated consumer knows there are places where their quality is good enough and places where it is not. But the average consumer sees it as free and already installed on their new PC. The fact that it works reasonably well is good enough, so quality doesn't enter the value equation.