This is a completely sensationalist and somewhat deceptive post.
There will always be plenty of this whenever an open source threat emerges to somebody's billion-dollar monopoly, and most people will buy into it without questioning where the memes are coming from.
I've also had a couple of biking accidents where my helmet didn't play a role, but if you get thrown from your bike it's not hard to see that your head is extremely vulnerable. My GF works with traumatic brain injury patients at a local hospital, and words can hardly describe how devastating these injuries can be, or how instantly your life can change forever. So other people can do what they want, but I'm not going out biking without the helmet. It takes all of 5 seconds.
This is the USA. You might surprised how many people who share you opinion end up suing just because it's the only way to pay for the medical care and rehabilitation that they need. I've also seen many cases of insurance companies screwing over TBI (traumatic brain injury) patients, just because they think they can get away with it.
what's the point of DNT? Just destroying the ad-funded free content sites.
If you can't support your site without tracking your users across the web - an unethical practice, IMHO - then I'll hardly be mourning its destruction.
Whereas we would have nothing to fear from a private Internet monopoly, unrestrained by any regulation enforcing net neutrality or the constitutional limits that apply to government. The executives and shareholders of such a monopoly would realize their civic responsibility to uphold the free expression and exchange of ideas among the citizenry, and would readily uphold that responsibility even if it meant taking a hit on the bottom line.
That's the way it is in the Bizarro World, anyway. In this real world, an unregulated entrenched monopoly/oligopoly has all the power of government with none of the accountability.
2) the ability of some insignificant bags of protoplasm on an insignificant planet near a run of the mill star, in a less than impressive galaxy could find a way to actually see that far
And then you realize that we, those insignificant bags of protoplasm, are the means through which the universe experiences and understands itself.
Trying to do it on the 7-8 bits that you get from a (consumer grade) sensor... is going to be more difficult.
True, but if you're imaging the spectrum in two dimensions and summing/averaging vertically (over columns), you'll improve your Signal/Noise ratio considerably (by the square root of the number of vertical pixels, ideally). It wouldn't surprise me if the results were quite decent.
They don't see "sufficient evidence" because they don't care about evidence and wouldn't recognize it if they fell face-first into it. It's not because they're stupid or even ignorant (at least at the top; they do count on and exploit the ignorance of the public). The job that they're paid to do is to protect the short-term interests of the fossil fuel industry, which has a vital interest in fending off any and all limitations to the amount of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere. The objective is to delay any meaningful response to the problem by 15 or 20 years, and they have done that quite successfully.
Actually, as someone who believes we may indeed have a serious problem here, I find your attitude refreshing. Up to now the conservative approach - driven by overt PR efforts by the fossil carbon industry - has been to derail the discussion through deliberate misinformation and ad hominem attacks on climate scientists. The question of whether we can do anything about it - and if so, what - is a real step forward because now we can talk about concrete policy options. Industry money will speak loudly in that debate as well, but at least we'll be having it.
Vinyl became the audiophile standard as soon as CD players became cheaper and more ubiquitous ("mainstream") than turntables. Listening to music is a social act, and the way it's done defines the listener.
Anyone who creates code through their own effort is welcome to keep it closed, if they like. Appropriating the work of others, contributed on the understanding that the project would be open, is another matter altogether.
Because it's not advertised on the Tee Vee, and because MS can afford all of the FUD and astroturfing it needs to keep people in a state of confusion. After all, it's "not ready for the desktop", just like Linux.
Did anyone here say it was a problem? Most of the responses so far are suggesting alternatives, like LibreOffice. Or is there some reason we shouldn't be discussing that?
It's worse than that. If such an index were used widely in hiring decisions, then its success would be a sef-fulfilling prophecy. It would be guaranteed to work amazingly well, because only scientists scoring highly on it would be allowed to succeed. And if you don't secure a high rating for yourself by the age of 28 or so, then you can just forget it and move on to something else.
Of course, the world pretty much works that way already, without reducing hiring criteria to a single number. The evil is that HR people will use it to minimize risk and simplify decision making, and so every employer will in effect be using the same hiring criteria. There might as well be a hiring monopoly to ensure that no "square pegs" get through all of the identical round holes.
Well, (s)he did come here, so we might as well help out. Here's what I know about nautical gear:
You'll need a hatch and something to batten it down with, a jib with a good cut, some timbers to shivver, and a mainsail that sets attractively. Other than that, you're on your own, matie. Arrrrgh!
The early Web wasn't primarily an entertainment medium then, as it is today. In fact, it was pretty hard to get a domain name if you weren't associated with an educational institution or involved in research. There was plenty of high-quality content, but not of the sort that most users today would have been attracted to.
Slashdot Mirror
Aaaaaaaand... we've come full-circle. Look how much more productive you can be with this amazing new thing!
I didn't know that Apple made pacemakers...
Or rounding up?
My thought exactly. You're looking at the official suspect list when our digital armageddon finally comes...
This is a completely sensationalist and somewhat deceptive post.
There will always be plenty of this whenever an open source threat emerges to somebody's billion-dollar monopoly, and most people will buy into it without questioning where the memes are coming from.
I've also had a couple of biking accidents where my helmet didn't play a role, but if you get thrown from your bike it's not hard to see that your head is extremely vulnerable. My GF works with traumatic brain injury patients at a local hospital, and words can hardly describe how devastating these injuries can be, or how instantly your life can change forever. So other people can do what they want, but I'm not going out biking without the helmet. It takes all of 5 seconds.
This is the USA. You might surprised how many people who share you opinion end up suing just because it's the only way to pay for the medical care and rehabilitation that they need. I've also seen many cases of insurance companies screwing over TBI (traumatic brain injury) patients, just because they think they can get away with it.
I don't really want to impose them on the whole web via the FTC.
Then honor the DNT flag for those that choose to use it. Unless we're using some double-speak definition of "impose" here, that is...
what's the point of DNT? Just destroying the ad-funded free content sites.
If you can't support your site without tracking your users across the web - an unethical practice, IMHO - then I'll hardly be mourning its destruction.
Or you can just cut them all (ads, malware, spyware) off at the ankles and install a HOSTS file like the one at http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm.
Whereas we would have nothing to fear from a private Internet monopoly, unrestrained by any regulation enforcing net neutrality or the constitutional limits that apply to government. The executives and shareholders of such a monopoly would realize their civic responsibility to uphold the free expression and exchange of ideas among the citizenry, and would readily uphold that responsibility even if it meant taking a hit on the bottom line.
That's the way it is in the Bizarro World, anyway. In this real world, an unregulated entrenched monopoly/oligopoly has all the power of government with none of the accountability.
2) the ability of some insignificant bags of protoplasm on an insignificant planet near a run of the mill star, in a less than impressive galaxy could find a way to actually see that far
And then you realize that we, those insignificant bags of protoplasm, are the means through which the universe experiences and understands itself.
With apologies to whomever I stole that from...
I use the mvps.org HOSTS file as well, and have been very happy with it. Pretty much all of the crap out there now lives at 127.0.0.1.
Trying to do it on the 7-8 bits that you get from a (consumer grade) sensor ... is going to be more difficult.
True, but if you're imaging the spectrum in two dimensions and summing/averaging vertically (over columns), you'll improve your Signal/Noise ratio considerably (by the square root of the number of vertical pixels, ideally). It wouldn't surprise me if the results were quite decent.
Please someone, mod parent up.
I'm not nearly as annoyed by people who ignore evidence, as by those who simply turn it upside-down.
They don't see "sufficient evidence" because they don't care about evidence and wouldn't recognize it if they fell face-first into it. It's not because they're stupid or even ignorant (at least at the top; they do count on and exploit the ignorance of the public). The job that they're paid to do is to protect the short-term interests of the fossil fuel industry, which has a vital interest in fending off any and all limitations to the amount of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere. The objective is to delay any meaningful response to the problem by 15 or 20 years, and they have done that quite successfully.
Actually, as someone who believes we may indeed have a serious problem here, I find your attitude refreshing. Up to now the conservative approach - driven by overt PR efforts by the fossil carbon industry - has been to derail the discussion through deliberate misinformation and ad hominem attacks on climate scientists. The question of whether we can do anything about it - and if so, what - is a real step forward because now we can talk about concrete policy options. Industry money will speak loudly in that debate as well, but at least we'll be having it.
Vinyl became the audiophile standard as soon as CD players became cheaper and more ubiquitous ("mainstream") than turntables. Listening to music is a social act, and the way it's done defines the listener.
Anyone who creates code through their own effort is welcome to keep it closed, if they like. Appropriating the work of others, contributed on the understanding that the project would be open, is another matter altogether.
Because it's not advertised on the Tee Vee, and because MS can afford all of the FUD and astroturfing it needs to keep people in a state of confusion. After all, it's "not ready for the desktop", just like Linux.
Did anyone here say it was a problem? Most of the responses so far are suggesting alternatives, like LibreOffice. Or is there some reason we shouldn't be discussing that?
It is certainly not beyond the realm of the possible, provided that you employ language that is at once more erudite and less accessible.
It's worse than that. If such an index were used widely in hiring decisions, then its success would be a sef-fulfilling prophecy. It would be guaranteed to work amazingly well, because only scientists scoring highly on it would be allowed to succeed. And if you don't secure a high rating for yourself by the age of 28 or so, then you can just forget it and move on to something else.
Of course, the world pretty much works that way already, without reducing hiring criteria to a single number. The evil is that HR people will use it to minimize risk and simplify decision making, and so every employer will in effect be using the same hiring criteria. There might as well be a hiring monopoly to ensure that no "square pegs" get through all of the identical round holes.
Well, (s)he did come here, so we might as well help out. Here's what I know about nautical gear:
You'll need a hatch and something to batten it down with, a jib with a good cut, some timbers to shivver, and a mainsail that sets attractively. Other than that, you're on your own, matie. Arrrrgh!
That's a great (and wonderfully simple) idea. They seem to be having trouble handling the traffic at the moment, though...
The early Web wasn't primarily an entertainment medium then, as it is today. In fact, it was pretty hard to get a domain name if you weren't associated with an educational institution or involved in research. There was plenty of high-quality content, but not of the sort that most users today would have been attracted to.