Put XML support on the pro version of the software, so it looks open, but because it's not on all versions, people will have to use the non-open for sending to people in case they don't have Pro.
There's the answer to the "Why open source" question, right there. The software on my system works for ME, not for some billionaire with his hand in my pocket.
The project was funded in part by the Department of Energy, which hopes to create microbes that would capture carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, produce hydrogen or clean the environment.
Well, you have to realize that all research grant proposals are required to promise to (a) lead to cures of dreaded diseases (especially cancer), (b) reduce our dependence on foreign petroleum, or (c) shed light on the Origin of the Universe. Or, at least that's what you're supposed to tell the public!
Anyway, viruses can't do any of the metabolic stuff you mention; you need a whole cell system for that!
This was routine practice in the Soviet Union, where appearing in a picture with Lenin or Stalin or whomever was worth a lot of credibility and could make your career. Every time someone fell from favor, the airbrushes would come out and and they would simply disappear from history.
This is not really all that different, and the fact that the Bushies seem so accepting of it should tell you something about where we're going.
Microsoft is going to cite (and probably exaggerate) the costs of re-training employees who are already familiar with their own software, and likely they'll also make fat assumptions about how much software has to be rewritten to replace arcane features that aren't duplicated in open-source solutions. Some of these points will be valid, but then they are points that will always favor the existing regime and if we weight them too heavily no change would ever take place.
They will also leave out long-term costs that arise from their market dominance and their ability to control their customers. As we all know, you don't pay just once for MS products; you pay again and again and again, just as frequently as Microsoft decides you should. If not for the open-source alternatives, things would be considerably worse for all of the MS shops out there, so they should at least be grateful that the alternative exists, whether they might consider making the leap or not.
It's a little beyond me why anyone on principle would prefer closed to open source software. Even if you'll never look at (or understand) the code yourself, others certainly will. This in itself guarantees that the software will continue to serve - and not manipulate - its users. It is a Good Thing to know verifiably that the software you are using is not really serving another master or out-right screwing you behind the scenes. Governments and corporations should seriously consider open-source solutions on this point alone.
The Microsoft-vs-Linux debate is only partly about short-term costs. Maybe the bigger issue is whether you feel more comfortable in a regime of centralized or distributed power. The MS partisans aren't merely reluctant to learn new tricks, as some have said here. They are also greatly disturbed by a world with no central, monolithic, and hopefully benevolent authority that they can (wisely or foolishly) trust without question. Most of the FUD we see comes precisely from that dark, scary place.
Re:Translated for the America-Impaired
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Who Needs Radio?
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NPR seems "left-wing" to American social conservatives because it tends to treat the groups of people that they loathe (e.g., gays and just about all cultural minorities) in a non-judgemental way, as if they were human beings with the same rights as everyone else.
Other than that, I can't imagine what it would be. Maybe one of the neocons out there can listen in to All Things Considered tomorrow and let us in on specifically where the problem is...
If colleges and universities are being intimidated into suppressing free speech, then just who is it that won't be? Things are starting to look pre-1960s out there...
Our eyes are too close together to give us very much additional information about the "sides" of objects, unless they're very near the tips of our noses. Our brains reconstruct information about distance from the parallax between the two images. I suppose (but am not sure) that it's possible to compute similar information from two images using the focus technique, provided we know the tranfer function for pixels in each image, and can solve whether objects are behind or in front of the focal plane. Then it's just a matter of synthesizing a stereo pair that our eyes & brains can use.
Of course, it's far simpler and easier to generate stereo pairs to begin with...
No, attacking innocent people is terrorism, regardless of their ethnicity or faith, and regardless of whether the attacker operates in opposition to or on behalf of an established government.
But this word has been such a propaganda vehicle for so long that it no longer has any useful meaning.
The Justice Department concedes that it has applied its expanded powers to smugglers, defrauders, bookies, con artists, and drug dealers.
Do any of us who remember the Nixon administration have any doubt that it will also be applied to dissidents and political opponents as well? And this time Ashcroft has God behind him, too...
Re:NDAs are a necessary evil to some environments
on
The Cult of the NDA
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If this sort of risk bothers you you don't want a business. You want a job.
That's ok. That's what most people really want, no matter what they say.
I'd bet that the #1 reason that new entrepreneurs strike out on their own is NOT to get rich, but rather because of disillusionment over a previous job experience. I'm sure this was a bigger factor in my case than I would have admitted at the time. In some ways it can be psychologically easier to start your own company than to face having to find a niche in somebody elses...
Re:NDAs are a necessary evil to some environments
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The Cult of the NDA
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· Score: 1
Then tell people what you're doing right from the very first. The person "to market" isn't the first person who gets out the product. It's the first person to start selling the product.
Oh, how I wish I had realized this about ten years ago. I had a small bioinformatics software company going at the time, fueled by some federal research grant money, and we were working on a big, grandiose suite of distributed software tools that was going to rock the world. And it very well might have - although hardly anyone in the field though that distributed processing was important at the time - had I done what you suggest.
Instead of beating our drums and getting individual tools out there as soon as they were functional, I let my perfectionism take over and sat on everything until the whole shebang was "ready". Of course the money ran out before that ever happened.
But not if they call me out of the blue claiming to represent an organisation I cannot verify the identity of.
And it's not just the ones you've never heard of; some of the biggest charities are surprisingly corrupt. You'd be surprised how many charity executives are getting rich on your contributed dollar, through exhorbitant salaries and otherwise.
I try to stick with well-focused charities whose work I can be familiar with, and whose financial statements I've looked at (they have to give you a copy, if you ask).
It might not be as bad as you think. People who sign up for the DNC list are not likely to buy whatever it is you're selling, anyway. Conversely, people who enjoy doing business this way will not be putting themselves on the list. The list is essentially helping you to target customers who are more likely to buy. Fewer calls, maybe, but a higher hit rate.
Of course, the non-list people will be so deluged that you may end up driving them away, too. You'll have to try to avoid that...
The authors made it clear when the report was released Wednesday that they were speaking for themselves, not the companies or organizations they are affiliated with.
Although your point is well-taken if an employment contract specifically forbids this. Of course, business is business, and a lawsuit may be cheaper than pissing off a big customer...
Yet all you have to do to find an in depth article of the feat is to go down to your local library and start browsing (yes, we browsed magazines in "the old days") copies of New Yorker magazine from the late 60's.
Of course, the trick is knowing to browse copies of The New Yorker from the late 60's...
What those 'bush-bashers' don't like is the stupid budgeting decisions that have gone on. We have gone from the largest surplus to the largest defecit in less then 3 years!
Bush himself may indeed be stupid, but what the repubs are now doing to the budget hardly is. They are deliberately -- let me say that again -- deliberately trying to precipitate a fiscal crisis as a means of eliminating programs that they can't confront politically; e.g., social security and medicare.
This will work as long as lenders around the world continue to have enough confidence to buy our growing mountain of debt at low interest rates. And if they don't? Well, just look at Argentina...
This legislation allows us to go after the real criminals, namely the tobacco companies, and their weapons of mass destruction.
Except, of course, that the tobacco companies have been big-time contributors to the Republican Party for years and years. If the operators of meth labs around the country got together and did the same, you'd see a much different attitude toward them from the Justice Department...
Slashdot Mirror
There's the answer to the "Why open source" question, right there. The software on my system works for ME, not for some billionaire with his hand in my pocket.
There's already a full-size model of it in the Air & Space Museum, IIRC. Not the same, I know...
Well, you have to realize that all research grant proposals are required to promise to (a) lead to cures of dreaded diseases (especially cancer), (b) reduce our dependence on foreign petroleum, or (c) shed light on the Origin of the Universe. Or, at least that's what you're supposed to tell the public!
Anyway, viruses can't do any of the metabolic stuff you mention; you need a whole cell system for that!
Heh heh. That's the Slashdot funny of the day...
They'd probably be better off if they just shut up about the issue and hope it goes away. Drawing attention like this could easily backfire.
This is not really all that different, and the fact that the Bushies seem so accepting of it should tell you something about where we're going.
Or, will Google's Board of Directors even have the option of resisting a Microsoft bid once they're representing public shareholders?
They will also leave out long-term costs that arise from their market dominance and their ability to control their customers. As we all know, you don't pay just once for MS products; you pay again and again and again, just as frequently as Microsoft decides you should. If not for the open-source alternatives, things would be considerably worse for all of the MS shops out there, so they should at least be grateful that the alternative exists, whether they might consider making the leap or not.
It's a little beyond me why anyone on principle would prefer closed to open source software. Even if you'll never look at (or understand) the code yourself, others certainly will. This in itself guarantees that the software will continue to serve - and not manipulate - its users. It is a Good Thing to know verifiably that the software you are using is not really serving another master or out-right screwing you behind the scenes. Governments and corporations should seriously consider open-source solutions on this point alone.
The Microsoft-vs-Linux debate is only partly about short-term costs. Maybe the bigger issue is whether you feel more comfortable in a regime of centralized or distributed power. The MS partisans aren't merely reluctant to learn new tricks, as some have said here. They are also greatly disturbed by a world with no central, monolithic, and hopefully benevolent authority that they can (wisely or foolishly) trust without question. Most of the FUD we see comes precisely from that dark, scary place.
Other than that, I can't imagine what it would be. Maybe one of the neocons out there can listen in to All Things Considered tomorrow and let us in on specifically where the problem is...
The fact that they're "forbidden" is itself a pretty good indication that they're important, no?
If colleges and universities are being intimidated into suppressing free speech, then just who is it that won't be? Things are starting to look pre-1960s out there...
They obviously didn't answer the spam offering them a larger sample size...
Plus, they boldly predict the demise of dot matrix printers and floppy disks. If only I had their crystal ball, I'd be a gazillionnaire!
I'll bet it would be cheaper just to buy 2 cameras and fasten them to opposite ends of a stick.
Of course, it's far simpler and easier to generate stereo pairs to begin with...
No, attacking innocent people is terrorism, regardless of their ethnicity or faith, and regardless of whether the attacker operates in opposition to or on behalf of an established government.
But this word has been such a propaganda vehicle for so long that it no longer has any useful meaning.
Do any of us who remember the Nixon administration have any doubt that it will also be applied to dissidents and political opponents as well? And this time Ashcroft has God behind him, too...
That's ok. That's what most people really want, no matter what they say.
I'd bet that the #1 reason that new entrepreneurs strike out on their own is NOT to get rich, but rather because of disillusionment over a previous job experience. I'm sure this was a bigger factor in my case than I would have admitted at the time. In some ways it can be psychologically easier to start your own company than to face having to find a niche in somebody elses...
Oh, how I wish I had realized this about ten years ago. I had a small bioinformatics software company going at the time, fueled by some federal research grant money, and we were working on a big, grandiose suite of distributed software tools that was going to rock the world. And it very well might have - although hardly anyone in the field though that distributed processing was important at the time - had I done what you suggest.
Instead of beating our drums and getting individual tools out there as soon as they were functional, I let my perfectionism take over and sat on everything until the whole shebang was "ready". Of course the money ran out before that ever happened.
Live and learn...
And it's not just the ones you've never heard of; some of the biggest charities are surprisingly corrupt. You'd be surprised how many charity executives are getting rich on your contributed dollar, through exhorbitant salaries and otherwise.
I try to stick with well-focused charities whose work I can be familiar with, and whose financial statements I've looked at (they have to give you a copy, if you ask).
Of course, the non-list people will be so deluged that you may end up driving them away, too. You'll have to try to avoid that...
The authors made it clear when the report was released Wednesday that they were speaking for themselves, not the companies or organizations they are affiliated with.
Although your point is well-taken if an employment contract specifically forbids this. Of course, business is business, and a lawsuit may be cheaper than pissing off a big customer...
Of course, the trick is knowing to browse copies of The New Yorker from the late 60's...
Bush himself may indeed be stupid, but what the repubs are now doing to the budget hardly is. They are deliberately -- let me say that again -- deliberately trying to precipitate a fiscal crisis as a means of eliminating programs that they can't confront politically; e.g., social security and medicare.
This will work as long as lenders around the world continue to have enough confidence to buy our growing mountain of debt at low interest rates. And if they don't? Well, just look at Argentina...
Except, of course, that the tobacco companies have been big-time contributors to the Republican Party for years and years. If the operators of meth labs around the country got together and did the same, you'd see a much different attitude toward them from the Justice Department...