From the Groklaw article: "Cockburn Offers No Meaningful Analysis Regarding Copyright Damages"
That just about sums it up. Oracle shouldn't be picking a fight with Google; they should be thanking Google for helping to spread general Java know-how and promoting it on their phones, even if they've found a way to evade the licensing fees by using a 3rd party JVM.
Nokia has just started a partnership with Microsoft, so Windows Mobile and Bing Search will probably be their standard platform, with Visual C# as the primary language. Blackberry still uses Java, but they're going down the tubes as fast as Nokia. Meanwhile, Apple continues to prefer Objective C. That leaves only Android as the major handheld platform for any flavor of Java.
If Oracle wishes to spread Java on the handheld, they could maybe start by not suing the maker of Android. They should instead be negotiating with Google, trying to integrate Oracle services into Android, maybe offer Google a good deal on a fully licensed JVM that performs better than Dalvik. Wasting millions of dollars on lawyers and risking a huge schism with Google hardly seems worth it.
Microsoft is Google's rival; Microsoft is Oracle's rival. Increasingly, Apple is Google's rival. Maybe the two should get together and unite against Microsoft (and Apple, which has little invested in Oracle's product line).
Stupid lawsuits, wasting everyone's time and money. How many programmers could they have hired for the amounts they're spending and will spend on this ridiculous effort?
Wow, 10,000? Why don't they use chains or something to hold those bad boys down in choppy waters? Or, I don't know, built steel railings along the perimeters? Or inter-locking Lego-like attachments between containers?
I guess the good news is that they will mostly sink down into the muddy bottom and be out of the way. You wouldn't want those things floating on the surface like icebergs or something.
Regulars would love Internet access and will pay for it. For short hop flights, where there might be 45-60 minutes of internet time, you can do some email, review a report, check voicemail, instant message with colleagues, and so on. Lots of use cases.
Road warriors have things planned out. The laptop is hibernating in the seat pocket, or else, increasingly, you can use an instant-on tablet or smartphone. Leisure travelers obviously can use the same tools. The barriers to getting out a computer and using it are getting lower.
I'm just surprised it's taking so long. Southwest announced a couple of years ago that they were putting wifi on all their planes, but to date I have seen it only once, and I fly a couple of times a month. I wish they would hurry up. They charge $5 which seems reasonable enough for most people.
The only problematic area will be phone calls, either VoIP or cell. It's going to distract and annoy people who are stuck in these sardine cans, typically with no way to get up and move away from a loud talker. There's going to be a few air rage incidents before they figure out that they have to specifically ban voice communications in flight.
The best part, I might add, is that there is nothing "better" about private schools except the mental image society collectively has. The only reason private school students do better is because they are selected for nice things more frequently because of their prestigious background. In fact, I would argue that private school teaching is probably inferior to public schools (at least in Canada); private school teachers are paid significantly less than public schools, and so public schools get their pick first.
The only reason private school students do better on standardized tests is because private schools pick all of the best students with supportive parents. If you have a class who can practically teach themselves, it doesn't matter if a monkey is teaching them, they're going to do better than the class of low income and disenfranchised students.
Can you cite any studies or well known facts to support these statements? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd just like to see something other than some anonymous person's assertions on a tech chatboard.
Private schools can and do kick out trouble-causing students, and there is a direct correlation between the presence of such children and the overall performance of a class. This is probably a larger factor than merely selecting the academic elite, who themselves may come from abusive or otherwise troubled homes and who may bring such problems into the classroom.
However, the academic elite by and large tend to follow their economic class's trends. In other words, affluent parents spend more on their children's education, give them better tools and more opportunities to do well, and effectively can buy a smoother pathway to the top with fewer obstacles. SAT scores are correlated with wealth.
To argue that private school teaching "is probably inferior to public schools" is a broad and unsubstantiated claim. Leaving aside the fact that some kids attend private school for non-academic reasons (their parent went there, it's smaller, it's more prestigious), we can ask--do private schools really help kids perform better? It's controversial, according to this Time blog, but a separate study shows that Catholic schools do a better job overall.
There are many excellent public schools in the U.S. and Canada; Montgomery County in MD for example, and Middlesex County in Massachusetts are superb--well funded, high academic standards, good support for the arts, and involved parents. The high performing schools in these districts, though, are in the affluent areas like Belmont and Newton and Lexington in Massachusetts. The lower income Middlesex schools in Waltham and Watertown are down a rung or two.
As for the quality of teachers, it's disputable that private schools hire inferior teachers at lower pay, at least in the U.S. This was more true decades ago, but in recent years private schools have had to compete for a shrinking pool of good teachers and they have raised salaries and benefits nearly to union scale. Nonetheless, private schools have remained a desirable destination because the students tend to be better behaved, the troublemakers are removed, and there tends to be more parental buy-in. This only makes sense; when you're paying $16,000 a year for your child, you tend to have more and stronger opinions about how the school is run.
What about reforestation? That should help reduce atmospheric CO2.
Also, maybe try to prevent/reduce pollution of the oceans, to restore algae. But that's a tall order, because everyone's fishing the hell out of it and basically destroying the food chain out there. I don't see any near term mitigation for that, unfortunately. If it were up to the Asians, they'd deplete much of the ocean's stocks to extinction. Maybe fish farms will help, eventually, except that they're not healthy for some reason.
There are lots of excellent alternatives to fossil fuels coming down the pike: solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, fuel cells. I like the idea of solar cells on every rooftop, with hydrogen fuel cells in the basement to capture the surplus daytime power and recharge the electric cars overnight. I also like the idea of a windmill at every major intersection, to power a square mile or so of residences and businesses.
They're building a big solar thermal power plant in the Mojave desert, to accompany several others already up and running. Arizona's building a big one as well.
Solar photovoltaic technology is advancing, both in efficiency and in cheaper manufacturing costs. I think ultimately solar will provide 20-25% of people's electric needs.
And transportation is going to be electric, as batteries improve. Hybrid car sales are huge, and every manufacturer is getting into the act. They're somewhat expensive today, but economies of scale and improvements in the tech will only bring down costs and increase profits. Probably in 20 years every car on the road will be either a hybrid or fully electric.
What'll be interesting will be to see just how much impact this eventual shift away from combustible carbon fuels has on the climate. The scientific community largely agrees that humans have caused global warming, but what happens if we stop being the cause and it still gets warmer? All that carbon we've already produced is to blame? Or is it a few major volcanoes in the past century? Or climate shifts that have little to do with human activities? Should be an interesting 88 years coming up; wish I could be around to see it happen. But my daughter will, I hope.
I'm waiting for one of these babies to get me 6 miles to work. Man, would it be nice to fly right over the cars which are all stuck at a light, and buzz a cop car at 70 mph! It would make going to work a joy instead of the tedious trudge to cube farm hell that it is.
Ever since reading Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, I have yearned for a sky car to go hundreds of miles in a few minutes. Of course, I haven't yearned for the accompanying alien parasitic slugs, but like with everything else in life, there's a give and take.
Maybe the professors who taught the seismologists back in university should be tried for manslaughter, too, for not properly training their students to properly detect and report earthquakes.
Maybe the public safety authorities should all be fired for failing to regularly consult the seismologists regarding possible upcoming earthquakes.
Maybe all psychics in the country should be arrested and arraigned for murder, for not predicting the deadly temblor.
Or, maybe the Italians should just accept that natural disasters happen. Geeze, Louise.
You refer to the BBC and the Goldstone report, neither of which is a reputable source. Goldstone himself has repudiated his report, in fact.
Sorry, but name calling and rank generalizations do not exonerate you from being guilty of the very transgressions of which you accuse others.
Israelis do commit crimes, but certainly not on the scale that you imply (but obviously cannot substantiate, so only pull this one viral rumor off the net).
Ironically, you claim that you "can't support killing 2-year-old children"--just a couple of weeks after one of the most horrendous baby-killing acts by Arabs was committed--even the Arabs condemned the murders. And here we have an Israel-hating troll on Slashdot, frothing at the mouth over an imaginary killing of Arabs.
I must disagree that I have "lost the debate". There was no debate, just some cut-and-paste postings of baseless and snide punch lines to which I responded, and rather calmly I might add. As for public support, Israel is about as popular today among mainstream Americans as always: about 60-70% in the polls, year after year. Not that they need us to ensure their survival--today it's Israeli technology that's going to protect them--and us--from new threats.
Oh, and enjoy using your cell phone (Israeli tech) and your low-power Intel powered computer (Israeli tech) and your encrypted communications (Israeli math). Hope you never need to have a pancreas transplant (pioneered by Israeli doctors). Maybe you've had drip irrigation installed in your garden (Israeli tech). Etc. etc.
Or maybe you're more into Arab technology: I hear they make a pretty state-of-the-art suicide bomb belt.
Where again did I say I hate Israel? Are you able to read and comprehend the written word?
I said one of the reasons they hate us is because we blindly support Israel.
I'm not a cowardly moral relativist, nor am I an ignorant fool who can't read and who gives any country a blank check to be a an oppressive state, Jewish or Muslim or Christian. Pull your head out of your monster truck party politics and do a little critical thinking before replying next time.
You put the blame for Muslim terrorism squarely on the U.S. for its "foreign policy" and "blind" support of Israel. That's moral relativism. That's what the Islamists themselves say--you're just a mouthpiece for their propaganda. But it won't save you--they don't distinguish cowardly brown-nosers from those of us who oppose them.
And make no mistake--they want to DESTROY US. You may think you've above the petty politics of supporting a Western ally in the Middle East, or defending the oil supplies, or fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda forces in central Asia--but you're not. You are part of it--every time you drive your car, exercise your right to vote or freely post your drivel on a chat board--you are benefiting from your freedom afforded by U.S. policies.
No one's claiming U.S. foreign policy is perfect, certainly I haven't made such a claim, but a blanket condemnation of the U.S. and linking in its support for Israel (such as it is) as the root cause of Muslim terrorism is ridiculous--and merely reinforces al Qaeda's own propaganda.
Criticism of US/Isreal policy does not justify the knee-jerk assumption that there is "Another Israel hater." It's just as likely that the PP is critical of US/Isreal policy.
There's no criticism elaborated in the gp posting, just another cut-and-paste full of baseless talking points. Why is it that Israel evokes such angry thrashings amongst the liberals?
Israel is a diversionary topic, often mentioned by the Arabs as a justification for almost everything bad that happens in the Middle East. The lack of human rights and democracy, their horrible treatment of women, their backward education and lack of economic opportunity are the real issues and Israel has nothing to do with any of that.
On the contrary, Israel points the way to true economic development for the broad majority, free of the poisonous dependence on oil. The Arabs could benefit so much from Israel, and paradoxically for this reason they hate it all the more.
What's truly despicable, however, is the large number of young Americans who mindlessly repeat the Arabs' sharply critical and largely baseless accusations about Israel. Here, in a country where the facts are available to study, they prefer to rely on viral rumors propagated by Saudi-funded think tanks. If only Israel didn't exist, all the problems in the world would disappear, they say. Truly perverse.
"Let me contribute some facts here..." "I'm Jewish and I'm upset about it...." "If we made Israel stop, we wouldn't have so many more Arabs hating us"
I don't see any facts in your posting, sorry. You link to the viral rumor about the "white flag" shootings, as reported by unverified Arab witnesses in a region where people fabricate such stories all the time. The Gaza actions were about as cautious and protective of civilian life as could conceivably be done, according to British military witnesses and other reliable reports. You identify yourself as Jewish as though that excuses you to say all kinds of rubbish about a country of which you really have very little knowledge or understanding. Furthermore, there's a strain of anger and self-loathing in your statements which suggests you have a personal ax to grind regarding Israel, as do so many other apologetic liberals, Jewish or not.
Sorry - yours is just another cut-and-paste rant which does not address the topic whatsoever. Go bow to Mecca, now.
Your response is so extreme and "black and white" that it's clearly a cut-and-paste from other online debates over Israel's legitimacy and moral correctness.
I don't care what your religion, ethnicity, or creed is. If you wish to discuss the roots of terrorism, that's one thing.
But if you wish to make self-loathing kinds of comments such as the above, you're just engaging in a kind of distancing and self-exoneration out of embarrassment for the behavior of others who share your ancestry.
"They hate us because we blindly support Israel" "US foreign policy has caused this hatred"
Another Israel hater, how charming.
So, if we withdraw our "blind" support for Israel and let the chips fall where they may, the Islamists will stop hating us?
Hardly. When we convert to their extreme version of Islam and submit ourselves to sharia law and the rule of some caliph dictator based in Mecca, then they will stop hating us, maybe.
Tell you what, you move there and convert, and they'll at least stop hating you, and we'll be rid of one more cowardly moral relativist.
I love having two monitors. I can see more stuff at the same time. Netbeans lets me place the output window on the second screen, so I can constantly watch output during builds and runs.
I can have a browser or text editor window open on one screen while writing stuff on the other. It saves me from flipping back and forth between windows.
I also have openSuse with multiple virtual desktops, and am constantly flipping back and forth between the browser desktop and the compiler/source control desktop, for example. It would be nice to always have a browser screen; I'm wondering if I should get a third monitor just for the browser. I think Suse can handle it, not sure.
Basically it was a dumb question to begin with. People who find they're more productive with two screens (or three, or four) should get one. They're not that expensive. I just got a decent 23" flat screen for home for about $150, and I've seen even lower prices since then.
I hate those machines. I travel a lot, and I'm worried that (1) the radiation levels are higher than the manufacturer claims, and (2) it does nothing to protect us from terrorism.
Machines can only go so far. You have to have intelligent, well trained and highly motivated people on the scene.
A friend who was traveling in China recently told me that when he went through airport security there, it felt like he was in a modern, free country. Then when he came back to American airports, it felt like he was in a backward dictatorship.
The fact that they won't let us bring a 4 oz. or 6oz. yogurt, or a bottle of pure water, or a tube of what is obviously toothpaste, does not make us safer. It inconveniences us. I love yogurt and it's ridiculous that it can't be carried through security. Go ahead, open it, sniff it. It's milk, not nitroglycerine, or a binary explosive. Water is water. Toothpaste is toothpaste.
I also miss traveling with my little flat Swiss card which contains a one inch knife and a scissors and a tweezers. It was so convenient and I used it all the time. They confiscated the knife twice, because I forgot to remove it from my backpack before traveling. So I just stopped carrying it at all.
They blanket ban these things because they don't trust their employees to be intelligent enough to recognize the difference between a dangerous weapon and a bottle of shampoo or Coke. We're not safer, we're just angrier and hungrier as a result.
Yes, I am so mad at myself for upgrading to this latest release. Suddenly, wireless stopped working, and the new UI is horrific, and even after wasting hours of my time fixing all of this, there are these video artifacts that come and go, and the whole system just seems less stable than before. I suppose in a few months it'll be fine again, but this is getting old.
Why, oh, why, can't Canonical just leave the UI alone? I don't want the window controls like "x" moved from the top right to the top left! I don't want to have to learn a whole new (and buggy) application launcher paradigm! Just work on adding more device support and making Linux more stable, more reliable, and more portable than ever before. We need more webcam support, more USB sound card support, more video drivers--there's plenty of work to be done under the hood. The UI takes care of itself--as people get more used to it, as more and more usage tips and FAQs appear on the internet, it gets easier.
well you have a pretty good point. I tether my tablet and laptop with my Android phone all the time and I am not about to pay for two data plans.
But apparently millions of people do want 3G built into their tablets. If money's not an object, it sure would be convenient.
I'd like it if they had a deal like the Kindle 3G, where you get a "just-enough" data plan for a one-time $50 up-front cost, so you can check email and do minor downloads without need to tether or hotspot.
Rim makes good phones. I use Blackberries (I program on them at work) and Android (my personal phone is a Nexus One) and overall the Rim phones are more reliable as phones go. The Android/iPhone is a handheld internet portal that happens to make phone calls, not always very reliably. For example, in bright sunlight it's difficult to even see the keypad to dial a number on.
On the other hand, the app market drives phone sales nowadays, so anyone who wants something beyond a basic flip phone is likely to go with the apps and that's Android and iPhone, currently. Rim has been slow to support their developers, although their phones are reasonably easy to develop for. You do need Windows, unfortunately, or at least a way to run Windows apps, to do anything more sophisticated than a basic Java ME app. OTOH, you can't do JavaME on Android, at least without some clunky emulator.
The Rim tablet that was just announced is a baby step in the right direction, but the fact that it requires tethering a Blackberry phone to get 3G service is a giant step backward. They need to break free of their corporate mentality and market this thing to the general public, not just their loyal BB users.
Definitely avoid using a real or traceable name in online discussion forums and social sites. Also, avoid embedding your real name into your email address, such as "JohnSurfer@cox.net" or the like.
Unfortunately, my real name is embedded in one of my email addresses, and it's all over the web by now. I guess I can eventually switch to a different address, but the damage is done.
If you have someone's name, you can now obtain their current and past addresses, their age, their schools, possibly where they work, possibly their political party affiliation, and possibly a ton of other information if they have used their real name in online activities. It's not rocket science to do this; the information is just sitting out there waiting to be grabbed.
I suppose if you have nothing to hide and have avoided getting too controversial in your online discussions, or too outrageous in your social network photos and statuses, you're probably safe from major problems. Employers are going to be looking for extreme behavior, not slightly out of the ordinary behavior. If an employer doesn't like some minor thing about you, e.g. a picture of you on Facebook wearing green antennas at a Halloween party, then probably they're not someone you'd want to work for anyway.
>> iPads are largely sold to people with iPods, iPhones and an apple computer of what ever description. Other tablet manufacturers attempting to break into this market are nuts, deluded and foolish.
Do you have any data to back up either claim?
I am a Linux programmer and Android phone user, and I bought an iPad (and traded it in for an iPad 2). Why? Because it's the best engineered, best programmed tablet on the market at this time. 6-8 months from now, there may be a whole slew of really good Android tablets, but right now the iPad is the only game in town. That's why I bought one, and that's why my father bought one, and almost every other person I know either has bought one or is considering one, and it's why 15 million people bought them in 2010, and reportedly 5 million or more got the 2 on the first day. These are not just Apple iDevice users, they're people who are opting for a full internet tablet rather than a Kindle or Nook, for reading, watching videos, doing email, and surfing the web, which is 90% of what most non-business users do on their computers these days.
As for your second statement, that's patently ridiculous--it's like saying the iPhone is the only possible smartphone anyone would ever buy. Android has blown past the iPhone and the Blackberry in sheer numbers, and continues to grow. People don't have a special loyalty to Apple--well, some do, but the overall market doesn't.
This is apparently the original article. If you google the headline, you find about 20 copies on various blogs. I don't understand why Slashdot submitters can't at least link to the original, unless they have a stake in the blog.
I'm with the Motorola-is-stupid crowd on this one. They are a hardware/telecom company, not a software company. They have no demonstrated track record of developing a competent, competitive smartphone OS. Short of buying Palm's WebOS, which maybe they should have done instead of letting HP have it, they don't have much hope of keeping up with the Android and iOS juggernauts. Even Rim, the erstwhile smartphone king, has a teeny little app market compared to the two others, and their market share is shrinking, not growing.
That said, I wish MOT well because a little competition is good for the consumer. I would prefer that they work on perfecting their tablets and smartphones in the Android space, however. The Xoom is a great first effort. Why not tweak it until it's flawless and best-of-breed? Why not help Google improve Android in the areas where MOT feels it's deficient? For a lot less money and resources than developing their own proprietary crappy OS, they can be very competitive.
Methinks Motorola is not thinking this through very clearly. Then again, it's just a rumor.
Slashdot Mirror
From the Groklaw article: "Cockburn Offers No Meaningful Analysis Regarding Copyright Damages"
That just about sums it up. Oracle shouldn't be picking a fight with Google; they should be thanking Google for helping to spread general Java know-how and promoting it on their phones, even if they've found a way to evade the licensing fees by using a 3rd party JVM.
Nokia has just started a partnership with Microsoft, so Windows Mobile and Bing Search will probably be their standard platform, with Visual C# as the primary language. Blackberry still uses Java, but they're going down the tubes as fast as Nokia. Meanwhile, Apple continues to prefer Objective C. That leaves only Android as the major handheld platform for any flavor of Java.
If Oracle wishes to spread Java on the handheld, they could maybe start by not suing the maker of Android. They should instead be negotiating with Google, trying to integrate Oracle services into Android, maybe offer Google a good deal on a fully licensed JVM that performs better than Dalvik. Wasting millions of dollars on lawyers and risking a huge schism with Google hardly seems worth it.
Microsoft is Google's rival; Microsoft is Oracle's rival. Increasingly, Apple is Google's rival. Maybe the two should get together and unite against Microsoft (and Apple, which has little invested in Oracle's product line). Stupid lawsuits, wasting everyone's time and money. How many programmers could they have hired for the amounts they're spending and will spend on this ridiculous effort?
Wow, 10,000? Why don't they use chains or something to hold those bad boys down in choppy waters? Or, I don't know, built steel railings along the perimeters? Or inter-locking Lego-like attachments between containers?
I guess the good news is that they will mostly sink down into the muddy bottom and be out of the way. You wouldn't want those things floating on the surface like icebergs or something.
Regulars would love Internet access and will pay for it. For short hop flights, where there might be 45-60 minutes of internet time, you can do some email, review a report, check voicemail, instant message with colleagues, and so on. Lots of use cases.
Road warriors have things planned out. The laptop is hibernating in the seat pocket, or else, increasingly, you can use an instant-on tablet or smartphone. Leisure travelers obviously can use the same tools. The barriers to getting out a computer and using it are getting lower.
I'm just surprised it's taking so long. Southwest announced a couple of years ago that they were putting wifi on all their planes, but to date I have seen it only once, and I fly a couple of times a month. I wish they would hurry up. They charge $5 which seems reasonable enough for most people.
The only problematic area will be phone calls, either VoIP or cell. It's going to distract and annoy people who are stuck in these sardine cans, typically with no way to get up and move away from a loud talker. There's going to be a few air rage incidents before they figure out that they have to specifically ban voice communications in flight.
The best part, I might add, is that there is nothing "better" about private schools except the mental image society collectively has. The only reason private school students do better is because they are selected for nice things more frequently because of their prestigious background. In fact, I would argue that private school teaching is probably inferior to public schools (at least in Canada); private school teachers are paid significantly less than public schools, and so public schools get their pick first.
The only reason private school students do better on standardized tests is because private schools pick all of the best students with supportive parents. If you have a class who can practically teach themselves, it doesn't matter if a monkey is teaching them, they're going to do better than the class of low income and disenfranchised students.
Can you cite any studies or well known facts to support these statements? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd just like to see something other than some anonymous person's assertions on a tech chatboard.
Private schools can and do kick out trouble-causing students, and there is a direct correlation between the presence of such children and the overall performance of a class. This is probably a larger factor than merely selecting the academic elite, who themselves may come from abusive or otherwise troubled homes and who may bring such problems into the classroom.
However, the academic elite by and large tend to follow their economic class's trends. In other words, affluent parents spend more on their children's education, give them better tools and more opportunities to do well, and effectively can buy a smoother pathway to the top with fewer obstacles. SAT scores are correlated with wealth.
To argue that private school teaching "is probably inferior to public schools" is a broad and unsubstantiated claim. Leaving aside the fact that some kids attend private school for non-academic reasons (their parent went there, it's smaller, it's more prestigious), we can ask--do private schools really help kids perform better? It's controversial, according to this Time blog, but a separate study shows that Catholic schools do a better job overall.
There are many excellent public schools in the U.S. and Canada; Montgomery County in MD for example, and Middlesex County in Massachusetts are superb--well funded, high academic standards, good support for the arts, and involved parents. The high performing schools in these districts, though, are in the affluent areas like Belmont and Newton and Lexington in Massachusetts. The lower income Middlesex schools in Waltham and Watertown are down a rung or two.
As for the quality of teachers, it's disputable that private schools hire inferior teachers at lower pay, at least in the U.S. This was more true decades ago, but in recent years private schools have had to compete for a shrinking pool of good teachers and they have raised salaries and benefits nearly to union scale. Nonetheless, private schools have remained a desirable destination because the students tend to be better behaved, the troublemakers are removed, and there tends to be more parental buy-in. This only makes sense; when you're paying $16,000 a year for your child, you tend to have more and stronger opinions about how the school is run.
It's time to go green--Soylent Green!
What about reforestation? That should help reduce atmospheric CO2.
Also, maybe try to prevent/reduce pollution of the oceans, to restore algae. But that's a tall order, because everyone's fishing the hell out of it and basically destroying the food chain out there. I don't see any near term mitigation for that, unfortunately. If it were up to the Asians, they'd deplete much of the ocean's stocks to extinction. Maybe fish farms will help, eventually, except that they're not healthy for some reason.
There are lots of excellent alternatives to fossil fuels coming down the pike: solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, fuel cells. I like the idea of solar cells on every rooftop, with hydrogen fuel cells in the basement to capture the surplus daytime power and recharge the electric cars overnight. I also like the idea of a windmill at every major intersection, to power a square mile or so of residences and businesses.
They're building a big solar thermal power plant in the Mojave desert, to accompany several others already up and running. Arizona's building a big one as well.
Solar photovoltaic technology is advancing, both in efficiency and in cheaper manufacturing costs. I think ultimately solar will provide 20-25% of people's electric needs.
And transportation is going to be electric, as batteries improve. Hybrid car sales are huge, and every manufacturer is getting into the act. They're somewhat expensive today, but economies of scale and improvements in the tech will only bring down costs and increase profits. Probably in 20 years every car on the road will be either a hybrid or fully electric.
What'll be interesting will be to see just how much impact this eventual shift away from combustible carbon fuels has on the climate. The scientific community largely agrees that humans have caused global warming, but what happens if we stop being the cause and it still gets warmer? All that carbon we've already produced is to blame? Or is it a few major volcanoes in the past century? Or climate shifts that have little to do with human activities? Should be an interesting 88 years coming up; wish I could be around to see it happen. But my daughter will, I hope.
I'm waiting for one of these babies to get me 6 miles to work. Man, would it be nice to fly right over the cars which are all stuck at a light, and buzz a cop car at 70 mph! It would make going to work a joy instead of the tedious trudge to cube farm hell that it is.
Ever since reading Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, I have yearned for a sky car to go hundreds of miles in a few minutes. Of course, I haven't yearned for the accompanying alien parasitic slugs, but like with everything else in life, there's a give and take.
Maybe the professors who taught the seismologists back in university should be tried for manslaughter, too, for not properly training their students to properly detect and report earthquakes.
Maybe the public safety authorities should all be fired for failing to regularly consult the seismologists regarding possible upcoming earthquakes.
Maybe all psychics in the country should be arrested and arraigned for murder, for not predicting the deadly temblor.
Or, maybe the Italians should just accept that natural disasters happen. Geeze, Louise.
It's worth noting that according to Wikipedia, there were several thousand foreshocks and aftershocks since December 2008" in that area. Doesn't that suggest that there was adequate warning that a quake could strike at any minute?
You refer to the BBC and the Goldstone report, neither of which is a reputable source. Goldstone himself has repudiated his report, in fact.
Sorry, but name calling and rank generalizations do not exonerate you from being guilty of the very transgressions of which you accuse others.
Israelis do commit crimes, but certainly not on the scale that you imply (but obviously cannot substantiate, so only pull this one viral rumor off the net).
Ironically, you claim that you "can't support killing 2-year-old children"--just a couple of weeks after one of the most horrendous baby-killing acts by Arabs was committed--even the Arabs condemned the murders. And here we have an Israel-hating troll on Slashdot, frothing at the mouth over an imaginary killing of Arabs.
I must disagree that I have "lost the debate". There was no debate, just some cut-and-paste postings of baseless and snide punch lines to which I responded, and rather calmly I might add. As for public support, Israel is about as popular today among mainstream Americans as always: about 60-70% in the polls, year after year. Not that they need us to ensure their survival--today it's Israeli technology that's going to protect them--and us--from new threats.
Oh, and enjoy using your cell phone (Israeli tech) and your low-power Intel powered computer (Israeli tech) and your encrypted communications (Israeli math). Hope you never need to have a pancreas transplant (pioneered by Israeli doctors). Maybe you've had drip irrigation installed in your garden (Israeli tech). Etc. etc.
Or maybe you're more into Arab technology: I hear they make a pretty state-of-the-art suicide bomb belt.
Where again did I say I hate Israel? Are you able to read and comprehend the written word?
I said one of the reasons they hate us is because we blindly support Israel.
I'm not a cowardly moral relativist, nor am I an ignorant fool who can't read and who gives any country a blank check to be a an oppressive state, Jewish or Muslim or Christian. Pull your head out of your monster truck party politics and do a little critical thinking before replying next time.
You put the blame for Muslim terrorism squarely on the U.S. for its "foreign policy" and "blind" support of Israel. That's moral relativism. That's what the Islamists themselves say--you're just a mouthpiece for their propaganda. But it won't save you--they don't distinguish cowardly brown-nosers from those of us who oppose them.
And make no mistake--they want to DESTROY US. You may think you've above the petty politics of supporting a Western ally in the Middle East, or defending the oil supplies, or fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda forces in central Asia--but you're not. You are part of it--every time you drive your car, exercise your right to vote or freely post your drivel on a chat board--you are benefiting from your freedom afforded by U.S. policies.
No one's claiming U.S. foreign policy is perfect, certainly I haven't made such a claim, but a blanket condemnation of the U.S. and linking in its support for Israel (such as it is) as the root cause of Muslim terrorism is ridiculous--and merely reinforces al Qaeda's own propaganda.
Another Palestine hater, how charming.
Criticism of US/Isreal policy does not justify the knee-jerk assumption that there is "Another Israel hater."
It's just as likely that the PP is critical of US/Isreal policy.
There's no criticism elaborated in the gp posting, just another cut-and-paste full of baseless talking points. Why is it that Israel evokes such angry thrashings amongst the liberals?
Israel is a diversionary topic, often mentioned by the Arabs as a justification for almost everything bad that happens in the Middle East. The lack of human rights and democracy, their horrible treatment of women, their backward education and lack of economic opportunity are the real issues and Israel has nothing to do with any of that.
On the contrary, Israel points the way to true economic development for the broad majority, free of the poisonous dependence on oil. The Arabs could benefit so much from Israel, and paradoxically for this reason they hate it all the more.
What's truly despicable, however, is the large number of young Americans who mindlessly repeat the Arabs' sharply critical and largely baseless accusations about Israel. Here, in a country where the facts are available to study, they prefer to rely on viral rumors propagated by Saudi-funded think tanks. If only Israel didn't exist, all the problems in the world would disappear, they say. Truly perverse.
"Let me contribute some facts here..." "I'm Jewish and I'm upset about it...." "If we made Israel stop, we wouldn't have so many more Arabs hating us"
I don't see any facts in your posting, sorry. You link to the viral rumor about the "white flag" shootings, as reported by unverified Arab witnesses in a region where people fabricate such stories all the time. The Gaza actions were about as cautious and protective of civilian life as could conceivably be done, according to British military witnesses and other reliable reports. You identify yourself as Jewish as though that excuses you to say all kinds of rubbish about a country of which you really have very little knowledge or understanding. Furthermore, there's a strain of anger and self-loathing in your statements which suggests you have a personal ax to grind regarding Israel, as do so many other apologetic liberals, Jewish or not.
Sorry - yours is just another cut-and-paste rant which does not address the topic whatsoever. Go bow to Mecca, now.
Your response is so extreme and "black and white" that it's clearly a cut-and-paste from other online debates over Israel's legitimacy and moral correctness.
I don't care what your religion, ethnicity, or creed is. If you wish to discuss the roots of terrorism, that's one thing.
But if you wish to make self-loathing kinds of comments such as the above, you're just engaging in a kind of distancing and self-exoneration out of embarrassment for the behavior of others who share your ancestry.
"They hate us because we blindly support Israel" "US foreign policy has caused this hatred"
Another Israel hater, how charming.
So, if we withdraw our "blind" support for Israel and let the chips fall where they may, the Islamists will stop hating us?
Hardly. When we convert to their extreme version of Islam and submit ourselves to sharia law and the rule of some caliph dictator based in Mecca, then they will stop hating us, maybe.
Tell you what, you move there and convert, and they'll at least stop hating you, and we'll be rid of one more cowardly moral relativist.
I love having two monitors. I can see more stuff at the same time. Netbeans lets me place the output window on the second screen, so I can constantly watch output during builds and runs.
I can have a browser or text editor window open on one screen while writing stuff on the other. It saves me from flipping back and forth between windows.
I also have openSuse with multiple virtual desktops, and am constantly flipping back and forth between the browser desktop and the compiler/source control desktop, for example. It would be nice to always have a browser screen; I'm wondering if I should get a third monitor just for the browser. I think Suse can handle it, not sure.
Basically it was a dumb question to begin with. People who find they're more productive with two screens (or three, or four) should get one. They're not that expensive. I just got a decent 23" flat screen for home for about $150, and I've seen even lower prices since then.
I hate those machines. I travel a lot, and I'm worried that (1) the radiation levels are higher than the manufacturer claims, and (2) it does nothing to protect us from terrorism.
Machines can only go so far. You have to have intelligent, well trained and highly motivated people on the scene.
A friend who was traveling in China recently told me that when he went through airport security there, it felt like he was in a modern, free country. Then when he came back to American airports, it felt like he was in a backward dictatorship.
The fact that they won't let us bring a 4 oz. or 6oz. yogurt, or a bottle of pure water, or a tube of what is obviously toothpaste, does not make us safer. It inconveniences us. I love yogurt and it's ridiculous that it can't be carried through security. Go ahead, open it, sniff it. It's milk, not nitroglycerine, or a binary explosive. Water is water. Toothpaste is toothpaste.
I also miss traveling with my little flat Swiss card which contains a one inch knife and a scissors and a tweezers. It was so convenient and I used it all the time. They confiscated the knife twice, because I forgot to remove it from my backpack before traveling. So I just stopped carrying it at all.
They blanket ban these things because they don't trust their employees to be intelligent enough to recognize the difference between a dangerous weapon and a bottle of shampoo or Coke. We're not safer, we're just angrier and hungrier as a result.
Ok I'm getting off my soap box now :(
Yes, I am so mad at myself for upgrading to this latest release. Suddenly, wireless stopped working, and the new UI is horrific, and even after wasting hours of my time fixing all of this, there are these video artifacts that come and go, and the whole system just seems less stable than before. I suppose in a few months it'll be fine again, but this is getting old.
Why, oh, why, can't Canonical just leave the UI alone? I don't want the window controls like "x" moved from the top right to the top left! I don't want to have to learn a whole new (and buggy) application launcher paradigm! Just work on adding more device support and making Linux more stable, more reliable, and more portable than ever before. We need more webcam support, more USB sound card support, more video drivers--there's plenty of work to be done under the hood. The UI takes care of itself--as people get more used to it, as more and more usage tips and FAQs appear on the internet, it gets easier.
well you have a pretty good point. I tether my tablet and laptop with my Android phone all the time and I am not about to pay for two data plans.
But apparently millions of people do want 3G built into their tablets. If money's not an object, it sure would be convenient.
I'd like it if they had a deal like the Kindle 3G, where you get a "just-enough" data plan for a one-time $50 up-front cost, so you can check email and do minor downloads without need to tether or hotspot.
Rim makes good phones. I use Blackberries (I program on them at work) and Android (my personal phone is a Nexus One) and overall the Rim phones are more reliable as phones go. The Android/iPhone is a handheld internet portal that happens to make phone calls, not always very reliably. For example, in bright sunlight it's difficult to even see the keypad to dial a number on.
On the other hand, the app market drives phone sales nowadays, so anyone who wants something beyond a basic flip phone is likely to go with the apps and that's Android and iPhone, currently. Rim has been slow to support their developers, although their phones are reasonably easy to develop for. You do need Windows, unfortunately, or at least a way to run Windows apps, to do anything more sophisticated than a basic Java ME app. OTOH, you can't do JavaME on Android, at least without some clunky emulator.
The Rim tablet that was just announced is a baby step in the right direction, but the fact that it requires tethering a Blackberry phone to get 3G service is a giant step backward. They need to break free of their corporate mentality and market this thing to the general public, not just their loyal BB users.
Definitely avoid using a real or traceable name in online discussion forums and social sites. Also, avoid embedding your real name into your email address, such as "JohnSurfer@cox.net" or the like.
Unfortunately, my real name is embedded in one of my email addresses, and it's all over the web by now. I guess I can eventually switch to a different address, but the damage is done.
If you have someone's name, you can now obtain their current and past addresses, their age, their schools, possibly where they work, possibly their political party affiliation, and possibly a ton of other information if they have used their real name in online activities. It's not rocket science to do this; the information is just sitting out there waiting to be grabbed.
I suppose if you have nothing to hide and have avoided getting too controversial in your online discussions, or too outrageous in your social network photos and statuses, you're probably safe from major problems. Employers are going to be looking for extreme behavior, not slightly out of the ordinary behavior. If an employer doesn't like some minor thing about you, e.g. a picture of you on Facebook wearing green antennas at a Halloween party, then probably they're not someone you'd want to work for anyway.
So are you saying that your parents were STUPID enough to have you?
>> iPads are largely sold to people with iPods, iPhones and an apple computer of what ever description. Other tablet manufacturers attempting to break into this market are nuts, deluded and foolish.
Do you have any data to back up either claim?
I am a Linux programmer and Android phone user, and I bought an iPad (and traded it in for an iPad 2). Why? Because it's the best engineered, best programmed tablet on the market at this time. 6-8 months from now, there may be a whole slew of really good Android tablets, but right now the iPad is the only game in town. That's why I bought one, and that's why my father bought one, and almost every other person I know either has bought one or is considering one, and it's why 15 million people bought them in 2010, and reportedly 5 million or more got the 2 on the first day. These are not just Apple iDevice users, they're people who are opting for a full internet tablet rather than a Kindle or Nook, for reading, watching videos, doing email, and surfing the web, which is 90% of what most non-business users do on their computers these days.
As for your second statement, that's patently ridiculous--it's like saying the iPhone is the only possible smartphone anyone would ever buy. Android has blown past the iPhone and the Blackberry in sheer numbers, and continues to grow. People don't have a special loyalty to Apple--well, some do, but the overall market doesn't.
This is apparently the original article. If you google the headline, you find about 20 copies on various blogs. I don't understand why Slashdot submitters can't at least link to the original, unless they have a stake in the blog.
I'm with the Motorola-is-stupid crowd on this one. They are a hardware/telecom company, not a software company. They have no demonstrated track record of developing a competent, competitive smartphone OS. Short of buying Palm's WebOS, which maybe they should have done instead of letting HP have it, they don't have much hope of keeping up with the Android and iOS juggernauts. Even Rim, the erstwhile smartphone king, has a teeny little app market compared to the two others, and their market share is shrinking, not growing.
That said, I wish MOT well because a little competition is good for the consumer. I would prefer that they work on perfecting their tablets and smartphones in the Android space, however. The Xoom is a great first effort. Why not tweak it until it's flawless and best-of-breed? Why not help Google improve Android in the areas where MOT feels it's deficient? For a lot less money and resources than developing their own proprietary crappy OS, they can be very competitive.
Methinks Motorola is not thinking this through very clearly. Then again, it's just a rumor.
darn I was too late to see the typo.
If there were a laptop with a touchscreen as well as a keyboard for $200, I'd be all over that gizmo!
Until such time, an iPad plus a bluetooth keyboard pretty much does the trick.