I would like to see some reference links to back these assertions up. To my knowledge no U.S. Senators are Muslims for one, Keith Ellison is a member of the House of Representatives and I can't find any reference to a bombing attempt against his office. Blah, blah, liberal media, blah, but I would have thought proven allegations of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil would have gotten a tiny bit of coverage. That being said I agree that Netanyahu probably should have thought twice before fully endorsing a canidate in a presidential race everyone but Fox News viewers knew to be a very tight contest and that Romney, at best, had a 45% chance of winning.
Whether you love or hate Microsoft or opensource, DO NOT get an in house solution unless you plan on growing a real IT department. Google Apps, Office 365, hosted mail or Exchange from intermedia or Rackspace, hosted Zimbra, Citadel, zarafa, whatever, do not go with an in-house setup for the email or collaboration. You will be switching to software as a service within 3 years anyway without a real IT staff. No solution mentioned by any of the posters will work long term in house without dedicated support.
Hyperion Entertainment announced that they will be launching a new media campaign for the Amiga line staring their new mascot, Biggie Bigfoot. No word on where they will be appearing, but Hyperion gives their assurances that the ads do indeed exist.
And if Grandma wants to switch the button layout in MS Windows or OSX? How would you talk her through that? I am not fond of the change in ubuntu either, but it is only a big deal to people who expect them to be on the other side. So if you are saying your Grandma is already used to MS Windows, then just get her a MS Windows machine. If you are saying this is easier in Windows, then I think you are just wrong.
Can you implement the H.264 spec in hardware or software and sell the result without paying fees or being a member of a license pool? Because I think you can use C++ or ODF without additional requirements/costs. Is a spec open if you can't use it without doing something beside implementing the spec correctly?
Agreed, but I think this is a fairly clueless move. If I can use google tv to sit down on the couch and watch 5 hours of The Event hulu or the network website because I didn't set a dvr to record it, at least I watch the commercials they sell. Take that option away and I fire up bittorrent the night before to download 5 episodes, commercial free. Something or nothing people, the world is changing and your margins may shrink, but there is still profit to be had.
I almost agree with the premise of the article, just based on the fact that I think the DESKTOP is dying. Between phones and tablets I expect typical Desktop OS installations to become the minority in less than 5 years, though the desktop will live on in business, which doesn't leave time for Linux to "catch up", it will just be a player in a new game.
I think you will find there are a number of legal systems that don't require a professional. Tribal and religious courts that are older than most nations have long existed for the same purposes and require only an understanding of the mores, traditions and yes, Laws of a particular group. A person who is more experienced in dealing with these courts may have a better chance of success but I don't think you would be able to call many of them "specialized professionals". It is only when the Law of a group or nation has grown so byzantine that it almost impossible to live a life without violating some aspect of it that you will find the necessity for a professional group to manage the complexity.
In many "modern" sovereign states it has become common to pass laws with thousands of pages that have never been reviewed or considered as a whole. New laws often flagrantly and purposely contradict existing laws. Some are passed with the sole intention of having an excuse to stop and detain people when it is convenient, some are passed for political gain, and some are passed for reasons known only to the few people who secreted them away in an omnibus of unrelated legislation.The fact that modern law is so incomprehensible to the laity is a testament to it's dysfunction, not a justification of its existence. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but when law itself has become so incomprehensible that even attorneys and judges can scarcely decipher its intent with regard to the common, good can any of us claim we are not ignorant?
Anyone looking at my posting history will see I am not a huge MS fan, but in this case I really think the biggest problem is that you can't have a touch based GUI and still be what most people think of as "Windows".
A well executed touch based OS takes away almost all of Microsoft's market advantages, i.e. familiarity and application availability. Even if the OS GUI were completely converted to a nice touch interface, almost all existing windows apps would be clumsy to use.
This is the closest thing to a level playing field MS has tried to get into in some time. Just look at the phone market, their current premium offering uses the HTC sense GUI bolted on top of WinCE 6.5. It's almost completely unlike "Windows" for the first several steps of any given operation, so why would the average user prefer windows over android/webos?
Just curious, when you say "situations where more restrictive licensing might be desired by their customers", can you tell me why a customer would prefer a MORE restrictive license? I can understand why someone may want to sell under a dual license by why would a customer want more restrictions on what they can do with the code?
I just don't hear "Yeah, this is great, could you just put a few more restictions on what I can do with the source code?" a lot.
The judge's observation concerning the potential loss of choice for farmers and consumers is actually the more relevant issue. Even if the modifications are perfectly safe in every case, if the crop stands a strong chance of cross contaminating other farmer's fields Monsanto has proven themselves more than willing and capable of claiming ownership of any hybrids of their patented organisms.
So I have fewer problems with the GENETIC manipulations than I do the LEGAL manipulations.
That kind of demonstrates what the problem is. "Fake" chiropracty is...what? If you manipulate the back in any physical way then some would call that Chiropractic treatment, so even a light massage may count. Everyone says it is bogus because there are no studies, but if you can't do a study how can you say it ISN'T better than drugs or surgery? Back surgery doesn't have any double blind studies to prove it works either, but because they can point to scientific reasons for doing the procedure it is considered legitimate. I would bet money that a decent massage would give more short term relief from pain than a placebo drug, and there a plenty of subjective follow-up studies that show people with "similar" back problems are "happier"(whatever that means) with the outcomes they get from Chiropractic care than "comparable" recipients of back surgery. Anyone who feels the need to say *citation needed* can just google chiropratic versus back surgery and you will find a bunch of articles... on chiropractic sites. But to be fair a lot of the people who say it is bunk are back surgeons so the bias cuts both ways.
Double blind studies compared to what exactly? It can't be compared to surgery, and drugs are generally not a treatment for a lot of things that involve the spine.
If you are talking about nut jobs that recommend chiropractic treatment of colds, asthma, etc. then I can see your point. But for non-specific lower back pain I'm not sure what you could study it against.
Linux predictions always depend on Microsoft bungling the response to a new threat. If MS had stuck with its plans to mothball XP Linux would be considerably more common on Netbooks and there would be more active interest from manufactures in support a Linux version for their machines the way the currently do for Windows. As it was MS did what they had to do to give customers a familiar Microsoft product to choose over Linux.
People will most often choose familiar products if they can, switching to something that is different but "just as good",or even better, isn't worth it to most people unless they are really unhappy with what they have.
The key is that Linux keeps creating more challenges for MS, forcing them to lower prices, increase performance and think of what the customers really want. Without the competitive threats Linux poses, Microsoft would normally charge more for bloated products that are upgraded when Microsoft WANTS you to upgrade. It's not their fault, that is what a complacent monopoly does. They should thank Linux, it has saved them from 2 or 3 really stupid moves.
Have you noticed how Linux is used as a club to bring Microsoft around in so many situations? Governments threaten to switch to Linux/a large discount offer from Microsoft appears. MS tries to kill XP sales, Linux notebooks appear/XP sales are extended and a leaner replacement for Vista gets fast tracked. If ARM finds some manufacturers who are willing to create and sell ARM based devices that are not too expensive and outperform comparable X86/64 devices I think the "no ARM version of Windows" would disappear.
X86 compatibility is holding everyone, including MS and Intel, back. Intel wanted to kill it with Itanium but the momentum was too much. I think Intel had an ulterior motive (too many x86 licensees to compete with them) but I think they still know they could do better, and in many ways the competition has if you just judge processor performance, price, and efficiency without regard to software base.
She knew she couldn't do what had to be done as the Governor so she resigned in order to put together a rag tag group of misfits with the skills necessary to save the world.
A better example would be if you took a bunch of public domain audio recording from old wax tube recordings that had been cleaned up by audio engineers to remove hisses and pops. Can the audio engineers claim copyright on the cleaned up versions? I don't know the answer, but it is a closer analogy because a different performance of a public domain work clearly adds creative value. Does good lighting and color accuracy equal artistic merit?
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the Comp Sci curriculum would include any of those things. I was just replying to the GP's assertion that
"Real computer science students...are smart enough to pick up Unix as they work through the CS course"
If they graduated then I would guess that would qualify them as "real" and neither of the people I refer to were smart enough to pick up fairly basic things (installing IIS is a few mouse clicks) much less smart enough to pick up Unix.
that they didn't really care so much about how fast people drive their cars once devices like this eliminate the income they got from speeding tickets.
The big key is that this device is dependent on a GPS. It would be easy to design a system that limits the speed of a car, but making it depend on a GPS means they will have records of distances and times travelled, as well as the roads used. This kind of information will allow them to seamlessly charge tolls, access charges and peak travel time disincentives. Speeding is small potatoes compared to those new sources of revenue.
I have worked with people who have a Master's in Comp Sci and can barely install IIS. I had to draw pictures to explain host headers. Installing Linux would give them a stroke.
I think the degree was from the University of Illinois for those who are curious, but I am not sure.
I also worked with someone who had a Bachelor's degree in Comp Sci from the University of Cincinnati who almost found DOS batch files that zipped up and password protected a directory full of files indistinguishable from magic.
Almost every criteria you put forward is subjective, and the rest of what you propose (Conference, Observe, Remediate, Terminate) bears a strong resemblance to union contracts in many fields.
The problem is that management and parents never want to follow the rules that are laid out in the contract. Read the comments in this thread and you will see that many people are complaining about the fact that at some stage in a process similar to what you outline the teacher was found to be competent/compliant with the rules. People want to fire "bad teachers", but they want to fire them the second they themselves identify them, not wait until after there has been some verifiable non-subjective proof of wrongdoing or incompetence.
Any review or remediation will be called "bureaucratic obstacles" or "politics" by the people who think this is easy. See bad teacher=fire bad teacher, simple.
Never mind the teachers that would get fired because they tried to teach something that violated the parent's world view (e.g. evolution).
I'm sure every person in this thread who is in favor of abolishing tenure is well intentioned, but most of them have probably never found themselves unemployed at the age of 55 with a "bad teacher" reputation hung around their neck because the school board realized they could save tens of thousands in salary and retirement costs by firing a teacher that ran against them in the last election.
At least removing obstacles from the firing path will never lead to a world where teachers will be afraid to publicly complain about waste and corruption in the schools, right? Whistle blower laws are just another legal trick in the union's arsenal.
The teachers that are "bad" because they dared to tell a well connected parent that their precious little butterfly has no business being in an advanced class will sleep better knowing that they lost their job to save us from the scourge of easily identified bad teachers.
Powells is an independent bookstore that has been a LITTLE more successful than average but they still have fewer than 15 stores. They certainly do nothing to encourage you to come to their brick and mortar shops unless you live near one. I think they are a good online bookseller because they have spent some time and effort to develop a web presence, but by all means use an independent local store if you have one.
Calling Powells a mega book outlet is ridiculous compared to Barnes and Nobles or Borders. As a matter of fact Barnes and Nobles probably has a many locations in Oregon as Powells has in the country.
So it has nothing to do with Powells being "cool" or "where the cool light skinned people live" (WTF?) I live in Cincinnati as a matter of fact, but when I order something on-line that I can't get easily at a local store (because most of them are closed because of Borders) I use Powells because they have a decent selection and good turn around on order.
They are everything Amazon is not, privately owned, good to their employees, socially responsible even when it doesn't show up in the press. They even have some brick and mortar locations (Portland OR, and Chicago). And the toll free phone number to contact then is on the front of the web page instead of being something you can only find in a 3rd party blog around Christmas time. Are they perfect? No. Are they small enough to care what even one or two percent of their customers think? YES. When corporations get too big they get arrogant, it is in your interests to not let companies you like feel as if they can ignore you. Punish bad behavior with vocal and public criticism.
And to all those who say they are just creating an adult section, ask your self why children's books that try to discuss homosexuality delicately are delisted, but racy explicit romances is not.
A cure for chytridiomycosis has already been found. Researchers in New Zealand have found that infected Frogs can be treated with Chloramphenicol. Incredibly cheap to make, effective, and only causes aplastic anemia in 1 in 25,000 to 40,000 humans. What could possibly go wrong? It's not like interfering with nature using chemicals ever has any unintended consequences.
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Just because we let you cut the lawn doesn't make it yours sonny. :)
I would like to see some reference links to back these assertions up. To my knowledge no U.S. Senators are Muslims for one, Keith Ellison is a member of the House of Representatives and I can't find any reference to a bombing attempt against his office. Blah, blah, liberal media, blah, but I would have thought proven allegations of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil would have gotten a tiny bit of coverage. That being said I agree that Netanyahu probably should have thought twice before fully endorsing a canidate in a presidential race everyone but Fox News viewers knew to be a very tight contest and that Romney, at best, had a 45% chance of winning.
Whether you love or hate Microsoft or opensource, DO NOT get an in house solution unless you plan on growing a real IT department. Google Apps, Office 365, hosted mail or Exchange from intermedia or Rackspace, hosted Zimbra, Citadel, zarafa, whatever, do not go with an in-house setup for the email or collaboration. You will be switching to software as a service within 3 years anyway without a real IT staff. No solution mentioned by any of the posters will work long term in house without dedicated support.
Hyperion Entertainment announced that they will be launching a new media campaign for the Amiga line staring their new mascot, Biggie Bigfoot. No word on where they will be appearing, but Hyperion gives their assurances that the ads do indeed exist.
And if Grandma wants to switch the button layout in MS Windows or OSX? How would you talk her through that? I am not fond of the change in ubuntu either, but it is only a big deal to people who expect them to be on the other side. So if you are saying your Grandma is already used to MS Windows, then just get her a MS Windows machine. If you are saying this is easier in Windows, then I think you are just wrong.
Can you implement the H.264 spec in hardware or software and sell the result without paying fees or being a member of a license pool? Because I think you can use C++ or ODF without additional requirements/costs. Is a spec open if you can't use it without doing something beside implementing the spec correctly?
Agreed, but I think this is a fairly clueless move. If I can use google tv to sit down on the couch and watch 5 hours of The Event hulu or the network website because I didn't set a dvr to record it, at least I watch the commercials they sell. Take that option away and I fire up bittorrent the night before to download 5 episodes, commercial free. Something or nothing people, the world is changing and your margins may shrink, but there is still profit to be had.
I almost agree with the premise of the article, just based on the fact that I think the DESKTOP is dying. Between phones and tablets I expect typical Desktop OS installations to become the minority in less than 5 years, though the desktop will live on in business, which doesn't leave time for Linux to "catch up", it will just be a player in a new game.
I think you will find there are a number of legal systems that don't require a professional. Tribal and religious courts that are older than most nations have long existed for the same purposes and require only an understanding of the mores, traditions and yes, Laws of a particular group. A person who is more experienced in dealing with these courts may have a better chance of success but I don't think you would be able to call many of them "specialized professionals". It is only when the Law of a group or nation has grown so byzantine that it almost impossible to live a life without violating some aspect of it that you will find the necessity for a professional group to manage the complexity. In many "modern" sovereign states it has become common to pass laws with thousands of pages that have never been reviewed or considered as a whole. New laws often flagrantly and purposely contradict existing laws. Some are passed with the sole intention of having an excuse to stop and detain people when it is convenient, some are passed for political gain, and some are passed for reasons known only to the few people who secreted them away in an omnibus of unrelated legislation.The fact that modern law is so incomprehensible to the laity is a testament to it's dysfunction, not a justification of its existence. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but when law itself has become so incomprehensible that even attorneys and judges can scarcely decipher its intent with regard to the common, good can any of us claim we are not ignorant?
Anyone looking at my posting history will see I am not a huge MS fan, but in this case I really think the biggest problem is that you can't have a touch based GUI and still be what most people think of as "Windows". A well executed touch based OS takes away almost all of Microsoft's market advantages, i.e. familiarity and application availability. Even if the OS GUI were completely converted to a nice touch interface, almost all existing windows apps would be clumsy to use. This is the closest thing to a level playing field MS has tried to get into in some time. Just look at the phone market, their current premium offering uses the HTC sense GUI bolted on top of WinCE 6.5. It's almost completely unlike "Windows" for the first several steps of any given operation, so why would the average user prefer windows over android/webos?
Just curious, when you say "situations where more restrictive licensing might be desired by their customers", can you tell me why a customer would prefer a MORE restrictive license? I can understand why someone may want to sell under a dual license by why would a customer want more restrictions on what they can do with the code? I just don't hear "Yeah, this is great, could you just put a few more restictions on what I can do with the source code?" a lot.
The judge's observation concerning the potential loss of choice for farmers and consumers is actually the more relevant issue. Even if the modifications are perfectly safe in every case, if the crop stands a strong chance of cross contaminating other farmer's fields Monsanto has proven themselves more than willing and capable of claiming ownership of any hybrids of their patented organisms.
So I have fewer problems with the GENETIC manipulations than I do the LEGAL manipulations.
That kind of demonstrates what the problem is. "Fake" chiropracty is...what? If you manipulate the back in any physical way then some would call that Chiropractic treatment, so even a light massage may count. Everyone says it is bogus because there are no studies, but if you can't do a study how can you say it ISN'T better than drugs or surgery? Back surgery doesn't have any double blind studies to prove it works either, but because they can point to scientific reasons for doing the procedure it is considered legitimate.
I would bet money that a decent massage would give more short term relief from pain than a placebo drug, and there a plenty of subjective follow-up studies that show people with "similar" back problems are "happier"(whatever that means) with the outcomes they get from Chiropractic care than "comparable" recipients of back surgery. Anyone who feels the need to say *citation needed* can just google chiropratic versus back surgery and you will find a bunch of articles... on chiropractic sites. But to be fair a lot of the people who say it is bunk are back surgeons so the bias cuts both ways.
Double blind studies compared to what exactly? It can't be compared to surgery, and drugs are generally not a treatment for a lot of things that involve the spine.
If you are talking about nut jobs that recommend chiropractic treatment of colds, asthma, etc. then I can see your point. But for non-specific lower back pain I'm not sure what you could study it against.
Linux predictions always depend on Microsoft bungling the response to a new threat. If MS had stuck with its plans to mothball XP Linux would be considerably more common on Netbooks and there would be more active interest from manufactures in support a Linux version for their machines the way the currently do for Windows. As it was MS did what they had to do to give customers a familiar Microsoft product to choose over Linux.
People will most often choose familiar products if they can, switching to something that is different but "just as good" ,or even better, isn't worth it to most people unless they are really unhappy with what they have.
The key is that Linux keeps creating more challenges for MS, forcing them to lower prices, increase performance and think of what the customers really want. Without the competitive threats Linux poses, Microsoft would normally charge more for bloated products that are upgraded when Microsoft WANTS you to upgrade. It's not their fault, that is what a complacent monopoly does. They should thank Linux, it has saved them from 2 or 3 really stupid moves.
Have you noticed how Linux is used as a club to bring Microsoft around in so many situations? Governments threaten to switch to Linux/a large discount offer from Microsoft appears. MS tries to kill XP sales, Linux notebooks appear/XP sales are extended and a leaner replacement for Vista gets fast tracked. If ARM finds some manufacturers who are willing to create and sell ARM based devices that are not too expensive and outperform comparable X86/64 devices I think the "no ARM version of Windows" would disappear.
X86 compatibility is holding everyone, including MS and Intel, back. Intel wanted to kill it with Itanium but the momentum was too much. I think Intel had an ulterior motive (too many x86 licensees to compete with them) but I think they still know they could do better, and in many ways the competition has if you just judge processor performance, price, and efficiency without regard to software base.
She knew she couldn't do what had to be done as the Governor so she resigned in order to put together a rag tag group of misfits with the skills necessary to save the world.
One Family, One helicopter, One Mission.
Coming this summer! The Palins Hunt in...
Die Nature Die!
A better example would be if you took a bunch of public domain audio recording from old wax tube recordings that had been cleaned up by audio engineers to remove hisses and pops. Can the audio engineers claim copyright on the cleaned up versions? I don't know the answer, but it is a closer analogy because a different performance of a public domain work clearly adds creative value. Does good lighting and color accuracy equal artistic merit?
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the Comp Sci curriculum would include any of those things. I was just replying to the GP's assertion that
"Real computer science students...are smart enough to pick up Unix as they work through the CS course"
If they graduated then I would guess that would qualify them as "real" and neither of the people I refer to were smart enough to pick up fairly basic things (installing IIS is a few mouse clicks) much less smart enough to pick up Unix.
that they didn't really care so much about how fast people drive their cars once devices like this eliminate the income they got from speeding tickets.
The big key is that this device is dependent on a GPS. It would be easy to design a system that limits the speed of a car, but making it depend on a GPS means they will have records of distances and times travelled, as well as the roads used. This kind of information will allow them to seamlessly charge tolls, access charges and peak travel time disincentives. Speeding is small potatoes compared to those new sources of revenue.
I have worked with people who have a Master's in Comp Sci and can barely install IIS. I had to draw pictures to explain host headers. Installing Linux would give them a stroke.
I think the degree was from the University of Illinois for those who are curious, but I am not sure.
I also worked with someone who had a Bachelor's degree in Comp Sci from the University of Cincinnati who almost found DOS batch files that zipped up and password protected a directory full of files indistinguishable from magic.
Almost every criteria you put forward is subjective, and the rest of what you propose (Conference, Observe, Remediate, Terminate) bears a strong resemblance to union contracts in many fields.
The problem is that management and parents never want to follow the rules that are laid out in the contract. Read the comments in this thread and you will see that many people are complaining about the fact that at some stage in a process similar to what you outline the teacher was found to be competent/compliant with the rules. People want to fire "bad teachers", but they want to fire them the second they themselves identify them, not wait until after there has been some verifiable non-subjective proof of wrongdoing or incompetence.
Any review or remediation will be called "bureaucratic obstacles" or "politics" by the people who think this is easy. See bad teacher=fire bad teacher, simple.
Never mind the teachers that would get fired because they tried to teach something that violated the parent's world view (e.g. evolution).
I'm sure every person in this thread who is in favor of abolishing tenure is well intentioned, but most of them have probably never found themselves unemployed at the age of 55 with a "bad teacher" reputation hung around their neck because the school board realized they could save tens of thousands in salary and retirement costs by firing a teacher that ran against them in the last election.
At least removing obstacles from the firing path will never lead to a world where teachers will be afraid to publicly complain about waste and corruption in the schools, right? Whistle blower laws are just another legal trick in the union's arsenal.
The teachers that are "bad" because they dared to tell a well connected parent that their precious little butterfly has no business being in an advanced class will sleep better knowing that they lost their job to save us from the scourge of easily identified bad teachers.
I have to disagree for the following reasons.
Powells is an independent bookstore that has been a LITTLE more successful than average but they still have fewer than 15 stores. They certainly do nothing to encourage you to come to their brick and mortar shops unless you live near one. I think they are a good online bookseller because they have spent some time and effort to develop a web presence, but by all means use an independent local store if you have one.
Calling Powells a mega book outlet is ridiculous compared to Barnes and Nobles or Borders. As a matter of fact Barnes and Nobles probably has a many locations in Oregon as Powells has in the country.
So it has nothing to do with Powells being "cool" or "where the cool light skinned people live" (WTF?) I live in Cincinnati as a matter of fact, but when I order something on-line that I can't get easily at a local store (because most of them are closed because of Borders) I use Powells because they have a decent selection and good turn around on order.
They are everything Amazon is not, privately owned, good to their employees, socially responsible even when it doesn't show up in the press. They even have some brick and mortar locations (Portland OR, and Chicago). And the toll free phone number to contact then is on the front of the web page instead of being something you can only find in a 3rd party blog around Christmas time.
Are they perfect? No. Are they small enough to care what even one or two percent of their customers think? YES. When corporations get too big they get arrogant, it is in your interests to not let companies you like feel as if they can ignore you. Punish bad behavior with vocal and public criticism.
And to all those who say they are just creating an adult section, ask your self why children's books that try to discuss homosexuality delicately are delisted, but racy explicit romances is not.
A cure for chytridiomycosis has already been found. Researchers in New Zealand have found that infected Frogs can be treated with Chloramphenicol. Incredibly cheap to make, effective, and only causes aplastic anemia in 1 in 25,000 to 40,000 humans. What could possibly go wrong? It's not like interfering with nature using chemicals ever has any unintended consequences.