...if the issue was simply technical. Indeed, even considering how tech-savvy some students are these days it isn't that big a deal to rope in the network and keep kids from surfing during class--then the damage is limited to what can be done to the local config of the notebooks. However, the concerns of critics go far beyond technical isssues.
Quite simply, children not yet in high school are simply not mature enough to be responsible for a notebook PC. Have you seen how badly textbooks degrade? A textbook in the hands of grade 7 to 9 students usually geets destrroyed in 5 years--and that is for tough hardcover texts. Softcovers are usually torn in one or two years. Even good students will drop, mangle or lose their machies and the vast majority will not last more than a year. Maintaining and replacing such machines would be a tragic waste of public money.
Second, schools should address much more basic shortcomings, like properly training and paying teachers, addressing class size increases, implementing more effective discipline, a more relevant curriculum for maths, English classes about spelling and grammar until they actually LEARN it instead of trying to do english lit to a bunch of 13 year olds who write 'leet-speak...the list goes on.
Finally, I've rarely seen a public school effectively using computers to their full potential for pre-high-school education. They are mostly used to replace inadequate libraries and provide basic electronic lessons or to enable students to add "bling" to their reports and projects using Powerpoint and so on. This is all fine and good but students can use their home PCs or make use of a shared lab. If you want to make effective use of technology in grades 9 or lower then replaces textbooks with low-maintenance, ruggedised e-books--if only to conserve forests ad save the backs of students carrying all their texts around in backpacks slung over one shoulder.
Here are some ways I'd re-priortise money overspent on computers in primary education:
* Hire more teachers, and pay experienced teachers more. Large class sizes are not really bad in high-school but before that much over 20 kinds in a class is very detrimental.
* Make the teaching profession a REAL profession. Right now teachers aren't professionals in the sense doctors, engineers or lawyers are. Instead they are like tradespeople, and education is too important for us to treat them as such. Teacher's unions should be dismantled and banned and replaced by professional associations. Unions top priorities are working conditions like salaries, benefits, holidays and so on. Professional associations also set those standards for employers but also make sure employees meet competency standards and conduct themselves professionally. Just like a medical board, or bar associations or engineering societies, membership should be mandatory and they should enforce continual licensing.
* Put practices of other professions into place for teachers as well. Doctors have internships, engineers have apprenticeships where they are junior-engineers or engineers-in-training for up to 4 years. Teachers only get limited classroom/applied training, all before graduation. A "Junior Teacher" should work under the guidance of a "Professional Teacher". If a class is a bit large then pair a Junior and Professional in the same class so that children get both classroom learning and individual attention. Additionally, there should be a code of ethics and a "standards of practice" enforced by the association. So much misguided focus is put on standard testing methods for students, which is unfair to teachers since little to no standards are in place to guide them in achieving their goals. Finally, there should be a more rigourous "Continuing Professional Development" requirement for teachers to make sure they retain and improve their competencies. Rightn now there are few to no requirements, and teacher "professional days" are not always mandatory and are sometimes more like retreats than ser
I don't buy the "feeding the beast" argument. Do you run out and buy a Budweiser everytime you see their commercial? Of course not.
The argument of "feeding the beast" is NOT depicted in your analogy. You are talking abouit "cause and effect"--an almost entirely different argument usually used by social conservatives and certain women's groups. When law enforcement talk about "feed the beast" it isn't psychological conditioning, it is economics. When a paedophile collects and views child pornography he is creating demand, and I'd veture to say that as is the case with habitual consumers of legal porn paedophiles will want new material, so this demand will be sustained and perhaps grow. Supply must meet demand, and to supply new child pornography the producer MUST break the law and exploit and abuse children. "The beast" is the market for child porn, not the paedophile who may (or may not) commit the crime of sexual assault of a minor.
You could eliminate all the child porn, real or simulated, and you would still have pedophiles
Absolutely. Some believe paedophilia is a sexual orientation like heterosexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality except for the fact that it is an unhealthy perversion to be sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children. If it is indeed a sexual orientation then nothing could be done to prevent paedophilia--it can only be managed. However, of you did "slay the beast" (eliminate the market for child porn) then THOUSANDS of children would be spared being abused for the purposes of supplying the market. The child abuse rate would go down significantly.
Anyways your reasoning that there would be paedophiles regardless of the availabilty of porn is in fact the very reason it is impossible to eliminate it. So long as there are people out there who are turned on by child sex there will be demand for such material, ensuring there is always food for the beast.
Even today, those extreme anti-abortionists who murder OB/GYN doctors for performing abortions use the Bible as inspiration and justification for their behavior. Would you support calls to outlaw the Bible for "feeding the beast" in those cases?
As I said it is an "economics" argument and your Bible analogy doesn't fit. There is no supply/demand relationship there. Furthermore not only does it require a questionable leap of logic to conclude from the Bible's teaching that killing an abortionist is the Lord's work, but the production of bibles is always done within the law and doesn't require the abuse or death of innocent people, whereas the production of child porn involves illegal activity and harming innocent people.
While I find simulated child-porn to be offensive, as a true freedom-loving American (not the Bush variety), I cannot think of a reason it should be outlawed. If no "actual" children are involved, the fact that most of us find it disgusting is not sufficient reason to criminalize it.
Well, though I'm not American I do truly value my freedom as well, however I also value reasoned, critical thinking and common sense. As such I think we all have to be realistic and sensible. The almost comical "schoolgirl fantasy" pics depicting well-endowed women with pigtails and shortened school uniform skirts with no panties underneath are of no interest to paedophiles. The same goes with written literature or illustrations of that nature which depict slightly questionable but classic fantasy situations. However if you think written literature or artwork that makes a point of demonstrasting that one of the participants in a sexual act is, say, 10 years old, and goes into explicit detail relating to that character's pre-pubescent characteristics, or depicts an old man trying to lure in a little boy or girl then you have to stop kidding yourself. The vast majority of consumers of legal/normal "simulated porn" such as erotic stories, phone sex or drawings are not going to be content with just that if photos and videos are out there too, and you can bet the
the focal point is not whether or not money traded hands, but rather that there was always a cheaper upgrade path than buying new - unlike with Apple's OS X
Except that consumers are starting to clue in that having discounted upgrade prices for upgrades vs. "full" is purly a marketing ploy and that they are getting shafted. The only technical difference between the three differing editions of the same OS version (retail full, upgrade and OEM) is literally ONE FILE and the EULA. That is IT. Aside for the slightly cheaper packaging/distribution costs of the OEM version ALL these editions cost EXACTLY THE SAME to develop, manufacture and market. The extra profit margin for the full retail version is rightly seen by many as blatant price gouging. MS isn't offering a "cheaper upgrade path"--they are merely gouging upgraders less--"rewarding your loyalty" as it were. Apple doesn't need to use pricing incentives to reward loyalty because they have a relativly higher-quality product to begin with.
Software isn't like any physical good--it isn't like when you upgrade your house you get money for your old one, or you get a trade-in for your car. Microsoft recovers NO COST WHATSOEVER from upgrades--they do not ask for your old install discs back so they can re-sell or recycle them, as a car dealership would do with your old car.
So please..I'm interested to know...what is the whole point of reduced prices for upgrade editions of software releases then? If MS can make a decent profit on the upgrade why not let everyone pay that price then? I see no point myself except to play marketing games since the full retail version adds absolutely no value over the upgrade...at least with OEM and volume pricing there is some justification becasue of incrementally lower costs to the vendor. NOBODY has given me valid reasons beyond silly marketing, including yourself.
You've never seen a utility bill before. Don't worry, you'll see one very soon after you move out of mum's basement.
The article says a rack of 40 of these little babies consumes in the neighbourhood of 3.2 kW. That's rougly equivalent to two nice microwave ovens. Yes yes, I know you don't run microwave ovens 24/7. But if you didn't close your refrigerator door all the way and it ran all day it would cost about the same as this unit. It would hardly put you in the poor house, especially if you had the means to purchase or finance the $200k cost to begin with.
It might not represent the pinnacle of performance but if you need merely adequate performace and huge capacity and high density with very low operating costs this represents a compelling development for enterprise-class storage. It would be a helluva cool Beowulf cluster too;-)
The only gripe I have it that this article is a bit of a slashvertisement. There is little in the article or links besides a high-level description of a specific product and a path to a single vendor's brochure-ware site. Not much there to trigger thought-provoking discussion. I don't mind a certain level of such shameless plugging, but perhaps it could be categorised under "shameless plugs" or "slashvertisements" or "product reviews" or whatever to distinguish these articles from more discussion-oriented news. It would be great for filtering or searching. Sometimes I am actually looking for such articles when shopping/speccing stuff, however sometimes I want to avoid having such stories clutter my/. experience.
Microsoft does the exact same thing--They released Windows 95 service packs 1 2 and 3 as separate OSes too (they called them Windows 98, 98SE and Me--remember?). I'd argue that Windows XP was really little more than Windows 2000 SP5 with a new desktop theme. I have not yet come across a single application that runs on XP that will not run on Win2k and many device drivers are interchangeable. Furthermore, by and large, they both get compromised by the same viruses and attacks and get patches for the same vulnerabilities basically recompiled against different branches of the NT Workstation and NT Server source trees.
I suppose it depends on personal perspective, but I and many others would say that Windows 95 was the last significant release of the MSDOS line of OSes and that Windows 2000 was the last significant release of the NT line of OSes and since then its been "eye candy and service packs in disguise". Releasing major service packs as actual, no-cost service packs is a fairly recent (and welcomed) phenomenon. If MS operated like they did in the 1990s XP SP2 would most definitely have been marketed as a new release unto itself.
No, the reason budget airlines have grown in popularity is that they are undercutting ALL of the segmented prices of the major airlines.
That is incorrect, at least in North America (I know firsthand about Canada and I'm told the US it was the same). I remember when WestJet began operations (it was the first truly viable independent budget airline in Canada). It was less than a week before the competition had seat sales that often matched or even slightly undercut WestJet's offerings. If price alone was a factor then WestJet would've gone out of business in its first year. This is especially true because the biggest airline (Air Canada) was a recently privatised Crown corporation that was still run by a management team with very tight connections to government departments. For many years after Air Canada (nicknamed "MapleFlot") was sold by the government it received hundreds of millions (perhaps into the billions) in guaranteed loans, grants and other subsidies and used its favoured posistion to undercut competition regardless of actual operationg costs. Air Canada destroyed or absorbed WardAir, Canadian International, etc this way both in its days as a crown corporation and afterwards. However the competition tried to run their businesses like traditional airlines, especially Air Canada. WestJet "broke the rules" so it was able to withstand price pressures based on other factors.
Trust me, if British Airways had a 'Cargo Class' flight that was cheaper than all the 'budget' airlines, I'd be packing myself into a suitcase and going on a cheap holiday.
No you wouldn't, unless you were lucky enough to have a flexible schedule and were willing to compromise. If British Airways had the option of "steerage" then you'd have to be willing to limit your travelling options to certain destianations, fly off-season, take overnight flights and so on. There would be no flight attendants at all, no in-flight movie ore even music to listen to, no in-flight meals, snacks or beverages, except for bottled water which would be extra-charged. You'd be limited to continental flights (no trans-oceanic flights) to non-vacation destinations. This is because universally-available "cargo class" would break the whole segmented pricing model because it would undercut their own segmented offerings and turn British Ariways into just another discount airline.
WestJet and other discount airlines trim costs by limiting on-flight food options and other such extras, however they still have friendly and convenient service (still superior to much-improved Air Canada) and were first to offer extras like live in-flight sattelite TVs on every seatback, and have the most modern fleet in North America. You can fly to vacation destinations like Las Vegas, Orlando, LA and Hawaii (Air Canada's successful discount service does NOT fly to such destinations). Their change-booking charge is very minimal--usually $10 unless it is same-day, which is still considerably cheaper than Air Canada (if you chood their discount segment and you need to reschedule the fee can be as high as $150). For WestJet there is always ONE price offered per flight at any given time. Air Canada's simplified segmented system STILL has about a half-dozen different prices for the same flights, which most often are even for the exact same seating options. Westjet's pricing is only a minor factor in its success. The two biggest reasons by far are the high-quality service and the LACK OF SEGMENTED PRICING.
The reason that Apple don't have seperate upgrade prices, is because their market is loyal enough that they can be meticulously gouged, and will still come back for more.
That is also incorrect. Apple has gained marketshare, and given that how can someone be loyal to Macs if they have just bought their first Mac? Also, the one-and-only price for a single copy of the FULL VERSION of MacOS X is IDENTICAL to the UPGRADE price for the MOST BASIC edition of Windows Vista or XP Home. It is hard to argue that Apple is goug
INCORRECT. The lower the frequency the deeper current will penetrate a conductor (which is what your body would be when you are electrocuted), and DC will go right through you. When DC current travels through your muscles (including your heart) they will CONTRACT and STAY contracted. DC is what grabs you, NOT AC.
What makes AC dangerous is the specific frequency. Ironically, 50 to 60 Hz is probably the most hazardous to people--we ended up with that frequency becasue of economics more than anything else (I believe early Canadian AC power worked at 25Hz interestingly enough. Since lights flickered badly it was abandonded). If you grew up on a farm you know how electric fences work--they are essentially very low frequency AC--you get a pulse of current followed by no current at about 1 Hz. You get thrown from the fence not because of the "DC" pulse, but becasue of the RELEASE of the power (your brain is trying to tell your muscles to release but the electricity is contracting them--when the electricity goes away your brain is still telling you to release and you jump back--like the rope breaking in a game of tug-of-war).
What makes 60Hz deadly is that it is low enough frequency that the "skin effect" is not evident enough to keep current from reaching your heart, yet it is too high for your muscles to respond to the change in current--in the case of your heart it is right in that zone that would cause fibrillation, so that when you cut the power your nervous system is still confused. If the AC frequency was much lower--20Hz or less maybe? not sure but there is a point--the body would perceive it as a vibration and your muscles would have time to respond to the change in current so you could let go--plus the risk of fibrillation would be much lower. However, if you could feel the vibration you could also SEE it--lighting would be noticeably flickery. Low frequency AC electrocution would be much less fatal but could cause seizures, plus it is much less efficient.
Very HIGH frequency AC would also be safer because it is TOO fast to induce fibrillation in your heart, plus it causes what is called the "skin effect" on any conductor through which it passes, so VERY high frequency current would pass over the surface of your body and cause bad burns and such, but not reach your heart at all. As a result of this effect, your (or any other conductor's) "AC resistance" is much higher than your "DC resistance" at higher frequencies as well, so the effective current passing through your body at the same voltage is HIGHEST at DC and gets LOWER as the frequency goes up. This effect is why large, high-voltage/high power conductors in AC power systems are hollow copper tubes--it is a waste of metal when only the surface actually carries the electricity and the rest just gets warm, so the inside is just air (or cooling oil or whatever non-conductor). Because of the skin effect and increased AC resistance, and the fact that induction motors would run far too fast, very high frequency AC is not used becasue it as impractical as DC.
DC is what they use in lighting systems at TV studios because it is easier and safer to work with "live".
This is also WRONG. I have been in the studio environment before and can tell you that AC lighting is probably MORE common than DC lighting in many studios, which is actually HARDER to deal with than AC in most cases. DC is used NOT because it is safer (becasue it is often more complicated to use and no safer than AC), it is used for technical reasons, such as:
* mobile lighting uses batteries which supply DC * Certain lighting powered by AC could perhaps flicker at rates too high for the human eye, but enough that film or video will catch it--particularly in the case of film becasue 60Hz doesn't sync well with 24 frames/sec. However tungsten glows pretty persistenly so it shouldn't be very susceptible to flicker. * Lighting control (dimming etc) for some lighting might be easier do
...I could use FireFox on SuSE to fill out my census form, as I filed on the last day. Sometimes it pays to procrastinate;-). I was ready to give the gov't kudos for respecting interoperability but I guess they were dragged there kicking and screaming. Oh well, at least they responded properly if slowly.
In other (old) news. I filed my tax return on-line using Linux for the first time this spring...one less reason to miss Windows...
...which means it has an accuracy rate somewhat south of Wikipedia and you shouldn't take article postings at their word.
I filled out my Canadian census on-line using Firefox on SuSE Linux and it worked fine. It DID rely on Java--is this what the poster referred to as "special software"? It seems to me that a JVM isn't all that "special" nor did I have to do a special installation of it to participate in the census.
Perhaps the Australian version is Java-free, but it's hardly an innovation of any kind, much less one worthy of posting on/.
If you find there isn't enough software for Linux, you haven't browsed your repositories.
You're right--he hasn't browsed repositories. In fact, he hasn't done much investigation at all judging by how he has written his article. For example:
But the fact remains that I am tired of having to boot back into my Windows install to do some pretty basic stuff.
I was really hoping that he would explain exactly WHAT "pretty basic stuff" he has trouble with in Linux. If he'd done that, then he might've done himself a favour as I'm sure many Linux fans would point him to software that at the very least makes it possible if not pretty, and at best soes the job better than Windows. In my observation about the ONLY things that present a challenge are games (seems to be a culture thing...MacOS has endured being second-fiddle here too) and movies (cursed things like.wmv and MS-only codecs and the idiots who conjured up the crappy DVD movie encryption scheme that put Free dvd playing software in legal limbo). Fortunately these things aren't crucial for me--I watch movies in the living room, not at the office desk. I can do email, web, word-processing, spreadsheets, database, image scanning, photo editing, chat with MSN, Yahoo and Jabber contacts, play MP3s, rip and burn CDs and DVDs, CAD....I can't think of much that has made me regret deleting the Win2k partition on my desktop.
Evolution is a very clumsy feeling program with a lack of fluidity.
Again, examples would be nice. This statement puzzles me because in its current state Evolution seems fine to me. In fact I was quite disappointed with Kontact. Of course, I haven't seen Kontact lately so it wouldn't be a fair comparison. Perhaps the author had the same problem--he seems to be a KDE devotee who perhaps hasn't used Evolution for awhile, or the GNOMEish way of doing things isn't to his personal taste. Or, perhaps it is MSExchange interoperability specifically that he finds cumbersome. We can't really know because he just doesn't day.
It's being tolerated; however, there is one application that cannot be run at all because of its dependency on Internet Explorer - Outlook 2003
There really isn't much at all we can do about this--MS has deliberately made things difficult and I don't think any amount of lobbying will convince MS to make fundamental changes to their MS Office development strategy. I suspect the next version or two of MSOffice will in fact make it even MORE difficult and intertwine with IE compononets even MORE. The best solution here--if you INSIST that you need to run Outlook 2K3 on Linux, would be to help move towards including emulation of IE6 libraries in WINE. OR, if he really likes Kontact then strive to make it interoperate with Exchange. End users of Free software really do have more influence on development than will EVER exist with commercial software.
they work very hard with Windows developers and they provide a single standard in which to draw from. With Linux, not so much [...] In my opinion, the best we could ask for is to allow Novell or Red Hat to set business distribution standards and Ubuntu to set end user standards. [...] The idea of clear, defined standards is certainly nothing new nor should be something that is forced across the board either. But darn it, they should be available for the software developers who wish to take the plunge into the world of Linux. And those standards should also be open to the closed source developers as well.
He rants on and on and on about lack of standards and how we should have standards (then says they should be voluntary because choice is what makes Linux so great--after complaining about the LACK of choices for software....hmmm...). I agree that forcng mandatory standards are of no use in Free software community, but I DISagree that there is a LACK of standards.
WE DON'T NEED yet ANOTHER standard (or MORE than one as he advocates for "business a
Perhaps the article submitter is confused but I think this might be a good idea. If the idea is to avoid interference by special interests then establishing a non-governmental and non-profit organisation, or perhaps something like a co-operative, would be a compelling alternative to letting the telco/big-ISP inmates run the wireless asylum with all their ideas about bandwitch-shaping their competition out of their markets and such. It would also be infinitely better than letting a municipal govenrnment, undoubtedly with a good deal of its own special interests lining its pockets, create a bungling, bureaucratic mess of the network.
So then the gist of it is that they want a wi-fi version of the FreeNet volunteer/community networks of yore. This actually was quite successful for a time, although I think if anything would be the most workable it would be the cooperative approach. It's all good to hope that philanthropy will ride to the rescue but I think that if the local businesses, computer user's groups, individual enthusiasts, etc. that funded the capital and operational expenses were also owners there would be some initiative to invest and stay involved with development--especially if the system could generate revenue and owner/customers would receive dividends...
Hmmm...sounds like a made-in-Saskatchewan approach....I wonder if they might already be doing that...
Furthermore, the video encoding scheme used by HD-DVD is more efficient--BluRay is still encoded similar to standard DVDs though in a few weeks some BluRay discs using identically encoded video as HD-DVD will start showing up. I'm not all that certain studios will spend extra money to produce excluseinve content to take advantage of the extra 5GB on HD-DVD.
One thing that isn't discussed much is that although the two formats can use identically encoded video, IIRC they have different DRM schemes and different programming methods (for interactivity/menus). The reviewer was quite disappointed with the performance of BluRay for interactivity--its responsiveness was much poorer than that of the HD-DVD release, so much so that it more than erased the benefit of faster initial start-up of Blu-ray. Combine the inferior quality of these releases with the fact that there is less selection of BluRay players, and they cost much more than HD-DVD, and the smaller number of titles than HD-DVD, and BluRay has an uphill battle on its hands to escape the fate of becomeing the Betamax of the 21st century.
Take note that BluRay has the largest POTENTIAL size. I THINK current BluRay players are dual-layer capable, but even if they are this capability isn't well tested as there is no capability to mass-produce dual-layer discs yet. That'll take another year, at which time there will be an ample 20GB extra room on BluRay vx. HD-DVD. If BluRay can hang on for another year then this could be what it needs to come out on top. More importantly studios will have to actually take advantage of the space for meaningful exclusive content, and hardware vendors will have to bring down the price of BluRay players to be much closer in price to HD-DVD. Consumers will pay a premium for the extra capacity, but only a small one, and the quality had better improve from the current offerings.
In the end though, content will win this war. Given how things are shaping up BluRay will be second fiddle for a couple of years IMO. I don't know if either format will win total domination either--in another decade it won't matter how the bits are patterned on the little shiny plastic discs, because even today the little shiny plastic disc as a distribution medium is slowly going extinct. The kind of people who have HDTV sets today are also the kind of people who have digital cable or sattelite, and digital HTDV service offers video-on-demand and/or PVR digital recording. Just as iTunes and similar services are surging as CD sales flatten out and decline, electronic distribution of video content will change the industry.
I don't blame her, I blame you. You're the techie. My mom runs XP as a limited user, and so does my wife, and so do I for day-to-day Windows tasks. No issues to report.
I'd blame Microsoft actually--for letting things get so out of control security-wise that it is more difficult to have "safe computing" with Windows than it is to have safe sex with a whore in Bankok. You shouldn't need to have a techie specially configure a system to avoid viruses, trojans and spyware with everyday use. Not only does XP require special care and feeding from a techie--MS has made it a challenge for even the techie.
Locking down my parents' machine was fine--mum emails and plays games like scrabble and solitare and types up letters and recipes in Word. Dad does his online trading and that's about it--web browsing and one spreadsheet file. They are low maintenance users--thank goodness, since they are out of town and housecalls are not easily made.
My GF is more of a challenge because she likes to do a lot more with her computer. When I locked her PC down like my parents she found the restrictions intolerable and told me to change it back. She is now a "power user" more-or-less and can install some stuff on her PC. It is a matter of education and she now knows that when in doubt to ignore it. For example, she never opens files sent through IM from ANYONE unless it is a file she specifically asked just prior. Same goes for emails. She knows about email headers and how banks and online shops do not ask for account numbers and passwords over email. It takes time to learn but it can be done. Less patient techie-types might just not bother and migrate to Linux or MacOS.
The most challenging of ALL users has to be the typical teenaged girl. You cannot blame the techie for this one. Putting a teenaged girl in front of WinXP is like throwing large quantities of gunpowder into a campfire. XP is alluring to teenaged girls--the default XP desktop even looks kile it was specifically designed for the "OMG! Ponies!" crowd. It lures them in I tell you--and they have no fear at all. Malware designers cater to these tastes and create lures that fit right into the XP trap. They even use the ActiveX warning dialogue that pops up in IE--they populate it with messages to the effect that "you need to click OK to get your comet tail cursors and super smilies and to speed up the computer and use this rilly rilly cuuuuule website 'K?". From there all hope is lost.
When I locked down my sister's PC her teenaged stepdaugter got quite upset. She was mad that I "broke the computer" and took away her purple talking gorilla and her Kazaa Lite music thingy and her MSN smilies etc. etc. The Teenage Female does NOT like to be told that her favourie stuff is crap and has no place on the computer. It was quite a challenge to get her to accept restrictions and she just didn't want to learn how to safely live without them, but it was done--she has her own iPos and uses iTunes for her music now, has contented herself with the smilies and winks offered within MSN itself and so on. It also helped that she eventually saw how much more responsive the computer was without a tonne of useless ad-crap in it.
So don't blame the techie for Microsoft's crappy engineering. Not only does being a Microsoft techie for your friends and family require technical prowess it requires patience that not all people have. I understand completely why he dumped Windows.
Heh. What a stupid idea. It's like saying that if you don't like the way your government works or the choice of candidates then stop voting. RIDICULOUS. That is letting the inmates run the asylum.
I rarely watch TV myself...I HAVE a TV but I tend to watch either rented DVDs or the news channels. As such I have little stake in the debate either. Thing is, there is a larger issue at stake here. By taking your apathetic stance you are giving tacit approval to the industry for its immoral behaviour. The entertainment industry is trying to create an artificial industry that relies on a contrived set of legislation so they can be lazy and keep doing business like they have for a century.
The entire entertainment industry is perverting intellectual property law. Patents and copyrights were meant to protect and promote innovation, and now they all seem to think such law is meant to protect the status quo and STOP innovation. This is ridiculous. Imagine if typewriter companies managed to make word processing software illegal, book publishers managed to make the photocopier illegal, RIAA or MPAA succeeded in outlawing the Record button on cassette or VCR decks illegal.
The whole reason the entertainment industry could work with its now-antiquated business model was becasue technology didn't exist to broadcast peer-to-peer or on-demand or across the globe, so big central distributors were essential. We first got communications sattelites, then videotape, fibre-optics, digital encoding/decoding, high-bandwidth global networks and now peer-to-peer technology, and all along they stuck to the crusty old business model and remarkably managed to get away with getting into government's pockets--and with their help they set up artificial, contrived business models and markets in order to maintain their obscene profits.
Don't you think in this day and age it is stupid to release a movie in the US first, then Canada a few days later, then the UK and Australia a few weeks later, all in theatres, then on DVD months after that in the same staggered fashion, when NOTHING technically prevents simultaneous release? (I mean they are all English speaking markets so even language isn't even a barrier!). The whole thing runs on protectionist laws, exclusivity contracts, captive markets, etc. to the point of absurdity.
That would be tolerable to a degree if it was limited to the Hollywood industry, but it isn't. Other lobbyists are seeing their success and are starting to try to emulate it. Witness unscrupulous "submarine patent" companies that are abusing patent law the way Disney abused "mickey mouse law" copyright--lobbying to extend the law to protect monopolies and abusing the system as it already exists. Now tech companies are even getting into copyright games themselves. The thought that a printer company could use DMCA COPYRIGHT law to even try to legislate a captive market for its printer consumables is absurd--if they succeeded it would be tragic.
So you can't just stop watching TV becasue, firstly, too many people couldn't bear to lead such a bland life as one without TV AND music AND movies AND professional sporting events etc. so it'll always be worth the effort for Hollywood to stifle innovation. Secondly it is false that you do not have a stake in this EVERYBODY has a stake in this because Hollywood is setting the stage to turn the economy into a bunch of coddled, corporate welfare cases without regard to the quality of life of society in general.
Another idea is to make election day a national holiday, like it is in *every* country except the US.
Gee, you didn't try very hard to confirm such a statement before spouting off did you? RIGHT NEXT DOOR, in Canada, election day is NOT a statutory holiday. Businesses are open normal hours and life is pretty much normal. This is how it works: Every eligible voter is entitled to up to THREE HOURS of paid time off to vote. So, if your hours are the same as the polling station then your boss MUST give you three hours off--with pay--to vote. If you are not paid or are otherwise disciplined for missing up to 3 hours work on voting day you can report your boss and employer to Elections Canada and both will be fined.
HOWEVER, this is only the case if the polls aren't open any time outside your normal workday. For example, if the polls close 2 hours after your normal workday then your boss only has to give you 1 hour off. If you work night shift or you weren't normally scheduled to work that day you are not entitled to any time off to vote. The vast majority of people do NOT start work on or before poll opening and finish on or after poll close anyways. Therefore to make Voting Day a holiday would not improve voter participation in any meaningful way--it would be like a bank/civic holiday--just be an excuse to stay home and drink beer.
As for the electoral college reforms--there is something to be said against a scheme that over-emphasises the overall nation-wide popular vote, and it plagues Canada to some degree (as does the first-past-the-post system but that's another matter). The thing is the President has to take into consideration the needs of all regions of the US, which is geographically large and diverse and un-evenly populated. By neutering the electoral college so that only popular vote matters you risk having the situation where only New York, California and Texas pick the president. That is what happens in Canada--you can literally count on one hand how many federal elections were not decided by Ontario and/or Quebec in the entire nation's history.
Of course, the US has a Senate that is geographically based (each state is equally represented) which could provide that balance, and the electoral college is badly-tuned as it stands now anyways so I suppose it wouldn't cause the regional tensions that Canada has had to contend with if the US president was elected by a simple vote. However, I DO believe that the US president should receive both the majority of popular vote AS WELL as win the electoral college--and the weighting given to each state should be balanced out there. However, that is probably harder to agree on and implement than this proposed solution.
They managed to make it cheap so it will be applicable in small installations, but both the sterling engine and the gas turbine (using a fluid in a closed circuit) require a temperature difference, so the machine would not be driven by heat alone.
Well, this new development solves the difficult part of the equation--it provides a low-cost way to capture that heat. The cold-side of the operation is the easy part. You are onto the solution already:
Power stations using closed fluid circuits (e.g. nuclear plants) use a secondary circuit to cool the first one after the steam passed the turbine. They are usually located near rivers for this.
Well, any residence, office or industrial space with electrical service would have water service as well. This water is brought in through underground pipes and is significantly cooler than the ambient temperature in the summer. This serves a dual purpose too--even in the summer we need hot water so after the vapour in the generation circuit releases its heat energy to the water in the cooling circuit the heated water can actually be used.
Of course, this isn't a total solution to our power needs for the most part, unless you live close enough tho the equator that it is always warmer outside than the temperature of the water brought in. Of course, up here in Canada half the time the situation is reversed--it is below freezing outside and the cold water coming in is warmer, so you could use a heat pump of sorts in reverse fashion. However, the technology described here wouldn't work passively in the winter becasue you couldn't boil even this low-boiling-temperature when it is 20 below freezing. Perhaps natural gas would work and still be quite efficient (cheaper than heating your water anyways).
I think this sort of research is exactly what we need to solve our energy consumption and environmental problems. Right now, there is way too much focus on a few huge projects to solve a few huge problems. Witness the ineffectiveness of Kyoto--yes most of the signatory nations will meet their targets but at what cost? France is permamently addicted to nuclear power generation, Germany didn't even have to try because their 1990 target included dirty, antiquated, cold-war-era east-german industry that needed to be modernised anyways. Russia has not been consistent in its commitment and also has a low hurdle to jump given that it had a period of economic contraction starting around 1990. Canada signed on then did nothing at all--its GHG emmissions increased at a rate twice that of the US--a country that didn't even ratify the accord. China, India and pretty much all of Africa are exempt and are massive polluters. So what was gained out of all the time and expense and bureaucracy? Absolutely nothing--and Kyoto only addressed one single environmental issue--greenhouse gasses. In the meantime there are polluted and improperly dammed waterways, acid rain, an ozone hole, asthma-causing smog, oil-dependency, etc. that have not been adequately addressed.
Instead of dismissing these small innovations they should be embraced. Whether it is solar energy, thermal-collector-powered heat engines or fuel-cells or whatever, being able to equip houses and other buildings with "personal power generators" would have a profound positive impact on the electrical grid and power consumption. Right now the grid is like the early internet--a huge network of unreliable connections with content (electricity) delivered from a small number of large, centralised nodes. Personal generators would make it like the internet--a large, unreliable network but with an equally large number of smaller nodes providing power. This would make the grid hugely more reliable. In the event of a network/grid failure a node/generator could still provide a certain level of content/power to its local network/building electrical system. In the event of a node/generator failure, the network/grid could provide content/power to the LAN/building. Also, less overall power would
...but don't feel bad, so do most people on this forum
It' looks like it only applies to package formats. Am I wrong?
Yes, you are almost completely wrong. LSB applies to much more than package file formatting. LSB distributions have a common set of libraries and such, so that every single LSB package has the exact same set of dependencies--those defined by the spec. There is even a package NAMING convention that must be followed to ensure there are no package naming conflicts.
I think the rationale behind "re-engineering for export" in Japan is more complex than the view that foreigners are "too damn stupid". In fact, such a view is quite insulting, and if anyone other than Americans were protrayed in the same light you'd likely be moderated into oblivion for making discriminatory, inflammatory remarks.
The Sharp Zaurus was pulled from US markets because it's too "hard" for americans. Yet the Zaurus is a raging success in Japan and they are on their 6th version that blows anything you can buy in the states out of the water.
NO, the reason it was pulled from the US market was becasue it wasn't making the company money. It wasn't as much to do with being too hard to use as much as it was the fact that the whole software platform was re-engineered and to translate it from Japanese to English would be a costly task. Since the older platform was a slow seller (a poorly marketed also-ran to Palm) Sharp decided to not bother. Being a fairly open platform others have taken up the task but it is a chicken-and-egg thing--Sharp won't officially re-enter the US market because there is no demand, but there is no US demand because the 3rd-party translation is not polished and they are grey-market imports with no support from Sharp.
From Cellphones to everything else. It is all "dumbed down" for Us consumption.
It isn't "dumbed down"...it is altered. It all HAS to be altered because we speak different languages--radically different languages--different vocabulary, different grammer, different writing--so different that it even affects how well a UI design works. Plus, features might be changed or removed becasue the technology infrastructure isn't here (pointless to pack a bunch of functions into a cellphone that aren't supported by any of the networks don't you think?).
Why do they do this? Because the average US consumer IS too damned stupid. Give them a DVD recorder remote with 52 buttons and a LCD status screen and they freak out. Give them full control menus on their TV for adjustment and they freak out. How many people went through the 80's with a blinking 12:00 clock on the VCR because it was "too hard to set"?
You are confusing stupid with "lazy" (in a good, Larry Wall sense). The US is a different culture than Japan--US likes BIG or POWERFUL. They'd rather not waste their time and brain power on something as trivial as a DVD player. 52 button remote with LCD? WHAT THE HELL FOR? We want tape player-like buttons, cursor keys and a numeric keypad and little else more--24 buttons or so and no more. Plus, DVDs have menus and on-screeen displays--the LCD is just a stupid idea--an LED or two is fine. Full control menus on a TV? Only geeks change the tint, contrast, brightness etc etc etc more than a few times in the life of a TV set nowadays anyways.
The reason we freak is NOT becasue it is too hard for us to figure out--it is becasue it isn't WORTH figuring out--it is too hard FOR THE INTENDED FUNCTION. Same goes for prograaming the VCR--it isn't the user that is retarded...it is the DESIGNER, and they never learned--it was always 2 or 3 menu levels deep to the right functions and tedious to do, and people have clocks all over and 6 or 8 hour tapes so they just didn't bother--they let it blink 12:00 and just pressed record before they left and hunted the tape later because it wasn't wasting brain power.
Japanese mindset is different...they like technology and features and miniature stuff and are way more tolerant of poor design. In essence, they are geekier than us. In my experience with a lot of Japanese-only products is that they are very advanced technically and mostly of good build quality but "quirky" to put it politely. Typically they are bleeding edge products that are designed around the underlying technology rather than the function or the user. Or, they suffer from a design tailored to smaller hands, or the Japanese language or the different cultural preferences. These quirks baffle us not because we
Because it's always better to start doing something before you finish understanding everything, than waiting till the end when you can make changes based on an accurate understanding of the entire process.
Translation: Responsive, strategic action is always better than "Analysis Paralysis".
"Waiting until the end when you can make changes based on accurate understanding of the entire process" can be risky, becasue while you are busy navel-gazing the competition is actually DOING something. Also, the process is never completely static, and if you sit and analyse for too long your previous analyses become obsolete.
Oftentimes the best time to "start doing something" is when you have ENOUGH information--not ALL the information. If that wasn't the case then Agile software development wouldn't be so popular, for example. Although it is unwise to make rash decisions, Intel cannot afford to muck around analysing the entire corporate structure in detail before taking any action--it has already moved from monopolist to threatened market leader and if it keeps drifting it'll be a has-been also-ran.
You mean a subscription service like Software Assurance?
Only very vaguely like that--it would be SA with delivery through Windows Update and available to everyone--not just corporations.
Somehow I don't think corporations are going to fall for that line of thinking again
Of course they won't, but that is becasue Microsoft is all screwed up with SA. Remember what I said about Microsoft wanting "ultimate control of the User Experience"? That is what SA is about. SA is a failure because MS wants to get protection money from its customers and then turns around and demands that you'll be getting the next release, by this time, ready or not. If MS goes for consumer-level subscription service I suspect they'd screw that up too in the same way. Subscription service MUST be flexible and allow users to continue using the products after they end their subscription with at least the modicum of support they provide with their off-the-shelf stuff today in order for ANY customer to buy in (corporate or home).
How many home users want to pay an annual cost to keep using their machine's software?
Actually I think a large fraction, if not a majority, of end users would be willing to pay an annual fee to maintain their computers. It would certainly be easier for budgeting purposes. Keep in mind that this forum is not an audience of normal, casual PC users. Computers today are like televisions were in their early days (1940s to 1960s). When a "normal" PC user has any problem with a PC (even if it is solely a software issue) it very often ends up being sent back to the shop to get fixed, or they try to get a "house call" from a company like "Nerds on Site" or "Geek Patrol". These experts spend a few hours and charge sometimes even a couple hundred dollars to fix the problem.
I think for such users a properly executed subscription service would bring peace of mind. They'd know exactly how much it will cost to take care of their PC, and they'd know that there is an expert resource making sure all the software is up to date and working right.
Subscriptions also incur a negative feeling because you have to keep paying and paying and paying. Rather then paying once and then not having to worry about shelling out any more funds until you choose to upgrade.
The reason "software services" haven't been embraced is because they have NEVER been executed properly. It starts with the software itself being crappy and so many patches coming out month after month and the emphasis there is on defects. I think critical updates are "warranty issues" and it shouldn't be implied that the updates themselves are part of the offering. Second, when they have been offered it has been marketed as SUBSCRIPTION. The reason people feel ripped off is becasue when they stop paying they can no longer use the software. It's the whole "product focus" thing getting in the way--selling the bits and bytes themselves. This isn't a product--it is a SERVICE. They shouldn't be selling new EXEs or virus definition files or application updates. It should be about CUSTOMER SERVICE: The customer is paying to have updates and new applications installed properly, help with configuration, on-line help and such. The product focus is making it look like a rip-off because the user thinks "I already paid for this *thing* and they are now telling me I must pay AGAIN or they'll take my *thing* away?"
People WILL pay "over and over" if they believe they are getting value for the money and not shafted. After all, people lease cars--they pay and pay and never even get title to the car unless they pay a bunch more at the end of the term. They accept it becasue there isn't a big hit to the pocketbook at any one time, and that in exchange for meeting some usage conditions they have a predictable, well-defined service regime to keep everything in working order. People rent their homes too--pay and pay and never get to own. What exactly makes it impossible for a software maintenance service to gain similar acceptability? Like the above options it wouldn't be for everyone, but as long as it isn't mandatory and things are flexible enough it could work well.
...development methodologies, and perhaps even business models.
He continues: It is not our fault, the beta testers keep causing problems, which we then have to fix.
Well, the beta testers FIND problems, which I suppose causes problems for BillG. In any case I suspect that the development methodologies used by the Windows team have not scaled sufficiently to handle a project as large as Windows Vista. They appear to be trying to move towards an Agile-like approach, which explains the difficulty in pinning down a release date as well as the dynamic nature of the list of new features. I find that both feature sets and completion dates are pretty much impossible to put in place for large projects that are moving from a traditional approach to development/management towards agile methods.
Problem is, Microsoft's main revenue stream is from two very large, closed-source, commercial, shrink-wrapped, widely-deployed products (Windows and Office). Such projects by their very nature do not fit well with Agile development methods. Agile can handle large, closed-source and commercial projects with the right considerations. However, shrink-wrapped and widely-deployed run quite counter to how Agile is supposed to work.
Agile is "release early and release often", and Windows is huge, infrequent releases from a revenue generating standpoint. Releasing early and often does happen (it's called "Patch Tuesday";-) but it costs MS money rather than making it money. Even when rolled into larger releases (service packs) marketing needs a product with a large jump in functionality/performance for customers to justify purchasing an upgrade.
Agile is also about big-time end-user involvement. Shrink-wrapped, widely-deployed Windows is about end-user ISOLATION. MS will give you the big picture of what's new in Vista, but won't let you test drive it unless you have special "beta tester" status--and beta testers are not typical end-users. If you are merely a normal Windows user any meaningful requests for changes in functionality are deferred to the next release; after all, if it is a feature worth adding, changing or removing then it adds to the worth of the next upgrade.
So what should MS do about Windows? Perhaps it would help if the beta testers that "keep causing problems" had access to source code, so that even if only a fraction of them had the technical ability they could submit fixes themselves;-). I don't think MS would open the source code to their big money maker though. They've got to go with something more Agile-like in their development approach though, and big, shrink-wrapped, widely-deployed releases run counter to that. So MS has to eliminate their reliance on that outmoded form of deployment. That means they have to wean themselves off the practise of selling boxes with little shiny plastic discs in them to make their money. Microsoft is going to have to get SERIOUS about moving to a subscription model, electronic distribution and a more modular product. They'll also have to accelerate their release schedule to something like yearly, and set upgrade pricing accordingly (so that you pay more if you skipped 5 years but something like $20 per year).
I think it'd be best if Vista had a "windows update on steroids", so that not only could you get hotfixes or service packs but you could also electronically purchase and install an upgrade to the next version of Windows whenever you wanted. I don't think this will happen though because MS wants to have ultimate control over the "user experience". MS will move to a subscription service I suspect, but it'll involve MS making all the decisions about what is and isn't installed/upgraded/activated on your computer. Content with MS Office 15? Tough luck--Office 16 is out and you're getting it--and if you cancel your subscription your copy of Office 15 will be deactivated.
It might take awhile, but I think Microsoft's very closed model of doing business (including but not limited to actual software development) is becoming obsolete and they'll either die sticking to it or they'll hit a wall and radically change.
Seriously, my PIII laptop has 'Designed for Windows 98' on it, and can run Windows 2000 and Windows XP just fine
Seriously, I have an old 500MHz Celeron of the same vintage, and can run a Linux-based desktop OS just fine. It'll even run GNOME, though there are snappier desktops available for such machines.
Linux distros are too bloaty to even install: the Ubuntu and Fedora installers literally hang, and SUSE and Mandriva are too slow even on my other machine in the +2GHz range.
Absolute crap. My primary machine is a 900 MHz Athlon Thunderbird with 384MB of RAM. It is running SuSE OpenLinux 10 with a GNOME desktop right now. The installer never hung on me, and it performs better than it did when it was running Windows. If you have a 2GHz machine and you are experiencing that kind of slowness or lockups I'd seriously look at the possibility that there are hardware or driver or configuration problems. Both Linux and Windows machines can be greatly affected by such issues. A single bad DLL made my XP machine at work blue screen on a daily basis, and fixing a bad update pushed to the same computer by the IT dept ingreased boot-up time by 400 percent. Oops--sorry, XP never blue screens anymore...because Microsoft changed the colour of the stop error screen to black.
And with KDE/GNOME being so indispensable for everyday desktop usage, their near-elitist disregard for anything below mid-high range hardware is infuriating.
KDE and GNOME firstly are not THAT bloated that they cannot run on a pre-winXP machine. Second, they are NOT indispensible. Yes, Qt and GTK libraries are required for many linux GUI apps but by no means to they require a full-blown, full-featured KDE or GNOME environment. Yopu are spouting crap because I've NEVER owned a high-end machine and I've NEVER had problems putting together a useful Linux desktop--even the first Linux desktop I built in 1996 was useful if a bit crude (then again so was Windows 3.1).
In fact, here is the quote ZDNet is using to support their claim[...]
How does that statement support your contention that Linux requires high-end hardware at all? It in fact supports the contention that Linux has been a serious threat to Microsoft with the "late adopter" crowd. Nothing is mentioned in the article about that having changed. The limiting factor is still probably application support--MS office is easily replaced but there are probably specialised apps (educational software, games, etc) that are less easily replaced.
Having said that, I do agree that Microsoft dropping support of MSDOS-based OSes for good will have little effect on Linux desktop adoption. If someone is still running Windows 98 or (God forbid) Me then that person probably doesn't care at all about whether MS will answer their supoport calls--they probly haven't contacted MS for years (if ever). They probably haven't got all the updates either becasue they're on a cruddy dialup connection, and if they're too cheap or broke to have not upgraded for this long won't run out to get XP (especially since so many would need a new computer). Those who would switch to Linux in response to Win9x/Me becoming abandonware today were probably already quite interested and this development will merely make them try switching sooner.
An interesing thing that was't mentioned, however, is that Microsoft is also making XP SP1 abandonware soon! MS is pushing everyone to get SP2--fine if you have broadand but a royal pain if you are a dialup customer or an enterprise that has been blocking SP2 because of compatibility issues. My employer still blocks SP2 in automatic updates and is waiting to do a controlled roll-out that includes its own patches for other applications affected by SP2.
I think this big push for SP2, plus MS pushing to put WGA spyware on every XP machine and the quantum leap in hardware requirements for Vista will have a much larger positive effect on Linux desktop adoption. Even if Linux distros can get bloated with be
The great thing about core memory was its tolerance to water.
Core memory is also immune to electromagnetic radiation--and EMP would wipe out conventional memory but ferrite cre memories would retain their data. IIRC spacecraft make use of core memory in certain applications to this day for that reason.
Core memory is nasty in some ways too--besides being bulky and a bit slow and reads being destructive operations they were temperature sensitive--the current required to flip bits varies with temperature. If you used core memory in an environment where temperature varied too greatly you'd have to include a feedback loop with a thermistor to control the current level used to drive the address lines. I'm kinda like Woz...all that messy analogue stuff makes my brain ache and I like to avoid it. I'm glad that new magnetic memories don't require this sort of messy stuff.
MRAM is in some ways a modern take on 1960's era "Core Memory" technology. There are similarities between both, however core memory was not semiconductor-based--it was a plane of copper wires woven together with little ferrite rings strung on where wires intersected. As such is is pretty low density: 16 Kbit of core memory took up 250 cm^2 of area. With MRAM the method of operation is the same and it also involves reversing polarity of magnetic fields. However there are no ferrite cores; MRAM consists of a sandwich of conductor grids around memory cells. Like with core memory an entire row of a grid can be written to in one operation--you charge one "row" line on the write grid and all the columns you want to flip and they all change at once.
Reading MRAM is simpler than core memory becasue core memory had no read operation--it had "flip to zero" and "flip to one" and a "sense" line--the sense line would emit a pulse if a core element changed state. To read core memory, you had to do a "flip to zero" and watch the sense line--if it pulsed then a one was in the cell and you had to do a "flip to one" to restore it. If there was no pulse then it was already zero. With MRAM reading simply involves measuring the resistance of the insulating layer of a memory cell (the insulating material has the property where resistance increases as the magnetic field passing through it increases). IIRC there is nothing preventing parallel reads either. MRAMs are also much denser--megabits can fit in 0.25 cm^2
The "MRAM hard drive" thing may be hyperbole right now, but it looks like development of MRAM rechnology is significantly outpacing Moores Law. MRAM is also potentially as fast as SRAM and as dense as SDRAM--without the need for refresh circuitry so designs can be greatly simplified. Further downsizing could make it a good flash replacement. The biggest hurdle could be reduction...
Slashdot Mirror
...if the issue was simply technical. Indeed, even considering how tech-savvy some students are these days it isn't that big a deal to rope in the network and keep kids from surfing during class--then the damage is limited to what can be done to the local config of the notebooks. However, the concerns of critics go far beyond technical isssues.
Quite simply, children not yet in high school are simply not mature enough to be responsible for a notebook PC. Have you seen how badly textbooks degrade? A textbook in the hands of grade 7 to 9 students usually geets destrroyed in 5 years--and that is for tough hardcover texts. Softcovers are usually torn in one or two years. Even good students will drop, mangle or lose their machies and the vast majority will not last more than a year. Maintaining and replacing such machines would be a tragic waste of public money.
Second, schools should address much more basic shortcomings, like properly training and paying teachers, addressing class size increases, implementing more effective discipline, a more relevant curriculum for maths, English classes about spelling and grammar until they actually LEARN it instead of trying to do english lit to a bunch of 13 year olds who write 'leet-speak...the list goes on.
Finally, I've rarely seen a public school effectively using computers to their full potential for pre-high-school education. They are mostly used to replace inadequate libraries and provide basic electronic lessons or to enable students to add "bling" to their reports and projects using Powerpoint and so on. This is all fine and good but students can use their home PCs or make use of a shared lab. If you want to make effective use of technology in grades 9 or lower then replaces textbooks with low-maintenance, ruggedised e-books--if only to conserve forests ad save the backs of students carrying all their texts around in backpacks slung over one shoulder.
Here are some ways I'd re-priortise money overspent on computers in primary education:
* Hire more teachers, and pay experienced teachers more. Large class sizes are not really bad in high-school but before that much over 20 kinds in a class is very detrimental.
* Make the teaching profession a REAL profession. Right now teachers aren't professionals in the sense doctors, engineers or lawyers are. Instead they are like tradespeople, and education is too important for us to treat them as such. Teacher's unions should be dismantled and banned and replaced by professional associations. Unions top priorities are working conditions like salaries, benefits, holidays and so on. Professional associations also set those standards for employers but also make sure employees meet competency standards and conduct themselves professionally. Just like a medical board, or bar associations or engineering societies, membership should be mandatory and they should enforce continual licensing.
* Put practices of other professions into place for teachers as well. Doctors have internships, engineers have apprenticeships where they are junior-engineers or engineers-in-training for up to 4 years. Teachers only get limited classroom/applied training, all before graduation. A "Junior Teacher" should work under the guidance of a "Professional Teacher". If a class is a bit large then pair a Junior and Professional in the same class so that children get both classroom learning and individual attention. Additionally, there should be a code of ethics and a "standards of practice" enforced by the association. So much misguided focus is put on standard testing methods for students, which is unfair to teachers since little to no standards are in place to guide them in achieving their goals. Finally, there should be a more rigourous "Continuing Professional Development" requirement for teachers to make sure they retain and improve their competencies. Rightn now there are few to no requirements, and teacher "professional days" are not always mandatory and are sometimes more like retreats than ser
I don't buy the "feeding the beast" argument. Do you run out and buy a Budweiser everytime you see their commercial? Of course not.
The argument of "feeding the beast" is NOT depicted in your analogy. You are talking abouit "cause and effect"--an almost entirely different argument usually used by social conservatives and certain women's groups. When law enforcement talk about "feed the beast" it isn't psychological conditioning, it is economics. When a paedophile collects and views child pornography he is creating demand, and I'd veture to say that as is the case with habitual consumers of legal porn paedophiles will want new material, so this demand will be sustained and perhaps grow. Supply must meet demand, and to supply new child pornography the producer MUST break the law and exploit and abuse children. "The beast" is the market for child porn, not the paedophile who may (or may not) commit the crime of sexual assault of a minor.
You could eliminate all the child porn, real or simulated, and you would still have pedophiles
Absolutely. Some believe paedophilia is a sexual orientation like heterosexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality except for the fact that it is an unhealthy perversion to be sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children. If it is indeed a sexual orientation then nothing could be done to prevent paedophilia--it can only be managed. However, of you did "slay the beast" (eliminate the market for child porn) then THOUSANDS of children would be spared being abused for the purposes of supplying the market. The child abuse rate would go down significantly.
Anyways your reasoning that there would be paedophiles regardless of the availabilty of porn is in fact the very reason it is impossible to eliminate it. So long as there are people out there who are turned on by child sex there will be demand for such material, ensuring there is always food for the beast.
Even today, those extreme anti-abortionists who murder OB/GYN doctors for performing abortions use the Bible as inspiration and justification for their behavior. Would you support calls to outlaw the Bible for "feeding the beast" in those cases?
As I said it is an "economics" argument and your Bible analogy doesn't fit. There is no supply/demand relationship there. Furthermore not only does it require a questionable leap of logic to conclude from the Bible's teaching that killing an abortionist is the Lord's work, but the production of bibles is always done within the law and doesn't require the abuse or death of innocent people, whereas the production of child porn involves illegal activity and harming innocent people.
While I find simulated child-porn to be offensive, as a true freedom-loving American (not the Bush variety), I cannot think of a reason it should be outlawed. If no "actual" children are involved, the fact that most of us find it disgusting is not sufficient reason to criminalize it.
Well, though I'm not American I do truly value my freedom as well, however I also value reasoned, critical thinking and common sense. As such I think we all have to be realistic and sensible. The almost comical "schoolgirl fantasy" pics depicting well-endowed women with pigtails and shortened school uniform skirts with no panties underneath are of no interest to paedophiles. The same goes with written literature or illustrations of that nature which depict slightly questionable but classic fantasy situations. However if you think written literature or artwork that makes a point of demonstrasting that one of the participants in a sexual act is, say, 10 years old, and goes into explicit detail relating to that character's pre-pubescent characteristics, or depicts an old man trying to lure in a little boy or girl then you have to stop kidding yourself. The vast majority of consumers of legal/normal "simulated porn" such as erotic stories, phone sex or drawings are not going to be content with just that if photos and videos are out there too, and you can bet the
the focal point is not whether or not money traded hands, but rather that there was always a cheaper upgrade path than buying new - unlike with Apple's OS X
Except that consumers are starting to clue in that having discounted upgrade prices for upgrades vs. "full" is purly a marketing ploy and that they are getting shafted. The only technical difference between the three differing editions of the same OS version (retail full, upgrade and OEM) is literally ONE FILE and the EULA. That is IT. Aside for the slightly cheaper packaging/distribution costs of the OEM version ALL these editions cost EXACTLY THE SAME to develop, manufacture and market. The extra profit margin for the full retail version is rightly seen by many as blatant price gouging. MS isn't offering a "cheaper upgrade path"--they are merely gouging upgraders less--"rewarding your loyalty" as it were. Apple doesn't need to use pricing incentives to reward loyalty because they have a relativly higher-quality product to begin with.
Software isn't like any physical good--it isn't like when you upgrade your house you get money for your old one, or you get a trade-in for your car. Microsoft recovers NO COST WHATSOEVER from upgrades--they do not ask for your old install discs back so they can re-sell or recycle them, as a car dealership would do with your old car.
So please..I'm interested to know...what is the whole point of reduced prices for upgrade editions of software releases then? If MS can make a decent profit on the upgrade why not let everyone pay that price then? I see no point myself except to play marketing games since the full retail version adds absolutely no value over the upgrade...at least with OEM and volume pricing there is some justification becasue of incrementally lower costs to the vendor. NOBODY has given me valid reasons beyond silly marketing, including yourself.
You've never seen a utility bill before. Don't worry, you'll see one very soon after you move out of mum's basement.
;-)
/. experience.
The article says a rack of 40 of these little babies consumes in the neighbourhood of 3.2 kW. That's rougly equivalent to two nice microwave ovens. Yes yes, I know you don't run microwave ovens 24/7. But if you didn't close your refrigerator door all the way and it ran all day it would cost about the same as this unit. It would hardly put you in the poor house, especially if you had the means to purchase or finance the $200k cost to begin with.
It might not represent the pinnacle of performance but if you need merely adequate performace and huge capacity and high density with very low operating costs this represents a compelling development for enterprise-class storage. It would be a helluva cool Beowulf cluster too
The only gripe I have it that this article is a bit of a slashvertisement. There is little in the article or links besides a high-level description of a specific product and a path to a single vendor's brochure-ware site. Not much there to trigger thought-provoking discussion. I don't mind a certain level of such shameless plugging, but perhaps it could be categorised under "shameless plugs" or "slashvertisements" or "product reviews" or whatever to distinguish these articles from more discussion-oriented news. It would be great for filtering or searching. Sometimes I am actually looking for such articles when shopping/speccing stuff, however sometimes I want to avoid having such stories clutter my
I sure can: It's 130 bucks for each Service Pack.
Microsoft does the exact same thing--They released Windows 95 service packs 1 2 and 3 as separate OSes too (they called them Windows 98, 98SE and Me--remember?). I'd argue that Windows XP was really little more than Windows 2000 SP5 with a new desktop theme. I have not yet come across a single application that runs on XP that will not run on Win2k and many device drivers are interchangeable. Furthermore, by and large, they both get compromised by the same viruses and attacks and get patches for the same vulnerabilities basically recompiled against different branches of the NT Workstation and NT Server source trees.
I suppose it depends on personal perspective, but I and many others would say that Windows 95 was the last significant release of the MSDOS line of OSes and that Windows 2000 was the last significant release of the NT line of OSes and since then its been "eye candy and service packs in disguise". Releasing major service packs as actual, no-cost service packs is a fairly recent (and welcomed) phenomenon. If MS operated like they did in the 1990s XP SP2 would most definitely have been marketed as a new release unto itself.
No, the reason budget airlines have grown in popularity is that they are undercutting ALL of the segmented prices of the major airlines.
That is incorrect, at least in North America (I know firsthand about Canada and I'm told the US it was the same). I remember when WestJet began operations (it was the first truly viable independent budget airline in Canada). It was less than a week before the competition had seat sales that often matched or even slightly undercut WestJet's offerings. If price alone was a factor then WestJet would've gone out of business in its first year. This is especially true because the biggest airline (Air Canada) was a recently privatised Crown corporation that was still run by a management team with very tight connections to government departments. For many years after Air Canada (nicknamed "MapleFlot") was sold by the government it received hundreds of millions (perhaps into the billions) in guaranteed loans, grants and other subsidies and used its favoured posistion to undercut competition regardless of actual operationg costs. Air Canada destroyed or absorbed WardAir, Canadian International, etc this way both in its days as a crown corporation and afterwards. However the competition tried to run their businesses like traditional airlines, especially Air Canada. WestJet "broke the rules" so it was able to withstand price pressures based on other factors.
Trust me, if British Airways had a 'Cargo Class' flight that was cheaper than all the 'budget' airlines, I'd be packing myself into a suitcase and going on a cheap holiday.
No you wouldn't, unless you were lucky enough to have a flexible schedule and were willing to compromise. If British Airways had the option of "steerage" then you'd have to be willing to limit your travelling options to certain destianations, fly off-season, take overnight flights and so on. There would be no flight attendants at all, no in-flight movie ore even music to listen to, no in-flight meals, snacks or beverages, except for bottled water which would be extra-charged. You'd be limited to continental flights (no trans-oceanic flights) to non-vacation destinations. This is because universally-available "cargo class" would break the whole segmented pricing model because it would undercut their own segmented offerings and turn British Ariways into just another discount airline.
WestJet and other discount airlines trim costs by limiting on-flight food options and other such extras, however they still have friendly and convenient service (still superior to much-improved Air Canada) and were first to offer extras like live in-flight sattelite TVs on every seatback, and have the most modern fleet in North America. You can fly to vacation destinations like Las Vegas, Orlando, LA and Hawaii (Air Canada's successful discount service does NOT fly to such destinations). Their change-booking charge is very minimal--usually $10 unless it is same-day, which is still considerably cheaper than Air Canada (if you chood their discount segment and you need to reschedule the fee can be as high as $150). For WestJet there is always ONE price offered per flight at any given time. Air Canada's simplified segmented system STILL has about a half-dozen different prices for the same flights, which most often are even for the exact same seating options. Westjet's pricing is only a minor factor in its success. The two biggest reasons by far are the high-quality service and the LACK OF SEGMENTED PRICING.
The reason that Apple don't have seperate upgrade prices, is because their market is loyal enough that they can be meticulously gouged, and will still come back for more.
That is also incorrect. Apple has gained marketshare, and given that how can someone be loyal to Macs if they have just bought their first Mac? Also, the one-and-only price for a single copy of the FULL VERSION of MacOS X is IDENTICAL to the UPGRADE price for the MOST BASIC edition of Windows Vista or XP Home. It is hard to argue that Apple is goug
AC is what grabs you, DC will blow you clear.
INCORRECT. The lower the frequency the deeper current will penetrate a conductor (which is what your body would be when you are electrocuted), and DC will go right through you. When DC current travels through your muscles (including your heart) they will CONTRACT and STAY contracted. DC is what grabs you, NOT AC.
What makes AC dangerous is the specific frequency. Ironically, 50 to 60 Hz is probably the most hazardous to people--we ended up with that frequency becasue of economics more than anything else (I believe early Canadian AC power worked at 25Hz interestingly enough. Since lights flickered badly it was abandonded). If you grew up on a farm you know how electric fences work--they are essentially very low frequency AC--you get a pulse of current followed by no current at about 1 Hz. You get thrown from the fence not because of the "DC" pulse, but becasue of the RELEASE of the power (your brain is trying to tell your muscles to release but the electricity is contracting them--when the electricity goes away your brain is still telling you to release and you jump back--like the rope breaking in a game of tug-of-war).
What makes 60Hz deadly is that it is low enough frequency that the "skin effect" is not evident enough to keep current from reaching your heart, yet it is too high for your muscles to respond to the change in current--in the case of your heart it is right in that zone that would cause fibrillation, so that when you cut the power your nervous system is still confused. If the AC frequency was much lower--20Hz or less maybe? not sure but there is a point--the body would perceive it as a vibration and your muscles would have time to respond to the change in current so you could let go--plus the risk of fibrillation would be much lower. However, if you could feel the vibration you could also SEE it--lighting would be noticeably flickery. Low frequency AC electrocution would be much less fatal but could cause seizures, plus it is much less efficient.
Very HIGH frequency AC would also be safer because it is TOO fast to induce fibrillation in your heart, plus it causes what is called the "skin effect" on any conductor through which it passes, so VERY high frequency current would pass over the surface of your body and cause bad burns and such, but not reach your heart at all. As a result of this effect, your (or any other conductor's) "AC resistance" is much higher than your "DC resistance" at higher frequencies as well, so the effective current passing through your body at the same voltage is HIGHEST at DC and gets LOWER as the frequency goes up. This effect is why large, high-voltage/high power conductors in AC power systems are hollow copper tubes--it is a waste of metal when only the surface actually carries the electricity and the rest just gets warm, so the inside is just air (or cooling oil or whatever non-conductor). Because of the skin effect and increased AC resistance, and the fact that induction motors would run far too fast, very high frequency AC is not used becasue it as impractical as DC.
DC is what they use in lighting systems at TV studios because it is easier and safer to work with "live".
This is also WRONG. I have been in the studio environment before and can tell you that AC lighting is probably MORE common than DC lighting in many studios, which is actually HARDER to deal with than AC in most cases. DC is used NOT because it is safer (becasue it is often more complicated to use and no safer than AC), it is used for technical reasons, such as:
* mobile lighting uses batteries which supply DC
* Certain lighting powered by AC could perhaps flicker at rates too high for the human eye, but enough that film or video will catch it--particularly in the case of film becasue 60Hz doesn't sync well with 24 frames/sec. However tungsten glows pretty persistenly so it shouldn't be very susceptible to flicker.
* Lighting control (dimming etc) for some lighting might be easier do
...I could use FireFox on SuSE to fill out my census form, as I filed on the last day. Sometimes it pays to procrastinate ;-). I was ready to give the gov't kudos for respecting interoperability but I guess they were dragged there kicking and screaming. Oh well, at least they responded properly if slowly.
In other (old) news. I filed my tax return on-line using Linux for the first time this spring...one less reason to miss Windows...
...which means it has an accuracy rate somewhat south of Wikipedia and you shouldn't take article postings at their word.
/.
I filled out my Canadian census on-line using Firefox on SuSE Linux and it worked fine. It DID rely on Java--is this what the poster referred to as "special software"? It seems to me that a JVM isn't all that "special" nor did I have to do a special installation of it to participate in the census.
Perhaps the Australian version is Java-free, but it's hardly an innovation of any kind, much less one worthy of posting on
If you find there isn't enough software for Linux, you haven't browsed your repositories.
.wmv and MS-only codecs and the idiots who conjured up the crappy DVD movie encryption scheme that put Free dvd playing software in legal limbo). Fortunately these things aren't crucial for me--I watch movies in the living room, not at the office desk. I can do email, web, word-processing, spreadsheets, database, image scanning, photo editing, chat with MSN, Yahoo and Jabber contacts, play MP3s, rip and burn CDs and DVDs, CAD....I can't think of much that has made me regret deleting the Win2k partition on my desktop.
You're right--he hasn't browsed repositories. In fact, he hasn't done much investigation at all judging by how he has written his article. For example:
But the fact remains that I am tired of having to boot back into my Windows install to do some pretty basic stuff.
I was really hoping that he would explain exactly WHAT "pretty basic stuff" he has trouble with in Linux. If he'd done that, then he might've done himself a favour as I'm sure many Linux fans would point him to software that at the very least makes it possible if not pretty, and at best soes the job better than Windows. In my observation about the ONLY things that present a challenge are games (seems to be a culture thing...MacOS has endured being second-fiddle here too) and movies (cursed things like
Evolution is a very clumsy feeling program with a lack of fluidity.
Again, examples would be nice. This statement puzzles me because in its current state Evolution seems fine to me. In fact I was quite disappointed with Kontact. Of course, I haven't seen Kontact lately so it wouldn't be a fair comparison. Perhaps the author had the same problem--he seems to be a KDE devotee who perhaps hasn't used Evolution for awhile, or the GNOMEish way of doing things isn't to his personal taste. Or, perhaps it is MSExchange interoperability specifically that he finds cumbersome. We can't really know because he just doesn't day.
It's being tolerated; however, there is one application that cannot be run at all because of its dependency on Internet Explorer - Outlook 2003
There really isn't much at all we can do about this--MS has deliberately made things difficult and I don't think any amount of lobbying will convince MS to make fundamental changes to their MS Office development strategy. I suspect the next version or two of MSOffice will in fact make it even MORE difficult and intertwine with IE compononets even MORE. The best solution here--if you INSIST that you need to run Outlook 2K3 on Linux, would be to help move towards including emulation of IE6 libraries in WINE. OR, if he really likes Kontact then strive to make it interoperate with Exchange. End users of Free software really do have more influence on development than will EVER exist with commercial software.
they work very hard with Windows developers and they provide a single standard in which to draw from. With Linux, not so much
[...]
In my opinion, the best we could ask for is to allow Novell or Red Hat to set business distribution standards and Ubuntu to set end user standards.
[...]
The idea of clear, defined standards is certainly nothing new nor should be something that is forced across the board either. But darn it, they should be available for the software developers who wish to take the plunge into the world of Linux. And those standards should also be open to the closed source developers as well.
He rants on and on and on about lack of standards and how we should have standards (then says they should be voluntary because choice is what makes Linux so great--after complaining about the LACK of choices for software....hmmm...). I agree that forcng mandatory standards are of no use in Free software community, but I DISagree that there is a LACK of standards.
WE DON'T NEED yet ANOTHER standard (or MORE than one as he advocates for "business a
Put my name on MSFT stock certificates? UGH...who would want to put their name on this?
Perhaps the article submitter is confused but I think this might be a good idea. If the idea is to avoid interference by special interests then establishing a non-governmental and non-profit organisation, or perhaps something like a co-operative, would be a compelling alternative to letting the telco/big-ISP inmates run the wireless asylum with all their ideas about bandwitch-shaping their competition out of their markets and such. It would also be infinitely better than letting a municipal govenrnment, undoubtedly with a good deal of its own special interests lining its pockets, create a bungling, bureaucratic mess of the network.
So then the gist of it is that they want a wi-fi version of the FreeNet volunteer/community networks of yore. This actually was quite successful for a time, although I think if anything would be the most workable it would be the cooperative approach. It's all good to hope that philanthropy will ride to the rescue but I think that if the local businesses, computer user's groups, individual enthusiasts, etc. that funded the capital and operational expenses were also owners there would be some initiative to invest and stay involved with development--especially if the system could generate revenue and owner/customers would receive dividends...
Hmmm...sounds like a made-in-Saskatchewan approach....I wonder if they might already be doing that...
Hold on I was sure the blueray was the bigger size?
The biggest CURRENTLY AVAILABLE format is HD-DVD:
BluRay: 25GB/layer * 1 layer = 25 GB
HD-DVD: 15GB/layer * 2 layers = 30 GB
Furthermore, the video encoding scheme used by HD-DVD is more efficient--BluRay is still encoded similar to standard DVDs though in a few weeks some BluRay discs using identically encoded video as HD-DVD will start showing up. I'm not all that certain studios will spend extra money to produce excluseinve content to take advantage of the extra 5GB on HD-DVD.
One thing that isn't discussed much is that although the two formats can use identically encoded video, IIRC they have different DRM schemes and different programming methods (for interactivity/menus). The reviewer was quite disappointed with the performance of BluRay for interactivity--its responsiveness was much poorer than that of the HD-DVD release, so much so that it more than erased the benefit of faster initial start-up of Blu-ray. Combine the inferior quality of these releases with the fact that there is less selection of BluRay players, and they cost much more than HD-DVD, and the smaller number of titles than HD-DVD, and BluRay has an uphill battle on its hands to escape the fate of becomeing the Betamax of the 21st century.
Take note that BluRay has the largest POTENTIAL size. I THINK current BluRay players are dual-layer capable, but even if they are this capability isn't well tested as there is no capability to mass-produce dual-layer discs yet. That'll take another year, at which time there will be an ample 20GB extra room on BluRay vx. HD-DVD. If BluRay can hang on for another year then this could be what it needs to come out on top. More importantly studios will have to actually take advantage of the space for meaningful exclusive content, and hardware vendors will have to bring down the price of BluRay players to be much closer in price to HD-DVD. Consumers will pay a premium for the extra capacity, but only a small one, and the quality had better improve from the current offerings.
In the end though, content will win this war. Given how things are shaping up BluRay will be second fiddle for a couple of years IMO. I don't know if either format will win total domination either--in another decade it won't matter how the bits are patterned on the little shiny plastic discs, because even today the little shiny plastic disc as a distribution medium is slowly going extinct. The kind of people who have HDTV sets today are also the kind of people who have digital cable or sattelite, and digital HTDV service offers video-on-demand and/or PVR digital recording. Just as iTunes and similar services are surging as CD sales flatten out and decline, electronic distribution of video content will change the industry.
I don't blame her, I blame you. You're the techie. My mom runs XP as a limited user, and so does my wife, and so do I for day-to-day Windows tasks. No issues to report.
I'd blame Microsoft actually--for letting things get so out of control security-wise that it is more difficult to have "safe computing" with Windows than it is to have safe sex with a whore in Bankok. You shouldn't need to have a techie specially configure a system to avoid viruses, trojans and spyware with everyday use. Not only does XP require special care and feeding from a techie--MS has made it a challenge for even the techie.
Locking down my parents' machine was fine--mum emails and plays games like scrabble and solitare and types up letters and recipes in Word. Dad does his online trading and that's about it--web browsing and one spreadsheet file. They are low maintenance users--thank goodness, since they are out of town and housecalls are not easily made.
My GF is more of a challenge because she likes to do a lot more with her computer. When I locked her PC down like my parents she found the restrictions intolerable and told me to change it back. She is now a "power user" more-or-less and can install some stuff on her PC. It is a matter of education and she now knows that when in doubt to ignore it. For example, she never opens files sent through IM from ANYONE unless it is a file she specifically asked just prior. Same goes for emails. She knows about email headers and how banks and online shops do not ask for account numbers and passwords over email. It takes time to learn but it can be done. Less patient techie-types might just not bother and migrate to Linux or MacOS.
The most challenging of ALL users has to be the typical teenaged girl. You cannot blame the techie for this one. Putting a teenaged girl in front of WinXP is like throwing large quantities of gunpowder into a campfire. XP is alluring to teenaged girls--the default XP desktop even looks kile it was specifically designed for the "OMG! Ponies!" crowd. It lures them in I tell you--and they have no fear at all. Malware designers cater to these tastes and create lures that fit right into the XP trap. They even use the ActiveX warning dialogue that pops up in IE--they populate it with messages to the effect that "you need to click OK to get your comet tail cursors and super smilies and to speed up the computer and use this rilly rilly cuuuuule website 'K?". From there all hope is lost.
When I locked down my sister's PC her teenaged stepdaugter got quite upset. She was mad that I "broke the computer" and took away her purple talking gorilla and her Kazaa Lite music thingy and her MSN smilies etc. etc. The Teenage Female does NOT like to be told that her favourie stuff is crap and has no place on the computer. It was quite a challenge to get her to accept restrictions and she just didn't want to learn how to safely live without them, but it was done--she has her own iPos and uses iTunes for her music now, has contented herself with the smilies and winks offered within MSN itself and so on. It also helped that she eventually saw how much more responsive the computer was without a tonne of useless ad-crap in it.
So don't blame the techie for Microsoft's crappy engineering. Not only does being a Microsoft techie for your friends and family require technical prowess it requires patience that not all people have. I understand completely why he dumped Windows.
Simple solution.
Stop watching television. It works fine for me.
Heh. What a stupid idea. It's like saying that if you don't like the way your government works or the choice of candidates then stop voting. RIDICULOUS. That is letting the inmates run the asylum.
I rarely watch TV myself...I HAVE a TV but I tend to watch either rented DVDs or the news channels. As such I have little stake in the debate either. Thing is, there is a larger issue at stake here. By taking your apathetic stance you are giving tacit approval to the industry for its immoral behaviour. The entertainment industry is trying to create an artificial industry that relies on a contrived set of legislation so they can be lazy and keep doing business like they have for a century.
The entire entertainment industry is perverting intellectual property law. Patents and copyrights were meant to protect and promote innovation, and now they all seem to think such law is meant to protect the status quo and STOP innovation. This is ridiculous. Imagine if typewriter companies managed to make word processing software illegal, book publishers managed to make the photocopier illegal, RIAA or MPAA succeeded in outlawing the Record button on cassette or VCR decks illegal.
The whole reason the entertainment industry could work with its now-antiquated business model was becasue technology didn't exist to broadcast peer-to-peer or on-demand or across the globe, so big central distributors were essential. We first got communications sattelites, then videotape, fibre-optics, digital encoding/decoding, high-bandwidth global networks and now peer-to-peer technology, and all along they stuck to the crusty old business model and remarkably managed to get away with getting into government's pockets--and with their help they set up artificial, contrived business models and markets in order to maintain their obscene profits.
Don't you think in this day and age it is stupid to release a movie in the US first, then Canada a few days later, then the UK and Australia a few weeks later, all in theatres, then on DVD months after that in the same staggered fashion, when NOTHING technically prevents simultaneous release? (I mean they are all English speaking markets so even language isn't even a barrier!). The whole thing runs on protectionist laws, exclusivity contracts, captive markets, etc. to the point of absurdity.
That would be tolerable to a degree if it was limited to the Hollywood industry, but it isn't. Other lobbyists are seeing their success and are starting to try to emulate it. Witness unscrupulous "submarine patent" companies that are abusing patent law the way Disney abused "mickey mouse law" copyright--lobbying to extend the law to protect monopolies and abusing the system as it already exists. Now tech companies are even getting into copyright games themselves. The thought that a printer company could use DMCA COPYRIGHT law to even try to legislate a captive market for its printer consumables is absurd--if they succeeded it would be tragic.
So you can't just stop watching TV becasue, firstly, too many people couldn't bear to lead such a bland life as one without TV AND music AND movies AND professional sporting events etc. so it'll always be worth the effort for Hollywood to stifle innovation. Secondly it is false that you do not have a stake in this EVERYBODY has a stake in this because Hollywood is setting the stage to turn the economy into a bunch of coddled, corporate welfare cases without regard to the quality of life of society in general.
Another idea is to make election day a national holiday, like it is in *every* country except the US.
Gee, you didn't try very hard to confirm such a statement before spouting off did you? RIGHT NEXT DOOR, in Canada, election day is NOT a statutory holiday. Businesses are open normal hours and life is pretty much normal. This is how it works: Every eligible voter is entitled to up to THREE HOURS of paid time off to vote. So, if your hours are the same as the polling station then your boss MUST give you three hours off--with pay--to vote. If you are not paid or are otherwise disciplined for missing up to 3 hours work on voting day you can report your boss and employer to Elections Canada and both will be fined.
HOWEVER, this is only the case if the polls aren't open any time outside your normal workday. For example, if the polls close 2 hours after your normal workday then your boss only has to give you 1 hour off. If you work night shift or you weren't normally scheduled to work that day you are not entitled to any time off to vote. The vast majority of people do NOT start work on or before poll opening and finish on or after poll close anyways. Therefore to make Voting Day a holiday would not improve voter participation in any meaningful way--it would be like a bank/civic holiday--just be an excuse to stay home and drink beer.
As for the electoral college reforms--there is something to be said against a scheme that over-emphasises the overall nation-wide popular vote, and it plagues Canada to some degree (as does the first-past-the-post system but that's another matter). The thing is the President has to take into consideration the needs of all regions of the US, which is geographically large and diverse and un-evenly populated. By neutering the electoral college so that only popular vote matters you risk having the situation where only New York, California and Texas pick the president. That is what happens in Canada--you can literally count on one hand how many federal elections were not decided by Ontario and/or Quebec in the entire nation's history.
Of course, the US has a Senate that is geographically based (each state is equally represented) which could provide that balance, and the electoral college is badly-tuned as it stands now anyways so I suppose it wouldn't cause the regional tensions that Canada has had to contend with if the US president was elected by a simple vote. However, I DO believe that the US president should receive both the majority of popular vote AS WELL as win the electoral college--and the weighting given to each state should be balanced out there. However, that is probably harder to agree on and implement than this proposed solution.
They managed to make it cheap so it will be applicable in small installations, but both the sterling engine and the gas turbine (using a fluid in a closed circuit) require a temperature difference, so the machine would not be driven by heat alone.
Well, this new development solves the difficult part of the equation--it provides a low-cost way to capture that heat. The cold-side of the operation is the easy part. You are onto the solution already:
Power stations using closed fluid circuits (e.g. nuclear plants) use a secondary circuit to cool the first one after the steam passed the turbine. They are usually located near rivers for this.
Well, any residence, office or industrial space with electrical service would have water service as well. This water is brought in through underground pipes and is significantly cooler than the ambient temperature in the summer. This serves a dual purpose too--even in the summer we need hot water so after the vapour in the generation circuit releases its heat energy to the water in the cooling circuit the heated water can actually be used.
Of course, this isn't a total solution to our power needs for the most part, unless you live close enough tho the equator that it is always warmer outside than the temperature of the water brought in. Of course, up here in Canada half the time the situation is reversed--it is below freezing outside and the cold water coming in is warmer, so you could use a heat pump of sorts in reverse fashion. However, the technology described here wouldn't work passively in the winter becasue you couldn't boil even this low-boiling-temperature when it is 20 below freezing. Perhaps natural gas would work and still be quite efficient (cheaper than heating your water anyways).
I think this sort of research is exactly what we need to solve our energy consumption and environmental problems. Right now, there is way too much focus on a few huge projects to solve a few huge problems. Witness the ineffectiveness of Kyoto--yes most of the signatory nations will meet their targets but at what cost? France is permamently addicted to nuclear power generation, Germany didn't even have to try because their 1990 target included dirty, antiquated, cold-war-era east-german industry that needed to be modernised anyways. Russia has not been consistent in its commitment and also has a low hurdle to jump given that it had a period of economic contraction starting around 1990. Canada signed on then did nothing at all--its GHG emmissions increased at a rate twice that of the US--a country that didn't even ratify the accord. China, India and pretty much all of Africa are exempt and are massive polluters. So what was gained out of all the time and expense and bureaucracy? Absolutely nothing--and Kyoto only addressed one single environmental issue--greenhouse gasses. In the meantime there are polluted and improperly dammed waterways, acid rain, an ozone hole, asthma-causing smog, oil-dependency, etc. that have not been adequately addressed.
Instead of dismissing these small innovations they should be embraced. Whether it is solar energy, thermal-collector-powered heat engines or fuel-cells or whatever, being able to equip houses and other buildings with "personal power generators" would have a profound positive impact on the electrical grid and power consumption. Right now the grid is like the early internet--a huge network of unreliable connections with content (electricity) delivered from a small number of large, centralised nodes. Personal generators would make it like the internet--a large, unreliable network but with an equally large number of smaller nodes providing power. This would make the grid hugely more reliable. In the event of a network/grid failure a node/generator could still provide a certain level of content/power to its local network/building electrical system. In the event of a node/generator failure, the network/grid could provide content/power to the LAN/building. Also, less overall power would
...but don't feel bad, so do most people on this forum
_ Standard
It' looks like it only applies to package formats. Am I wrong?
Yes, you are almost completely wrong. LSB applies to much more than package file formatting. LSB distributions have a common set of libraries and such, so that every single LSB package has the exact same set of dependencies--those defined by the spec. There is even a package NAMING convention that must be followed to ensure there are no package naming conflicts.
I would really love to see this implemented by everyone!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy
Then you'd really love to see LEB implemeted by everyone too, becasue the FHS is one aspect of the LSB.
I think the rationale behind "re-engineering for export" in Japan is more complex than the view that foreigners are "too damn stupid". In fact, such a view is quite insulting, and if anyone other than Americans were protrayed in the same light you'd likely be moderated into oblivion for making discriminatory, inflammatory remarks.
The Sharp Zaurus was pulled from US markets because it's too "hard" for americans. Yet the Zaurus is a raging success in Japan and they are on their 6th version that blows anything you can buy in the states out of the water.
NO, the reason it was pulled from the US market was becasue it wasn't making the company money. It wasn't as much to do with being too hard to use as much as it was the fact that the whole software platform was re-engineered and to translate it from Japanese to English would be a costly task. Since the older platform was a slow seller (a poorly marketed also-ran to Palm) Sharp decided to not bother. Being a fairly open platform others have taken up the task but it is a chicken-and-egg thing--Sharp won't officially re-enter the US market because there is no demand, but there is no US demand because the 3rd-party translation is not polished and they are grey-market imports with no support from Sharp.
From Cellphones to everything else. It is all "dumbed down" for Us consumption.
It isn't "dumbed down"...it is altered. It all HAS to be altered because we speak different languages--radically different languages--different vocabulary, different grammer, different writing--so different that it even affects how well a UI design works. Plus, features might be changed or removed becasue the technology infrastructure isn't here (pointless to pack a bunch of functions into a cellphone that aren't supported by any of the networks don't you think?).
Why do they do this? Because the average US consumer IS too damned stupid. Give them a DVD recorder remote with 52 buttons and a LCD status screen and they freak out. Give them full control menus on their TV for adjustment and they freak out. How many people went through the 80's with a blinking 12:00 clock on the VCR because it was "too hard to set"?
You are confusing stupid with "lazy" (in a good, Larry Wall sense). The US is a different culture than Japan--US likes BIG or POWERFUL. They'd rather not waste their time and brain power on something as trivial as a DVD player. 52 button remote with LCD? WHAT THE HELL FOR? We want tape player-like buttons, cursor keys and a numeric keypad and little else more--24 buttons or so and no more. Plus, DVDs have menus and on-screeen displays--the LCD is just a stupid idea--an LED or two is fine. Full control menus on a TV? Only geeks change the tint, contrast, brightness etc etc etc more than a few times in the life of a TV set nowadays anyways.
The reason we freak is NOT becasue it is too hard for us to figure out--it is becasue it isn't WORTH figuring out--it is too hard FOR THE INTENDED FUNCTION. Same goes for prograaming the VCR--it isn't the user that is retarded...it is the DESIGNER, and they never learned--it was always 2 or 3 menu levels deep to the right functions and tedious to do, and people have clocks all over and 6 or 8 hour tapes so they just didn't bother--they let it blink 12:00 and just pressed record before they left and hunted the tape later because it wasn't wasting brain power.
Japanese mindset is different...they like technology and features and miniature stuff and are way more tolerant of poor design. In essence, they are geekier than us. In my experience with a lot of Japanese-only products is that they are very advanced technically and mostly of good build quality but "quirky" to put it politely. Typically they are bleeding edge products that are designed around the underlying technology rather than the function or the user. Or, they suffer from a design tailored to smaller hands, or the Japanese language or the different cultural preferences. These quirks baffle us not because we
Because it's always better to start doing something before you finish understanding everything, than waiting till the end when you can make changes based on an accurate understanding of the entire process.
Translation: Responsive, strategic action is always better than "Analysis Paralysis".
"Waiting until the end when you can make changes based on accurate understanding of the entire process" can be risky, becasue while you are busy navel-gazing the competition is actually DOING something. Also, the process is never completely static, and if you sit and analyse for too long your previous analyses become obsolete.
Oftentimes the best time to "start doing something" is when you have ENOUGH information--not ALL the information. If that wasn't the case then Agile software development wouldn't be so popular, for example. Although it is unwise to make rash decisions, Intel cannot afford to muck around analysing the entire corporate structure in detail before taking any action--it has already moved from monopolist to threatened market leader and if it keeps drifting it'll be a has-been also-ran.
You mean a subscription service like Software Assurance?
Only very vaguely like that--it would be SA with delivery through Windows Update and available to everyone--not just corporations.
Somehow I don't think corporations are going to fall for that line of thinking again
Of course they won't, but that is becasue Microsoft is all screwed up with SA. Remember what I said about Microsoft wanting "ultimate control of the User Experience"? That is what SA is about. SA is a failure because MS wants to get protection money from its customers and then turns around and demands that you'll be getting the next release, by this time, ready or not. If MS goes for consumer-level subscription service I suspect they'd screw that up too in the same way. Subscription service MUST be flexible and allow users to continue using the products after they end their subscription with at least the modicum of support they provide with their off-the-shelf stuff today in order for ANY customer to buy in (corporate or home).
How many home users want to pay an annual cost to keep using their machine's software?
Actually I think a large fraction, if not a majority, of end users would be willing to pay an annual fee to maintain their computers. It would certainly be easier for budgeting purposes. Keep in mind that this forum is not an audience of normal, casual PC users. Computers today are like televisions were in their early days (1940s to 1960s). When a "normal" PC user has any problem with a PC (even if it is solely a software issue) it very often ends up being sent back to the shop to get fixed, or they try to get a "house call" from a company like "Nerds on Site" or "Geek Patrol". These experts spend a few hours and charge sometimes even a couple hundred dollars to fix the problem.
I think for such users a properly executed subscription service would bring peace of mind. They'd know exactly how much it will cost to take care of their PC, and they'd know that there is an expert resource making sure all the software is up to date and working right.
Subscriptions also incur a negative feeling because you have to keep paying and paying and paying. Rather then paying once and then not having to worry about shelling out any more funds until you choose to upgrade.
The reason "software services" haven't been embraced is because they have NEVER been executed properly. It starts with the software itself being crappy and so many patches coming out month after month and the emphasis there is on defects. I think critical updates are "warranty issues" and it shouldn't be implied that the updates themselves are part of the offering. Second, when they have been offered it has been marketed as SUBSCRIPTION. The reason people feel ripped off is becasue when they stop paying they can no longer use the software. It's the whole "product focus" thing getting in the way--selling the bits and bytes themselves. This isn't a product--it is a SERVICE. They shouldn't be selling new EXEs or virus definition files or application updates. It should be about CUSTOMER SERVICE: The customer is paying to have updates and new applications installed properly, help with configuration, on-line help and such. The product focus is making it look like a rip-off because the user thinks "I already paid for this *thing* and they are now telling me I must pay AGAIN or they'll take my *thing* away?"
People WILL pay "over and over" if they believe they are getting value for the money and not shafted. After all, people lease cars--they pay and pay and never even get title to the car unless they pay a bunch more at the end of the term. They accept it becasue there isn't a big hit to the pocketbook at any one time, and that in exchange for meeting some usage conditions they have a predictable, well-defined service regime to keep everything in working order. People rent their homes too--pay and pay and never get to own. What exactly makes it impossible for a software maintenance service to gain similar acceptability? Like the above options it wouldn't be for everyone, but as long as it isn't mandatory and things are flexible enough it could work well.
...development methodologies, and perhaps even business models.
;-) but it costs MS money rather than making it money. Even when rolled into larger releases (service packs) marketing needs a product with a large jump in functionality/performance for customers to justify purchasing an upgrade.
;-). I don't think MS would open the source code to their big money maker though. They've got to go with something more Agile-like in their development approach though, and big, shrink-wrapped, widely-deployed releases run counter to that. So MS has to eliminate their reliance on that outmoded form of deployment. That means they have to wean themselves off the practise of selling boxes with little shiny plastic discs in them to make their money. Microsoft is going to have to get SERIOUS about moving to a subscription model, electronic distribution and a more modular product. They'll also have to accelerate their release schedule to something like yearly, and set upgrade pricing accordingly (so that you pay more if you skipped 5 years but something like $20 per year).
He continues: It is not our fault, the beta testers keep causing problems, which we then have to fix.
Well, the beta testers FIND problems, which I suppose causes problems for BillG. In any case I suspect that the development methodologies used by the Windows team have not scaled sufficiently to handle a project as large as Windows Vista. They appear to be trying to move towards an Agile-like approach, which explains the difficulty in pinning down a release date as well as the dynamic nature of the list of new features. I find that both feature sets and completion dates are pretty much impossible to put in place for large projects that are moving from a traditional approach to development/management towards agile methods.
Problem is, Microsoft's main revenue stream is from two very large, closed-source, commercial, shrink-wrapped, widely-deployed products (Windows and Office). Such projects by their very nature do not fit well with Agile development methods. Agile can handle large, closed-source and commercial projects with the right considerations. However, shrink-wrapped and widely-deployed run quite counter to how Agile is supposed to work.
Agile is "release early and release often", and Windows is huge, infrequent releases from a revenue generating standpoint. Releasing early and often does happen (it's called "Patch Tuesday"
Agile is also about big-time end-user involvement. Shrink-wrapped, widely-deployed Windows is about end-user ISOLATION. MS will give you the big picture of what's new in Vista, but won't let you test drive it unless you have special "beta tester" status--and beta testers are not typical end-users. If you are merely a normal Windows user any meaningful requests for changes in functionality are deferred to the next release; after all, if it is a feature worth adding, changing or removing then it adds to the worth of the next upgrade.
So what should MS do about Windows? Perhaps it would help if the beta testers that "keep causing problems" had access to source code, so that even if only a fraction of them had the technical ability they could submit fixes themselves
I think it'd be best if Vista had a "windows update on steroids", so that not only could you get hotfixes or service packs but you could also electronically purchase and install an upgrade to the next version of Windows whenever you wanted. I don't think this will happen though because MS wants to have ultimate control over the "user experience". MS will move to a subscription service I suspect, but it'll involve MS making all the decisions about what is and isn't installed/upgraded/activated on your computer. Content with MS Office 15? Tough luck--Office 16 is out and you're getting it--and if you cancel your subscription your copy of Office 15 will be deactivated.
It might take awhile, but I think Microsoft's very closed model of doing business (including but not limited to actual software development) is becoming obsolete and they'll either die sticking to it or they'll hit a wall and radically change.
Seriously, my PIII laptop has 'Designed for Windows 98' on it, and can run Windows 2000 and Windows XP just fine
Seriously, I have an old 500MHz Celeron of the same vintage, and can run a Linux-based desktop OS just fine. It'll even run GNOME, though there are snappier desktops available for such machines.
Linux distros are too bloaty to even install: the Ubuntu and Fedora installers literally hang, and SUSE and Mandriva are too slow even on my other machine in the +2GHz range.
Absolute crap. My primary machine is a 900 MHz Athlon Thunderbird with 384MB of RAM. It is running SuSE OpenLinux 10 with a GNOME desktop right now. The installer never hung on me, and it performs better than it did when it was running Windows. If you have a 2GHz machine and you are experiencing that kind of slowness or lockups I'd seriously look at the possibility that there are hardware or driver or configuration problems. Both Linux and Windows machines can be greatly affected by such issues. A single bad DLL made my XP machine at work blue screen on a daily basis, and fixing a bad update pushed to the same computer by the IT dept ingreased boot-up time by 400 percent. Oops--sorry, XP never blue screens anymore...because Microsoft changed the colour of the stop error screen to black.
And with KDE/GNOME being so indispensable for everyday desktop usage, their near-elitist disregard for anything below mid-high range hardware is infuriating.
KDE and GNOME firstly are not THAT bloated that they cannot run on a pre-winXP machine. Second, they are NOT indispensible. Yes, Qt and GTK libraries are required for many linux GUI apps but by no means to they require a full-blown, full-featured KDE or GNOME environment. Yopu are spouting crap because I've NEVER owned a high-end machine and I've NEVER had problems putting together a useful Linux desktop--even the first Linux desktop I built in 1996 was useful if a bit crude (then again so was Windows 3.1).
In fact, here is the quote ZDNet is using to support their claim[...]
How does that statement support your contention that Linux requires high-end hardware at all? It in fact supports the contention that Linux has been a serious threat to Microsoft with the "late adopter" crowd. Nothing is mentioned in the article about that having changed. The limiting factor is still probably application support--MS office is easily replaced but there are probably specialised apps (educational software, games, etc) that are less easily replaced.
Having said that, I do agree that Microsoft dropping support of MSDOS-based OSes for good will have little effect on Linux desktop adoption. If someone is still running Windows 98 or (God forbid) Me then that person probably doesn't care at all about whether MS will answer their supoport calls--they probly haven't contacted MS for years (if ever). They probably haven't got all the updates either becasue they're on a cruddy dialup connection, and if they're too cheap or broke to have not upgraded for this long won't run out to get XP (especially since so many would need a new computer). Those who would switch to Linux in response to Win9x/Me becoming abandonware today were probably already quite interested and this development will merely make them try switching sooner.
An interesing thing that was't mentioned, however, is that Microsoft is also making XP SP1 abandonware soon! MS is pushing everyone to get SP2--fine if you have broadand but a royal pain if you are a dialup customer or an enterprise that has been blocking SP2 because of compatibility issues. My employer still blocks SP2 in automatic updates and is waiting to do a controlled roll-out that includes its own patches for other applications affected by SP2.
I think this big push for SP2, plus MS pushing to put WGA spyware on every XP machine and the quantum leap in hardware requirements for Vista will have a much larger positive effect on Linux desktop adoption. Even if Linux distros can get bloated with be
The great thing about core memory was its tolerance to water.
Core memory is also immune to electromagnetic radiation--and EMP would wipe out conventional memory but ferrite cre memories would retain their data. IIRC spacecraft make use of core memory in certain applications to this day for that reason.
Core memory is nasty in some ways too--besides being bulky and a bit slow and reads being destructive operations they were temperature sensitive--the current required to flip bits varies with temperature. If you used core memory in an environment where temperature varied too greatly you'd have to include a feedback loop with a thermistor to control the current level used to drive the address lines. I'm kinda like Woz...all that messy analogue stuff makes my brain ache and I like to avoid it. I'm glad that new magnetic memories don't require this sort of messy stuff.
MRAM is in some ways a modern take on 1960's era "Core Memory" technology. There are similarities between both, however core memory was not semiconductor-based--it was a plane of copper wires woven together with little ferrite rings strung on where wires intersected. As such is is pretty low density: 16 Kbit of core memory took up 250 cm^2 of area. With MRAM the method of operation is the same and it also involves reversing polarity of magnetic fields. However there are no ferrite cores; MRAM consists of a sandwich of conductor grids around memory cells. Like with core memory an entire row of a grid can be written to in one operation--you charge one "row" line on the write grid and all the columns you want to flip and they all change at once.
Reading MRAM is simpler than core memory becasue core memory had no read operation--it had "flip to zero" and "flip to one" and a "sense" line--the sense line would emit a pulse if a core element changed state. To read core memory, you had to do a "flip to zero" and watch the sense line--if it pulsed then a one was in the cell and you had to do a "flip to one" to restore it. If there was no pulse then it was already zero. With MRAM reading simply involves measuring the resistance of the insulating layer of a memory cell (the insulating material has the property where resistance increases as the magnetic field passing through it increases). IIRC there is nothing preventing parallel reads either. MRAMs are also much denser--megabits can fit in 0.25 cm^2
The "MRAM hard drive" thing may be hyperbole right now, but it looks like development of MRAM rechnology is significantly outpacing Moores Law. MRAM is also potentially as fast as SRAM and as dense as SDRAM--without the need for refresh circuitry so designs can be greatly simplified. Further downsizing could make it a good flash replacement. The biggest hurdle could be reduction...