> I used to go ice fishing as a kid. We'd just throw the fish on the snow. They'd freeze solid. At home we'd toss them in water and they all came back do life, only to die minutes later. Clearly the article is about something quite different, but I'm not stunned.
A few years ago there was a news story about a kid who got lost in a blizzard. When they found her(?) she was "stiff as cordwood" and had a heart rate of 4 beats/minute. But they thawed her out OK.
> This new governmental policy of letting the corporations dictate public policy has just got to stop. America is being overrun by special interest politics, and with so many politicians with their hands in the cookie jar, the MPAA and related organizations essentially have a free hand in drafting legislation, policy notes, you name it.
On a related topic, though less geek-oriented, 60 Minutes had a nice segment last night about how the pharmaceuticals buy off Congress to keep USAians paying twice as much for drugs as any other industrial nation does, even when the drugs roll out of the same outsourced factory.
> I'll start worrying when I see entire OS's and their requisite device drivers written completely in a bytecode language.
I don't suppose you'll like my idea for a metalanguage, which can be interpreted at run time into the bytecode language of your favorite bytecode interpreter?
I am a MUFON field investigator. I happen to know that "stargate" technology is real, and our government has been using it to travel to other planets since the mid-70's.
The reason it isn't being addressed is because those in power already have a means of escape - the stargate.
No, this isn't an attempt to be funny or some unfounded conspiracy theory. This is real.
I am withholding my name and posting anonymously for obvious reasons. I would suggest that anyone who responds do the same.
I see that you're spilling the story we 'leaked' to the janitors.
> The most disturbing message from the conference? 'It may take a celestial body hit to Earth' before governments take any meaningful steps to address this danger.
Just like every other problem?
And even then, it isn't so much likely to be "meaningful" as to be "just enough to convince the public we're doing something about it".
> For quite a while Microsoft (and probably plenty of other software companies) has been donating software to schools and taking a tax write-off for the full retail cost. Not only is the first one free but it's apparently a tax benefit for MS.
I wonder whether we could come up with a model for OSS development based on that scam^w scheme.
Donate your code, give yourself a tax writeoff, kind of thing.
No, but they've become a very inertial company, dancing to the tune of a very pig-headed man whose only real interests are PR and cash flow.
If MS was as flexible as everyone likes to say they are, they would have "turned on a dime" five years ago and beat Linux at the security and stability game just as it started catching attention, rather than laughing it off for years and being forced fight a rearguard action now that it has become respectable.
A rearguard action that's still mostly spin control, at that.
> That's exactly what Microsoft has been doing for some time now. We're 2.5 years out from the release of Windows XP; in this time there's been a fairly significant update to Windows Media Player, Movie Maker, and Messenger, and umm... that's it for features, folks! Pretty much everything else MS has released as updates to XP in that timeframe directly addresses security and stability.
I'm on a project this year that has me using Windows for the first time since my Windows95 days, and as for stability all I can say is What the f**k has Microsoft been doing for the past nine years???. I use pre-1.0 versions of free software that are more reliable than Microsoft's version 7 products.
As for XP itself, in the past two months there have been three times I've had to pull the plug on a system that was hung in such a screwball state that it wouldn't even shut down cleanly.
These people aren't interested in stable products; they're interested in maintaining their cash flow.
> Problem is, Asia is already more in love with Linux than nearly anywhere else on the planet, and that may be Linux' ultimate success... and MSFT's ultimate source of destruction.
Yeah, I think I remember that Nostradamus had a quatrain about that.
> The logo is cartoonish and childish. [...] It says the software is built by a bunch of amateurs who think a fat, funny penguin is an appropriate logo
I wonder if we could license the use of an image of a penguin from the end of a certain Futurama episode.
Out with the cute and cuddly, in with the tux-wearing gun-toting badass!
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> Can I still hate Microsoft, regardless?
Yes, in more languages than ever before.
> My comment can be read two different ways. The fish died because we killed them. I have no idea how long they would survive if we left them alone.
Kill them once, shame on you; kill them twice, shame on them.
> I used to go ice fishing as a kid. We'd just throw the fish on the snow. They'd freeze solid. At home we'd toss them in water and they all came back do life, only to die minutes later. Clearly the article is about something quite different, but I'm not stunned.
A few years ago there was a news story about a kid who got lost in a blizzard. When they found her(?) she was "stiff as cordwood" and had a heart rate of 4 beats/minute. But they thawed her out OK.
How can we trust the words of someone who isn't wearing a tinfoil hat?
> it was either drafted or reviewed by a senior vice president of the Motion Picture Association of America.
And I'm so glad the MPAA is there to review what an AG is going to say before he goes public with it.
> This new governmental policy of letting the corporations dictate public policy has just got to stop. America is being overrun by special interest politics, and with so many politicians with their hands in the cookie jar, the MPAA and related organizations essentially have a free hand in drafting legislation, policy notes, you name it.
On a related topic, though less geek-oriented, 60 Minutes had a nice segment last night about how the pharmaceuticals buy off Congress to keep USAians paying twice as much for drugs as any other industrial nation does, even when the drugs roll out of the same outsourced factory.
> As a Christian, I won't write anything in C (obviously) [...] and do you think that these systems are going to be ported to Java or BASH?
As a Christian, you should clearly support J4V4 in all things.
> I'll start worrying when I see entire OS's and their requisite device drivers written completely in a bytecode language.
I don't suppose you'll like my idea for a metalanguage, which can be interpreted at run time into the bytecode language of your favorite bytecode interpreter?
> It is a little short sighted to say that C is indestructable; its variants will (and have) come, but eventually it will be phased out.
Old languages don't die; they just fade away. Surely there's still some Algol 68 running out there somewhere?
I suspect we should be discussing the half-lives of languages rather than their lifetimes.
> With Bruce Willis getting older and Ben Affleck not as tough as he used to be, its good that we're researching out other options. Yuck. Yuck.
Don't forget Sean Connery.
> The most disturbing message from the conference? 'It may take a celestial body hit to Earth' before governments take any meaningful steps to address this danger.
Just like every other problem?
And even then, it isn't so much likely to be "meaningful" as to be "just enough to convince the public we're doing something about it".
I'm an Ada programmer; I'm the last person they'll want!
>
Maybe he's just trying to get us to join the Air National Guard.
...your generation found television boring!
> What exactly does "reduce the brain's vulnerability toxic insults." mean?
Most insults merely 'sting', but the really good ones are 'toxic'.
If your brain has reduced vulnerability to such insults, you can post to internet forums without getting your feelings hurt.
...to just let the schoolkiddies watch a Jacky Chan movie?
> For quite a while Microsoft (and probably plenty of other software companies) has been donating software to schools and taking a tax write-off for the full retail cost. Not only is the first one free but it's apparently a tax benefit for MS.
I wonder whether we could come up with a model for OSS development based on that scam^w scheme.
Donate your code, give yourself a tax writeoff, kind of thing.
> but can they stop AOL cds as well? stemming that tide is well-nigh impossible.
They're secretly working on a weapon that shoots them. Save money on ammunition, kind of thing.
Might even be able to get AOL to mail them to the battle zone at their own expense.
> Where's
In Wales you'd need a
> Microsoft seems to assume that their upgrades will always meet these requirements.
But they're quite assured that the system will meet their requirements.
> Microsoft is not a stupid company, by any means
No, but they've become a very inertial company, dancing to the tune of a very pig-headed man whose only real interests are PR and cash flow.
If MS was as flexible as everyone likes to say they are, they would have "turned on a dime" five years ago and beat Linux at the security and stability game just as it started catching attention, rather than laughing it off for years and being forced fight a rearguard action now that it has become respectable.
A rearguard action that's still mostly spin control, at that.
> That's exactly what Microsoft has been doing for some time now. We're 2.5 years out from the release of Windows XP; in this time there's been a fairly significant update to Windows Media Player, Movie Maker, and Messenger, and umm... that's it for features, folks! Pretty much everything else MS has released as updates to XP in that timeframe directly addresses security and stability.
I'm on a project this year that has me using Windows for the first time since my Windows95 days, and as for stability all I can say is What the f**k has Microsoft been doing for the past nine years???. I use pre-1.0 versions of free software that are more reliable than Microsoft's version 7 products.
As for XP itself, in the past two months there have been three times I've had to pull the plug on a system that was hung in such a screwball state that it wouldn't even shut down cleanly.
These people aren't interested in stable products; they're interested in maintaining their cash flow.
> Problem is, Asia is already more in love with Linux than nearly anywhere else on the planet, and that may be Linux' ultimate success... and MSFT's ultimate source of destruction.
Yeah, I think I remember that Nostradamus had a quatrain about that.
> The logo is cartoonish and childish. [...] It says the software is built by a bunch of amateurs who think a fat, funny penguin is an appropriate logo
I wonder if we could license the use of an image of a penguin from the end of a certain Futurama episode.
Out with the cute and cuddly, in with the tux-wearing gun-toting badass!