I don't find it very encouraging that the government doesn't promise to read anything we have to say anymore. Isn't it their job to listen to what the public has to say to make informed decisions for the good of the country?
Of course they should. There's no question the leaders of a country several hundred million strong should take the time to personally review every emailed opinion, petition, threat, newsletter and spamvertisement that arrives in the president's emailbox daily. It's their moral obligation, and it's specifically written into the Constitution that they ought to do so.
Of course, such a process would mean that either (a) our tax dollars would need to provide a few million dollars a year just to employ people to read and sort those emails before they reach the president himself, or (b) said president and his staff would never get anything else done. This being the case, it's far better that (c) a few web-based forms be employed to sort the emails first and reduce the amount of automail (petitions, repeat submissions, and spam) that can get through.
The government never promised to read anything you had to say. They do it because it helps them understand their constituents' wants and needs, but they never promised it. And now that technology becomes so widespread that email actually slows that process down instead of speeding it up, there's good reason to add a layer of complexity and shift some of the burden of communication back on the citizens.
I never understood why spacecraft need wings if they are operating outside an atmosphere.
If you look at the ships, the wings are clearly not intended for aerodynamics. Their main purpose is to carry guns, and expanding the X-wings turns two gun turrets into four.
But they look like wings, and they're shaped like wings, so you may as well call them wings.
So if I want to share my own copyrighted works free of charge, would that make me a felon, or just anyone who downloads them and makes them available to others?
Downloading isn't a felony under this bill, just knowingly uploading.
Freenet: Automatic encryption, total privacy. Ideal for sharing the kind of data that would get you fired, disowned, divorced and/or arrested in real life.
WWW: Ideal for everything else.
That's the difference, really, and the reason why Freenet will never approach the Web in popularity -- without popularity, no content; without content, no point.
Since the page in question doesn't really come to a tidy conclusion, this is what I extracted from his "pretty data":
* Around 1991, the overall number of copyright registrations plummeted compared to what the data would predict. * The number of musical compositions experienced a similar plunge, implying that fewer musical compositions led to fewer copyright registrations. * During those years, the RIAA continued to ship certain CDs in proportion to their price, in keeping with the law of supply and demand. * Probable conclusion: The RIAA's current financial woes are due to nothing more than an abrupt reduction in the number of recordings released.
Looks like AOL is trying to untie itself from Netscape and Mozilla as much as possible. By establishing and funding the Foundation, they continue to make the browser possible without tying themselves to it. The seeming hypocrisy of AOL using the IE browser (so they can stay on the Windows desktop) while developing Mozilla is now resolved.
Saddening, but understandable from a business perspective. Hopefully every one of those coders will be rehired by the Foundation so they can continue to do what they do best, with or without AOL's direct support.
Though Microsoft underbid IBM and SuSE by $11.9 million in Munich, city officials were concerned about the unpredictable long-run cost of Microsoft upgrades
Munich chose to spend a little more money now to save a LOT of money down the road. This was a big decision, and may have political ramifications in the short-term, but no doubt it was a wise one. Microsoft's strategy is to push an upgrade after X number of years by cancelling support for older products. With Linux, the city can upgrade what they need to, when they need to.
Though Microsoft underbid IBM and SuSE by $11.9 million in Munich, city officials were concerned about the unpredictable long-run cost of Microsoft upgrades
The city paid MUCH more money to IBM/SuSE because they didn't want to be locked into Microsoft's refusal to support/insistence on upgrading their software after X number of years. Linux let them upgrade when they wanted to, and not before. It was a long-term financial decision which, I'm certain, IBM and SuSE emphasized heavily in order to score a win.
Big, big news to other cities and corporations out there. A Microsoft contract is a dangerous thing when money is/will be tight. You can save a lot of money down the road if you make the switch today.
The plus side is that certain IT skills are difficult or impossible to move overseas. For instance, the ability to build a network, hardware and sofware, is something that must physically be done in the office. Sysadmins will always be needed in some capacity, since servers (or mainframes) for many businesses, especially large ones with secure data, are on-site and must be maintained there. Tech support by phone can often be outsourced, but tech support for a corporation's employees requires someone who can physically reach the machine.
It's mainly coders that are relocatable and are therefore at risk. The best thing one can do, then, is keep learning and move up to one of those non-outsourcable positions. I myself have given a lot of thought to taking university courses in database administration -- this story was just about the last piece of motivation I needed.
I think it's great that they are moving it beyond being an Outlook-alike.
Agreed. IANALU (Linux User), but one of my biggest complaints about Linux software in general has been its inevitable tendency to imitate Microsoft's graphical interface first, and Apple's second. Anytime a project like Evolution or Mozilla is able to break rank and develop its own interface, it's a Good Thing, because it proves the software is mature enough to improve on someone else's interface design.
Actually, most fundamentalist Christians who are informed about such things will say that it's only macroevolution which they disbelieve. Which, I suppose, means you have to execute it using a mouse click instead of a keyboard shortcut.
Sure it might be warranted on all the poorly designed web pages, but when you arrive at one that is well designed, you know exactly where to go.
And if someone could just develop a web browser that converted poorly designed web pages to well-designed ones instead, I'm sure we'd all download it in a New York minute.
The "popout prism" itself is a kind of sidebar which displays the entire unscrolled page in thumbnail form, with a box highlighting the area you're currently looking at. If you use thumbnails in Adobe (Acrobat) Reader or the navigation panel in Photoshop, you've seen the same sort of thing.
In addition, it lets you type in keywords above the thumbnail and highlight those words in the thumbnail for you to navigate to quickly. That's what makes the popout useful for pages that contain more words than images.
Dr Kanazawa suggests "a single psychological mechanism" is responsible for this: the competitive edge among young men to fight for glory and gain the attention of women.
With all due respect to the good doctor, I don't think many scientific researchers work hard at what they do because they think having articles published in a leading journal impresses the chicks or earns them enough money to fortify a child's college fund.
It did not take long to come up with a glaring exception: a man recognized as one of the top few composers of all time...but not a scientist, which is the entire focus of the research.
It claims at one point: "Two-thirds (of all scientists) will have made their most significant contributions before their mid-30s." And then right after it: "Within five years of making their nuptial vows, nearly a quarter of married scientists had made their last significant contribution to history's hall of fame."
Then surely since most male scientists get married in their twenties, this will be true regardless? The "within five years" statement would be only interesting if most male scientists got married well before the age of thirty.
If development for it is exactly the same as the PC, why develop games for this console?
It's called "economics". PC users pay $1000-$2000 (depending on the game requirements) for a machine that can play one $40 purchased game, and the Phantom marketers are betting you'd rather pay $400 for the machine and $10/month for all the games (well, and ads) you can eat.
Does anyone really think Microsoft will sit still while some upstart to beats down the XBox?
XBox uses purchased games with added online features. It's not subscription-based gaming, just subscription-based multiplayer. They're in the same market as the Sony PS2, not the Phantom.
The Blood Gulch Chronicles are a (IMO) very funny series of movies made entirely from in-game footage from Halo with the audio dubbed over. (As a bonus, BitTorrent links are available from the web site for recent episodes.) This is the first I've heard of Machinima, but it sounds like a similar approach using a different genre.
It's a lot less effort to sic the lawyers on people than actually PATCH the vulnerability. Security through obscurity (and fear)
It's even more damning because Adobe just recently upgraded their PDF Reader software from version 5 to version 6, yet have failed to patch this particular problem. You'd think that somewhere among all the features (?) added between two major releases they'd have found time for this.
Look at NetFlix. Nobody (including them) could make a go of online rentals, until they came up with a new method.
What "new method"? They charge a monthly subscription and let you keep a limited number of movies indefinitely, instead of a per-movie fee and letting you keep an indefinite number of movies for a limited time. Subscriptions are hardly novel or patent-worthy.
If NetFlix wants to remain in the lead, it should do so by (a) pushing its first-mover advantage and name recognition, (b) providing superior selection and customer service, and (c) keeping their website fast, responsive and easy to use. This is how businesses have remained ahead of their imitators for decades, and there's no reason it should fail now. The patent is essentially NetFlix saying, "We got here first, so no one else should be able to copy us." Hogwash.
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I don't find it very encouraging that the government doesn't promise to read anything we have to say anymore. Isn't it their job to listen to what the public has to say to make informed decisions for the good of the country?
Of course they should. There's no question the leaders of a country several hundred million strong should take the time to personally review every emailed opinion, petition, threat, newsletter and spamvertisement that arrives in the president's emailbox daily. It's their moral obligation, and it's specifically written into the Constitution that they ought to do so.
Of course, such a process would mean that either (a) our tax dollars would need to provide a few million dollars a year just to employ people to read and sort those emails before they reach the president himself, or (b) said president and his staff would never get anything else done. This being the case, it's far better that (c) a few web-based forms be employed to sort the emails first and reduce the amount of automail (petitions, repeat submissions, and spam) that can get through.
The government never promised to read anything you had to say. They do it because it helps them understand their constituents' wants and needs, but they never promised it. And now that technology becomes so widespread that email actually slows that process down instead of speeding it up, there's good reason to add a layer of complexity and shift some of the burden of communication back on the citizens.
I never understood why spacecraft need wings if they are operating outside an atmosphere.
If you look at the ships, the wings are clearly not intended for aerodynamics. Their main purpose is to carry guns, and expanding the X-wings turns two gun turrets into four.
But they look like wings, and they're shaped like wings, so you may as well call them wings.
So if I want to share my own copyrighted works free of charge, would that make me a felon, or just anyone who downloads them and makes them available to others?
Downloading isn't a felony under this bill, just knowingly uploading.
Freenet: Automatic encryption, total privacy. Ideal for sharing the kind of data that would get you fired, disowned, divorced and/or arrested in real life.
WWW: Ideal for everything else.
That's the difference, really, and the reason why Freenet will never approach the Web in popularity -- without popularity, no content; without content, no point.
Since the page in question doesn't really come to a tidy conclusion, this is what I extracted from his "pretty data":
* Around 1991, the overall number of copyright registrations plummeted compared to what the data would predict.
* The number of musical compositions experienced a similar plunge, implying that fewer musical compositions led to fewer copyright registrations.
* During those years, the RIAA continued to ship certain CDs in proportion to their price, in keeping with the law of supply and demand.
* Probable conclusion: The RIAA's current financial woes are due to nothing more than an abrupt reduction in the number of recordings released.
Of course, IANAS. Did I miss anything?
Looks like AOL is trying to untie itself from Netscape and Mozilla as much as possible. By establishing and funding the Foundation, they continue to make the browser possible without tying themselves to it. The seeming hypocrisy of AOL using the IE browser (so they can stay on the Windows desktop) while developing Mozilla is now resolved.
Saddening, but understandable from a business perspective. Hopefully every one of those coders will be rehired by the Foundation so they can continue to do what they do best, with or without AOL's direct support.
Though Microsoft underbid IBM and SuSE by $11.9 million in Munich, city officials were concerned about the unpredictable long-run cost of Microsoft upgrades
Munich chose to spend a little more money now to save a LOT of money down the road. This was a big decision, and may have political ramifications in the short-term, but no doubt it was a wise one. Microsoft's strategy is to push an upgrade after X number of years by cancelling support for older products. With Linux, the city can upgrade what they need to, when they need to.
Though Microsoft underbid IBM and SuSE by $11.9 million in Munich, city officials were concerned about the unpredictable long-run cost of Microsoft upgrades
The city paid MUCH more money to IBM/SuSE because they didn't want to be locked into Microsoft's refusal to support/insistence on upgrading their software after X number of years. Linux let them upgrade when they wanted to, and not before. It was a long-term financial decision which, I'm certain, IBM and SuSE emphasized heavily in order to score a win.
Big, big news to other cities and corporations out there. A Microsoft contract is a dangerous thing when money is/will be tight. You can save a lot of money down the road if you make the switch today.
The plus side is that certain IT skills are difficult or impossible to move overseas. For instance, the ability to build a network, hardware and sofware, is something that must physically be done in the office. Sysadmins will always be needed in some capacity, since servers (or mainframes) for many businesses, especially large ones with secure data, are on-site and must be maintained there. Tech support by phone can often be outsourced, but tech support for a corporation's employees requires someone who can physically reach the machine.
It's mainly coders that are relocatable and are therefore at risk. The best thing one can do, then, is keep learning and move up to one of those non-outsourcable positions. I myself have given a lot of thought to taking university courses in database administration -- this story was just about the last piece of motivation I needed.
I think it's great that they are moving it beyond being an Outlook-alike.
Agreed. IANALU (Linux User), but one of my biggest complaints about Linux software in general has been its inevitable tendency to imitate Microsoft's graphical interface first, and Apple's second. Anytime a project like Evolution or Mozilla is able to break rank and develop its own interface, it's a Good Thing, because it proves the software is mature enough to improve on someone else's interface design.
Actually, most fundamentalist Christians who are informed about such things will say that it's only macroevolution which they disbelieve. Which, I suppose, means you have to execute it using a mouse click instead of a keyboard shortcut.
I mean geeze it's insane that a college project would even have the ability to pop 1.83 billion at another company.
Yahoo! is traded on the international stock market now, and has been since 1996. Have you been following the news lately?
Sure it might be warranted on all the poorly designed web pages, but when you arrive at one that is well designed, you know exactly where to go.
And if someone could just develop a web browser that converted poorly designed web pages to well-designed ones instead, I'm sure we'd all download it in a New York minute.
The "popout prism" itself is a kind of sidebar which displays the entire unscrolled page in thumbnail form, with a box highlighting the area you're currently looking at. If you use thumbnails in Adobe (Acrobat) Reader or the navigation panel in Photoshop, you've seen the same sort of thing.
In addition, it lets you type in keywords above the thumbnail and highlight those words in the thumbnail for you to navigate to quickly. That's what makes the popout useful for pages that contain more words than images.
...which is a pain, because I've got 1.4.1 installed and it won't let me even install the Popup Prism. *sighing and shaking of head*
...you can still get some info and a download here (well, for the moment anyway).
Dr Kanazawa suggests "a single psychological mechanism" is responsible for this: the competitive edge among young men to fight for glory and gain the attention of women.
With all due respect to the good doctor, I don't think many scientific researchers work hard at what they do because they think having articles published in a leading journal impresses the chicks or earns them enough money to fortify a child's college fund.
It did not take long to come up with a glaring exception: a man recognized as one of the top few composers of all time ...but not a scientist, which is the entire focus of the research.
It claims at one point: "Two-thirds (of all scientists) will have made their most significant contributions before their mid-30s." And then right after it: "Within five years of making their nuptial vows, nearly a quarter of married scientists had made their last significant contribution to history's hall of fame."
Then surely since most male scientists get married in their twenties, this will be true regardless? The "within five years" statement would be only interesting if most male scientists got married well before the age of thirty.
The list from "Changes Abound Aboard Carrier" includes:
* More space for women
* New island house
* Bulbous bow
* New arresting gear
One can't help but think it should have been named the USS Bill Clinton instead....
If development for it is exactly the same as the PC, why develop games for this console?
It's called "economics". PC users pay $1000-$2000 (depending on the game requirements) for a machine that can play one $40 purchased game, and the Phantom marketers are betting you'd rather pay $400 for the machine and $10/month for all the games (well, and ads) you can eat.
Does anyone really think Microsoft will sit still while some upstart to beats down the XBox?
XBox uses purchased games with added online features. It's not subscription-based gaming, just subscription-based multiplayer. They're in the same market as the Sony PS2, not the Phantom.
This is the first I've heard of Machinima, but
My bad, that should have read "the first I've heard of Anachronox".
The Blood Gulch Chronicles are a (IMO) very funny series of movies made entirely from in-game footage from Halo with the audio dubbed over. (As a bonus, BitTorrent links are available from the web site for recent episodes.) This is the first I've heard of Machinima, but it sounds like a similar approach using a different genre.
It's a lot less effort to sic the lawyers on people than actually PATCH the vulnerability. Security through obscurity (and fear)
It's even more damning because Adobe just recently upgraded their PDF Reader software from version 5 to version 6, yet have failed to patch this particular problem. You'd think that somewhere among all the features (?) added between two major releases they'd have found time for this.
Look at NetFlix. Nobody (including them) could make a go of online rentals, until they came up with a new method.
What "new method"? They charge a monthly subscription and let you keep a limited number of movies indefinitely, instead of a per-movie fee and letting you keep an indefinite number of movies for a limited time. Subscriptions are hardly novel or patent-worthy.
If NetFlix wants to remain in the lead, it should do so by (a) pushing its first-mover advantage and name recognition, (b) providing superior selection and customer service, and (c) keeping their website fast, responsive and easy to use. This is how businesses have remained ahead of their imitators for decades, and there's no reason it should fail now. The patent is essentially NetFlix saying, "We got here first, so no one else should be able to copy us." Hogwash.